Tell us your story PJ

Tell us your story PJ

PJ’s story

PJ’s story is a story of variety. A variety of places, of reinvention and renewal.

Coventry to Rugby to Ipswich to Portmeirion and Chester. It’s about her roles working and being around children and animals, and supporting and caring for others.

It’s about the challenges of families and the stories that a life writes. It involves creating memories, and about how learning new skills connected with our passions can give us joy and fulfil our inner soulful needs, from scrabble to singing as a community of people. 

Tell us your story logo

What better future could there be enjoying simple pleasures with friends and a chance to get involved organising a good project! (as long as it doesn’t involve aeroplanes!)

Wisdom

‘I believe that communication is key to understanding each other and, for me, kindness is the most important thing in life.’

Creative response to PJ’s story

Portmeirion & a poem.

Portmeirion illustration
Portmeirion illustration detail
PJ poem

Fancy joining in?

Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone’s story is valuable.

Share some stories from your life with a view to encouraging others by sharing the ups and downs of your journey, with opportunities to join in with some creative responses if you want to!

Find out more about Acts

Tell us your story Catherine

Tell us your story Catherine

Catherine’s story

Catherine’s story reflects on a childhood spent outdoors, a swallows and amazons existence, of train journeys into long summers, exploring and being in nature and building life long friendships.

A working life of teaching, a love of books and time spent supporting loved ones, and how it’s important to go with the flow and expect the unexpected. 

Tell us your story logoIt’s about developing the wisdom to be gentle with oneself for the missed paths, or the turns in the road that are beyond our control. 

The future might involve a creative exploration into words and books and travel. 

‘To wind our way, on tracks and turns to old haunts and new horizons’.

Reflection

‘Pretty therapeutic!’

Wisdom

‘Go with the flow, expect the unexpected, don’t give yourself a hard time with ‘getting things wrong.’

Creative response to Catherine’s story

The Hoad monument, passed on her journeys

Fancy joining in?

Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone’s story is valuable.

Share some stories from your life with a view to encouraging others by sharing the ups and downs of your journey, with opportunities to join in with some creative responses if you want to!

Find out more about Acts

Tell us your story Paul

Tell us your story Paul

Paul’s story

Paul’s story is about finding yourself on the frontline of response to what would become a global pandemic.

It’s about stepping up from behind a desk to building hospitals in car parks, to not being able to hug your own children, to the dread of the invisible poison you’re bringing back to your own home, from having to strip on your own doorstep before entering, to fending off the local vipers trying to prove it's all a joke and an illusion. To seeing death, pain and suffering first hand, to being frozen and fearful and overwhelmed. No respite, little support, constant.

It’s also about how humans can step up in the most challenging circumstances, how a community can rally round and make what’s needed, it’s about the sacrifices people make in caring for others and the positive difference we can make when the rules are thrown out and we have to trust our gut and instinct to do the right thing, working dark to dark, in the valiant pursuit of saving others.

Reflection

Paul hadn't realised how much was still unprocessed. It was good to talk.

Response to Paul's story

Dark to dark image and song

Dark to dark image

Fancy joining in?

Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone’s story is valuable.

Share some stories from your life with a view to encouraging others by sharing the ups and downs of your journey, with opportunities to join in with some creative responses if you want to!

Find out more about Acts

Tell us your story Mariana

Tell us your story Mariana

Mariana’s story

Mariana’s story is one of travel and discovery from Chile the USA to the UK and beyond. 

It’s about marrying across cultures in Santiago after meeting her partner in London, and living at distance from family. It’s about what we miss when we leave our home.The spices and flavours, and the way Chilean people invite others into their homes to share food and live life, and the things we hold dear that we have to let go.

Tell us your story logoIt’s also about what we discover when we arrive in a new place. About bringing some of your culture with you and keeping it alive for your family, and having a need to create, express and connect, and the challenges of finding the way, and a space to do that.

As we reflected on her travels and adventures there was a realisation that she is at peace here in the UK with her family and her hopes and dreams for the future.

Reflection

‘It felt great to be able to talk about my self with just the aiming of getting to know me better. It refreshes, in my mind and heart, who I am and where I come from’.

Wisdom

‘I will always give it a try or choose the new, the unknown, no matter how scary it would make me feel, above a quiet and steady world. I am not afraid of change (it actually lures me in).’

Creative response to Mariana’s story

Star of creativity and sharing in Chilean colours by Richard

Mariana star
Mariana star sketch

Fancy joining in?

Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone’s story is valuable.

Share some stories from your life with a view to encouraging others by sharing the ups and downs of your journey, with opportunities to join in with some creative responses if you want to!

Find out more about Acts