My Beautiful Stories

ORANGES, PYJAMAS AND WINTER DELIGHTS is a brief meditative story designed to bring relaxation, peace and joy to your day. Using a blend of storytelling, visualisation, music and sounds, we take you on a relaxing imaginative journey. Enjoy the benefits of a pause away from your immediate surroundings. Here’s a snippet of the story: ‘There is no point recoiling from memory; it would be not accepting...

Today’s beautiful story comes from Raquel. It’s a beautiful ode to our mother, the Earth. It’s also a beautiful story to close series 4 of the podcast. We have seen in this series the most unusual objects. We have listened to stories of deep sorrow, of death but mostly of love along the way and this is what I would like us to take away from this series: the deep love that we inspire in other peopl...

Gus’s lamb - A CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT Today’s story is a bonus to the Christmas ornament episode. It is the special mention story from the competition. It was sent by Nicole Coonradt. We hope you enjoy it.  Wishing you a Merry Christmas! Support the show

SHOW NOTES: THE STORY – CHRISTMAS ORNAMENT: Today’s story is the WINNER of our Christmas Ornament competition , which ran over on Instagram last week. We are excited to announce that after long debating, as we were overwhelmed by the quantity as well as quality of the stories we received, we have reached a decision. THE WINNER of the Christmas ornament competition is Caylee , who sent a story of a...

SHOW NOTES: THE STORY: Today's story is written and recorded by Amanda . It is the story of a box, which is 'nothing fancy' on the exterior, but incredibly meaningful inside. We will let you discover what the story is about by listening to this episode. We were once again humbled to receive such a personal and thoroughly touching story for the podcast. DISCUSSION: We mainly discuss...

'I can hold the brooch in my palms.  I can carry on her legacy and lessons – the way she took care of the old garden; how to treat plants and people. I can remember her relentless resilience, and the way she took care of all of us.’ (Anett Teresia) SHOW NOTES: The STORY Anette sent, about her Grandma’s words, reads like a meditation, for an object, but also a person, that remained elusive to...

'The last texts we exchanged were about the pan; he asked if I’d perfected the technique, and I told him I had, that I had been having a hot chocolate a day since he gave it to me, and I couldn’t wait till we were together at Christmas so that I could make him one. ' (Sophie Caldecott) SHOW NOTES: STORY: Today's story, about 'a blue and white enamel milk pan',  is written...

‘I really appreciate how my pen can make sense of my thoughts. Muddled midnight ramblings become coherent sentences with clearer direction once I touch my pen to paper. But it has to be this pen, the one that perfectly fits in the bump of my finger… the one that has my name, as it was when I was 10 years old, engraved on the end of it. The pen that holds a lifetime of dreams, and will play such an...

‘Memories of m children’s early years spill out in layers: I catch a glimpse of her first bib, speckled with polka dots and tomato sauce spillages too persistent to clean; here’s the dungarees they all wore for their early steps, wobbling like jack-in-the-boxes, mouths open with excitement and concentration, one shiny dribble at the corner. And so they emerge, year by year, each milestone a bounty...

'The train slowed down and the man told me this was his stop. I got up and we hugged goodbye. For the rest of the ride I held on to the roses as I let go of my numbness. ' Therese Bagshaw SHOW NOTES: Today's story is shared by Therese Bagshaw. You can visit her beautiful writing here . This is a unique tale of hope and surprise. Therese also shared a story for series 3 of the podcas...

'We’d started East, taking the DLR to the first of a series of events for the London Open House weekend. We had traversed the city by foot, on the river bank, imagining life in a river boat, garden on the roof, sun loungers folded neatly at the side, a pandemonium of flower pots hanging from each window. ' Today's episode, initiated by the story of a lost pink unicorn, includes a di...

'As a child, I heard about the tall rock my grandmother used to live on, at the edge of the sea. I heard of the waves, crashing onto the shore, of their unmistakable sound, of the salt in the nostrils and the grilled fish for supper. ' SHOW NOTES:  EPISODE 2 of series 4 - The Series of Things. STORY: Today's story tells of the few scarcity of belongings kept by my migrant grandparen...

'Holding inside her the secret pattern for the carpet, she would weave each thread gently in and gently out, through hard wired vertical, thick weft thread, stopping from time to time to align them . Sometimes the shed stick, the wooden stick separating threads, would drop, the tension in the thread would be lost, and words would pass, or would they retrieve their work peacefully and resolute...

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: The last episode of series 3, which told Stories of 2020, comes from Vicky , Caylee and Therese . DISCUSSION: The episode centres on the power of memories. We speak of the narrative communion we felt whilst narrating other people’s memories and being thus made part of  someone else’s life and perspective, particularly in times when meeting people was so much less possible. Thi...

‘In hindsight I can see perhaps it was good that I was forced to confront my grief in so unadulterated a manner, but it was so hard - I would never choose it!’ Tamlyn TW: This story and the conversation which ensues includes mentions of grieving and death. Tammy lost her mother a few weeks before the first UK lockdown. Even more, 8,000 miles separated them and returning to the UK was  in itself a...

‘and while she bends down to sit at the corner of fall and winter her worries settle down with her as they shake and shake until the very last brown leaf drops.’ (@komorebi.koyama) Today’s story comes in the shape of a poem, shared by Jennifer Koyama. Jennifer is a writer and poet who captures the fragility of the human nature in her writing. DISCUSSION We discuss the relationships between feeling...

Despite being chronically ill, Nola preserved a beautiful memory of the lockdown dinner organised by her family, which turned out to be a really special ocasion.  DISCUSSION We discuss the concept of happiness. How has this been influenced by the last year, when our habits were modified and our expectations changed?  I share a little about Zygmunt Bauman, a sociologist who argued that in 'liq...

Today's episode, and the last one of 2020, is a little different. It is the result of a month-long collaboration with writer and philosopher Nanhe. Throughout December, Nanhe  and I run a Hope project on Instagram. It was extremely heartening to read everyone’s contributions throughout the month. In preparation for it, Nanhe and I wrote letters to each other, thus creating an exchange of feel...

'The pride I have about my sister is so immense that I wanted to share with you all that my sister is a superhero.' (Sheila) Today's story comes from Sheila and is a beautiful tribute to her sister - an NHS worker directly involved in the fight against coronavirus.  Our discussion brings up the need to continue to support frontline workers during this second lockdown.  We speak abou...

The podcast is back and this week we introduce a story from Ilze. She tells how her creativity flourished during the first lockdown, and, with lockdown number 2 coming to the UK and many European countries, we thought this would be a timely reminder.  Amidst the confusion and uncertainty, Ilze also found joy in creating and expressing herself.  The podcast has a different structure, as it incorpor...

'But the fact that really stuck in my mind was the fact that they recorded that he had three missing teeth...' This is the story of the moment when Pawel learnt his grandfather had been a prisoner in a concentration camp. One of the most peculiar details of the registration form was that it specified three missing teeth. THE STORY OF THE THREE MISSING TEETH Today's story is a person...

'We may all be weathering the same storm, but we are not in the same boat...' 'The real tragedy would be if I allowed myself to become a disbeliever of what I know and hold to be the inherent beauty and greatness of all mankind.' The story we feature today talks about racial discrimination, racial injustice and the power of discriminatory discourses in the time of the pandemic....

' There is honestly nothing quite like kissing your family goodbye, not knowing what will happen next.’ Today we are immensely grateful to Lucille, who has agreed to share her experience of having been diagnosed with Covid-19 during lockdown. TW: This story features description of symptoms of Covid-19 and tells the story of a family’s fight with the virus. DISCUSSION We were extremely gratefu...

'We could gently get familiar with our new roles as parents and act with intuition.' Our guest on today's episode of the podcast is Katharina Geissler-Evans. In a slightly different format, you will hear Kiki's own voice telling us her story of 2020. With thanks for sharing their beautiful vignettes of life in lockdown with us. DISCUSSION We loved the richness of this episode s...

‘For me, these three stories are poems of humanity and nature - living together in peace.’ Today’s episode is a classic joy in the everyday one. We hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we loved recording it. DISCUSSION We discuss about what unites us during hardship. There is a natural connection between these stories, as they are all from the U.K. But beyond this, what unites them is a deepe...