Words in the Wilderness

Most couples struggle with invisible labour, resentment, and unspoken expectations - until they discover a simple, powerful system that transforms their relationship.  In this eye-opening episode, Dr. Sharmila Logothas reveals how the Fair Play method,  created by Eve Rodsky, offers a clear, card-based roadmap for redistributing household and caregiving tasks, dismantling gender norms, and fosteri...

Content note: this episode discusses childhood sexual abuse, addiction, self-harm, psychiatric systems, and suicide attempts. Please take care of yourself as you listen. What happens when the unspeakable has no language? When every time you try to speak, someone turns away? Sophie Olsen is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, a trainer, and the author of The Flying Child — a book that took a deca...

Every parent asks some version of the same question. Am I damaging my child? Have I already damaged them? This episode is Jacky's answer. It's not an answer that reassuringly bypasses the truth, but an answer that holds the truth.  Because the question isn't how do I never hurt my child. The question is: when I do hurt them  - because I will - how do I repair? Ruptures happen in every relationship...

Wait! Before you read another article about screen time, before you spiral about whether you're doing enough, before you outsource your child to a therapist and hope they come back fixed Jacky and Nicole Runyon want you to hear something first. You are more powerfully positioned to help your child than any professional will ever be. That's what Nicole - a therapist who has 23 years of clinical exp...

The standards expected in motherhood are impossible. And most of us don't even notice we've signed up to it until we feel burned out and miserable. . This episode starts with a poem Jacky wrote called 'Yummy Mummy' - all the ways in which we can try to show we have 'got out shit together' as mothers, whilst nothing goes according to plan.  Because that's what it's like when you deal with frustrati...

'Matrescence' is a word that has been around since 1973. It only made it into the dictionary in 2022. That gap tells you almost everything you need to know about how well we've been holding the experience of becoming a mother. Lucy Wylde is a matrescence activist and coach who works with women navigating the identity shift of motherhood - before, during and long after. She's also a poet. And in th...

Do you ever feel the urge to cry out, but swallow it back down instead? That specific, lonely feeling when you want to howl but it feels pointless, so you gulp it down instead — and there's no one to reason out your sadness, your guilt, your fear with. This episode maps the journey from that swallowed feeling all the way through to hope using the unexpected power of poetry to witness, name, and na...

You were probably taught that poetry has a meaning, and your job is to find it. That's exactly why so many of us decided it wasn't for us. In this episode, Jacky is joined by Dr. Stephanie Aspin  - poet, therapist, academic, and author of Poetry and Therapy: Why Words Help  - for a conversation that might just change how you think about language, feeling, and what it means to be witnessed. Stephan...

You know that moment when something rises in your throat - a howl, a truth, a need - and you just... swallow it back down? Jacky has a word for that. Hulp. A howl and a gulp combined. And this episode begins there; right in that frozen, swallowed place, because that's exactly where Jacky found herself when she sat down to record! This is an episode about what it actually feels like to start someth...

For the scared souls, the never-dared souls, the lost and double-crossed souls — the ones sitting in the wilderness of change, wondering if anyone else feels this way. Words in the Wilderness is a podcast for people in the messy middle of becoming who they really are. Hosted by therapist and poet Jacky Power, this is the space where we stop performing and start witnessing.  Where your feelings are...

Understanding Addiction, Recovery, and Transformation   In this powerful episode, we sit down with Thomas Delaney, who shares his deeply personal journey from ketamine addiction to recovery and advocacy. During his recovery, Thomas has spoken to audiences in the thousands and reached an online global audience of over  20 million people.  He has spoken at some of the UK’s most significant wellbeing...

A mother's journey through addiction and loss.

EFT practitioners Aga Kehinde, who is originally from that town and  and Jessica Mór, who until February 2022 had been living in Ukraine due to her spouse’s work, join me today to talk about their experience of co-creating  ‘Support for Slupsk’ The project has now delivered training to more than 800 people working for the services of the town of Slupsk, Poland who are coming into direct contact wi...

In this episode we chat about what sustainable fashion is; how to get off the trend treadmill; Sophia's experiment in which she is not buying any new or preloved clothes (except for vital undies and socks!) and how 'sober dressing' can be creative, empowering and fun. Sophia's mission is to help you restyle and rework your wardrobe using what you already have. She makes up "new to you" outfits fro...

There is much more to his story, so let’s welcome him to share some of that and also to create hope and inspiration with sharing how he moved through such severe intergenerational trauma and adverse childhood experiences to be the inspirational coach he is today; from trauma to triumph. As he says, ‘The trauma may be our foundation, but it is not our future.’

We talked about her 3 discoveries with the research that she has done, how betrayal is a different kind of trauma because of how it feels so intentional and personal and therefore relates to trust, how it affects one physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally - and she shared some really sobering statistics around that and how it is possible to move through from betrayal to breakthrough wit...

I met Dan when we were at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022 and I went to his show 'Patience Zero'. The description of his show was: 'Dan's always wanted to be a father. But now he and his wife are going through constant loss and IVF, he starts to ask the question: is he good enough? But in a year with a serious accident, an NHS-induced bad K-trip, a letter warning of impending death an...

Redefining what it means to be emotionally resilient, Josh in an ambassador for NACOA, the National Association for Children of Alcoholics. He works with individuals and corporation to help people improve their emotional resilience. His down to earth, highly informed videos on social media have attracted hundred of thousands of followers. He joins me on The Therapeutic Poet podcast to talk about b...

We cover: Trauma Bonding Being on the receiving end of the silent treatment Emotional abuse Narcissistic abuse Covert sexual abuse Addiction Complex trauma Trauma responses Toxic shame Going from not having a voice, to reclaiming it Parenting The healing power of writing.

A podcast episode detailing Jacky’s experience of performing her show, ‘Stop the world I want to get off’ at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2022.

In this episode we begin with my poem 'Tell me your story' I wrote it about trauma; how trauma needs to be acknowledged in all its grittiness, not diminished or dressed up as ‘not that bad’ in order to be healed. As today’s guest Lucinda Gordon Lennox says, we all have some trauma and trauma can be healed. Part of what can hinder that healing is the denial of that trauma. Other people, or even our...

This episode is the second part of a conversation that I had with Julia Warren. Julia is a mother, yoga teacher, writer and recovering addict. In September 2021, she lost her husband Doug when he relapsed and died of a drug overdose. In this episode, Julia shares her own writing, documenting her thoughts and feelings as she grieves her husband. We talk about what's helpful and unhelpful when someo...

Today I am talking to Julia Warren. Julia is a mother to her two boys, a trauma informed yoga teacher and a writer. She is also in recovery from drug addiction and recently stepped into the role of widow as in September 2021 her husband Doug overdosed when he relapsed from his own addiction recovery. In this episode we talk about Julia’s recovery from drug addiction. She talks about how she went f...

In January 2017, Lara came out of a long-term relationship, and felt broken, lost, stuck, lacking in direction and purpose. In November She read a book about vision boards, created her own and 4 months later she was running her own, with 10 participants. She has since trained in NLP and expanded her knowledge with studying about neuroscience. Last year she published her first book The Mighty Book...