Fill Your Jar Coaching

Category: Book

  • Schizophrenia Awareness Day

    Schizophrenia Awareness Day

    “The word schizophrenia, derived from the Greek for split mind, is not only a misleading term, but a label which has acquired stigma from inaccurate images in our society. The split is not within the mind but from reality…” (Goldsmith, 1998).

    As I step into my most recent role, I have the privilege of learning from and walking along side with warm, funny and kind folks that are living with the illness. I am inspired by their compassion and determination to speak boldly of their lived experiences to educate our city everyday.

    The People, a poem from If I Played My Life

    Where are my friends?
    Where is my family?
    I cannot remember
    Who I am.
    Water forms in my vision
    A hand reaches in
    Pulling me out,
    Back to reality.
    There sit the people
    The real people of my life
    Eyes moist and red
    Loving words comfort me.
    Slowly I realize
    What they have gone through
    While I couldn’t see them
    And they could not find me.

    Simon Adamson

    Learn more here: https://www.schizophrenia.ab.ca/programs-services/community-education

  • Blooming intentions

    Blooming intentions

    My small and mighty jasmine plant gifted me eight blooms for my birthday this year. Just watching it grow bright green leaves and deeply aromatic ivory flowers fills my heart with so much joy. I could dance around my living room inhaling the intoxicating fragrance, with my eyes closed and a smile on my face, for a long while. Hoping all the loved ones I have lost over the years are swaying with me in celebration.

    I can hear the robins and the starlings welcoming a sun-filled spring day as I walk through Inglewood bird sanctuary hand-in-hand with my little niece. We all pause at the bridge to admire a vibrant wood duck; all the little ones exclaim “look, look!”, while all the adults meet their wonder. I look around to admire friends and family that have witnessed so much of my life.

    I can’t help but feel nourished to have a community that wants to celebrate my milestones and invest in my expansion through the seasons.

    This year I had the opportunity to write a short story for an anthology that honoured my lived experience while infusing feminist fantasy genre to dive in deeper as a writer, a behavioral scientist, and a woman.

    Three things I learned: Dedicating early mornings to write in Costa Rica while listening to the ocean, trees, birds and animals ignited a different part of my brain. I learned to navigate points of importance for myself and points of reveal for the reader in the story. Collective writing genuinely deepens contributive belonging.

    Two things that surprised me: I found auto-fiction liberating as it allowed me to play in the writing process. Just how quickly my inner questionings found their way in to the story.

    One question I am thinking about: Which story am I going to reimagine next?

    You are invited to the book launch celebration!