IF I HAD NEVER……………..
- Sep 5
- 9 min read
Updated: Sep 6
Creative Conversations in Norfolk
Inspiration from being in a room full of some of Norfolk’s finest creatives.
Through I Am the Storm yoga, I have been able to connect to some interesting people in our local community, inspiring people who are walking unique and individual paths fuelled by seeds of creativity. Our Reclaim the Flame events (which are coming back, by the way) have been great as we have invited in guest speakers, counsellors, therapists and other thought leaders.
One person I have connected with is the lovely Toni Jones who runs a wonderful book club called Shelf Help. She also has a brilliant podcast called The Bibliotherapist. We had a wonderful day with Toni and she spoke around a book called How to Heal by author Alex Elle. At the conclusion of the day we wrote postcards to ourselves with kind messages. I received mine about two weeks ago and the words were apt and the timing was divine.
Toni invited me to join an event hosted by her husband Dan Kennedy, who is a incredible celebrity and fashion photographer. It was called Creative Conversations. It was the first time it was hosted and hopefully the first of more to come.
I used to shy away from gatherings like this, a dialogue of not feeling like I would fit. I have had a bit of a shift through yoga even though I still always get that pang of social awkwardness in a room with new people (even with friends there). Dan asked each speaker questions about what it meant to be creative, or to have a creative life. All of the speakers had diverse experiences and were humble in their unique successes.
The speakers were Ed Gillespie, who is an environmental entrepreneur, speaker, futurist and author. He runs these amazing writers’ retreats in Ireland — sign me up buttercup! Bobby Burrage, founder and creative director at The Click, also spoke. All of them agreed that we can all be creative.
What was interesting for me was how they all spoke of creativity coming from this quiet place of stillness or inspired from time in nature, this quiet contemplative place. They also agreed that a creative life did not mean they were creative every day, and that space and downtime are imperative to create.
Vidhi had joined me for the evening and nudged me, smiling — “they need to meditate.”
The lovely thing for me was the gathering of community, Dan clearly being the catalyst. There was one female speaker, Debby Besford, an award-winning documentary photographer from Great Yarmouth who, as a teenager, was a competitive artistic roller skater. This has inspired a long-term photography project, the work of which has been exhibited at some glorious locations and will next year be in the Tide and Time Museum in Great Yarmouth.
I loved my roller skates growing up. I was always scraping my knees as, like everything, I was always overzealous to achieve some speed. I had really beautiful burgundy velvet skates with a silver lightning strike down the side.
Great Yarmouth also held a warm place in my heart. As a Suffolk lass it was a treat to have a weekend away there, to the Pleasure Beach on the bouncy castles, and once we stayed in a really fancy hotel. Normally we took our caravan away, so I am not sure what the occasion was but all I remember is dancing all night to the cabaret (that love never dies) and being obsessed with the toilets, which were like the swankiest set-up I had ever seen at that tender age of about eight. There was a velvet sofa and frilly curtains around posh dressing tables I was in heaven.
Anyway, Debby’s chat sent me on a right old trip down memory lane. I used to be obsessed with watching wrestling as a kid and would always play-fight with my dad after. We would have a right old grapple, with my mum saying I was too much of a tomboy. My Dad used to be so strong and would say “who’s got who?” — clearly dominating — but I would reply “I’ve got you.”
The reason I mention the wrestling is that I have a clear memory of wrestling giants Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks being at the Hippodrome that very weekend we stayed. We didn’t go and watch, but knowing they were down the road was enough. Debby’s beautiful seaside photos really do trigger some happy memories for me.
I would say that there was a middle-aged group in the room and my favourite part of the evening was the chat that came afterwards. There were a handful of women but predominantly men in the room.
It was lovely to hear the honesty from many about feelings of how it was hard to tap into creativity. As people chatted, it seemed to me that there was quite a lot of pressure to achieve creativity for some. I always find it interesting listening to men chat. I loved being a part of conversations with my colleagues in the Met Police — the ways guys speak to each other is so different to how women chat. I find these dynamics fascinating, although I note thankfully a huge shift with more guys speaking from the heart. Refreshingly, last night a few of the guys were pretty vulnerable about where they hoped to be in their journeys as opposed to where they actually were.
I couldn’t help myself. As I felt some guys judged themselves harshly, I had to pipe up with some chat about bare minimum and enjoying the process of creativity (you all need to come to yoga and meditate was in the back of my mind but I kept my words short).
I am interested in the dialogue we all hold that we are not enough. Actually, in my experience, men can really struggle with this. I have been one of very few women working with men solidly for 17 years in the Metropolitan Police. Due to the nature of my work, vulnerability was shared. It was often deep, painful, and very rarely held safely for men.
Emotions would be avoided, shoved down, especially after a particularly traumatic incident. Drinking alcohol heavily was a numbing technique and a social mask often used in my time serving. It was also the time I would drink heavily myself. We would all pile down the pub straight after a shift or even, on occasions when we finished nights at 6am, we would go to the early house in Spitalfields Meat Market. You could get a pint at 6am till 10am, then head home to sleep until the evening shift. I still can’t believe that was my world for so long.
There is way less of a drinking culture now, it has shifted, but still a lot of officers suffer with PTSD to date and a lack of counselling and care. We would often write up notes and statements together and sometimes incidents were life-threatening to us as officers. All of the female officers would write emotionally around their feelings, the guys kept to the facts. This was often an issue in court when force had been used to effect an arrest, but male officers had not justified their actions enough as they had failed to write they were scared or frightened. They would see it as a sign of weakness to admit that.
Barristers would say “Officer, how did you feel in this situation?” and I watched male officers tie themselves in knots as they did not wish to say the words: I was scared. I was scared for my life.
I guess what I am saying is that I find it refreshing to see that men are gathering and talking to each other — it is needed. It is something that interests me as I am always trying to encourage more guys into our yoga and fitness classes at The Mill.
I really wanted to say so much more to the guys at the event. I am always full of bumper-sticker quotes: “It’s not the journey or the destination, it’s who you become on the journey.”
Creativity needs to be enjoyed and explored. If the pressure is there to produce, it is just not going to flow. I would have said I lost every creative bone in my body while I was in the police. As soon as I took my career break, I trained in floristry and I was rubbish at the start — but it didn’t matter. I was back playing with creativity and it was fun.
We really do not have to be wonderful at everything straight off the bat. Creativity for me is making a mess and getting it wrong. Being an adult is super busy and complicated and we do not have to achieve any state of perfection — that is just pressure we put on ourselves. Just getting to play with creativity is fun but it needs space and time. In this society the space for that is rare, but we can find pockets of time to play with a bare minimum of something that brings us joy.
Scientifically, doing something badly is actually amazing for the brain. When you first start trying something new — learning to play a guitar, doing yoga, a Zumba class — your brain doesn’t yet have a sufficient neural pathway for it. Different parts of the brain light up as it tries to figure things out: the prefrontal cortex (thinking, decision making), motor cortex (movement) and cerebellum (coordination).
Neuroplasticity kicks in. Every attempt creates or strengthens synaptic connections between neurons. At first, signals are messy and slow, like hacking through a forest with no path. With repetition and consistency the brain starts myelinating those pathways (wrapping them in insulation), making signals faster and smoother. Before you know it, you are doing what you love automatically.
Mistakes are part of the process. Errors actually help the brain refine learning. When you fail, your anterior cingulate cortex, the brain’s mistake detector, fires up with a signal — just adjust next time.
Dopamine, the reward chemical, is released when you notice improvement, even small wins — reinforcing motivation. In time you shift away from conscious control. It’s why driving the car or balancing in tree pose feels impossible at first, but with practice it becomes second nature — if you don’t give up and embrace all the wobbles.
The struggle is when most growth appears — it literally is the brain wiring newer circuits. If you skip the bad attempts, the brain doesn’t get the feedback it needs to refine the skill.
We are just not going to nail it all in life and maybe we should give ourselves a bit of a break. As we age it really takes some drive to learn new stuff, but it really is never too late.
Maybe working with how we are talking to ourselves about our expectations would be the place to start.
Actress Emma Watson recently gave a vulnerable speech. Statements she said she had struggled with, and continues to, included:
I am willing to speak up
I am willing to keep going
I am willing to listen to what others have to say
I am willing to go forward even when I feel alone
I am willing to go to bed each night at peace with myself
I am willing to be my biggest, bestest, most powerful self
The brain will literally rewire again and again the more we fail, the more we shift from the routine, the more we try something new and repeat it without quitting. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really fancy trying to start playing the harp, I would definitely quit on that but if it was something that was bringing me joy, a seed of creativity I would happily learn. A small hobby you love that brings you bliss — then enjoy that without focusing on the finished article. Just do it for fun and for play.
There have been some serious occasions in my life that I have had to seriously reframe my journey. I have taken some leaps at times that have scared the life out of me, but I am glad I have. When you look back at your path, can you reframe the journey to maybe see all of the decisions have brought you to where you are now?
I guess the reframe could be: If I had never…
If I had never taken the courage to leave home at 18, I wouldn’t have gone to university in London.
If I had never gone to university, I wouldn’t have joined the Metropolitan Police.
If I had never joined the police, I wouldn’t have become a physical training instructor on the riot squad.
If I had never been an instructor, I wouldn’t have run all the marathons that kept me sane during that time.
If I had never moved into CID, I wouldn’t have served on the domestic violence unit, investigating those crimes.
If I had never been on that unit, I would never have stepped into a yoga studio for the first time.
If I had never taken the courage to leave the police on a career break, I wouldn’t have got married.
If I had never known the pain of childlessness, I would never have begun my deep spiritual healing journey.
If I had never worked with coaches and counsellors, I wouldn’t have done my yoga teacher training.
If I had never done my training, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
And if I had never had that chance conversation at The Mill with Michelle and David, I wouldn’t have the beautiful studio we now share in North Norfolk.
If I had never listened to the nudges, the magic, and the synchronicities — my life would look very different.
We all have the dialogues that we are not enough. We all feel awkward in social situations. We all judge ourselves harshly at times. There is more that connects us than divides us. I am just grateful that we have an amazing community in North Norfolk and that maybe, just maybe, men and women can start to connect in the same spaces to discuss these vulnerabilities and fears.
A huge thank you to Toni for inviting me into her world of Shelf Help and for the kindness she brings, and to Dan for creating the space for Creative Conversations to happen. It was such a gift to sit in that room, to listen, to share, and to remember that community, creativity and connection really do change us for the better.
