This week I accepted the challenge to post short daily videos capturing field notes from Fools School.

I have just completed my last online one-to-one (for now). 

For three years, I have regularly sat with a gorgeous assortment of artists, performers, directors, musicians, poets, therapists, facilitators and researchers. I have held space for them to explore their lives, their work, their creativity, their inner worlds and their relationships and I have loved every minute of it...

After the final obligatory Zoom-goodbye-wave (I still wish we did that in real life meetings), I sat down and I meditated. 

Wanting to mark the transition, I picked three cards from The Wild Unknown Archetype Tarot Deck at random, holding these three questions in mind...

This week I didn’t go to Buddhafield.

I didn’t dance in a throng of hippies. I didn’t sit round a campfire, tooting my clarinet ’til dawn. I didn’t do the hour-long improvised show that I was booked to perform. Instead I stayed at home, tending to my exhausted body. 

I didn’t have much of a choice...

...Riddled with FOMO, I resentfully rested in my tiny, hot flat.

In amongst the huffing and the puffing, I stumbled upon a week-long online writing challenge called Writing From The Body. 

Things are changing here in Holly Stoppit world; I’m pressing pause on my online one-to-one therapy, supervision and creative consultancy services, I’m putting my workshop prices up and I’m launching a new online community group for Fools.

These may sound like business decisions, but they’re much more than that. I’m choosing life!

This blog is the story of a woman who spent her life creating spaces of belonging for others, but somehow forgot her own need to belong.

This is one of those Very Long Holly-blogs, where I reflect on the run up to smashing out a fully improvised performance-lecture at a play conference in Denmark. I give a bit of background, explore my terror leading up to the performance and my preparation on the day of the show. There’s an outline of the content of the show and a description of the aftermath. The last section is a series of short reflections on what I learned (you could just scroll down to that if you’re pressed for time and enjoy the photos on your way!).

This one goes out to everyone who is interested in play, Fooling, IFS, improvised performance, finding balance between structure and freedom, stage fright and the parts that fuel it, how to ground and anchor yourself in a storm and the journey back to living fully after a breakdown. It’s also for nosey people who just want to know what I’ve been up to lately.

This blog is a contemplation on the inner parts that lead us into old, familiar holes. There are snippets of my own story, an exploration of the parts that like to push me towards the pit of burn-out, and some writing / ponder prompts for you to explore your familiar holes (fnar, fnar!). There’s a classic poem about a hole in a road, and some nuggets of advice from nature, about how to stop falling into holes. At the end, there’s an invitation for you to go out into nature and ask for whatever advice you need. 

This is part two of a two-part reflection on the Fool and Somatic IFS week that took place in Bristol on 16-20 February this year. 

This blog features writing from two of the participants.

The first piece, 'Frogspawn,' was written by Helyn Wilder, after spending time by the pond in the Easter Gardens, up the road from our training space. Photos are by fellow participant, Lucie Wild.

The second piece, written by Bess Spencer, features a poem that Bess wrote after attending my 5-day Fools School in 2019. Bess read the poem, titled 'To be seen is not a passive act,' in our closing circle at the end of our Fooling + Somatic IFS lab in 2026. They've written a short introduction to the poem for this blog, which includes some of their experiences through the Fool + Somatic IFS week.

From 16-20 February this year, I ran a 5-day training / lab for 8 Fools, exploring where Fooling meets Somatic Internal Family Systems. 

This Blog

This blog offers a glimpse of what we got up to in our 5-day group journey. There’s a section offering some context, an outline of some of the activities we did and photos of the participants at play. There are excerpts from one of the participants' creative journal, some poetry that I penned in the room and a letter I wrote to my future self. The blog ends with some more descriptions of the course by the participants.

On January 10th 2026, I gave a semi-improvised performance-lecture at the British Association of Dramatherapists’ annual conference in Glasgow. It was my first time performing in public for a very long time. I got a standing ovation. Fancy that! 

This blog charts the process leading up to the performance, offers a glimpse of the performance itself and explores the aftermath and key learnings from this project.

The photos get increasingly random as the blog goes on. Enjoy!

A couple of weeks ago, I had a chat with Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) legend, Briony Greenhill, exploring what might happen on our upcoming 5-day 'Performance and Parts' workshop. Here's the video and a loose paraphrased outline of what we discussed.