I first got into writing poetry in November 2019, when I was invited to participate in an award winning theatrical activism show, called the “Truth to Power Cafe,” which you can read about here:

https://www.truthtopower.co.uk/

I was asked to write a piece of around 600 words, or 4 minutes long and respond to the question “who or what had power over me and what do I want to say to them?” My response was to mental health, as an entity that had power over me.

I found the experience very cathartic, empowering and decided I should be creative with overcoming what was a very traumatic and destructive time in my life, so I wrote my it as a poetry monologue.

Here is what I had to say:

“New Year New Me?” is a poem I wrote about the fact we should introduce positive changes into our life as soon as we identify the need to and not wait until making a new years resolution.

As someone who has been diagnosed with bipolar back in late 2016, at times of increased stress I can find myself feeling overwhelmed, which can lead to reacting badly to triggering situations.

This shadow aspect of myself is something that I am working on and has been covered in the following blog posts which I invite you to read:

Shadow Work

Triggers

This inner work took place over a period of a couple of weeks and culminated on me writing a poem about my struggle with anger and aggression, that you can watch below: