95: ENCORE: Grace Quantock, The Lady of the Lake and the Physicians of Myddfai & thoughts on creativity and body

In this encore episode I'm sharing a conversation with Grace Quantock, a counsellor, a registered member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy, writer, coach, wellness provocateur, and healing trailblazer.  Grace is currently living – and thriving – with often debilitating illness and knows, firsthand, the emotional and physical rollercoaster that accompanies diagnosis and life struggles. Because of that, she's founded the Phoenix Fire Academy, Trailblazing Wellness and Healing Boxes, to help people live and thrive with debilitating illnesses. She lives in the valleys of Wales and loves reading, gardening and early mornings. She firmly believes that life is meant to be celebrated, and has made it her mission to help others do just that … joyfully and on their own terms. It is such a treat to share my conversation with her today – her storytelling and gentle, thoughtful nature shine through in our conversation. Enjoy our ramble through the Welsh fairy tale The Lady of the Lake and the Physicians of Myddfai. Things we chatted about in this episode: the Welsh fairytale The Lady of the Lake and the Physicians of Myddfai the Brecon Beacons mountain range The Welsh words for Gramma and Grampa the Welsh tradition of Bards on navigating the bounds of safety as a woman in relationships on being grounded and present in a landscape with ancient history on believing in ritual and daily magic on exploring the land and history of where you live on being a steward and guardian of the land you're living on on how people are hurt/judged for having what are called 'wrong' reactions relationship with creativity on having a creative practice and then going into the head and getting sick, letting go of creative work on doing The Artist's Way and the reading deprivation week how not reading led to space for writing doing intuitive painting, reclaiming creativity on not reading stuff on the internet on doing a digital detox (how reading about doing things is deceptive) following a 'create before consume' philosophy relationship with body it's a beautiful work in progress on how to come home to the body when it's a place of chronic pain learning how to read a finely tuned instrument/body how to be with body when the habit is to check out and dissociate how to make the body safe enough to stay in it how to go deeper into the body and have joy in it how Marion Woodman's writing inspires Grace to stay with the body and the process how medicalizing bodies makes the person feel like a diagnosis instead of a person