{"id":5636,"date":"2025-09-20T15:19:45","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:19:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/?p=5636"},"modified":"2025-09-20T15:19:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T15:19:48","slug":"speaking-our-stories-panels-power-and-the-path-to-belonging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/?p=5636","title":{"rendered":"Speaking Our Stories: Panels, Power, and the Path to Belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As we draw to the end of World Childless Week, I won\u2019t say \u201cuntil next year\u201d because these conversations don\u2019t pause; they remain on our lips as we keep breaking the silence around our journeys of living without children. I sit back with joy as I reminisce on this past week. I had the honor of chairing the Living with Chronic Illness<\/em> panel, as well as being a panelist on the Intersectionality and Childlessness<\/em> panel at Storyhouse Childless in Chester. I also spoke at EY\u2019s Childfree & Childless community (CFCL), and joined the panel for the Childlessness, Grieving, and Love: What Changes<\/em> webinar. What a week it has been – I learned about grief, love, connection, and power in those moments – and it\u2019s not over yet. Look out for my pre-recorded conversation with Civilla Morgan for Moving Forward<\/em>, due for release on Sunday 21st<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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StoryHouse Childless: Safety, Ritual, Transformation<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

StoryHouse offers something different not a corporate setting, but a sacred space of storytelling, reflection, ritual. It\u2019s where the raw edges can show: tears, anger, regret, laughter that comes unexpectedly. At StoryHouse I learnt:

That grief does not run a straight course. That in telling my story, I might revisit old wounds, but also uncover hidden gifts: resilience, courage, an ever-deepening life of meaning beyond what I\u2019d been told \u201cshould\u201d define me.
That sharing stories is ritual: each person speaking becomes a caregiver of truth. There\u2019s care in listening, in witnessing, in not rushing the narrative or the pain.
The power of transformation: when we turn our stories into something offered to others, to ourselves, we change something. Not always what we expected. Not always what\u2019s visible. But something shifts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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EY\u2019s CFCL Community: Permission to Name<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When my EY Childfree & Childless Group (CFCL) invited me to speak, it felt like being invited to show up \u2018as I am\u2019 in a place that didn\u2019t always make space for people like me. Workspaces are complicated: they reward visible \u201csuccess\u201d, productivity, certain life narratives. The childless not by choice (CNBC) story often doesn\u2019t fit neatly into that.

Speaking there meant naming what is usually hidden:

What it feels like to attend baby showers, to hear about maternity leave, to be asked \u201cwhen\u2019s it your turn?\u201d
What it feels like when you\u2019re present physically but your heart is somewhere else, when people assume your life story includes children.
The mixture of grief, longing, and defiance that accompanies hearing \u201cyou must be okay with it by now\u201d or \u201cyou have a career, you travel, you have other joys.\u201d

What surprised me was the soft power in sharing. Suddenly others said, \u201cMe too.\u201d The room that felt lonely became more alive. The CFCL space became a space not just of acknowledgement but of community. I realised that speaking is not just about having others understand me, it\u2019s about letting me understand myself better, and letting others see themselves in me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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World Childless Week: Raising Our Voices Together<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

World Childless Week (WCW) is unique in its scale and its purpose. It\u2019s bringing light to the \u201clittle hurts\u201d, the yes\u2011and\u2011no moments, the subtle erasures, the normal days that carry hidden weight. WCW reminds me:

There is strength in collective visibility. When thousands of people share small truths; \u201cI longed for this\u201d, \u201cI grieve that\u201d, \u201cI have found meaning\u201d, the landscape of what is possible shifts. Society\u2019s assumptions begin to crack.
The work of awareness is also the work of healing. It invites others to start asking questions they may have avoided: \u201cWhat does it mean to find a fulfilling life without children?\u201d \u201cWhat do people need from someone in my life who is childless?\u201d These aren\u2019t easy questions. They require courage, vulnerability.
That grief needn\u2019t be hidden, and hope needn\u2019t be performative. There is room for rage, for sorrow, for messy emotions and also for tenderness, for friendship, for small moments of joy. All of it matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What I\u2019ve Discovered Across These Spaces<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Putting together my experiences across StoryHouse, CFCL and WCW, here are some of the discoveries I want to carry forward and share because I believe they help all of us in this childless\u2011not\u2011by\u2011choice community, especially Black women and women of colour, whose stories are often double\u2011silent: silent across childlessness, and silent across race.

1. Naming is liberating
Putting words to what we feel, the longing, the shame, the questions, allows us to reclaim power. When we name it, it stops owning us.

2. Community matters deeply
\u00a0Being among people who see you, who nod, who share similar invisible scars, helps you feel less broken. These spaces reduce isolation. They allow us to hold ourselves with gentleness.

3. Visibility changes culture
\u00a0Every talk, every shared blog, every social media post, every webinar in WCW shifts someone\u2019s internal map. It tells someone: \u201cYou are included.\u201d That the childless voice is valid. That the path of childlessness not by choice or coming to a life without children is not an oddity or a failure, but a lived experience worthy of respect and recognition.

4. Race, identity, intersectionality cannot be optional
\u00a0Our grief is shaped by race, by expectations, by multiple layers of invisibility. As a Black woman, I carry both cultural expectations around motherhood and the erasure of my pain. Speaking helps me demand that those intersections be seen, not glossed over.

5. Healing is not linear, but it is possible
There is no point at which you simply \u201cmove on.\u201d But there are moments: of peace, of acceptance, of discovery, of love. They emerge when we allow ourselves to feel, speak, rest, connect. When we let go of timelines others impose on us.

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Closing Thoughts<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Speaking, for me, always carries risk. Risk of being misunderstood, of being pitied, of being discounted. But the risk is outweighed by what opens up when I do: a space for authenticity; a bridge to others who thought they were alone; a kind of belonging that\u2019s built on honest truth rather than performance.

To anyone reading this who is childless not by choice, especially if you are quiet, or afraid to share: your story matters. Your grief matters. Your longing matters. And your presence matters even when it\u2019s invisible. When you speak in whatever way you choose you are doing radical work.

You are not alone. You are not broken. Your voice is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Contact me<\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n


If you would like me to speak at your event, at your workplace, or if you’d like 1:1 support, please contact me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As we draw to the end of World Childless Week, I won\u2019t say \u201cuntil next year\u201d because these conversations don\u2019t pause; they remain on our lips as we keep breaking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5644,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[12,15,16,25,27,45,130,129,70],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-childfreeafterinfertility","tag-childless-not-by-choice","tag-childlessbycircumstance","tag-dealing-with-grief","tag-dreaming-of-a-life-unlived","tag-living-without-children","tag-moving-forward-moving-with","tag-storyhouse-childless","tag-world-childless-week"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/findingmyplanb.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/phil-desforges-iuklQeAMVB4-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1707&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5648,"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions\/5648"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/findingmyplanb.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}