Christine Poole

Scientist. Writer. Facilitator. Artist. Curious about what helps us grow.

personal growth

  • The Disappointment Log

    This year, I’ve decided to put myself out there. I’ve been applying for jobs, entering competitions and sending my work into the world. At first, I was hoping for yes. The validation. The confirmation that I was good enough, that my work was worth choosing. But earlier in the year came two big nos: an… Read more

  • Making Space for What Emerges

    The most important thing you can do for yourself as a writer is to show up for yourself and then, keep showing up. I came close to stopping posting altogether recently. I thought perhaps it was time for a break. Maybe I had lost direction, maybe I needed to step away for a while. But… Read more

  • Taking the Next Step

    I was wondering why this third blog series felt a little directionless. The first two had projects at their centre: my poetry and my research paper. There was something tangible to work towards, something to document as it unfolded. Then I realised this one has a project too. It’s the workshop. The idea of running… Read more

  • Searching for the Stillness 🌻

    Yesterday, my second poem was published in Flare Issue 32. It’s called Searching for the Stillness. When I wrote it, I was searching for something. I was asking myself, what is my purpose? I spent a lot of time in my head, thinking about life and meaning, sometimes so caught up in the questions that… Read more

  • 🧵Becoming the Person Who Could Write My Memoir

    Last week I took down my box of journals and put them on an empty shelf beside me. It might seem like a small thing, but it felt significant. My long-term project, my dream project, has been with me for years. The first time I wrote creatively was in a creative writing class, and on… Read more

  • 🧭 Following the Breadcrumbs

    Every now and then I go back and read something I wrote a few years ago. Recently, I went back through a series of blogs about writing my memoir and realised something I couldn’t see at the time. I had been leaving myself breadcrumbs. The first was on 25 October 2019: “I’ve decided I’m going… Read more

  • 🌀The Work Moves Beneath You

    Through these recent posts I’ve been trying to capture my creative journey, but the metaphor I found to describe this part of the process surprised even me. Sometimes writing feels a bit like dancing on a bouncy castle. You start with an idea. You think you know where you’re going. You put one foot down… Read more

  • 🌫 The Finishing Fog

    There is a particular kind of fog that arrives at the end of creative work. I have started to call it the finishing fog. It is not the fog of not knowing what to do. It is not writer’s block. In fact, quite often, I know exactly what needs to happen. I just don’t want… Read more

  • My First Poem 🌻

    🌻My First Poem Read more

  • ✨ Remembering

    Perhaps the deeper work isn’t becoming who we think we should be. Perhaps it’s remembering who we were before we learned we had to be someone else. For a long time, I thought I was searching for my values. I filled journals, read books, listened to podcasts, and completed more values exercises than I can… Read more