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Christmas and the December holiday season can be some of the most challenging times of the year for those of us who are childless-not-by-choice. It can made even harder as our consumer society uses images and ideas of ‘togetherness’ and ‘happy families’ as relentless marketing tools to sell us a fantasy life that we are excluded from. From Halloween through to New Year’s Eve, there seem to be so many different days in the holiday calendar, whatever your faith (or not), and whether you're unpartnered or partnered, that can prove challenging for us - logistically, financially, emotionally, spiritually - you name it!
However, in our experience (learned over many years of trial and error!) it absolutely is possible to learn how to reclaim this season for ourselves as childless women, and to transform it into an enjoyable time of the year for us too. Wouldn’t you like to craft your own way to celebrate in a way that works for you?
If this sounds like something you’d like to explore, then please join me, Jody Day, and my three wonderful guests, Sophia Andeh, Yvonne John and Sarah Lawrence (more on them below), each of whom is also a Licenced Gateway Women facilitator, leading our Reignite Weekends in London, UK. Between us, we have almost fifty year’s worth of experience of being childless at this time of year!
Together, we shared how we’ve learned to adapt, challenge and thrive during the holiday season and answered your questions sent in before and during the webinar (almost 300 of them, but we grouped them into themes!)
WEBINAR HOSTED BY: JODY DAY: the founder of Gateway Women and the author of Living the Life Unexpected: How to Find Hope, Meaning and a Fulfilling Future Without Children and a 2021 Digital Woman of the Year 2021. Chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 Women in 2013, she’s a global thought leader on female involuntary childlessness, an integrative psychotherapist, a two-times TEDx speaker, a founding and former board member at Ageing Well Without Children, a former Fellow in Social Innovation at Cambridge Judge Business School and a proud World Childless Week Ambassador. A life-long Londoner, for the last five years she has lived in rural Ireland where she is trying very hard to complete her first novel (featuring a childless heroine of course!) and developing her emerging Gateway Elderwomen project. Join Jody’s mailing list here and find her Instagram @gatewaywomen and @ApprenticeCrone.
WITH GUESTS
YVONNE JOHN is a licensed Gateway Women Reignite Weekend Facilitator, a World Childless Week Ambassador, a trainee counsellor and the author of Dreaming of the Life Unlived: Intimate Stories and Portraits of Women Without Children. A gifted public speaker and passionate about creating inclusivity for black women and women of colour in the cultural narratives of childlessness, Yvonne has appeared on numerous radio and television programmes, including BBC Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’. You can read more about her on her website at Finding My Plan B or on Instagram @y.vonnej
SARAH LAWRENCE is a Licensed Gateway Women Facilitator and lives in Kent, UK. She is the founder of the childless support community ‘After the Storm’ and one-third of the award-winning childless podcast, ‘The Full Stop’. A person-centred counsellor, she is childless due to endometriosis and adenomyosis, both of which resulted in many operations and procedures and ultimately led to her having a hysterectomy in 2017. You can find info about Sarah’s counselling practice on the GW resource page here, and more about the Full Stop Podcast here.
SOPHIA ANDEH is a Licensed Gateway Women Reignite Weekend Facilitator, a yoga teacher, an award-winning childless coach and the founder of ‘Butterfly and Beyond.’ She has coached in the corporate sector for over 20 years, and now has a special interest in coaching childless women and is pursuing doctoral studies in this area. Sophia is childless by circumstance having not found a partner to have children with and having been unsuccessful in her attempts to pursue solo motherhood through fertility treatments. She lives in Oxfordshire, UK. You can find Sophia’s coaching practice listed on the GW Resource page here, with more to be found on her Butterfly&Beyond website. She’s on Instagram @butterfly_beyond
To find out more about our Reignite Weekends for 2024, click here. To sign up to future free GW Masterclasses click here. To watch previous ones, click here.
