I worked at London Friend as a volunteer counsellor there for several years, and it has a very fond place in my heart, so I was glad to be chosen – along with 49 other people – to offer my words of celebration. I said…

London Friend is where I learnt most about therapy – as well as a good deal about myself – from my amazing supervisor, from the other counsellors, and from many extraordinary people I worked with, who I still remember with much fondness.

I’m sure you’ll hear this over and over again, but London Friend is deeply special for its friendliness! Every time I popped in, I was warmly greeted by staff who made it their business to learn about, and value, every single person who walked through the door. Read more…

Check out the words of all 50 London Friend-friends here, as they accumulate over the year.

You can also see me visiting London Friend and talking about it in this video by James Marcus Tucker and Michael Urwin from Peruvian Tree Productions.

Thanks again to London Friend for being such a wonderful home to me and to so many others. Do support their work, and get in touch with them if you’re an LGBTQ+ Londoner looking for support and/or somewhere to volunteer.

The post Happy birthday London Friend! appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.

First, the lovely people at Lagusta’s Luscious – a chocolate shop in the Hudson Valley of NY – have added the zine to their self-care box. If you order the box you get a hard copy of the zine along with fifteen pieces of their amazing chocolate, and a handmade candle in a ceremic cup. Some of the proceeds each time go to Trans Queer Pueblo, an organisation who support LGBT+ migrants of color. So do feel free to order the box here for anybody in your life who you think might appreciate it during these tough times.

Second, you can now pre-order the workbook by the same title – Hell Yeah Self-Care – which my co-author, Alex Iantaffi, and I have written, to receive your copy in the new year.

Here’s the link to the Amazon, and Foyles pages for ordering the book. But please do order it from your local independent queer or feminist bookstore if you have one. In the UK we love Gay’s the Word and Pages in London, Category Is in Glasgow, and The Feminist Bookshop in Brighton. In the US Moon Palace Books in Minneapolis is a good friend to me and Alex.

The book Hell Yeah Self-Care develops the ideas and practices in the zine into a whole workbook full of activities, drawing on the content of some of my other zines, and also much of Alex’s work on somatic, trauma-informed, and systemic/relational self-care.

In some ways ‘self-care’ isn’t the best title for the book – or the zine – as what we’re talking about is really ‘collective care’ where we cultivate systems and structures of support and mutual aid. The book covers how we can develop our support systems, co-create consensual cultures and relationships, and do the inner work needed to care for ourselves, others, and the wider world.

The post Self-Care update appeared first on Rewriting The Rules.