- Event Date: 23/11/2025
Writing to heal Christmas with Internal Family Systems
Event Details
- 18:30
- Online via Zoom
- From £20
Event Description
An Internal Family Systems (IFS) and expressive writing workshop for calm, compassion, and connection during the festive season. Connect with the parts of you that come alive (or feel burdened) at Christmas
Unburden old memories, stories, and pressures tied to the festive season
Invite in new, chosen rituals rooted in peace and authenticity
Reduce stress and anxiety by strengthening connection with your core Self
Through a mix of guided meditations, gentle writing prompts, small-group reflection, and moments of stillness you can reconnect with your core self: the calm, compassionate presence that can hold all parts of you with love.
The festive season can stir up a ‘parts party’ inside us: the perfectionist, the people-pleaser, the exhausted caregiver, the inner child longing for magic, the one who just wants to escape it all.
This online session invites you to bring gentle curiosity to these parts through creative and therapeutic writing. Using principles from Internal Family Systems (IFS) and expressive journaling, we’ll explore how to listen to, honour, and soothe the different voices within us, so we can approach the holidays with greater self-compassion, clarity, and calm.
Please Note:
Other events you may like
Our scars hold traces of what we’ve lived — reminders of what the body has endured and how it has repaired itself. In this two-hour online workshop, we’ll explore these traces through reflective writing and body attention. You’ll be guided through acknowledging your scars and interacting with them, noticing their unique landscapes and the qualities they bring to your life. The focus is not on retelling the past but on listening to what your scars communicate now: resilience, protection, tenderness, perhaps even beauty. Through words, breath, movement, and attention, we’ll meet the marks that shaped us with curiosity and compassion.
This workshop is for you if you…
– have a scar — physical or emotional — that still draws your attention.
– want to reconnect with a part of your body that feels numb, distant, or changed.
– sense that healing happened on the surface, but something still lingers underneath.
– wish to soften feelings of judgment or shame about your body.
Led by Elaine Konopka, somatic practitioner, writer, and editor. She is the founder of The Attentive Body online and in Paris, where she teaches body awareness to help people live healthier, more intense lives. An avid believer in the power of the written word, she has been facilitating writing workshops for over a decade.
Sunday, November 9th, 2 – 4 pm UK time
Standard rate: 25 €
Supporter rate: 30 €
This is a ten week online course, starting on Weds 21st January, 7 – 9.15pm looking at how to discover and promote compassion to all the parts of ourselves, with various poetic and writing prompts, pair work, and a spacious and gentle way of listening.
This is an innovative and inspiring approach to bring more compassion and understanding into our lives, through exploring resonance and accessing body wisdom.
Discounts are available if financial circumstances are difficult, so please inquire.
- Lapidus Member Event Only
Finding the road to voice again: after the silencing process by homophobia – Writing Into and In the Well of Being
Presenter: Ineke Duit
Saturday 6th December, 10:00am-11:15am.
I entered the silence, listened tenderly, and wrote my voice home.
Writing Into and In the Well of Being.
During my PhD journey, which I finished this summer, I wrote the thesis: “Coming to Voice: A Critical Autoethnographic Inquiry into the Process of Becoming Silenced and the Road to Finding Voice Again.” It has been a discovery journey. I explored the roots of my being silenced and its personal and relational consequences, while monitoring how various forms of scholarly and creative writing eventually brought me where I stand today. I found my voice again, which meant reconnecting with my feelings and longings; and I share my voice with the world, thus becoming an agent for change.
I will present my research, highlight some pivotal moments, and demonstrate how writing can act as a miner—laying bare layer after layer of personal, forgotten or neglected stories—and show how sharing our stories changes relationships, with the self and with others and how they can change the world, both locally and globally.
I will also offer a writing exercise to demonstrate writing into the well of being.
About the Presenter
Dr. Ineke Duit is a boardroom specialist, serving as a trainer, consultant, and executive coach. She assists leaders and management teams in navigating complex organizational transitions, with a focus on governance, culture, and organizational change.
Her recent academic work, culminating in the PhD thesis Coming to Voice, spurred her deep passion for creative writing, which has become a part of her daily routine. While completing her doctorate, she simultaneously earned a Master’s in Creative Writing for Therapeutic Purposes.
Based on her PhD thesis, Dr Ineke Duit delivered her paper presentation ‘My pen is my vessel’ on the Creative Bridges conference 2025. She demonstrated how, by the process of writing in a variety of forms and in a timespan of some thirteen years, she eventually wrote herself a home and wrote herself home.
Her thesis ‘Exploring my feelings of shame and their impact on my coaching practice’, written for the Master’s in Executive Coaching, is published as a chapter in the 2nd edition of ‘Behind Closed Doors; Stories from the Coaching Room’ (Erik de Haan and graduates, 2016, Libri Publishing).
Drawing on this unique interdisciplinary foundation, Dr. Ineke Duit now integrates writing into her leadership programs, OD work and coaching practice. She champions writing as a powerful yet gentle tool that allows leaders to explore their inner world, deepen self-awareness, and enhance decision-making and invites them to the true art of storytelling—crucial skills for effective modern leadership.
Zoom Link
About the Lapidus Living Research Community
The Lapidus Living Research Community (LLRC) meets on the first Saturday of every month via Zoom to discuss all things research, with a focus on qualitative arts-based research practices, theory and methods.
All Lapidus members are welcome, regardless of research experience.