Maria Arpa
This week
Last Blog For 2023
Plus…
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
and
The Wednesday Whisper
What a year
So much has happened in 2023 that I am looking forward to a pause over Christmas and New Year. With our time in West Virginia bringing many reflections about trauma, healing and community, and the expansion of our charity shops from 4 to 7 shops, it’s an important moment to recognise the people that believe in the Centre for Peaceful Solutions and support us to take DRM into the world.
Starting with our charity shop staff and volunteers who tirelessly keep the shops open so we can fund our projects without reliance on external funding, and therefore not have to dilute our work, and the growing team of support within the charity as our DRM Practitioner group grows through the one year training, as well as the businesses and organisations that welcome our approach in their workplaces, boardrooms and communities and our donors who trust us to make good use of the resources they give us, we have become a recognised alternative to mainstream.
What stands out for me is the progress made in Dartmoor prison. We recently trained another cohort bringing our team to 13 prisoners. The 2022 cohort have made great strides as practitioners and in their willingness to look inside, and the newer group who are integrating into the team and have welcomed this opportunity to become DRM Facilitators.
As they support prisoners who are struggling and manage their own peer support as practitioners, I was sent this message by one of our DRM Facilitators who has been with us for about 5 years, describing his week, “loads of gentle healing, kindness, blessings and love poured out and all parties left encouraged and with many needs met. More expressions of DRM in its purest, most beautiful form. I know that will encourage you. And I also received a one 2 one session so I was supported too.”
That’s my rocket fuel. Knowing that men who have been written off by society have found the capability to heal and be healed using love as their medicine. Isn’t this the transformation we are looking for?
I wish you blessings and inner peace for the coming weeks and will write again in mid-January
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If you read this blog regularly, I would love some feedback, and anything you would like me to write about in 2024
Maria’s Midweek Mindfulness
The DRM works on a basis of love helping us unlearn the ruthlessness of hierarchical systems that we use to abuse ourselves internally, not understanding the levels of abuse we have normalised in our society.
The Wednesday Whisper
What have you normalised that actually isn’t OK when you reach into your humanity?
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