IF WRITING FEELS LIKE SELF CARE
IF READING (WHATEVER!) SOOTHES YOU, INSPIRES YOU AND IS A CONSIDERABLE PART OF YOUR LIFE
IF YOU DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TOWARDS MEANING
then, I feel you are going to enjoy this space and what it has to offer.
Source: Image generated with ChatGPT, by Open AI.
The Words You Don't Yet Have
María Ortega García · Poetry Therapy Practitioner & Trauma-Informed Educator
Soy María, and I find myself at the other end of a time of big change. My body’s changed, my energy’s changed, my capacity for a whole range of emotional responses and behaviours has changed, increased in some cases, dramatically decreased in others. My career’s changed too, and after the years of transition and instability that had to happen, I feel settled. The ground below me is still rocky in places, but my step is slow and grounded, so even though I can’t see exactly where I’m going, I can see the path: what’s behind me, and how that shapes what’s ahead. I’m clear, at least, about the closest waypoints.
What interests me is that those waypoints look different depending on the language I’m working in. (If you’ve met me during my language-teacher years, you’ll appreciate the irony.) The path is one, I’m the one walking it, but the direction isn’t always the same. Some of it works with natural cycles and change in the way seasons do: not fighting the rocky ground, but learning to read it.
THE GOLDEN THREAD:
At 20, I wanted to become a literature professor; I wanted to teach about poetry. In my mid-40s, I want you to experience poetry, to let it change you, to let it be that friend with whom every encounter makes you feel seen, makes your heart swell, and makes you arrive back home feeling lighter, loved and held.
From a degree in Humanities, to a postgrad in Spanish philology, poetry, into training to become a Spanish as a foreign language teacher, to going back to my first love, poetry, training as Poetry Therapy practitioner, trauma informed practice and now, a mentor / supervisor for future poetry therapy practitioners.
Metaphor is embodied in language. – Dennis Potter
What This Looks Like in Practice
As a poetry therapy practitioner and trauma-informed educator, I work with the poetic image as a tool for making sense of what’s difficult to say directly, whether that’s a specific conflict, an emotion without a name yet, or a season of change like the one I went through (I am forever grateful to the gentle guiding hand of poetry in my life transitions).
1:1 expressive writing sessions, in person and online poetry therapy workshops, institutional training in poetry therapy…
Credentials & Affiliations
• Poetry Therapy Practitioner, accredited by the International Academy for Poetry Therapy, iaPoetry (2023).
• Secretary of the Irish Poetry Therapy Network‘s board.
• Programs & Practice Coordinator, iaPoetry.
• Mentor / Supervisor for iaPoetry and Irish Poetry Therapy Network.
• Diploma in trauma and mental health informed schools and communities (Level 5 diploma, practitioner status) by TISUK (2024). 20CPD
• Director of Master’s theses in Máster Universitario en Enseñanza de Español como lengua extranjera de UNIR (Universidad Internacional de La Rioja)
• Trauma-Informed Teaching, delivered by educational consultant Ryhan Nadji (2022).
• Intercultural Awareness, HSE, Ireland (2022).
• “Understanding trauma and supporting the needs of people fleeing war and/or persecution”, webinar delivered by Jennifer Hayes, Department of Psychology, HSE, Ireland (2022).
• Emotional learning based on thought training by Instituto Cervantes (2017).
• Transforming Business, Society and Self with u.Lab (Online, MIT X, 2016)
• DELE and SIELE examiner by Instituto Cervantes (2014, 2016)
• Diploma Teaching Spanish as a Foreign Language by Instituto Cervantes (2011)
• Postgrad in Philology by Universidad de Burgos. (2008)
• BA. in Humanities (Applied Languages) by Universidad de Burgos (2005).
Informal research and training in embodied/experiential learning, integrational lingüistics, identity, multiculturalism and multilingualism, creative writing.
