{"id":985,"date":"2025-11-11T17:12:44","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T17:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mariaortegagarcia.com\/?p=985"},"modified":"2026-01-14T16:08:01","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T15:08:01","slug":"my-journey-as-a-facilitator-at-barcelona-journaling-festival-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mariaortegagarcia.com\/es\/spanish-blog\/my-journey-as-a-facilitator-at-barcelona-journaling-festival-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"My journey as a facilitator at Barcelona Journaling Festival 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"
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“Community is created when we write, listen and speak from the heart”
\u2013 Ahava Shira<\/p>

I first heard about the Barcelona Journaling Festival<\/a> last year, when Marusha Mozolevskaya<\/a>, one of the co-founders, contacted me about the first edition, which would take place two months later, in November 2024. I loved her energy, and I immediately felt drawn to the festival. I couldn’t attend that first year, but I made a mental note for the following. Fast forward to the beginning of 2025, when the announcement of the second edition of the Barcelona Journaling Festival on 8-9 November 2025 was made, along with an open call to apply to speak, I knew I had to get in!<\/p>

When I saw that call on socials, I felt a deep pull to participate, not only as an attendee, but also\u00a0to step into the role of facilitator. The chance to guide a workshop at a gathering of international journalers, writers, coaches and creative practitioners felt both exciting and more than a little daunting.<\/p>

I applied and submitted my proposal for a workshop around my area of expertise, poetry therapy<\/a>, and forced myself to forget about it. A few months passed, and I received the happy email saying that I had been accepted to facilitate a workshop.<\/p>

It wasn’t the first time I had facilitated a big event (I have been participating in conferences and festivals for years, but mostly in my past life as an educator). My last big event took me to Canada<\/a> in 2019. But then, after that, COVID hit us like a ton of bricks. I changed careers (from language educator to therapeutic writing facilitator and teacher), and the series of lockdowns knocked my confidence down a bit, so facilitating at the Barcelona Journaling festival felt significant. It felt right, but also, it felt scary as hell.<\/p>

I had two goals with this festival:<\/p>

1) Connection
2) Experience<\/p>

Two days after the event, the festival felt like a success for me.
I’d love to share the experience, the learnings, and how you, too, can tap into the magic of journaling or expressive writing at these kinds of events, or at home.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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About the Festival<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The Barcelona Journaling Festival is described as “the unique international festival of journaling happening in Barcelona”, offering hands-on workshops, inspiring talks and meaningful connections. <\/span><\/p>

This year it was held at the arts & design college in the Poblenou<\/a> neighbourhood of Barcelona, set in a vibrant, beach-proximate area. <\/span><\/p>

Whether you’re a wellness coach, therapist, writer, or journaling enthusiast, the festival aims to offer practical tools and deep reflection, not just theory. It’s not a conference or a summit, but a festival, as the co-founders explicitly announced in the inauguration speech.<\/span><\/p>

In my role as a facilitator, I led the session titled <\/span>Mapping your way through metaphor<\/span><\/strong>, <\/span><\/a>where<\/span> I invited participants to explore their inner landscapes through guided readings, reflective writing, and artistic map-making, charting personal terrains and giving voice to the places within us that seek exploration and expression.<\/span> I’ll describe how that unfolded, what stood out and what you can take away, whether or not you attended.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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What I did & what happened\n<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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The workshop<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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In the workshop, I guided 25 participants through 2 journaling prompts to set the tone, followed by 2 poems, writing and sharing, and a final map creation. The aim was to tap into our personal geographies and explore how our past may have directed our present paths, and how we can find new ways to chart territories.
I was struck by how one participant used writing to process the loss of her dog, and by how another participant realised she had let only her negative “tracks” be part of her inner landscape.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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The atmosphere<\/h4>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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The setting of Barcelona does something subtle but powerful: there was time to step into cafes in Poblenou and to connect with people from across the world who share this passion for the written word. That informal time (the coffee chats, the hallway moments) was as rich as the formal sessions.
One of my favourite moments happened before the festival, during the pre-festival speakers’ gathering, when I got to connect with people who “get” my career: people I don’t need to explain what therapeutic writing is or convince them it works, people who love reflection, personal growth, emotional sharing and, of course, writing!<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Key Speakers & Workshops (besides mine)<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Key Learnings & Insights<\/h3>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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Some of the other sessions included:<\/span><\/p>