Life Coaching & Writing for Wellbeing

ABOUT ME
Hi I’m Jo Robinson, and I’m a Life Coach and Writing for Wellbeing Facilitator. My personal and professional experiences have made me the person I am today; someone who wants to help others grow and overcome their personal blocks and challenges in order to reach their vision.
Read my story below.

MY STORY
From a young age I wanted to be a writer. I would read books like they were going out of fashion and sit at the old typewriter that my grandad ‘acquired’ for me and tap the keys pretending I was the next Enid Blyton. In the 80s I poured over Smash Hits and Just Seventeen Magazine dreaming that I would one day be writing articles on the current hot topic or famous celebrity.
Alongside this I loved comedy and was influenced by a wide range of comedians from Victoria Wood, French & Saunders, Morecambe & Wise, Monty Python, Rik Mayall, and the rest of the Alternative Comedy scene.
Yet, despite doing a year of Media Studies at college, things didn’t quite pan as out as I hoped. Coming from a difficult working-class background where money was too tight for me to continue my education, I was told by my dad that I had to ‘get a proper job’, so I ended up working 9-5 as an administrator for years and buried away my ambitions. I’d convinced myself that doing a job I loved just wasn’t for the likes of me.
I also struggled with childhood traumas and negative patterns which held me back from pursuing my ambitions, which I knew I had to tackle in order to move forward. In my mid-thirties I had a major ‘sink or swim’ moment and knew I had to get help, which led me to a 12-step recovery programme in order to recover from my eating disorder and other addictive behaviours.
By my late 30’s I went back to college and did an Access in Creative Studies then went to Roehampton University and achieved a BA in Creative Writing.
Given my lived experience of mental health issues and my love of writing, I decided to do a PTTLS Teaching for Adults course so that I could run Writing for Wellbeing workshops for other people experiencing depression and anxiety. Since then, I have run these workshops with various organisations including Mind, Hestia, and the homeless charity St. Mungo’s.