About Katherine Owen

Hi there. My name is Katherine Owen. I live in England, UK.
(I sometimes use the pen name of Katherine T Owen to distinguish me from the American novelist of the same name.)

I am not Catherine Owen, Kathryn Owen, or Katherine Owens with an 's'. 

If you are looking to contact Katherine Owen (me!)  please scroll down to the contact box at the bottom of this page.

Contents of Katherine Owen

• A journey to explore finding health within illness
• Non-fiction author 
• Katherine Owen as published poet
• Spoken word - Performer of poetry
  If you run an online poetry event and would like to book Katherine Owen as poet, please ask. 
  Attendance in person close to Swindon depends on my level of health, and travel arrangements to get there!
• Speaker, radio show guest and youtube featured
• Practitioner and coach 

• Collaborative adventures in poetry
• If you run a poetry venue and would like a performance of Hidden Paths please inquire.
• Promoter of poetry
  
• Accidental lyricist!
  
• To contact Katherine Owen
  

A journey to explore finding health within illness

I have lived with chronic illness since the age of 23.

The same illness has shifted from a diagnosis of post viral fatigue syndrome to Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). Along the way I have also been 'mapped' as having fibromyalgia, and diagnosed with FND (Functional Neurological Disorder).

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Through the worst 14 years, I was bedbound, had little speech, and was dependent on others to feed me my  main meals.

I experienced dramatic healing – a significant improvement in health – in 2008.

I continue to live with health challenges.

Nonetheless, I celebrate a BIG :-) life of friendship, hugs, church, poetry, writing, music, art and trips to see the beautiful Wiltshire landscape around me.

If you live with CFS/ME in Swindon, Wiltshire, you may wish to refer to a list of healing resources available near here.

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Katherine Owen as Non-fiction author

Gifts to you

I run this website www.HealingCFSME.com which offers articles related to living with illness, and finding healing within and beyond a life lived with chronic illness.

I offer you two free e-booklets.
<The 7 Stages of Grief of Chronic Illness - how to cultivate self compassion and accept yourself with an illness> is available on this website (over 600 downloads at the time of writing ).

On my spiritual website, please help yourself to your copy of ...

<Releasing Judgment - forgiveness exercises for self acceptance and inner peace> (over 3,000 downloads at the time of writing ).

My book <Health Within how to live well with chronic illness– manage fear, raise self-worth, cultivate self-compassion> is available but oh so quietly as I am yet to launch it.
If you want a free pdf chapter in return for some feedback, please contact me via the contact box at the end of this article.

Examples of Katherine Owen's non-fiction work published by others

• A chapter in <Radiant Survivor>, the Amazon best seller.
• An article in INLPTA magazine (NLP related), sharing my  submodality exercise to reduce emotional charge attached to a memory.
• Article in Miracles Magazine on <Releasing Judgment> (editor Glenn Hovemann of Take Heart publications).

Katherine Owen as published poet

I am the author of <Be Loved, Beloved> - a small beautiful booklet of spiritual love poems. (42 small pages.)
Find it on kindle or on lulu.com in paperback. It's very affordable at around $1 or £1.

I publish under the imprint Presence Publishing.

To read examples of the poems of Katherine Owen online

Click on one of the following links

• healing poems - 2 poems on a journey with illness

The following links take you to another website

• Spiritual poems
• Encouragement and motivational poems 

Examples of Katherine Owen's poetry published by others

My poetry has been published in various publications including the following:

• <The Book of Love and Loss>. Poetry collection collated by Rose Bailey and June Hall. Foreword by Dame Maureen Lipman. See book cover below.
• Second prize in a global competition for people with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, run by Action for M.E. The judge was Frieda Hughes, daughter of the poet Ted Hughes. 
• My poem, Salad, was a winner (one of 6) of the Rethink your Mind competition in 2015 and was published in the Yellow Book - an anthology of poems with a distribution of over 1000 copies. The poem features as a spoken word piece on the album Moving Inwards by the band Refuge. Judges of the competition included Adam Horowitz and Helen Ivory.
• Various:
  Caduceus Journal, Domestic Cherry, Imppress, Graffiti, The Great British Write off 2015, Swindon Writing III 
  
• A Day in the Life of 100 Women - see cover below. (The book is not a poetry book, but my entry includes a poem.)
• My poems are published online on a number of websites. 
  

Katherine Owen as Contributing Author and Poet

Spoken word - Performer of poetry

I have performed my work on well over 100 occasions either as a poet booked to read or in open mics, slams, exhibitions, festivals, or as part of talks I have given.

Speaker, radio show guest and youtube featured

I have given talks in a variety of locations, for example in Swansea, London, Oxford and Swindon.
I have been a radio show guest on BBC Wiltshire, online radio shows, local television and on youtube.

(I qualified as a "competent communicator" at Thamesdown Toastmasters in Swindon.)

An extract of an interview for Strawberry Green TV.
Interviewer, Andrew Brewerton.

For more links to watch or listen to Katherine interviewed or talking on a spiritual theme, click here.

Katherine Owen as practitioner and coach

Example of NLP/ emotional healing themed workshop

An NLP flavoured workshop on LETTING GO delivered online. October 2024. 

• Talk and inquiry. An example of self-talk which does not assist us in letting go.
  
• Talk. Three ways of conditioning our brain in order to allow neuroplasticity to take place
  
• Application. A guided visualisation exercise to apply the three forms of conditioning to the goal of improving self-talk, with the aim of meeting a memory or feeling with greater compassion and therefore being more able to let it be and let it pass. 

Throughout the workshop there is interaction with those in the zoom room. The participants are not recorded. But Katherine often returns to camera to use the questions raised to offer further information, clarification or reassurance.

Sample of feedback on workshop in the zoom chat and on facebook

K: Very skilful and useful, thank you so much!
     I enjoyed it a lot, and will revisit to use the technique.

L: Thank you Katherine for sharing so much of all that you know with us in today's session,
it was lovely and very helpful❤️

J: Thankyou..very empowering....remembering my allies of humour, imagination, and of course cosmic powers.....transmuting those waves into beauty and ultimately love....yayyy..

M: Thank you Katherine, it was a powerful session.

Katherine's experience and qualifications in well-being and alternative healing methods - a sample

I live with a low level of health and am unable to work in a regular way as a practitioner. However, if you find me tucked away here and feel moved to work with me, get in touch through the contact box at the bottom of this page.
I would never wish to go more than a month without facilitating a process for someone - holding space for and joining minds for the healing of the issue they/you bring to the session.
Doing so is a passion and a part of who I am. I have been taking people through processes for over 14 years now.

Alternative: If you are a practitioner or feel called to hold space for another, feel your own approaches are aligned with mine, and would like to exchange sessions with each other, please get in touch.

My journey of healing

I found myself bedbound, with little speech or movement and without support to access treatment. 
To cope with such things as fear of symptoms, emotions, memories, the need to ask for help and lack of support available, I have - over the years - developed my own methodologies. In the future, I hope to share these more widely with others.

I have listened to thousands of hours of teaching. My emphasis and my passion is on how information can be practically applied to self or other to assist healing in body or mind, or to enhance the awareness of our spiritual identity.

For ongoing self healing, I draw on a range of techniques.
The same techniques inform any work I do as a practitioner/coach to hold space for another.

Katherine's self-developed methodologies for coping and healing

My own modalities can be summarised as techniques of acceptance and compassion that invite myself or the other to enter into the present moment.

It is a statement of the obvious, and yet well worth stating, that the present moment is the only moment in which change can take place.

Our minds are often preoccupied with the past or the future. To enter the present moment therefore often involves an active choice, or an active choice to access a tool or modality or person which can help one to do so.

My modalities have a structure. This structure provides a safe holding-space.
This structure is combined with listening to any feedback you give so as to tailor the way I guide the session to suit the langage of your inner world.
The assumption on my part is that you have your own innate wisdom to guide you.
My job as practitioner is to help you access and receive that wisdom. 

·       Releasing Judgment. My own method as shared in the free ebook.
No spiritual beliefs are required to use this simple tool. But it is predicated on a belief in our inherent connection with all things. 

·       Structured and loving self talk which allows for the reprogramming of beliefs and the cultivation of awareness of a loving presence. (In neuroplasticity this falls in the category of <de-conditioning> and unlearning.)

·       A process of radical acceptance I have developed which brings another (or myself) into the present moment with whatever is currently arising.
For example, I might hold space and guide another to be with a symptom, a feeling, a belief or a memory.
Through this 'being with' and 'being witnessed', shift happens.

This work is inspired in part by the work of Lester Levinson (Lester inspired the modalities of the Sedona Method, and the Releasing Technique, and no doubt many others.)

·     My poems/inspirations. I receive guidance in the form of poems or inspirations which I collect into books providing guidance on various issues that arise in my daily life - most not yet fully edited or published!
Whilst they do not form part of my work as a practitioner, this writing is my self-help go-to. 

The poems (most accompanied by a release statement and a quote) refuse to let my thoughts trundle along established and unhelpful pathways, and open me to remembering my combined identity - myself as Katherine with all her issues, and myself as my Self, free of all needs, and available to remind me of who I am in each moment when I am open to listen. 

Modalities in which I have received training and learning, and which inform my self-healing work and work as a practitioner with others 

·      NLP. I am a qualified as a practitioner in NLP (Neurolinguistic Programming), having attained a diploma. This includes guiding others in visualisations for acceptance, belief change, or changing the way a memory is stored.

In the case of a bad memory, the process serves to reduce emotional charge. A memory can be stored so that when it arises it no longer plays as a present moment event.

In the case of a good memory, the process serves to increase emotional charge. For example, a feeling of past success might be relived and enhanced so as to be more accessible to raise one's confidence.

Visualisation comes under the category of hypnotherapy.
NLP also includes the meta model which is more like a CBT approach.
So NLP works both with the conscious and the subconscious.

In 2008 I experienced a dramatic improvement in health from not being able to feed myself and needing to use a commode (12 years plus for both) to being able to feed myself and walk to the bathroom.
This dramatic health improvement was prompted by the Lightning Process and probably also faith.
I subsequently trained in NLP as some NLP techniques are built into the Lightning Process. I did not feel moved to train in the Lightning Process itself. 

Online talk/workshop with Richard Bandler, founder of NLP.

·      I am qualified in Level 1 Counselling. I found this well worth doing. However, I had no passion to take it further. My preferred modalities do not centre around someone talking in depth through the issues. 

·      HeartIQ. I completed the 90 day emotional hygeine course in 2020, and have taken part in over 150 hours of heart circles. 

·       EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or tapping. I took a two day introductory training in person. I am largely self taught through online classes with over 300 hours of attending online talks, self-application or leading others in tapping.

·       The Journey process. I am a Journey Graduate. Prior to that, I had experienced the physical healing of an eye problem whilst working alone with the process. In my work as a practitioner, I sometimes incorporate the Journey process approach of guiding someone to be with and drop through a present moment feeling .

·       Inner child work. This was influenced no doubt by reading the work of John Bradshaw, Gill Edwards and Louise Hay. I diligently pursued inner child work through self exploration in the early years of illness. I also attended a workshop run by Gill Edwards and one by someone trained by Louise Hay.

My personal use of inner child work has been largely superseded by the use of my own self talk method.
However, I still find inner child work useful in working with others.
Asking another to access and speak to their younger child self seems to be an instruction which is easily understood, and the consequences of doing so are experienced as powerful. 

·       Trauma - Living with and healing from
I didn't discover the subject and study of trauma until probably around 2019. 

Dr Aimie Apigian. Seven day course. Finding your own unique somatic holding which allows you to meet different feelings that overwhelm in a way that allows them to become more manageable.

I feel deeply indebted to Dr Aimie Apigian for her essential sequence for addressing trauma. Three steps which must be undertaken in the right sequence. Safety, support, expansion. 
I have attended about five masterclasses with Dr Aimie.

200 hours+ of learning (including repeat listening). Various trauma summits. It's astonishing the access we now have to world-renowned teachers.

Three months of a Healing Trauma course with the wonderful publisher Sounds True. 
This included guest sessions with Peter Levine, Gabor Mate.
The main teachers were Jeffrey Rutstein and Deb Dana.

NICABM. Trainings attended included interviews with Janina Fisher, Pat Ogden, Bessel van der Kolk, Peter Levine, Ruth Lanius, Ron Siegel.

·      Somatic work, embodiment, maladaptive stress response, polyvagal theory

There is an overlap here with the study of trauma.
50+ hours of learning
4 years+ of application across each day.

Deirdre Fay. 'Foundations for Healing, Safely embodied course'. 30 days of practical exercises.

Alex Howard five day course. Decode your nervous system.

Alex Howard five day course. Decode your fatigue.

An online course from Peter Levine, from the publisher Sounds True.

EmbodimentUK and their excellent offerings.

Mindful Mondays and the Befriending Me group with the wonderful Helen Machen-Pearce.

·    The study of how to meet and alleviate toxic shame 

There is an overlap with trauma, somatic work and shame. 

<Four Superpowers To Dissolve Shame>. Online Course byDeidre Fay, supplemented by attendance at one of her online retreat days.
Deidre Fay presents shame as an attachment wound, and encourages the identification of an underlying missing need. and the opening to the meeting of the need. Embodiment and somatics are interwoven into her work.

·    Spiritual

I am happy to work with anyone regardless of whether they have spiritual beliefs, or what those beliefs are. 
However, I do prefer to work with those who are open to playing in their imagination with the concept that a loving presence is available to them in this moment. Many psychological modalities now recognise the power and necessity of imagination to provide us with those elements that were missing in our primary relationships in childhood.

I have been pursuing the spiritual path for the whole of my life.

I have pursued the spiritual path with greater diligence since I contracted the illness ME/CFS in 1991, and all the more so after a spiritual experience in 1993.

My spiritual journey is guided by the application of spiritual practice to whatever is arising in the present day - a willingness to experience the current situation whilst held in the Love that heals.

My view is that God/Love/The Divine is always accessible and the spiritual journey is one of raising our ability to include God in each moment of our life. 
My outlook is interfaith - many paths to God. And non dual - Love is the underlying reality. 

My path is also informed by Christianity and A Course In Miracles.

The subject of my other website is the spiritual journey of healing.

Collaborative adventures in poetry

My performances of poetry include the following collaborative adventures:
<Travellers without Baggage>

<Hidden Paths>

Both the above combined poetry with music.

I performed in one or the other at the following events or venues: 

Swindon Festival of Literature, Bath Royal Literary Scientific Institution, Bath Poetry Day, Malmsbury Carnival, Marlborough Poetry Day (part of the Marlborough Literature Festival).

If you are interested in hosting a performance of Hidden paths please contact me to see if myself and one or two of the other members can make it available.
Click through to read more about Hidden Paths. If you are on soundcloud, once on that page you can click through for a sample.

We have performed Hidden Paths in various iterations:
Two poets - myself and John Richardson.
Poet and musician - myself and Stephen Lewis Gilmore.
Two poets, musician with art projected onto the screen behind the performers - all the aforementioned!

<Illustrate Your Point> – a collaborative project between Swindon artists and poets. Included an exhibition in the Swindon Arts Centre and an illustrated publication. 

Promoter of poetry

• I was an active member of Swindon BlueGate poets in its early days and served on the committee for 2 years.
  NB. BlueGate poets has been replaced by Poetry Swindon. 
  
• I was a founder member of Swindon Team Open Mic which ran for a number of years.
• I organised two spiritual poetry events for the Swindon Festival of Poetry.  
• I organised the Swindon launch of <The Book of Love and Loss> with poets coming to perform from across the South West of England.
• I have designed and run or co-run two poetry workshops.
  One on <performing your poems with confidence>.
  One a <Hidden Paths workshop> - collaborative with the poet John Richardson and musician and artist, Stephen Lewis Gilmore.

Katherine Owen as accidental lyricist

I am not a lyricist! But it's fun that my words have formed the lyrics for two songs.

I was winner (one of 6) of the Rethink your Mind competition in 2017 - I won an ipad  :-) 
Mark Morriss of the Bluetones wrote a song with my poem I would not be without you as the inspiration for the lyrics.
The video is also amazing! Click below.

I wrote lyrics for the tune My Sweet Hermosa (music first on that occasion), sung by the band Koribantez. Two members of Koribantez continue at this time as the Latin Jazz duo Gilmore n Jaz.

To contact Katherine Owen

You can connect with me by signing up to one of the websites or joining me on social media – see the icons at the top of the page.

If you want to share your wisdom about finding health within or beyond illness, please leave a comment in the healing forum.

To contact me personally, please use the contact box below. I may not be able to correspond at length but will be delighted to hear from you.

Thank you so much for being here.

Click below to move to the home page of Katherine Owen's website.

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© Katherine T Owen. All articles on this website are copyrighted. I am delighted if you choose to click above to share this page on social media, but please do not copy, print or otherwise use without my permission. Thank you. Disclaimer: I am not a medical practitioner. The articles on this website are not to be taken as medical advice. Please consult a medical practitioner as necessary. Disclosure: On some pages, there are affiliate links, for example to Amazon. If you click and then buy within a certain time period, I will receive a small commission which goes towards the running of this healing website. Abundant thanks :-)