How an Inverness woman found her passion after battling severe depression and anxiety
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When Inverness-born Joanne Bell went through a period of severe depression and anxiety she ended up stumbling upon a passion, which she has now turned into a business.
The 40-year-old who lives in Balloch was signed off work and says that writing and journalling her thoughts about how she felt ‘saved her' during this time.
Since then she has launched Write to Thrive, and at the end of 2022 decided to take the step into becoming a life coach, working with individuals one-to-one, within groups and is also doing work for the NHS.
Having previously worked in public relations and then going on to become an English teacher, she has now made the transition to being self-employed.
Speaking at her office at Inverness Creative Academy, Joanne explained a bit about herself: “I left Inverness when I was 17 and went to Edinburgh to study English literature.
“I had my first career in PR, which I loved but it got to the point that I wasn’t fulfilled so I retrained to become an English teacher.
“I loved working with young people and on the side I was writing stories and poems.
“The other thing was that I went through a severe depression and had anxiety so was signed off. The thing that really saved me in that time was writing, journalling, and expressing honestly how I felt.
“I then created my first business Write to Thrive. It’s basically holding space for people to have that connection with themselves – there is so much no noise in our society: podcasts, self-help books, news, and all this stuff. Journalling is that space to come back to yourself and see what is real and true.
“I held my first workshop for it in March 2020 and then covid came around – so I held them online after this.”
Joanne then decided to leave teaching in August 2021, as she felt things were no longer working for her.
“I was in Edinburgh for a long time and I just felt like I had fallen out of love with it,” she said.
“I decided to retrain and I started Joanne Bell coaching at the end of 2022.
“I just want to be able to help other people. I had a fierce inner critic which contributed to depression as I thought I was worthless – I love to work with people who are highly self-critical as I know the other side of it.
“I want people to know that they don’t have to remain the same. They don’t have to stay in the same job or same place.
“We hold this belief that to be loved and accepted we need to achieve certain things and accolades and goals – but that's simply not true.”
She moved her business into the Inverness Creative Academy at the end of September and is enjoying the opportunity to work alongside other like-minded people.
She said: “I missed getting up and going to work so it’s nice to have a space to come – I find it inspiring for creativity."
Joanne offers a range of free resources for journalling on her website and social media page.
