Meet Rosie Mitchell

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Rosie Mitchell. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Rosie below.

Hi Rosie, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.

Remaining optimistic can sometimes be a struggle for most people in the world we live in and especially when you’ve got a mental illness. I was diagnosed many years ago with Bipolar disorder. Mental health is a spectrum and lots of people are out there struggling to mask. The world needs more people with a mental health problem to be visible through poetry and all art forms. Optimism is sometimes illusive nevertheless, I chase it. I feel optimistic because of the sunshine that lights up my soul all the more because of the times when my soul feels like stormy weather and treacherous waters. Learning to sit with my emotions and feel them rather than running away from them can be uncomfortable. This can also be the key to writing something that is real, raw and honest and when you’re lucky a poem that is a byproduct of the pain. A beautiful byproduct of bipolar.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I write poetry that is often confessional, dark and raw. My poetry journey began when I was around eleven years of age and it helped me to reflect on the growing pains of life and relationships and it still very much does. My first collection of poetry will be published this year, titled “One mile to sane”.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Words hold the power to restore, heal, motivate and inspire. Life can knock you down sometimes but somewhere inside us all is a fighting spirit. Somewhere inside us all is a will to keep going even if we have to stop a thousand times along the way. We have to go to war sometimes with ourselves to find the material we need to write. I’ve accrued the attribute of perseverance over the years because life has tested me. Persevering after loss, after heartbreak and after the loss of self. Writing a poem instead of self sabotaging is a beautiful place to get to in life and sometimes I still struggle with that. Every time I reach that place it fills me with appreciation. The appreciation of doing something good for myself. The appreciation of the fact that right now I am writing instead of doing a million things that are harmful to me. Writing is the purest alchemy of pain and torment turned into something more bearable, more beautiful, more manageable . We put our emotions onto paper to transform them into something else, a poem.

Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?

I practice different techniques to help me to cope on a bus or train carriage when I’m feeling anxious let alone getting on stage to perform poetry. I’ll never find it easy.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @rosiemitchellpoetry