This is the bracelet I wore to Cybermummy this weekend. In case you don’t recognise the symbol, it’s a Save the Children one, and on the back is engraved “Every Child Born To Shine”.

I lay in my hotel room the following morning, ribs aching from laughing, heart aching from unexpected feeling, and head a little numb from thinking, and rubbed the red token with my thumb in the sunshine coming through the blind. And I thought back on the last year.

Thinking about last year’s Cybermummy I suddenly realised how much I’d changed, and how much those changes have affected the way I approach and experience things. Not just things like Cybermummy, everything really, but comparing myself at the two events really hit home.

Last year’s saw me full of self-doubt, feeling like I had something to prove, feeling like I needed to convince everyone that I had something to say that was worth listening – brands as well as people. In a room full of mostly strangers I felt small. Standing up to deliver my talk about blogging and authenticity and voice as part of the main panel session, something I had anxiously worried over long before-hand, I felt like a fraud, like I didn’t deserve to be there and I worried that everyone else thought it, too. This meant I tried a bit too hard, I think. It certainly meant I worried more, a bundle of self-concious nerves with a slightly forced face of confidence and a ‘I belong here’ attitude to try and convince myself.

But by the end of the weekend I wasn’t in a room full of strangers any more, and my voice had reached people that I never would have expected, prompting an email a couple of weeks later from Save the Children and the beginning of that amazing journey and all the changes that followed.

Then there was this year. I walked into the bigger, brighter, louder, busier Cybermummy, a year older, tireder, considerably less married, considerably wiser and considerably thinner than last year. And I still felt, it has to be said, and looked mostly likely, like a deer in the headlights. It always surprises people that I’m not great in big crowds, and that’s something I can’t see changing. But it was a different slightly shaky Josie that weaved her way through the brand stalls and milling, equally nervous-looking crowds. This year I didn’t care. I’m not perfect, people know that, and I’ve stopped trying to be. This year, for the first time, I was unapologetically myself. Quiet at times, sociable at others. I felt no need to impress anyone, to prove anything. THIS year’s Josie just wanted to connect with and love the people she loved, and not worry too much about everything else. I felt deep appreciation for the people around me. Good people, funny and interesting and generous. People who had supported me and who I had supported and I felt so grateful to know them and to have made such good friends.

And then when I went to support the ‘How to be an Activist Blogger’ session, and my Blogladesh buddy and Cybermummy founder Sian stood up to speak about our experiences in Bangladesh and found herself too upset to continue, it was still a fairly wobbly me that stood up to go and stand on stage and take over, but one that was used to speaking in public these days with only a slight case of the goose pimples to give away my nerves, And I was able to speak passionately and fluently, I hope, because I was talking about something I’m hard-wired to feel and to express now and something I care deeply about, that matters far more than ‘how good is my blog’ or being ‘liked’ or impressing anyone. I sat down and cried and that was okay too.

Walking back into ‘Cybermummy Central’ surrounded by baby-centric brand tables and eager PRs I realised how much blogging had changed for me and it was hard not to feel a little empty. Learning about SEO and marketing and the like is useful, it is, but I found myself wishing for a conference focused more on developing a confident voice and learning how to use it, more of the wonderful stories that INSPIRE blogging, rather than brands to write about. I would liked to have seen a greater focus on individuality in blogs, I would have liked more speakers that inspired bravery and creativity in blogging. I would have liked more about real life and how blogging enhances and empowers that rather than how to make your life and writing ‘fit’ blogging. I would liked to have learnt more from the boundary-pushers. There was a lingering sense that the power of bloggers, not just to sell stuff, but to really lead the voice of powerful, thinking, feeling, hurting, loving, joyous parents had somehow not quite been appreciated or made the most of. But’s that’s me, and certainly not a reflection on the event or the people that spoke there. I was just left a little hungry for more – and that’s a good thing.

We’re NEARLY there, I think. And Cybermummy is a fabulous event and one I am always proud to attend – I absolutely raise my hat to the organisers and love what they have created, in just two years an amazing social and warm networking experience. But more than anything I don’t want to see complacency, in myself as well as in blogging and in events like Cybermummy. I have a lot more growing and learning to do, and UK blogging has too, parent blogging in particular. I think we should be excited by that, recognising we have something powerful here, on a personal and political level. But we need to be brave, and not afraid to be ourselves, or different, or challenging, but recognise the need for continued respect and mutual support, too.

I wore my bracelet not just as a symbol of Save the Children and how much that journey has changed my life, but also as a symbol of me, and as a talisman of it being okay to have changed, and to feel, of everything the last year has held and meant and everything I hope and feel about the future. It’s just the beginning for me really, with likely many more mistakes and triumphs, and I’m looking forward to using blogging to chronicle that, and to watching how it evolves too.

Here’s to all of us, and all we learn along the way.

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Now it’s your turn. What did you choose to write about this week?

Leave your name and the URL to your post in the Linky below (the URL should be to your post not just to your blog) – it’ll be open til Sunday night so if you haven’t had chance to respond yet, then you’ve got plenty of time to join in. Don’t forget that anyone can take part! New prompts will be up this time next week, so I hope to see you back soon.

Welcome to Monday’s Writing Workshop prompts! There’s going to be a slightly different format this week as I’ve decided to give you all an extra day to respond to the prompts. Our workshop will now be held on a THURSDAY so I, umm, I mean you all have a bit of extra time to write. What do you reckon? Good idea?

For any  newbies (and it’s never to late to join in), here’s how it works… I’m going to give you 5 writing/blogging prompts. Pick one, pick two, or do them all if you’re really keen – it’s up to you. How you respond is your choice. You could share a real-life story, or make one up. You could write a poem or just free-write without thinking too hard and see what happens. It can be funny; it can be serious; it can be emotional. It can be whatever you want it to be. The only rule is to have fun with it!

Prompts each week will take their inspiration from blogs, current affairs, daily life, or just whatever everyone happened to be talking about that week. If you’d like to suggest a prompt then send me an email or catch me on Twitter – I would love to hear your ideas.

So here they are:

1. Tell me about a time where you refused to compromise. What was it about? Do you regret your decision?
- Inspired by Jo at Slummy Single Mummy and her post: ‘The sacrifices you make as a parent – and the ones you won’t…’

2. What do people always wrongly assume about you? Time to set the record straight people!!!
- Inspired by Bare-Naked Mummy’s fab post on why, unequivocally, DEFINITELY Welsh people are NOT posh!

3. What have the voices in your head been saying lately? Write a conversation with yourself.
- Inspired by Manic Mummy’s blog post: ‘Is it me, or…’

4. Your prompt is ‘Together’. Share a scene or write something that encapsulates this feeling for you.
- Inspired by Noble Savage’s beautiful post: ‘Sunday Mothering’

5. What exciting job would you like to do for a day?
- Inspired by my poetical musings this week.

Now here’s what you have to do. Write your post and publish it on your blog between now and THURSDAY. On Thursday come back and use the widget that will be up to paste in the URL of your post to share. Then take some time to read some of the other entries and leave some comment love! We’re not here to critique – just to have fun and support each other in our writing experiments. So be kind please.

Anyone who would like to submit something via email, or even anonymously will be more than welcome to do so. I’ll post them on the site here and include the link in Thursday’s round-up.

Feel free to use the Workshop badge on your blog or as part of your post if you like. Code is here:

<a href=”http://sleepisfortheweak.org.uk”><img src=”http://i270.photobucket.com/albums/jj90/flowerfairy82/WritingWorkshopBadge.jpg”></a>

Note: I’m told Blogger does something a bit funny with the code so you’ll need to copy and paste it and then retype the quotation marks (“) as Blogger changes them for some reason.

See you Thursday then!

P.S. And if you fancy plugging this workshop on the social network of your choice? Then that would be fan-frigging-tastic.

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This Writing Workshop is brought to you in association with Mama Kat’s Losin’ It – who’s lovely author came up with the concept and runs her own workshop over in the U.S.