Throwing Hurt (The Boy with the Tennis Balls)

Sometimes when hard things happen, and we feel hurt, we find ourselves holding on to that hurt and then throwing it at other people. My family thinks of this hurt as tennis balls that attach themselves to us during our day. Then, in the evening, and with the people we love the most, we often get rid of these tennis balls by throwing them at our family. Obviously, we don’t want to do this. We don’t want to hurt our families. It’s just that it sometimes feels like we can’t carry these tennis balls (our hurt) anymore. There is another way. When we can recognise that we are hurt (or carrying too many tennis balls), we can talk about how we feel and think of other ways to remove these tennis balls without hurting others.

After 10 years in the corporate world of advertising, Roxanne left to set up her business doing something a little more meaningful. She founded The Hobbs Consultancy – a diversity and inclusion consultancy – after the birth of her eldest son. She believes we can’t have diversity without inclusion. She spends her time supporting adults to show up authentically in the workplace, a large part of which is about understanding our own triggers and biases.

She is also Mum to Leo and Finn, and bores/engages them in equal measure talking about courage and emotions. Her first book, Diverted, was inspired by Leo’s autism diagnosis. This time she wanted to bring that emotional learning to younger readers.