The Changes Q&A - Georgina Jones

Georgina Jones is a speaker, creative facilitator, author, and co-founder of the community project Grief Disco.

At the heart of Grief Disco is a belief: grief and joy can exist together, and that dance music, dancing and singing can help people express things that words can’t. Through events, workshops and training, they create spaces where people can connect, remember the people they love, and feel less alone.

What is your relationship to the word “change”?

Change is in my DNA. As a dyslexic creative, I live in it every single day. It’s not something that happens to me; it’s the way my brain works, the way I move through the world.

I’ve never lived in someone else’s head, so I genuinely can’t compare, but inside mine it’s rapid and alive. Ideas arrive sideways. Solutions come from strange places. I’ve always had to find a different route to get where I’m going and somewhere along the way I stopped seeing that as a problem and started seeing it as the whole point.

When have you felt the most ‘changed’ in your life?

Most of my motherhood has been spent grieving. That sounds like it’s been a terrible time. It hasn’t. It has been a balance of pain and beauty.

When I first became a mother I grieved my old life, the freedom, the city breaks and time that wasn’t accounted for. I missed the version of myself who could just get up and go. Then I grieved the motherhood I’d imagined, the connection I didn’t have. I was living in a new town, with no friends and family miles away. The reality was lockdown, sharing moments with family on Zoom, no baby groups and no community.

And then, just as life was finding its way back to something like normal, I found out I was pregnant with my son Osian. I went into early labour at twenty-three weeks, and we spent four hundred and thirty-five days in hospital with him.

Four hundred and thirty-five days.

Living between the ward and home, with a two-year-old at home and a baby in hospital, I needed to be in both places at the same time. I had to close my business, stop my career and become a carer and a mum. I would look at myself in the mirror and think, who are you? But if you asked me to do it again, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Then when Osian died in 2023 after sixteen months of the bravest fight, I experienced the loss of a child, the deepest grief imaginable.

A few months after Osian died, I had a strong desire to dance. I ignored the voice in my head telling me that grieving parents don’t go clubbing in Ibiza and went with my partner Dave, Osian’s dad.

We went to see Groove Armada at Pacha. At first, I thought it had been a terrible idea. Then something shifted. As I got into it, I felt my grieving body come back to life. I felt less numb, less alone and more connected to myself and the people around me.

That night, I realised dancing was going to help me carry my grief.

When I got home, my friend Leah and I started going dancing together to house nights in Cardiff. Somewhere along the way, one of us had the idea for a grief rave. The more we talked about it, the more we realised that grief touches everyone and not everyone identifies with rave culture. We wanted it to feel open and welcoming, so the idea evolved into Grief Disco.

We put the first event on sale summer 2024 expecting friends and family to come along. The moment we knew it might actually be a good idea was when we started seeing names we didn’t recognise buying tickets.

We had no idea if it would work. Would people dance? Would they think we were making light of grief? The response was incredible. That first event felt like a party, a safe space and a room full of love. There were tears and laughter, dancing and remembering. People honoured the people they missed, connected with strangers who understood, and lost themselves in some brilliant music for a few hours. It was everything we had hoped for and more.

Who was the last person to change your mind and what opinion or perspective was changed?

My son, Osian.

Before he was born, I believed life was measured by milestones, achievements, and longevity. We celebrate long lives, successful lives, productive lives. Osian changed that completely. He lived for just sixteen months, yet his impact was greater than many people who live into old age.

He taught me that the value of a life isn’t measured in years but in love. He changed my perspective on what matters. I no longer believe a meaningful life has to be long, busy or impressive. I believe it has to be felt. People talk about “quality of life” with illness. I now know what quality of life is. It is not what you have; it is what you experience.

His life continues to change my mind every day. I am passionate about never forgetting the rawness of life that I experienced.

What book changed you and why?

The Joy Reset by Mary Catherine McDonald. In our Grief Discos, we give out permission slips at the door. This is a reminder to our guests that they can lean into joy. Grief steals that from us sometimes.

I knew this on an intuitive level, but not on a scientific one, until I read The Joy Reset. Here was a book that said, in the language of research and evidence, exactly what I’d been saying; that joy and grief can coexist. Looking for love in the middle of loss isn’t a betrayal. Joy is not happiness, and joy can survive in the worst of environments.

Reading it, I felt like I wasn’t making it up. That mattered more than I can say.

What change are you going through right now?

The change I’m going through is trusting in singing. Since January I have found my way back to my singing voice and started using singing more in my work. I’ve watched grieving people soften when they sing. I’ve watched stressed leaders breathe differently. I’ve watched mothers who arrive exhausted leave lighter.

I am trusting singing more. Trusting that it has value. Trusting that it can help people. Trusting something that has always been there but that I perhaps never fully appreciated.

What change would you like to make to your life in the future?

So much has changed in my life, but one thing about me didn’t change: my relationship with joy.

For information on Grief Disco events, Run Your Own Grief Disco training sessions, and Singing sessions go to: www.griefdisco.com

Instagram: @griefdisco_