A personal reflection on the stories we carry — and the conversations we have with ourselves and others, that can influence us when we least expect them.

A few months ago, a friend of mine started working with “Lifeblood”. And somewhere in the middle of congratulating him, I found myself pausing on the word itself and curiously exploring what it brought up for me.

Lifeblood.

Not blood as a medical term. Blood as what keeps things moving. Blood as what matters.

Not long after, I was invited to share a story at Story Nights by one of my network. The theme, as it happened, was “Blood”. My first instinct was to hesitate — I didn't think I had a story to tell.

But that word was still sitting with me. So I decided to go a little deeper.

That's when they started surfacing. Quietly. One by one. Moments I hadn't thought about in years, or hadn't thought about at all. Turns out I had more stories than I realised.

I just hadn't invested the time to explore.

The Yard

My first memory took me back to playground duty. I was a teacher for many years, and I loved it — genuinely loved it. But there was always a quiet anxiety that came with standing in that yard, watching children run and climb and dare each other into things.

I remember constaantly thinking- Please don't fall. Please don't fall. And experience that even now when at the park with our grandchildren.

A scraped knee I could manage. A bandaid, a reassuring word, back to class. But real blood — a child in real distress — that felt like another level entirely. I was never quite sure I had what that moment would need.

Then one lunchtime, it happened. I wasn't on duty — but I was there. A child fell badly enough that someone called an ambulance. I never actually saw the blood. What I remember is the sound of something wrong travelling across the yard, the way the other children moved toward it, and my job in that moment — keep them back, keep them calm, hold the edges together while someone else handled the centre.

You don't always have to see something to feel the weight of it. Sometimes it's there — just beneath the surface.

My Daughter

Then one day it wasn't a student. It was my own daughter.

She was about two years old playing with a small group of friends while the mothers chatted. They were having a great time as we shared our parenting challenges of being new mums. And then she came running in, with blood streaming down her forehead and a cut , no bigger than my fingertip. So small.

Yet there was so much blood! It ran into her hair, down her face, onto my hands as I lifted her. She cried. I was rattled.

Later, the doctor said — kindly, casually — "Head wounds bleed a lot." As if understanding the reason changes how it feels in your body.

That night, after she settled as if nothing had happened, I stood at the sink washing my hands longer than I needed to. Not because they were dirty. Because the moment wouldn't leave me. There's something about seeing your child bleed that bypasses every rational thought you have. It just lands, somewhere deep, and stays there.

More dinners, more phone calls, more of him

My Dad

Not long after that, blood appeared again. Quietly this time, and in a completely different way.My dad was ill and needed it. Leukaemia — no visible wound, no dramatic moment. Just blood that had stopped doing what blood is meant to do. He had numerous transfusions into his arm. A clear bag. A thin line. Steady and slow.

Other peoples’ blood. Keeping my father alive.

I didn't know those people. I still don't. They gave something of themselves — probably on an ordinary Tuesday, probably without thinking too much about it. Just a quiet act of generosity in the middle of an ordinary day.

My dad got ten years. Eighteen months they said. He got ten years. More dinners. More phone calls. More of him.

In more recent times, I have read and learnt that blood can be separated, that one donation can help more than one person, that what flows through us is more generous in its possibilities than I'd ever understood.

My Husband

Then there was my husban a couple of years ago now. A tree branch, a saw, one ordinary weekday afternoon when the pool inspection was being finaalised — an ordinary type of day completely unremarkable until it isn't.

The slip happened fast. The blood followed. I wanted to help, but I'd recently had knee surgery and couldn't drive. I found myself suddenly useless in exactly the moment I most wanted to be useful. The pool inspector who happened to be there saw it and stepped back — not a judgment, just his honest truth about his own limits. He could not cope with blood.

Fortunately, our friend and neighbour was a nurse, and home. Calm hands, steady voice. She wrapped my husband's hand like it was simply part of the day — like this was just what you do when someone needs you.

I've thought about that a lot since. How differently these moments land on different people. Some faint. Some freeze. Some step forward without hesitation. I've been all three, at different points in my life, depending on the day.

What I Haven't Done

So here's the thing I hadn't expected to say out loud.

After all of that — my daughter's face, my father's arm, my husband's hand, the stranger who gave something of themselves on an ordinary Tuesday so that my dad could have ten more years — I have never given blood myself.

I don't have a good reason. I've just never quite got around to it. And sitting with that, really sitting with it, I found I wasn't entirely comfortable with how that felt.

A stranger gave something of themselves on an ordinary Tuesday. My dad got ten years. More dinners. More phone calls. More of him. And I've never done the same for anyone.

Maybe you have. Maybe you haven't. Maybe, like me, you didn't think you had a story here — until you dig a little deeper into your memories.

I'm not sure I have a tidy conclusion to offer. What I do know is that the act of going deeper — of sitting with something instead of scrolling past it — tends to reveal more than we expect. More feeling. More connection. More of ourselves.

And maybe that's enough of a reason to do it.

Creating Spaces to Go Deeper

I've spent a long time thinking about what it takes for people to have conversations that actually matter. Not the surface exchanges — the how-are-yous and the weather and the what-do-you-dos. The ones that leave you feeling like you actually know someone a little better. Including, sometimes, yourself.

And it's also why, in June, I'm hosting a small curated dinner in Melbourne — The Conversations That Change Us. Fourteen seats. A thoughtful evening. No panels, no pitches, no pressure to perform. Just a group of curious, generous people and the kind of space that most professional events never quite create.

If you were at our last dinner on Fulfilment, you'll know that not every conversation that matters is about business. This one will be no different.

The Conversations That Change Us · Melbourne · 18 June · 14 seats

kerryn-powell.com.au/shop/in-person-dinner

The conversations that find us when we go a little deeper are often the ones worth having. I hope you find a few of them this month.

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Going Beneath the Surface