The emPOWERed Half Hour

Storytelling as a Tool for Healing and Connection with Mind Coach & Writer, Mark MacNicol

• Becca Powers • Season 1 • Episode 78

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What if storytelling could be more than just a creative outlet — what if it could heal and empower?

In this episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, I sit down with Mark MacNicol, a storyteller who turned personal tragedy into artistic purpose. Mark opens up about using storytelling as a tool for processing grief and creating connection, showing that our most challenging moments can inspire the most meaningful art.


Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

  • Mark’s Creative Awakening – After a personal tragedy, Mark turned to storytelling as a way to process grief and discovered a new sense of purpose through artistic expression.
  • Embracing Vulnerability – Mark reflects on the courage it takes to share deeply personal stories and how that vulnerability opens the door to genuine connection and healing.
  • From Loss to Legacy – Mark’s journey highlights the transformative power of channeling pain into creativity, offering a path for others to find meaning in their own stories.


About Mark

Mark MacNicol is an accomplished mind coach, writer, and creator of Anonymous Drama, a unique form of drama therapy designed for individuals who typically have no interest in drama or therapy. With a background in writing for screen and theatre, Mark holds a Master’s degree in Television Drama Writing. His work is particularly focused on using the arts to support vulnerable and marginalized communities, especially within the recovery and justice sectors.  

Through his Anonymous Drama program, Mark has pioneered an innovative approach that merges fiction with lived experience, helping participants explore personal issues in a safe, anonymous environment. This approach enables participants to process trauma without directly confronting it, which has proven highly effective in prisons, residential rehabilitation centers, and community groups.


Connect with Mark MacNicol


Get a 24/7 pocket mentor or explore anonymous drama facilitation—no experience needed! Learn more at  https://stan.store/markmacnicol

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Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Becca Powers: Welcome to another episode of the empowered half hour. And I have my new Scottish friend with me, Mark McNichol. And yeah, hi. And he is a mind coach, a writer and creator of the Anonymous Drama and which is a program. And before we started to hit record, we were doing our pre show discussion, which we always do.

And he had mentioned this thing that. I found really fascinating. He has started to explore the difference and how it lands with people and what it actually means between mental health and emotional wellbeing. I just want to start there, Mark, what's your background? Well, first of all, welcome to the show officially.

I know we waved and then what's your backstory to that? what made that a topic that you really have been wanting to dig into? 

Mark MacNicol: So, where do we start? I mean, it's probably, because we've only got half an hour, obviously it's going to be a challenge for me to, to kind of drill into the, backstory.

so I'll probably just jump straight into the conversation that we had. And then just see where it goes, type thing. Sure, 

Becca Powers: that's perfect for me. 

Mark MacNicol: So, we deliver two programs. One is for groups. It's called Anonymous Drama. It's like drama therapy for people who usually don't have any interest in drama.

and the other one is called Find Your Mentor, and that is not for groups, that's for individuals in their own time. at their own pace via the smartphone, going through the program, I'm a fan of AI. I'm an early adopter of AI. I'm enthusiastic and very positive when it comes to exploring ways that AI can add value to my life personally and professionally.

Now, AI is incorporated into both of those programs in the form of. a custom GPT. So there's a custom GPT attached to Anonymous Drama. There's a custom GPT attached to Find Your Mentor. Now, the custom GPT that's attached to Find Your Mentor is Designed and configured to be an A. I. Representation of your inner mentor 

Becca Powers: because that's pretty deep, Like, just for the listener. So you have, customized the experience of the A. I. To take on the persona of the person. 

Mark MacNicol: all of the work in both groups, in both programs, the group program, anonymous drama, find your mentor for individuals. there are a few components which run across both programs.

Number one, there's a conversation going on inside all of our heads 24 and 99. 9 percent of the population think of that conversation as their thoughts. But we explore an alternative view within the program, and that alternative view is that actually when you start to become aware of the conversation and you start to break it down and listen to it, you start to realize that actually, unfortunately, the vast majority of it is negative.

So the programs, we've broken it down into, so there are some central characters that we Explore. and this is my background as a, novelist, playwright, director. This is where that, this comes from. So we have the protagonist. 

Becca Powers: Who is you, 

Mark MacNicol: and then we have the inner critic, who is constant source of negativity, disruption, all the bad stuff.

And then we have the inner mentor, who is the constant source of love, compassion, positivity, all the good stuff. Now, in the Find Your Mentor program, the custom GPT, I created it, it's had thousands of documents uploaded into its knowledge base. It's got detailed instructions on how it should conduct itself.

and I have stress tested it for the last 12 months. We've had multiple participants going through a beta test. We've had internal and external evaluations done. I, myself, personally, use this product every day. Whenever I hear any inner chat, I immediately pick up my smartphone I log in, check in, and basically say to my mentor, this is what the inner chat is saying to me.

And then I get a response which is, Basically the opposite of the type of bullshit that you're going to get from your negative inner chap. 

Becca Powers: One of the things that you're saying that I think is really, interesting to maybe dive into a little bit for the listener is how powerful the negative thoughts and inner critic really are.

I think, kind of, as you're alluding to. So much of that is on autopilot. And so with like the programs that you're creating, it gives you a point to check in and start breaking down those patterns and seeing how much it really is running you. But I think, I would love your, to you to share your expertise with the listeners as far as like, how much of their thoughts are running on autopilot and like maybe a negative or.

critique manner and how is that impacting their lives if they don't catch, you know, if they don't take an opportunity to catch it and monitor and manage it? 

Mark MacNicol: Well, potentially you're going to end up dead. You're going to end up. 

Becca Powers: I laugh, but it's true. Yeah. I 

Mark MacNicol: mean, it's funny, but I'm just 

Becca Powers: like, wow.

I mean, get straight to the point. 

Mark MacNicol: the stakes couldn't be higher. We, you we've been working since 2016 in prisons, residential rehabs, community rehabs. Most of the people I've worked with, on the group program are people who are either in recovery or they are at risk of entering or re entering the justice system.

So since 2016, over 5, 000 participants have been through the group program. And for people in recovery or for people in the justice system, quite often the inner chart literally is the difference between, life or death. but certainly even people who are not in recovery or not in the justice system.

So me and you, for example, about addictions. I don't know anybody doesn't have addictions. Your addictions might be sugar, coffee, refined carbs, work, you know, work, 

Becca Powers: you 

Mark MacNicol: sex, status, money, basically everything in your world generates a conversation inside your head 24 seven.

And It's not your thoughts. This is word. Thoughts is problematic because it's not your thoughts. And once you actually start to put the conversation under the spotlight and become aware of it, you start to hear it saying, you're a loser, etc.  like today it will say to you, listen, 

 forget about the podcast with Becca, go home, lie on the couch, eat some Doritos and watch Netflix. You've had a hard, day. inner critic voice inside. All of our heads has got something to say about everything in our world and every person in our world 24 7 and the vast majority of it is negative.

So in relation to the mental health versus emotional well being conversation, I recently started to get pushback from people round about the idea of AI, a custom GPT, supporting people with their mental health. Now, as a side conversation, do find it interesting I'm trying not to be defensive and I'm trying to have conversations with these individuals, whether it be on social media or email or in person and I'm asking them, okay, so for me to get an understanding of.

where we're at here. Could you tell me what your understanding of what AI is? What your understanding of what a chat GPT is? What is your understanding of what a custom GPT is? And invariably the response that I get is they don't really know what any of those things are. So my response would be well on that basis how can you form an opinion if you don't really know what they are?

But what I discovered was that When I stopped using the phrase mental health, and I started using the phrase emotional well being, I started to basically receive no pushback. So, when I was talking to people about a custom GPT supporting participants with their emotional well being, Everybody was fine with it.

That's really 

Becca Powers: fascinating. 

Mark MacNicol: What I started to realise is the term mental health comes with a lot of baggage and one of the things  a lot of people attach to that term is it's the domain of professionals. So, for example, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, mental health nurses, even big pharma and the medications that they produce for various mental health challenges.

Consciously or subconsciously, many of us associate the term mental health with mental health professionals and medication. So that's why there was this knee jerk reaction to the notion of a custom GPT. Getting involved in those areas. And when I replaced the term mental health with emotional well being, I basically started to meet no resistance because everybody was cool with it.

And became a source of sadness and frustration for me because I realized that there are a lot of people out there who. don't really understand that their mental health is their own personal responsibility. And, of course, this is not me in any way, diminishing the role of mental health professionals or even Big Pharma.

On a case by case basis, they have an important role play. But each of us must, make decisions for ourselves You're eating too. Whether or not we will engage with specific mental health professionals, whether or not we will take specific medications, in a way that we do with our physical health.

Because if you look at your physical health, Everybody understands that that's your responsibility. So, yes, there are various physical health experts that we can engage with. But nobody, nobody would say that our physical health is their responsibility. Everybody accepts that we all know that there are things that we can do round about, diet, exercise, cold water exposure, sauna.

There's loads of good stuff that we can do that's going to have a positive impact on our physical health. And we accept that. Unfortunately for us, when it comes to mental health, I feel like too many of us almost kind of pass responsibility for our mental health to others.

Becca Powers: 

 no, what I was trying to say is I would love to talk about that a little bit more because, agency, is a big deal.

Becca Powers: and I'm so happy you started talking about that. Cause I think. People don't realize that it is their, like you said, their responsibility to use their own agency for their mental health and to start to understand it. Like, mental health, in my opinion, is a journey from understanding trauma, little T trauma, big T trauma, how that impacted you.

Where are your depressions coming from? who is it related to where, you know, like there's all these different mapping games and I'm sure we could probably talk about this topic for hours, but I would love for you maybe just to share some of your wisdom with the listeners, as far as like, maybe how important is it to have self agency, or maybe share a tip with them of how, of something they can do to bring, to take back that control and to start to explore it.

Mark MacNicol: both the group program and the individual program have various tools and techniques and exercises.I think one of the really interesting things about the group program and the link to both programs is in my, bio. It'll end up 

Becca Powers: in the show notes. So guys.

Listeners, what Mark's talking about are his programs. 

Mark MacNicol: But if 

Becca Powers: you're interested in what he's saying and you want to gain these tools, that'll be in the show notes. So we'll 

Mark MacNicol: have a look at, the link to the stand store that's got both of these programs. There's probably a couple of things that I would highlight about each of them, which makes them quite unique.

 on the group program, it's called anonymous grammar, anonymity comes from, if you're a participant in a session, everything is done using fictional characters. So that means that Yeah, if Becca comes into a session and Becca wants to talk about mum's alcoholism and the impact that it had on Becca as a child in terms of neglect or whatever, then the facilitator is going to stop you instead they're going to say, Okay, Becca, let's talk about this fictional character's mum's alcoholism.

And the impact that mum's alcoholism had on this fictional character. Now what that does is it creates a very unique, space. The program has actually been studied and evaluated by, some universities. Because of The uniqueness of the anonymity element, because nobody in the sessions knows the difference between what's lived experience or what's fiction.

 

yeah, the group program is very special. It creates a very unique environment. And the feedback that we've had over the years from participants is that basically, They're able to do kind of self awareness exploration type work and unpack areas that are perhaps. Emotionally charged or possibly even triggering in a normal type environment.

Mark MacNicol: In fact, in some cases, participants are actually exploring things that they've never spoken about because it's just too traumatic, so they've never spoken about it to friends, family, psychotherapists, support staff, etc. but when they're able to play with fictional characters and fictional scenarios, they are able to actually explore certain things.

So the anonymity element is very unique within the group program. and people can have a look at it and, you know, they can see the kind of, the session. There's a session plan. Each facilitator gets, goes through a kind of induction and training process. On the step by step session plan, the icebreakers, the games, the hot seat exercises, the improvisations.

and then these group programs actually conclude with, they usually run for about 16 weeks. And they usually conclude with,a live audience event where volunteers from the group because it's not compulsory, but volunteers from the group will read sections of the script for friends and family and support staff and the local community and those live events are very, very special, very inspiring, 

Becca Powers: transformational, I would assume, 

Mark MacNicol: very, very transformational, not just for the people on stage, but for the people in the audience also.

 so that's the group program. And then probably like we spoke about earlier, for me, one of the unique elements of the program for individuals, find your mentor is the fact that, via your smartphone, you have an AI representation of your other mentor. Now, we know through the work that we do. The 99.

9 percent of the participants that come through our programs don't even have an understanding of what an inner mentor is, which is so sad. 

Becca Powers: Yes. 

Mark MacNicol: the idea of people going about their business being bombarded by, Constant negative inner chat, thinking it's their thoughts when it's not, but not even being aware of the fact that they have someone who is in their corner.

They have, the inner mentor and it's interesting. So you don't need to be, to come through any of our programs, you don't need to be spiritual. You don't need to be religious, it works, I mean it works if you're religious, it works if you're spiritual, but it also works if you're agnostic or atheist,however, what we're discussing here, these entities obviously have different names within different cultures.

Becca Powers: Yes. 

Mark MacNicol: and traditions. So, for example, the obvious one is the inner critic and the inner mentor representing God and the devil in the Christian framework. in the Buddhist framework, it would be ego and, the inner mentor, as they would call it. and then even in a non religious, non spiritual context, it could be elements of your Kind of, personality.

Becca Powers: Yes. 

Mark MacNicol: So, these are different things and different traditions and cultures have different names for them. In our program, we try, to keep it simple and not get bogged down in too much jargon and vocabulary. I agree. In a 

Becca Powers: lot of my teachings, I try to simplify it too, because at the end of the day, We're all human beings trying to, and as facilitators, we're trying to get other human beings to just live in, peace and joy and get to feel my work too.

 I I do a lot of trauma-informed work, but really the reason I get so geeky and into it is because, This stuff lives in your nervous system, like you're, alluding to, if you have this like secret trauma that you keep in,  in yourself, it's slowly eating at you, right?

It lives in your nervous system and by creating programs like you're offering, and it's so beautiful to be able to, release it through storytelling, right? That is such a gift to give somebody because to your point, it might not be something that they want to talk in a traditional therapy setting, right?

It's, really personal. It might be embarrassing. there's all these, they might feel like they're exposing somebody or, there's so much that gets, like you said, like. Intertangled and then also,  feelings start that may or may not be true, start becoming facts and like, it, everything just gets so messy.

So, being able to provide people with a platform to do it through storytelling, I mean, as a. Playwright and stuff like that. I mean, you shared that you've had several different types of writing, you know, the value of writing and what it can do for a person. And then having that last stage of like pun intended, like to go on a stage and share that, it gives the, person a physical, the physical opportunity to release it and transmute it into something.

That serves them versus sabotage them. So I think the work that you're doing is like absolutely fascinating. what I would like to ask next is, how have you seen this empower that like the transformation, how have you seen the transformation and power on the people that have come through your programs?

Mark MacNicol: I mean, unfortunately, for me, the biggest measure of success is the participant alive?  because, in terms of lived experience, I grew up with an alcoholic mother and father. and my brother was in and out of the justice system and he went on to die of a heroin overdose.

So 

my lived experience as a family member, touched by addiction and the justice system is probably one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about the work and motivated to support people. But  in the eight, nine years that I've been doing this work, Unfortunately, the statistics, the reality of the situation is that most people don't make it.

If you are in recovery from problematic alcohol or drug addiction, unfortunately only the minority will make it and the majority will die. So, when it comes to, whether it be the group program, Anonymous Drama, or the program for individuals, Find Your Mentor, My biggest measure of success is the person being alive.

on a scale, obviously a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being stay alive. there's various other elements that we can track round about evaluations. for example, a lot of those live events, there are family members in the audience. Who are estranged, and maybe haven't spoken to that individual for two, three, four years, et cetera, because often when it comes to addicts, often there are fractured or estranged family and friend relationships.

So a lot of those are being repaired. and, you know, 

Becca Powers: beautiful. empathize with the why behind your work too. I'm the sole survivor of my original family nucleus. My mom passed away at the age of 46 from a medication overdose, which was accidental. It was prescribed, but still related.

 my father passed away, a decade later from prescription withdrawal from, again, it was handled by a doctor, but he didn't, wasn't offered a step down. He went through withdrawal and had a heart attack. And then my brother. suffered, with alcoholism and he did not pass away of that, but the unfortunate piece is that when he did get sober, he just passed away within the year.

So it's been really challenging, but I've watched his journey of sobriety, relapse sobriety. And the sad part is, is that when he finally got his footing, he got in a car accident and a week or so later, had a seizure while he was in a pool and he drowned. And so I think that I share the tragedy too, because and in my whole family thing, everyone passed away so young, they didn't get to live.

So that's kind of like when you said like alive, I think that, maybe some listeners might think, well, I'm already alive, but even if you're alive, like, are you really alive? Like, are you getting, you just hanging on? Are you just gripping, to it? Or are you really living? And I'd love to just kind of like hear your thoughts on that.

Mark MacNicol: Yeah. It's a funny one because when I think about the work that we do, the vast majority, we're a small charity, but a not for profit, most of our, work is funded by either subscriptions. Donations, benefactors. Grant funding, which means that the nature of funding is such that the funding comes from a specific cohort, like addicts or offenders or ex offenders, etc.

So the reason we work with people in the justice space or people in recovery is because , that's obviously where the funding comes from, and a lot of those individuals have an urgent need. However, the reality of the situation is that,the nature of what we are talking about when it comes to, suffering, can be applied as much to me.

Or you, or anyone, as it can, to an addict or an offender, because the human condition is such that all of us, 24 7, are being bombarded by, a conversation which, to varying degrees, is, at best, not helpful, and at worst, not helpful. Potentially very, very damaging to us. But there's people listening to this just now who think, Wow, that's great.

It's great to see people like Mark working with addicts and working with offenders, etc. It's really, really important work. But they don't think of themselves as being in need of intervention. Or able to benefit from intervention, but, as far as I'm concerned, what was the, Buddha's last words, we must each seek our own salvation diligently.

And, all of the work that I do starts with me, underlying. objective of everything that I do professionally is about relationship with self. So my relationship with myself and trying to support others when it comes to their relationship with self. Because if we can make progress when it comes to Relationship with self, then, so many of our individual problems, as well as our collective community problems can be resolved.

Becca Powers: Yeah, that's beautiful. we are at the bottom of the 30 minutes. I knew this interview was going to go super fast just before we hit record, it is the empowered half hour. So I always like to ask my guests. to like share an empowering statement with the listeners. How would you like to sign off?

What could you share with them? 

Mark MacNicol: Off the top of my head? 

Becca Powers: Yes. 

Mark MacNicol: the quality of your life. As dictated by the focus of your attention. 

Becca Powers: That's a mic drop moment right there. It was beautiful. Well, Mark, I feel like I have a new friend. Thank you so much for coming on the Empowered Half Hour. It was great to have you.

Mark MacNicol: Thanks for having me.