Returning to the Well | Healing the Mother Wound
Kindling the Fire
Reclaiming the Ancestral Story
Embodying Sovereignty & Agency - Honouring the Ancestral Lineage
This is the final course in the four-part Returning to the Well series.
It can be taken as part of the course series or standalone.
This is a self-paced, reflective online course
You are invited to move slowly, to pause when needed, and to return to the material in your own time.
The work is offered with care, spaciousness, and respect for each person’s pace and inner world.
An Invitation
In many lives, the Mother Wound carries more than personal pain—it carries ancestral patterns, unspoken traumas, and silences passed through the maternal line. These inherited stories shape how we move, speak, and claim our place in the world. Kindling the Fire invites you to meet this ancestral terrain with courage, tenderness, and clarity. Here, we explore how inherited wounds can affect your sense of self, especially as you begin to differentiate, step into your own ground, and claim your personal agency. This course honours both the beauty and the sorrows of what came before, holding space for healing that is gentle, rooted, and real.
Rooted in Irish Myth & Ancestral Memory
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The Heart of This Course
This course explores the Mother Wound through an ancestral lens—examining how we inherit not only strengths but also the wounds of those who came before us. By understanding and reclaiming both the ancestral story and your own inner authority, you begin sacred healing and restoration of your personal sovereignty and agency.
You are guided to meet the guilt, grief, fear, and self-sabotage that can arise on the path of differentiation. This is not about blame, but about awareness, compassion, and reclaiming the quiet power within you.
Through a journey inward, you deepen your connection to ancestral story, learn to trust your intuition, and awaken creativity, inner wisdom, and a grounded purpose.
Join Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin in your very own returning to the well. Together, we will explore, through the work of Psychotherapy, Depth Psychology and Irish Mythology, and Folklore where we can begin to meet what was hidden and reclaim your inner wholeness.
Themes We Explore Together
Themes explored include:
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Recognising and understanding ancestral patterns, unspoken traumas, and emotional burdens passed through the maternal line
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Reclaiming sovereignty by establishing healthy boundaries and releasing what is not yours to carry.
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Stepping into personal agency and assertiveness, grounded in somatic awareness and inner trust.
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Sitting with guilt, shame, or discomfort as you grow beyond inherited roles or expectations.
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Noticing and steering self‑sabotage as it appears, especially when forging new ground.
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Honouring both strengths and sorrows of lineage, weaving ancestral wisdom into your path.
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Growing appreciation for Irish myth, folklore, language, poetry, and the wisdom of ancestors as enriching, soul-guiding presence
You are invited to meet these themes with clarity, compassion, and steady presence.
This course is for you if…
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You feel the echoes of ancestral pain—unspoken grief, inherited patterns, or emotional burdens—and wish to bring them into consciousness to begin healing.
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You are navigating the tender path of individuation and seek to step into your own ground of being, even amid resistance, guilt, or fear.
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You sense creative gifts, inner wisdom, or intuitive voice that were silenced long ago, and you are ready to reclaim them in the quiet rhythm of your soul.
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You are drawn to Irish myth, folklore, landscape, and heritage and wish to root your healing in cultural and spiritual inheritance.
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You wish to honour both the strength and sorrow of those who came before, so you can walk forward with greater clarity, agency, and compassion.
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You are engaged in psychotherapy or personal development and are curious to explore myth, ancestry, and soul through a depth psychological lens.
What is included?
This course is educational and reflective in nature and is offered as a supportive complement to personal or therapeutic work.
A Self-Paced Online Course you can return to at any time
120+ Minutes of Immersive Video Content
45+ Page Companion E-Workbook for reflection and integration
Space for journaling, contemplation, and embodied listening
Instant access with unlimited lifetime availability
CPD Certification for Irish Professionals
A Depth Psychology Experience Rooted in the Irish Mythology
Kindling the Fire Online course is an immersive, visceral, odyssey of the soul and spirit with sweeping images of the Irish landscape, music, myth poetry and ritual to support you to connect to your inner world and soul self.
Continue the Journey
About
Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin
BSocSc, MA Social Work, MA Psychotherapy, Dip Supervision, Dip Jungian Psychology, Certified Coach (WCI)
I am a Humanistic and Integrative Psychotherapist, Supervisor, and Personal Development Coach with over 20 years of experience. I work internationally and am dual-located in the US and Ireland (in Northern Nevada and on the West Coast of Ireland, in Connemara). I work from a Jungian and depth-oriented perspective, integrating Jungian Psychology, Psychodynamic and somatic therapies.
I grew up in Connemara, a wild and rugged landscape on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Oscar Wilde famously said of the region, “Connemara is a savage beauty”. I grew up in a small, rural Gaeilge (Irish) speaking community where Gaeilge is my first language, and is still spoken today in people's homes. This area was a major centre for the work of the Irish Folklore Commission, recording endangered folklore, mythology, sean-nós (old-style) songs, and oral literature. I have been greatly influenced by the wild physical landscape and immersed in those ancient songs, stories, customs, myths, legends, and music since childhood.
My work interweaves the Gaelic (Irish) World and Otherworld with Jungian Depth Psychology. The Gaelic world, with its symbols, language, myth, folklore, literature and heritage, becomes a doorway through which you can enter and explore your own inner landscape. I desire to share with you a felt sense of that ancient culture and spirit and, as a Psychotherapist, support how that connection can nourish and guide you on your personal development journey.
Returning to the Well Online Course Series
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The Great Mother
The Guardian of the Well
Nurturing a Relationship with the Great Mother Archetype - Embodying your Sensing, Intuitive, Soul Self. -
The Dark Mother
Entering the Sacred Grove
Encountering the Shadow in the Mother Wound -
Blessing the Waters
The Inner Child
Embracing the Inner Child - Cultivating the Great Mother Within -
Kindling the Fire
Reclaiming the Ancestral Story
Embodying Sovereignty & Agency - Honoring the Ancestral Lineage
What is included?
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We will begin by Crossing the Threshold—the Opening Ritual that guides all of my Deepening the Senses Programs, Courses, and Workshops. In this space, we create a container for our work together and set our individual and collective intentions.
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We begin by introducing the themes of the course in a 30-minute immersive video presentation to explore ideas, images, and reflections from the world of Depth psychology, philosophy, literature, Irish folklore, and poetry. We will explore the emotions that are stirring within the theme and how this learning can be a rich source of knowledge to support us in developing a relationship with our inner world and soul self.
After the seminar, there will be a time for reflection, a space for you to note your experience through awareness, journal invitations, and personal reflection.
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In this section, we will deepen into story and mythology with a visual meditation of sweeping footage of the Irish landscape. You will hear stories from mythology or Irish folklore to deepen into myth, ancient customs and practices of the ancient Gaelic world, drawing on somatic practices throughout to support you in your body, to enhance this visual experience. For our ancestors, the world of storytelling, poetry, songs, and folktales shared around the hearth at night provided an escape from a harsh existence—an escape that brought them into the unseen world of imagination, psyche, and spirit. We will become curious about what images are stirring our own imagination from these ancient stories and images, and deepen our relationship to our soul selves.
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This second seminar deepens into the theme and is a visual meditation incorporating poetry music, art, literature, with sweeping images of the visceral beauty of the Irish landscape. This seminar continues the exploration through the lens of Depth Psychology, support you on the path of discovery and self-development.
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Here, we sit at the symbolic hearth to create a pause and space for reflection. I share insights with you on the key themes, from my work with clients and those who attended live Gatherings over the years. This is designed to support you in your own integration of the learning thus far.
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This is the final video module, where we capture the essence of the course's learning, sharing rich reflections, images, and lessons from the collective experience. We explore how you will apply this learning to your daily life.
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We will cross back over the threshold again, returning to our initial starting place of ritual, the container of our work together, where we will close this work again in ritual. From here, we return to our everyday lives, inspired and curious about what new perspectives, new understandings, and awareness we can bring with us, from the Deepening the Senses experience.
This course is for you if…
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You feel the echoes of ancestral pain—unspoken grief, inherited patterns, or emotional burdens passed down through your lineage—and wish to bring them into consciousness and begin to heal it.
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You’re navigating the tender path of individuation, seeking to step into your own ground of being while facing resistance, guilt, or fear around separating from inherited roles or expectations.
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You sense that your creative gifts, inner wisdom, or intuitive voice were silenced long ago, and you’re ready to reclaim them by listening to the quiet rhythm of your soul.
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You’re drawn to the deep well of Irish myth, folklore, landscape and heritage and yearn to root your healing in that cultural and spiritual inheritance.
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You want to acknowledge both the strength and the sorrow of those who came before you, to honour yourself and those who follow—so you can walk with greater clarity, agency and compassion.
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This offering is relevant to you if you are engaged in psychotherapy or interested in personal development and curious to learn more about the Gaelic world as a lens into your inner world and soul self.
Listen to a short excerpt…
Seminar #1
Mythology
Reflections at the Hearth
You will learn how to…
Through guided practices, depth inquiry, and gentle embodiment work, this course will help you:
Learn how to meet the Ancestral Story and unearth intergenerational patterns, to understand the voices behind the wounding.
How to Reclaim Sovereignty by establishing and creating boundaries and release what is not yours to carry..
Reclaim sovereignty by stepping into your agency and assertiveness, and through somatic exercises and embodied awareness, tune into instinct, your inner trusting embodied knowing.
To sit with the discomfort of the emotion of guilt and shame as you begin to make the necessary changes in your differentiation.
Recognise and make conscious the self-sabotage that comes in, particularly as you start to grow beyond where your mother or ancestors went and how to support yourself in it.
Honour what came before, embracing the strengths in the lineage and reclaiming the ancestral story.
Grow appreciation for the Irish language, folklore, mythology, and poetry, and the wisdom of the ancestors in an enriching, soul experience.
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Depth Psychology and Psychotherapy theories and practices, somatic psychotherapy, Irish mythology, folklore, language, literature and Irish Heritage.