Returning to the Well | Healing the Mother Wound
The Dark Mother
Entering the Sacred Grove
Encountering the Shadow in the Mother Wound
Every archetype is a potential, and every archetype has two sides: positive and negative. The mother archetype is no different. - On the one hand, it nurtures and protects; on the other, it can devour and suffocate. This program explores the shadow aspect of the great mother archetype so we can come to understand it in our ancestral and personal story, and how we can consciously support ourselves in it. We will look at the importance of establishing boundaries as we come to know the ancestral wounding in the stories of our lineage, so we can make it conscious and begin to re-mother ourselves.
This course supports you in exploring the shadow aspects of the Mother Wound — the unconscious patterns shaped by absence, criticism, engulfment, or abandonment — and how to bring them into awareness and transformation.
The shadow is the hidden realm of the psyche where repressed emotions, unmet needs, and inherited archetypal patterns reside. Though unconscious, these forces shape how we see ourselves and relate to others.
As children, we often suppress parts of ourselves to stay connected and safe. In doing so, we exile emotions like anger, grief, or wildness to the unconscious. Jung described this as the personal and collective unconscious — the personal shaped by our experiences, and the collective shaped by universal patterns.
The shadow side of the Mother archetype may live on as an internal voice of shame, emotional control, or self-abandonment. But the unconscious is not only a place of wounding — it holds forgotten creativity, power, and potential.
This course offers a path to meet what was hidden, reclaim your inner wholeness, and step into a more authentic self.
Join Eileen Ní Shuilleabháin in your very own returning to the well. Together, we will explore, through the work of Psychotherapy, Depth Psychology Irish Mythology and Folklore, where you can begin to meet what was hidden and reclaim your inner wholeness.
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 sense there are buried emotions or inherited patterns within you — anger, grief, shame, or self-abandonment — and you’re ready to bring them to light with compassion and courage.
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You feel held back by an internal critical voice, emotional entanglement and long to reclaim your true voice and sovereignty.
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You’ve been on a healing path but feel called to go deeper — into the mythic, archetypal, and ancestral roots of your wounding, guided by the Irish landscape and the wisdom of the Great Mother.
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You are drawn to Jungian Depth Psychology and curious about working with the shadow, and want to explore this more through this mythopoetic lens.
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You carry a deep yearning to reconnect with lost parts of yourself — your instinct, wildness, creativity, and intuition — and are ready to build a relationship inward
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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.
Purchase the Course
✓ Over 120+ Minutes of Immersive Video Lessons
✓ 40+ Page Companion E-Workbook
✓ CPD Certificate for Irish Professionals
✓ Instant & Unlimited lifetime access
✓ A Depth Psychology Experience Rooted in the Irish Landscape
Listen to a short excerpt…
Seminar #1
Mythology
Seminar #2
You will learn how to…
Through guided practices, depth inquiry, and gentle embodiment work, this course will help you:
Explore how the Mother Wound shapes your sense of self-worth and how shadow aspects can quietly govern your choices, relationships and sense of self, until it is made conscious.
Illuminate the shadow of the Mother Wound—those intergenerational patterns, silences, and burdens that inhibit your growth.
Cultivate a compassionate relationship with your inner child, transforming cycles of perfectionism, guilt, shame, and self-punishment.
Learn how to support yourself in reclaiming joy, play, and your authentic creative path.
Work with the archetypes of the Embodied Mother and Inner Protector to foster inner safety, healthy boundaries, and emotional nourishment as you face what has been hidden.
Engage with the great mother figures of Irish mythology, folklore, and poetry—meeting them not just through story, but through the body and imagination, allowing them to guide your healing.
Deepen your appreciation for the Irish language, heritage and ancestral wisdom, weaving the rich textures of myth, folklore and landscape into your soul’s unfolding journey.
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Depth Psychology and Psychotherapy theories and practices, somatic psychotherapy, Irish mythology, folklore, language, literature and Irish Heritage.
This course is an immersive, visceral odyssey of the soul and spirit, a journey to the metaphorical well of wisdom that flows through Irish myth and memory. You will see sweeping images of the Irish landscape, and experience the music, poetry, insights from Depth psychology and Psychotherapy, and ancient stories, meeting the great Irish goddess mothers of the landscape, to help connect you to your inner world, the shadow aspects in your psyche, personal and ancestral, and thereby heal the Mother Wound in your life.
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