Returning to the Well | Healing the Mother Wound
Course two
The Dark Mother
Entering the Sacred Grove
Encountering the Shadow in the Mother Wound
This course is the second 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
Every archetype carries both light and shadow. The Mother archetype is no different. While the Great Mother nurtures, protects, and nourishes life, her shadow may appear as control, engulfment, emotional absence, criticism, or self-abandonment. These patterns often live quietly within us, shaping how we relate to ourselves and others — until they are brought into awareness.
The Dark Mother invites you to enter the sacred grove of the psyche: a place where what has been hidden can be met with compassion, courage, and care. Here, we begin to understand the shadow aspects of the Mother Wound in both our personal lives and our ancestral inheritance, and how we may consciously support ourselves in their healing.
Rooted in Irish Myth & Ancestral Memory
This work is rooted in Irish mythology, folklore, ancestral memory and the living landscape of Ireland. In the Gaelic world, myth was not separate from daily life—it was a way of understanding the psyche, the land, and the soul’s unfolding.
Irish myth and folklore carry deep knowledge of belonging, loss, sovereignty, and return. The stories of the land—its goddesses, rivers, wells, and thresholds—offer a symbolic language through which we can meet inner experience, inherited patterns, and the places where healing asks to occur.
Rather than using myth as metaphor alone, this work approaches myth as a living presence—one that helps us listen more deeply to the body, the imagination, and the ancestral layers of the psyche.
The Heart of This Course
As children, we often suppress parts of ourselves in order to stay connected and safe. Emotions such as anger, grief, wildness, or need may be exiled to the unconscious, where they continue to influence our lives from the shadows.
This course explores the shadow realm of the psyche — the place where repressed emotions, unmet needs, and inherited archetypal patterns reside.
While the shadow holds pain and wounding, it also carries forgotten creativity, power, and potential. By gently turning toward what has been hidden, we begin the work of re-mothering ourselves and reclaiming inner wholeness.
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.
Themes We Explore Together
Themes explored include:
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The Dark Mother Archetype
The shadow aspects of the Mother archetype and their expression in inner life. -
The Mother Wound
Unconscious patterns shaped by absence, criticism, engulfment, or abandonment -
The inner critical voice, emotional control, and self-abandonment.
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Boundaries, differentiation, and the right to a separate self.
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The relationship between personal and ancestral wounding.
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Shadow as a source of creativity, vitality, and renewal.
The themes explored are deep and nuanced, and you are encouraged to listen to your own rhythm and capacity as you engage.
This course is for you if…
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You sense buried emotions or inherited patterns within you, such as anger, grief, shame, or self-abandonment, and you feel ready to bring them into the light.
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You feel held back by an internal critical voice or emotional entanglement and long to reclaim your true voice and sovereignty.
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You have been on a healing path and feel called to go deeper into the mythic, archetypal, and ancestral roots of your wounding.
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You are drawn to Jungian depth psychology and are curious about working with the shadow through a mythopoetic lens.
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You carry a yearning to reconnect with lost parts of yourself — instinct, wildness, creativity, and intuition — and to build a compassionate relationship inward.
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You are engaged in psychotherapy or personal development and are curious about the Gaelic world as a lens into the soul.
You will learn…
In this course, you will explore the shadow aspect of the Great Mother archetype — the Dark Mother — and how she shapes your self-worth, choices, and relationships. With compassion, we illuminate the Mother Wound and the intergenerational patterns that may be limiting your growth. Through reflective and embodied practices, you’ll bring these shadow aspects into awareness so they no longer quietly govern your life, and begin transforming your relationship with yourself.
What is included?
This course is educational and reflective in nature and is offered as a supportive complement to therapeutic or personal work.
A Self-Paced Online Course you can return to at any time:
120+ Minutes of Immersive Video Content
40+ Page Companion E-Workbook for reflection and integration
a 30 minute bonus gift - Inner Child Mediatation interwoven with the Irish language
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
The Dark Mother 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 in connecting 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