How my journey began
As a mother of two daughters, now aged 26 and 25, I found parenting to be very challenging at times and I always felt that I had something more to give to my girls but couldn’t quite find it. My behaviours bothered me and I felt so guilty at times. I felt too that I wasn’t myself and that I was passing down learned behaviours but couldn’t change. In my search for that something more I studied a course on Interpersonal Communications in UCC. This course changed how I related to myself, my daughters and others and was the springboard for the follow on two-year Higher Diploma Course in Relationship Mentoring, again at UCC. What I discovered during my studies is that I had no understanding at all of my emotions and how to feel them and express them. Neither was I aware of my inner critic and how harsh it could be. The only feeling that I knew I had almost all the time was anxiety and I referred to this as my sea inside.
As I undertook the journey inside of me, I very gently took off the masks I wore and revealed my true self. In these years, I learned about my relationship with myself and that has changed my life. The resulting positive impact on my relationships in my life fuels my passion to support others in bringing about these changes for themselves. I love working with individuals and organisations who wish to understand how they relate with themselves and within their organisation and who want to flourish.
In my role as a self-employed solicitor, running my own practice for the 23 years, I also found the relationships in my professional life to be quite challenging at times. I discovered that my knowledge and skills as a relationship mentor greatly enhanced my stressful professional life and my relationships with my staff, clients and colleagues. I really enjoy working with other professionals helping them to bring about positive changes in how they relate to their employees, clients and colleagues. I have a deep personal interest in this work.
My studies are ongoing. I have completed the first year of a MSc in Mindfulness Wellbeing in UCC and my vision here is to teach mindfulness to families and introduce it to organisations so that they can reap the rewards of living and working mindfully.
“I didn’t know it then, but we disable our children when we take away their suffering. We teach them that feelings are wrong or scary. But a feeling is only a feeling. There’s no right or wrong. There’s just my feelings and yours. I like to remind my patients: the opposite of depression is expression”
“The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us; the uncanny discovery that the seeker is the mystery which the seeker seeks to know. ”