Tag: brigid’s path

Brigid’s Path: the path forward

I know the Path Forward is one of the more complicated parts of Brigid’s Path to explain. Really, it comes at the point where you’re ready to move forward on your own.

Brigid's Path: the Path Forward can be as lonely as this Irish country road - it doesn't technically have grass in the middle, but it's close!
This is a not untypical Irish country road…

And how do I explain what that looks like, when it’s so bloody individual?

But here’s where the value of the Collective comes into its own…

Brigid’s Path: the path forward

So, here’s the thing. At this point in the journey, you’ve done the internal work. Gotten to know yourself. Reconciled the past. Found your joy. Determined your knowledge.

Basically, you have a really strong foundation built for yourself. But on Brigid’s Path, the path forward is yours alone. You take the decisions and decide what way you’re walking. (Or y’know, rolling, crawling, hobbling, etc…) And it can be overwhelming. Or… enough to have you stopping walking the path altogether and scuttle back to – well not safety exactly, but the familiar.

I know – I’ve been round this particular block a few times. Several… hundred… or so. Brigid has been extremely patient with me.

And at times, she’s smacked me up the head with some information she feels I’ve not been paying attention to. She’s usually right.

So determining what your path forward looks like is really up to you. There is a lot of meditation and visualisation work in this session(s). We workshop what your path forward looks like – for now anyway. Things change – and we’ll deal with that in the final step.

But for now – we’re looking at the things you’ve identified on your path with Brigid so far, and looking at the path forward for you.

Unique?

Yes. I firmly believe that while many of our paths might overlap, we each walk our own path. There’s no point in walking someone else’s path. Their path will be fully appropriate for them. It might almost fit you, but you want something tailored exactly for you.

Not something that almost fits.

I’ve said this over and over and over again, even in this short post. I know.

But it’s worth repeating, again and again and again.

This isn’t about finding someone else’s path. This is about your path. What works for you, your life, your desires, your responsibilities.

If my path worked for you – sure, you could copy it. But I’ll admit, very readily, my path won’t work for everyone. In fact, my path won’t work for most. I’m odd and strange in many ways and the way I walk Brigid’s Path is no different. Your path forward might overlap with mine. You might for example have a keen interest in diversity and inclusion, as I do. But you might have a focus on race or ability rather than my focus of gender diversity in engineering.

And that’s great. We need more people working in all these areas, as this enriches Brigid’s Path for everyone and our collective road forward.

Why the focus on the individual?

Because that’s where our “traditional” or “organised” religions are failing us. They come up with a list of rules and conditions and structures that work for those people creating them. And they forget that these might not work for everyone. In fact, there an extremely strong possibility they won’t work for everyone. The whole point of stepping outside these strictures is to construct your own path.

So, the individual is what’s important here. That doesn’t mean you can’t use some of the traditional structures you grew up with, if they are supportive and helpful. A few “Hail Marys” is a great way for me to calm my body and focus my mind, to be honest. But that’s not for everyone. And I wouldn’t recommend it for everyone.

Brigid’s Path is based on the individual. It means more work. More effort on your part. There are very few, if any, shortcuts. Sometimes, you find yourself going back to first principles, over and over and over again. It gets discouraging., at times. So, yes, there is 100% focus on the individual, but by taking part in the Collective you can gain the support and cheerleading of your group.

And oh man, does that come in useful!!

I know this is fairly vague – no more than Brigid’s Path itself!

And that’s partly because of the individual experience here. There are a number of meditations and visualisations to get through. There a lot of discussions around what will and won’t work for you. Whereas with the first four steps, there is a fair bit of overlap in the activities being done, with the last two – it’s extremely individual.

And that’s ok.

The important thing is to remember this is your path to walk!

Brigid’s Path: Three Marks of a Poet

Three Marks of a Poet is one of the steps on Brigid’s Path that people don’t always fully understand. And I get it – one of the marks is understanding! (And yes, this is part of the ongoing series to help people understand what goes on inside the Brigid’s Path Collective)

Brigid's Path: three marks of a poet doesn't really link obviously with Kathleen Ní Houlihan, and yet... gaining understanding from images like this is essential for poets...
Kathleen Ní Houlihan, the inspiration for many Irish poets and personification of Ireland for many more!

I have written about poets before in this blog, most notably RBG, as well as more generally about Brigid the poet. But I’ve not, as yet, discussed in detail the three marks of a poet and why they are important when walking Brigid’s Path. Three Marks of A Poet comes from the triads of Ireland.

Three things that constitute a poet: ‘knowledge that illumines,’ ‘teinm laeda,‘ improvisation.

(It’s line 123 here)

Now, I have done my best to translate teinm laeda, and the best I can come up with is: “breaking open to find”. Or possibly “chewing the cud”. Ruminating and exposing.

But, a) I’m not an Old Irish expert and b) this is cobbled together from various sources… So if you come across a better translation, I’m all for it!

Brigid’s Path: Three Marks of a Poet

So, teinm laeda is one of the marks. What about the rest?

Well, imbas forosnai might be knowledge that illumes. Bringing knowledge to light. It’s very similar to getting to know yourself in the first step of this path. What do you know about yourself? As the first of the three marks, it can be a bit daunting, but this stage is about deeper understanding of what knowledge you need to uncover as yet; what knowledge you already have that you’ve forgotten or never realised you had…

What lies buried inside you as a talent, or knowledge, or skills that can be brought to bear on Brigid’s Path? What hidden depths have you that she can use?

The thirds of the three marks of a poet on Brigid’s Path is dichetal do chennaib. It’s a specific form of extemporaneous composition. As in, a formal sort of poetry that is made up on the spot but according to key rules. Kinda like a modern day rap battle. (Not that I know much beyond a modern rap battle, aside from what’s shown in the film 8 Mile… I know – down with the kids me!)

In fact, in the UCC Celt link above, dichetal do chennaib is translated as simply: improvisation. And, if I’m honest, there is a hell of a lot of improvisation on Brigid’s Path! Within the Three Marks of a Poet and without.

Sometimes, we just have to make it up as we go along. But we do so in line with our ethics and values. Not just willy-nilly.

How do we use this?

All types of knowledge are valid on Brigid’s Path. There is experiential knowledge. Book learning. Street smarts. Divination.

The list could go on for hours- and honestly, investigating the types of knowledge we have available to us is one of the sessions in the Collective. Well, I say one of the sessions. It took a month last time. An individualised process just takes longer to get through… But on Brigid’s Path, the knowledge held in three marks of a Poet is soooo important.

Challenging your preconceived ideas about what knowledge is and isn’t is a vital part of this journey. Because we all have blind spots where we don’t value the knowledge we have. I often use the story of my friend, Sally. When I first met Sal, she had 2 toddlers and another on the way. She taught me pretty much all I know about changing nappies. You may laugh, but the last time I had anything to do with nappies was when my baby brother was born and he was near 30 when I met Sal.

She couldn’t believe that an intelligent, educated person like myself had no clue where to start with a dirty nappy. Genuinely, she thought I was pulling the piss. And I seriously wasn’t. So I learned. And while changing the nappy of a toddler hell bent on running away and not cooperating in the slightest doesn’t really apply in my day-to-day life, I recognise the important of the skill. No knowledge on Brigid’s Path is wasted. And Three Marks of a Poet instils this into us.

Changing nappies? Seriously?

Yeah, seriously. How to distract someone from a determined course of action. Multi tasking. Focusing on what was important and ignoring the rest. And the basic skill of whipping off a wet nappy, quickly getting a rough clean done of the area, and getting on a new nappy before said toddler escaped into the wild, private parts swinging free.

I was very naïve in the way of mothering before that. And yes, these experiences feed into the way I present my courses. Very few of my community have no engagements with children. Most women who come to me have a family. And learning the necessities of working around children was vital for me.

I’ve not been lucky enough to have my own family, and that’s a painful part of my journey. But that doesn’t mean I ignore what I learned during that time period. Partially because treating people like toddlers in work sometimes gets results you might not expect.

Also because treating myself like a toddler sometimes helps me immensely.

But no knowledge is ever wasted.

For Brigid’s Path then, the three marks of a poet

To walk Brigid’s Path, we find knowledge and information and learning in places we never expected. There are a few things to consider, of course!

  • Consider the source
  • Assess the authenticity
  • Not everyone is honest
  • Not all knowledge is relevant at every stage or in every situation
  • Sometimes we have to dig deep to find said knowledge

And sometimes, you need someone asking the right questions to help you find the answers…

Brigid’s Path: Reconcile the past

When I say reconcile the past, most people think of trauma they endured and things that happened to them. And that is part of it. But it’s also about things we have done to other people. And to ourselves. So, let’s dive in and be honest with ourselves for a bit!

(Why yes, this is the second post in a row on the steps on Brigid’s Path. And yes the 2025 cohort of the Brigid’s Path Collective is currently open for enrollment if you are interested. But it’s also bloody important work to be doing!)

What does reconciling the past mean?

Does it mean being happy with everything you’ve done and everything that’s been done to you? Absolutely not. There are things I have done, both to myself and to others, in the past that I couldn’t be happy with them.

But I can understand my behaviour. That’s key. No one but me walked me down that path to an eating disorder. I was the one that chose to engage in seriously risky drinking and sexual behaviour. My physical condition is a direct result of some very unwise decision making when I was younger. All of that has led to consequences in later life that I have had to deal with.

Does that mean I blame my younger self for this?

Well, there was a time when I did. There was a time when I was so angry with myself, I went through a period of decades long self-loathing. That self-loathing both provoked the unwise behaviour, and that unwise behaviour provoked more self loathing.

Reconciling my past has been a long tough road and it hasn’t really involved time travelling and changing what happened. If anyone know how to do that, let me know, but for now, this is the road I’m on.

A picture of an Irish country road with more potholes than road. A pictorial representation of my reconciliation of my past... Reconcile your past early and this might not happen!!
If there was a pictorial representation of my life’s journey…

Acceptance

In my life, the hardest lesson I ever had to learn was to accept where I was and how I was. That didn’t mean I didn’t want to change things. Far from it. But it meant I accepted that this was who and what and how and where I was at that moment in time.

I know there are some of you out there that are wondering how do you not know who, what where and how you are? Well, I am strong in the self-delusion gene. Or the hiding from myself one. Or the pure lying to myself.

Seriously – I have decades of experience of telling myself I’m happy when I’m not. Or of making sure “mind over matter” is my mantra. Of having all sorts of intricate thought processes that just hide the reality from myself so I don’t have to deal with it.

Yes, this included spiritual bypassing. It is a self-defense mechanism and there were times in my life I needed that. But, if you remember from the previous post on this topic, getting to know yourself also includes recognising those times when you don’t act in your own self-interest. Or at least, not your own long term self-interest.

The biggest lesson I had to learn in reconciling my past? Acceptance. First, I had to accept that I had done things, said things that were hurtful to myself and to others. I had not acted or lived in a way aligned with my values. I had papered over cracks, ignored all sorts of signs and symbols and indications. Reconciling myself to the harm I had done to myself was toughest of all.

Damage

After all, the damage I have done to myself is probably the deepest of all. And I can recognise now that I was a transphobe. A homophobe. Sex negative . Not inclusive. For many of the things I now hold dear, I once stood on the other side of history. And there are doubtless beliefs or actions I hold right now that I will need to accept and heal in the future.

When you know better, do better. (Maya Angelou, we miss you!!)

This doesn’t excuse the harm I did, before I knew better by the way. Part of reconciling my past is to actively work to heal the damage I did. Some of the damage, it’s not in my power to heal – so I work on paying it forward and living in a way that at least doesn’t perpetuate further harm.

And yeah – that has meant losing friendships. Relationships. All of it.

But I have to accept that I did the things that caused harm.

Understanding

Acceptance doesn’t mean you beat yourself up for the rest of your life, by the way. I’m not spending hours each day whipping myself for being a transphobe when I didn’t understand what being trans meant. And – to be fair – I probably still don’t understand all of it, but I’m more prepared to accept that when someone tells me they’re a specific gender, I should just go with it. Cos frankly, there are very few people in this world who’s genitalia I’m interested in. And I can barely manage to dress myself, so why would I worry about what other people are wearing.

If it all comes down to it – other people’s gender expression doesn’t bother me too much in the grand scheme of things.

But holy fuck, I took a long time to get here!

Reconciling with my past also means dealing with my younger self. Because she was a very unhappy person, even when she seemed happiest. She was very often miserable and at war with herself, even when she was laughing and joking and acting like there wasn’t a care in the world.

It’s hard to live like this. It takes so much energy. There’s no spare to engage with things you love. Hobbies go out the window. People laugh at me now for my large collection of books. For reading all the time. But in actual fact, that was a coping mechanism, a survival mechanism, for a long, long time. Accepting that I didn’t really love reading so much as I needed to escape into worlds where the good side usually won and the bad side usually lost and bad things got dealt with… that took a long, long time.

Coping

I had to accept that possibly, one of the defining characteristics of my life – reading – wasn’t really so healthy. That even healthy, laudable habits, when taken to extremes, become unhealthy.

That coping mechanisms – whether books, food, drink, exercise, medication, sex – when taken to extremes, aren’t coping mechanisms anymore. They’re millstones round your neck. It doesn’t matter how healthy the habit is, when it’s taken to extremes, it’s no longer healthy.

And let’s be clear here – what’s an extreme for you might be normal for me and vice versa. You’re the one who gets to decide when a glass of wine at work moves from coping to problematic. Or when that daily run becomes an obsessive behaviour rather than a helpful one.

No one else gets to dictate to you how to live your life. But one of the key stages in any reconciliation is that stage where you are figuring out the patterns that used to work and no longer do. And the signs that what was an excellent, useful coping mechanism is now a weight. And needs to change.

You can’t change the past

And some of the things that need reconciliation may need outside help. I’m not the person to engage with if you’re starting to work on childhood abuse or trauma. There are important psychological processes at work there that you may need professional psychological and/or psychiatric help with.

But I can help with the other stuff. The learning to engage with your younger self. Understanding the drivers that are currently influencing your decision making. Making you aware of the forces acting on you – whether it’s guilt or shame or joy or an outdated sense of self.

And it’s important to do this work, because you can’t move forward easily with all that weight hanging from your neck.

Brigid’s Path: Know yourself!

The first step on Brigid’s Path is “Know Yourself”. People often as why? Well, we’re going to explore this in this post. And for those of you wondering if you’ve seen me writing on this before? Well yes, yes you have!

But first, I want to take you to last Friday night. I had a work night out and I really just wasn’t feeling it. I have been having fun in recent years with my make up. I’ve been experimenting with different eye shadows, different lip colours, just generally having fun. And it’s become part of my enjoyment of a night out.

But last Friday? Nope. Just… wasn’t….

And it took me a while to figure out why.

Picture of me, not being 100% happy with how I looked, but struggling with knowing myself enough to figure out why!
Yes this is me with the finished look from Friday night

What was going on?

Well, I didn’t like my foundation. You know when I figured this out? On the car drive home the following morning. Knowing yourself doesn’t always come with instant recognition.

But, I did figure it out and I knew something was wrong.

What didn’t I like? It was too watery. It felt like it was sitting on top of my skin rather than blending in. And – wonder of wonders for a 90’s woman – it was too pale…

(My former Goth-adjacent self is shuddering at that last sentence!)

But it’s all true. It just took me a while to figure out what was going on. I thought I was getting tired of my Il Makiage Woke Up Like This foundation – I hadn’t. I just needed to get a new bottle of it cos I’ve had that one for… (checks emails for last order)… more than 2 years. And even by my standards, that’s a while for a foundation to last. But a) I don’t wear make up that much and b) I kinda forget when I buy things, so I forget they need replacing before I use them all up!

If I didn’t know this about myself, I’d still be worrying about what was bothering me about that look. (And payday’s Thursday, my Il Makiage basket is ready for checkout!!)

Knowing myself in a broader sense

Now ok, ye don’t usually come to this blog for make-up tips. Or if you do, you’re going to be severely disappointed!!

When Brigid came to me first with the idea I had to get to know myself, I honestly didn’t know what she meant. Seriously. It didn’t make sense to be at all. Sure I had been living with myself for decades, my whole life even. How could I not know myself?

Well, I have an amazing skill in not knowing myself. For all sorts of reasons, I had turned not knowing myself into an art form. And a lot of us who grew up in the 80’s and 90’s are the same. Those “journeys of self-discovery” we saw coming from the States weren’t just pompous, entitled bullshit. They were damned necessary in many cases. (Albeit privileged in many ways!) Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love is the one that comes to mind. I’d love to be able to take that year long break that she did and head off to Italy, India and Bali (or, more likely in my case, places with lower temperatures and less spicy food…) For most of us, that option just isn’t available.

But you know what is available?

Tools and techniques

Yes. Now, in the Brigid’s Path Collective. we go through 4-6 weeks of this. So, there is a lot we cover and discuss and engage with. There are journaling questions, meditations, discussions… Lots goes on. But here’s a few things you can do yourself.

Google various quizzes. Here are a few of my favourite free or low(ish) cost quizzes:

https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/personality-quiz#1

https://www.truity.com/test/big-five-personality-test

https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter

https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc#:~:text=DiSC%20is%20an%20acronym%20that,on%20accomplishing%20bottom%2Dline%20results.

https://5voices.com

I’m not getting any income from these, they’re just personality quizzes I have found useful in my quest to understand myself better.

There are also a mountain of books I have found useful – this surprises no one, right? Ye know by now that my preferred means of absorbing information is a lovely comfy reading session.

The important thing is, you’re collecting information about yourself.

What to do with that information though?

Well, there are another 5 steps in the path, so don’t panic too much yet. But essentially, to understand what you need to progress down any path, you need to know where you are and what you need to survive.

For me, this involves my basic pillars of survival and thrival: food, water, movement, fresh air, sleep. If I get all of these in adequate quantities daily, life is good. And yes, this is all part of the information I had to figure out for myself. Seriously – the food part was so hard. If I can prevent even one more person in this world going down the eating disorder route… it’s not worth it, folks, and we all know better now, so let’s help the younger generations, yeah?

But why the first step?

For any journey to begin, you need to know where you are. That means acknowledging who you are, what you know and don’t know, what you want to learn, what you don’t want to know buy probably need to know anyway…

It means uncovering those shadowed areas of yourself and your soul. Looking in the mirror and determining if you like what you see, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

It means engaging with the times in your life you feel embarrassed and ashamed about. Examining your conscious about certain ongoing activities and see how you feel about it.

You don’t have to change anything just yet. But you do have to know how you feel about yourself. Your actions. Your behaviour.

No one said this would be easy

And it doesn’t always have to be difficult, either. There is plenty of both kinds of work involved in this journey.

But this is where you start.

Who are you?

What are you?

Where are you?

How did you get here?

What are the defining moments of your life to date?

What are the forces that shaped you?

What are you proud of? Not proud of?

Start asking yourself these questions. Spend some time with you and get to know yourself like you would a new friend. It’s worth it.

Rigid Spirituality

I don’t associate Brigid with rigid spirituality. At all. But she is linked with some rigid spiritual structures (ahem, Roman Catholic Church…) and it can be so difficult for people coming from these rigid spiritualities to then explore a looser form of spirituality. So, I’m going to talk about it.

What do I mean by “rigid spirituality”?

Honestly, the most common measure I use for this, is assessing whether people within this spirituality expect everyone to adhere to their social, religious and moral mores.

It sounds easy right? It’s not necessarily a clear rule, but it’s reasonable. I mean, I know plenty of Catholics, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc, etc, etc, who don’t expect anyone to live by their rules. Which is good, cos there are some conflicts even within the broad categories of religious organisations.

A picture of what I think is a nebula, white circle in top of the pic with a blueish background and a wider cloud like corona around it. Towards the bottom right, there's a ray-like red wash of colour. And dots of white/ star like images scattering the background. Got it when searching for "rigid spirituality".
Nebula? Not sure. But this is one of the pics that came up when I searched for “rigid spirituality”

So, for a bit more of a concrete definition of “rigid spirituality”, here we go. First off, there are likely to be a lot of rules. Not just about how to worship, but what to wear, eat, who you may engage with, how you interact with the world.

When I think of these sort of rules, I kinda think of documentaries on the various “family compounds” in Utah. (Not that there’s anything wrong with Utah, it’s just most of the documentaries I’ve seen are based there.) These are usually one man as head of the household and multiple wives. (In the documentaries. Not in Utah in general. Nothing against Utah ok?)

There are strict lines of authority in these religious organisations. There can be very strict control over finances, even outside the family home. Huge emphasis on socialising and engaging with the religious community above secular community or those outside the community. Marriage within the community. Family only within the community. Rigid spiritual structures.

This seems focused on one particular type of spirituality.

Yeah you’re right There are other ways to express rigid spirituality. I mean, if you follow the Roman Catholic Catechism to the letter, it’s fairly strict. Over the years, various things have dropped off the list. It’s no longer a requirement in Ireland anyway for a woman to cover her hair when entering a church, although you do see the remnants of this tradition in the whole “hats for weddings” thing.

When I was growing up, I never considered Catholicism that rigid. The rules didn’t really appear to intrude on my life at all. But when I look back, there were some fairly rigid spirituality rules that kinda permeated my life.

For example, I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of times I missed Mass as a child. Because it was family routine, I never considered it rigid, until I started looking around me.

The Catholic messages around abortion and having multiple sexual partners entered my subconscious, although probably not with the intentions the church had. I figured having been assaulted at a young age, I was useless as a life partner. Might as well have fun then…

I have a whole series on Catholicism, so check it out…

Why is this a problem?

Well, here’s the thing. Many people leaving rigid spirituality structures can struggle a bit with their new “freedom”. Indeed, the freedom can feel as restricting as the previous restrictions from fear if nothing else.

There can appear to be unspoken rules everywhere in general life. And this affects women more than men, because, patriarchy is inherent in the majority (read: all) of the rigid spirituality structures I’ve come across. So, when you are leaving a strict set of rules, where you always knew how to behave because the rules were usual explicit, it can be really difficult to move into a less rigid, more secular role in society.

For example, if you have always been restricted in your clothing, so that there really was very little choice in what you wore, choosing what to wear in the morning could be reasonably straight forward. Then you leave that environment and there appear to be zero rules. Except there are. Lots of rules really. But no one makes them obvious. No one hands you a rule book. You have to figure it out as you go.

Now take that uncertainty, and think of your spiritual life. There may be parts of your previous spirituality, no matter how rigid, that were comforting and helpful to you. But now, because you have left that community, you’ve lost that connection and those supports.

What do you do?

Well, honestly, this is part of my work and part of what Brigid’s Path Collective is about. It does start with getting to know yourself, as I wrote about in the last post. We move forward in deciding what’s important for you on your spiritual path. How can we develop a path for you that helps you, comforts you, supports you?

Breaking free from rigid spirituality

This work isn’t easy. And many people go their whole lives without even questioning their spirituality. This isn’t work that everyone is drawn to. Most people will just trundle along.

But for some of us, this isn’t enough. We’re not willing to just go with the flow. Not in terms of spirituality. Because it’s too important to leave to chance, or the community you were born into.

Start by questioning. Are questions allowed in your community? If not, that is a major red flag. Do you feel restricted in your current path? Another reason to start questioning.

What do you want from your spiritual life? It’s a real tough one and not one with a quippy, one-line answer. But with hard work, you can get there!

Know yourself

It’s been a while since I posted, and I’m sorry about that. But today, the message that’s coming to me is to help you get to know yourself. And looking at some questions to get to know yourself.

Seems a bit strange, right? After all, how could you not know yourself? You’ve been living with yourself for decades at this point! And it is a bit of a natural lead on from the last set of posts on getting to know Brigid. (Check out here, here and here for starters!)

But really, getting to know yourself, really know yourself, is a good first step on any spiritual path. Otherwise, you run the risk of straying from the path that suits you best, or possibly getting bound into something that’s wrong for you.

Where do I start?

Well, for me, I like to encourage people to start with a list of journaling prompts or questions to get to know yourself. If you google “questions to get to know yourself”, you will come up with millions of pages (ok, maybe a slight exaggeration) with lists of questions to get started. Here are ten of my favourites:

  • Who am I?
  • What am I?
  • What am I proud of?
  • What do I regret?
  • What am I really glad I finished, completed or achieved?
  • What am I worried about?
  • Who or what gives me comfort?
  • How can I show myself compassion?
  • What is my biggest short term goal?
  • What is my biggest long term goal?

I know. You’re looking at this right now and thinking “how in hell do I even start?”

A cartoon image of a figure with blonde hair, a hijabi with black hijab and green dress, dark hair with blue top, dark hair with yellow top and slightly less dark hair with blue top, all showing quizzical expressions and with question marks floating around their heads. How do you get to know yourself better?
How do you start getting to know yourself?
Seriously though, I don’t even know where to start with these questions.

Fair. It’s not easy at all. So here’s some help.

Make a ritual of it. Light a candle, do some meditation to start with, really ground and centre yourself. It’s easier not to go into this cold. Honestly, I’ve done this cold and it’s not worth my time.

But it can be really helpful to push yourself to make a real event for yourself here. Plan the occasion. Maybe have a sacred bath or shower beforehand. Dress comfortably. Engage with your favourite colour pen or fancy paper. Use a divination method to decide what questions to get to know yourself with!

Now, none of this is necessary. Of course, you can plop yourself down at your desk last minute and use whatever is to hand. That is always an option.

But if you are struggling to start with the questions, making a bit of ritual about it can help.

Ask Brigid

In life, we can forget about asking for help. I mean, I can’t guarantee she will appear in a flash of light, akin to what we think of when we think of the Madonna appearances. But she usually does respond to requests for help!

In a pinch, this can be a really simple, “I don’t know where to start, please help me!”

It can be a more complicated ritual all of its own. Depending on your relationship with Brigid, you will have different preferences and practices here and there’s nothing wrong with either approach. We tend to think that the Irish deities want us to be self-reliant, and they do! But they also will help us when needed.

Please, don’t worry about asking for help!

I feel like I know myself quite well

Brilliant. Then this exercise will be really easy for you! But I would argue that it’s still worthwhile.

Learning about ourselves is always valuable, in my opinion. And it’s possible, hell no, it’s probable that things will come up that are different. As people, we learn and grow throughout our lives. Your biggest regret may change over time – I know mine has! As I grow older, I find new regrets popping up all the time. And, old regrets just don’t seem that big a deal any more. Sometimes this is maturity. Sometimes it’s just the healing power of time.

We all know that life isn’t fair sometimes. And, we know that as we grow older, our outlooks change. If we are honest with ourselves, we can learn a lot about ourselves. I believe that this is a live long experience. Feel free to disagree! But it won’t change my mind about the exercise being valuable.

Are some questions better than others?

Well, here’s the thing. The best questions are those that you engage with. What suits your worldview? If you look at a list of questions, are there ones that you react strongly to? Being honest, if you are looking at a list of questions and you react either really positively or really negatively in your heart… probably a good idea to engage with that question.

But sometimes this is hard work. It sounds easy. Basically, you are sitting down and writing. Sure, what could be so difficult about that? Ye already know the answer here. In my practice, this is serious, worthwhile work. It’s not easy. Even just asking yourself to sit down with yourself and get to know yourself better… it’s hard.

So, go with your gut. Spend the time. Get to know yourself.

Then you can start tackling the really tough stuff!!