How cool is that? Not sure how to do it - doing it anyway.

That’s where your homecoming begins. Not in certainty or perfect conditions. But in the honesty of a humble beginning.

To begin is to give in to a knowing you’ve resisted for too long.

That’s why the first line in Mary Oliver’s poem, ‘The Journey’ (which is our guide this month) is “One day you *finally* knew what you had to do, and began.

Because let’s be real, it can take a while to tire of a status quo - sometimes it can take a whole lifetime.

I’m reminded of Marie. A 76 year old lady I befriended on retreat last year. We were paired to ask each other the question “why did you come here?”.

Her response floored me.

“I’m here to find the courage to finally admit that I am gay”

Finally: denotes the culmination of a long, often difficult wait.

A more accurate word could not have been chosen.

‘Finally’ here let’s us know that it has been long enough and the waiting must come to an end.

‘Finally’ has nothing to do with certainty, talent, skill or having the path forward figured out.

‘Finally’ is about the moment you stop pretending the answer is ‘try harder’.

There is one comfort, however: finally also usually means at least you can be sure you waited as long as you could before choosing whatever change has become necessary.

‘Finally’, is the point when you actually DO what is necessary because you finally understand that nothing will change, until you begin.

Want A Free Art Journal Lesson?

This July, I’m teaching at Make Create Express for its 10th anniversary along with 36 other artists, each of us with distinct approaches to creative practice.

My lesson is rooted in the question “What if the thing you think disqualifies you is actually your creative superpower?”

For years, I disqualified my art because I couldn’t draw, didn’t care about mastering the skill and had little patience for life drawing, something my brain experiences as a “boring” practice.

I thought those limitations meant I’d never be a ‘real’ artist.

I was wrong.

Because here’s what I know for certain: your creative practice is not something you have to earn your way into. It’s something you return to. Over and over. Exactly as you are.

Even - especially - when you’re not sure how.

Register Now For Free!

Paying subscribers - thank you - scroll down for yesterday’s replay + upcoming dates.

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Later they sent me a message to add “I just didn’t want to be alone”

That’s the thing about journaling. Most people think it’s something you’re supposed to do alone.

That’s why spaces where you’re allowed to be alone, together, are so valuable.

Why Company Changes Everything

We light a candle at the beginning of every session to honour our intention: we are stepping into sacred time.

This isn’t body doubling in the productivity sense. We are not cleaning bathrooms and folding clothes. In fact, this time is sacred specifically because, as one participant shared that “it’s literally the only time all week where I am not prioritising household tasks or someone else”

It’s the sense that you’re not the only one making time for this. Not the only one working through something. Not the only one learning to trust herself.

Collectively, we have journaled about grief and loss and mothers and all the people who couldn’t love us the way we wanted to.

We have taken turns unearthing the stories we’ve been telling ourselves about the lives we should be living.

Almost every call, someone arrives at some kind of insight, like maybe the real work wasn’t fixing this; maybe it was accepting that.

And we have wrestled with acceptance & wounding, we have redefined failure & success.

And we have made art. A lot of art.

Sure, we could do all of that alone. And we do most of the time, but we can do it together, too and there’s just something different about structured space & time that makes us actually DO IT.

And one trap I want never to fall into again, is the one where I do everything alone. I was honestly out here trying to ‘make it’ on my own so that I could then come to the table, feeling like I had earned a seat.

Never again.

What happens in these sessions

First, we bless the time & space with our intention.

Then, I guide the group through a listening exercise where you will learn to listen with your body, your imagination and your intuition.

Then you go inward. The listening allows you to touch upon something that’s been waiting. Your inner life wakes up & shows you things.

Journaling is about making room for [to quote Mary Oliver] another voice to speak.

And it’s not the voice of your anxious mind ‘shoulding’ all over itself. It’s way more grounded than that and it just…knows what’s good for you.

Poetry as Your Long-Term Therapist

We journey with each poem for a calendar month. So that we may form an intimacy with it.

Same words. Different medicine each time; the process shows you what’s actually happening right now in your life.

The journalling helps you figure out how you think & feel about it and even offers you ideas as to what your next right step might be.

And also, did I mention that we make art?

And now with an added Sunday session, that’s two whole hours a week you can spend working through whatever is going on for you or you can just spend it studying poetry and making art - you decide!

This Isn’t Self-Care. It’s Soul Care.

Every time you sit with your journal, every time you let your hand move across the page, every time you witness someone else doing the same; you’re practicing something radical.

You’re saying: My inner life matters. My healing matters. My voice matters.

And because your healing matters, everyone around you benefits. The best version of yourself isn’t a gift you give yourself. It’s a gift you give the world.

That’s the real value of these sessions. Not that you’ll feel better (though you might). But that you’ll become someone who brings her best self to her relationships, her work, her family.

Someone who’s doing the work.The world needs more healing people. Why not join us?

Paying subscribers scroll down for replay + upcoming call details.

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I’ve met this poem before. In fact, it was one of my very first encounters with poetry. This was long after my underwhelming introduction to it in school.

And though I knew I ‘liked’ poetry, it would be another couple of decades at least until I would learn to recognise the divine assistance that poetry had to offer me.

Revisiting this month’s poem for me is like revisiting an old therapist. One who knew me as my most wounded, most terrified, most defiant self and who accompanied me through some of the gnarliest dark nights of my young soul.

I only decided on this poem literally as I clicked ‘start’ on the zoom dashboard.

She had been calling at me all day - “pick me! Let me do June” but I kept resisting; apparently the culture snob in me thinks she [and by ‘she’, I mean this particular poem] is ‘too basic. too common. too obvious.’

As if she - as in, this particular poem - didn’t literally shine a god damn torch with one hand & steady me with the other, as I clumsily did the very thing she had prescribed…

I. BEGAN.

As if I don’t still need her to remind me to KEEP GOING. TO LET THE CLOUDS BURN. TO WALK DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO THE WORLD WITH THIS ‘NEW’ VOICE AT THE HELM.

A Voice That Guides

I’ve been thinking about the voices that guide us. Not any one voice in particular, but the voice; something I’ve learned to call ‘Divine Authority’.

I’ve been musing on its genius for speaking through whatever host it needs to, in any given moment; just so we may hear it.

When I was a teenager, my Divine Authority [whom I will refer to as ‘Dorothy’ from now on] came through the beautiful watercolour hallmark cards written by an entity daring to call themselves ‘Oriah Mountain Dreamer’.

In my early twenties, Dorothy reached me through the distorted frequencies of grunge music & a few odd encounters with random elders who each offered a kindness to me.

Once, Dorothy spoke to me through an angel named Cherie, a black female airport police officer who whispered ‘stay calm & you’ll be ok’ into my ear just as I was about to be dragged quite violently through Virginia airport by two meathead state troopers for being drunk on a plane.

Later, my guiding voice began speaking through artists, philosophers, nature and poets.

My own artist self, who has never NOT existed by the way, was only truly liberated after an encounter with Dorothy in the form of a ceramic angel-like figure that insisted on coming home with me.

This led me to discover a mixed media artist I’d never heard of before. Entering her world was like discovering NARIA was real and it broke my heart into a million pieces that I wasn’t living there too; that I felt so locked out of the creative, joyful existence of my dreams.

It was then that I became simply unwilling to live my life knowing that that was possible and not at least give it my best shot.

When I tell you, it hasn’t been easy, I’m not lying. And when I tell you it hasn’t always proved wise either, well.. the jury is still out on that.

It would seem that sometimes the voice simply must guide us through the kind of scrub that will strip the metaphorical skin off your bones. And that this particular form of brutality appears to be in service of growing our capacity for infinite joy, love, wonder & awe.

I mean, isn’t that what we’re supposed to live for? Or is that just what makes life - let’s face it - bearable?

There’s A Pattern To It

These voices, they know where to find us. They know how to beckon. And if you’re anyway curious, they become irresistible.

You can’t really help but follow where they lead.

Our two most recent poet laureates - Mary Oliver & Andrea Gibson - they each had to break something in themselves to get to the places from where they packaged their discoveries & offered them as poems to those of us who were bound to be following on behind.

Because how could we not?

Hope is this: just as the patriarchal, capitalist bullshit is never silenced, either is the voice of Divine Authority.

She knows what it means to survive the call to assimilate. To comply. To become small, skinny, beautiful, or whatever market trends demands of us, enough to fit.

But. But. But.
We were never made to fit.
We were made to belong.

Your Divine Authority is the voice that wants you to choose your soul over the life you are “supposed to” live.

She is the voice of liberation and will always find a way.

This month, as I revisit a poem Dorothy once laid at my feet, I do so in awe, because in some ways “I’ve made it”. The journey, that is.

Yay - I am so happy for me!

And yet, I must not linger too long in celebration at the cost of completion.

There are things still left to do and a life still yet to be saved, after all.

How would I even know this, if it weren’t for poetry?

This Months Invitation

Is not only to contemplate The Journey as a poem, but to also locate yourself within it, as a process.

Where have you been? Where are you now? Where are you faltering? What feels complete? What’s ahead?

That’s what our weekly journaling calls are for; to walk with the kinds of questions that help us build the capacity to hear & act upon our divine knowing.

June Journaling Sessions

We’re gonna try for twice a week this month - Wednesdays & Sundays (there’s a Thursday in there too). These calls will be for paying subscribers.

If that’s you, simply scroll down to see the details and last night’s replay.

Thanks for being here. See you soon!

Amanda xx

p.s… Here’a a better photo of my hair because wtf was I thinking with that last one?

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But a haircut in celebration or as part of a series of rituals & ceremonies, all in service of spell-breaking; that's absolutely a thing.

A shedding, an emergence, a return.

And maybe it’s not about the haircut at all, but about allowing yourself to just want what you want, in spite of:

a. Being literally gaslit to think that’s NOT what you want or
b. Not actually knowing if it’s a free choice or if it’s a FUCK YOU to being gaslit.

Maybe it’s that your regular haircut made you cry. Because it suddenly felt like a veil of invisibility. So you follow your riddled desire and the moment it’s done, you gaze in the mirror, see your 20-year-old self gazing right back and you know.

You did the right thing. You were RIGHT to trust yourself.

This, at fifty years of age, mind you.

I am blown open in the best way

…because I did what was necessary for me to feel alive again. And it wasn’t just a haircut. It was a confirmation.

I have so much to tell about my life right now but I’m too in love with living it. Time has taken on a new quality. I’m tired at night now not because I’m bored or stressed but because of the fullness of my days.

I want to spend my time building, basking, making art & not petting dogs that bite me.

June Journaling Sessions

We’re gonna try for twice a week this month - Wednesdays & Sundays (there’s a Thursday in there too). These calls will be for paying subscribers. If that’s you, simply scroll down to see the details.

Thanks for being here. See you soon!

Amanda xx

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH

I came across this performance today & it blew my already very blown mind so… here ya go, enjoy it 🌈

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That’s the business model I learned from my father. I didn’t know any other way.

And it absolutely destroyed me.

Then my father died. I had unresolved trauma & mental health issues. Hormonal chaos. Grief. A pandemic that forced me to pivot online in a panic.

Survivor mode, activated.

I got sucked into toxic business / marketing / ‘course creator’ coaching funnels & spaces, which all but FRIED my nervous system & left me in serious financial strain & debt.

My body took the brunt of this stress & I got very sick. I will not let myself work that way again.

The Blue Moon Shift

For the past 2 years, I have been recovering. I took a step back from self employment & worked as a barista for 18 months. I then did a stint for a skincare brand, which I hoped would result in full time, permanent work, but that wasn’t to be.

In May this year I decided, in spite of my resistance, that I was going to give self employment another shot. So I’m getting ready to create an actual business plan this time, to submit to a local enterprise office for approval & access to supports.

SUPPORT: What made me think I have to do life without it?

Oh… I could take a guess. The culprit would probably begin with the letter S and end with the letters HAME.

Isn’t SHAME wild?

This month, I intentionally spent quality, creative time with several very dear to me friends.

We talked about the work we’re each doing or not doing, projects we want to begin or complete, offers we can make, money, marketing.

And while each of us are certainly ‘out here’ doing our best, we are also struggling, for various reasons, to hold it all, solo.

Our plates are already full. Our bodies are already overwhelmed. Our nervous systems are already at capacity.

But here’s the lovely thing; each conversation concluded in a plan to follow through on what we discussed, together. To help each other figure out what that looks like, together. To reach out to our communities, share our resources & carry the load, together.

Now we all have ‘next steps’ & check-in dates scheduled for June and suddenly, it all feels so much more manageable.

I’ve been away because everything just became so hard. I’m returning because I’m finally done resisting ease.

I’m ready to soften into community instead of proving myself. I am willing to admit that I need you and you need me.

We can’t keep expecting ourselves to do hard shit, alone. Whether that be work or life - or unemployment & death, for that matter.

I am done trying to win. I am done performing. I am done being the one who figures it all out.

And to you, I owe an apology. I know in the last few years, I let you down by being so caught up in the hustle. I lost perspectice. I lost my joy and I lost my way.

But I’m back now.

I opened this weeks Blue Moon Journaling session to everyone because I want to do this differently. I want to do it together.

The replay this week is available to all subscribers.

If you’re a paying subscriber(thank you!) — scroll down for the details & of June Journaling Sessions. I’m now offering additional weekend sessions to see how we go.

Enjoy the replay & hope to see you on a call real soon.

Amanda x

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Galavanted my way through her narrow streets with my creative soul sister . We spent 2 ridiculously hot days moseying through curiosity shops, taking respite from the heat with ice cold lemonade in tall crystal glasses & people watched from the shade.

I got unexpectedly blown away by the Hilma AF Klint exhibiti…

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A lot of Irish people have a frustrated relationship with our own native language, mainly because of the way it was taught in schools.

Learning through immersion is different. That’s when you’re surrounded by it, using it daily, in real-time, with others.

I did all my schooling through Irish and so my experience was immersive, but only during school hours - we didn’t speak Irish at home. So it was less a way of life and more a skill I could use if I ever had need, opportunity or desire.

The thing about language though, is that without anyone to actually speak it with, you’re essentially just memorising words.

This week’s journaling session showed me: I’ve been trying to learn relationship skills like school Irish when what I actually need is immersion.

Theory is one thing. Reading about healthy communication, adopting the language, understanding its concepts intellectually - that’s the ‘evening classes’ version.

But being in relationship where each party is committed to growth beyond wounding? Where feedback isn’t a spider to crush or run from? Where conflict is the immersion pool you’re learning to float in [and not panic, therefore drowning each other in the process] together?

That’s terrifying. And apparently exactly what I asked the universe for.

I share more on this in the end of call reflection. Scroll down for your replay.

Why We’re Doing This Weekly Now

I’m adding a second [weekend] session starting in June - I know life is busy so I wanted to add another chance to show up and do this work together.

Because transformation doesn’t happen in isolation. It happens when you show up consistently, witness others doing the same work, and let the practice reveal what you’re ready to see.

Paid subscribers get:

• 2 weekly live journal sessions

• Full replay library

• Space to go deeper with exclusive access to worksheets etc

• Community of people doing the actual work

Next Wednesday will be our final week with Andrea’s spider poem. Then, we will meet a new guide for June.

See you there.

Amanda x

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For most of my adult life, I struggled to manage my living spaces. I had two modes. One was ‘Organised’ - only because I’d spent an entire weekend actually picking up after myself, but this would only happen occassionaly and as a reaction to the mess having led to a meltdown - plus it took literal days and the result was always temporary.

The other was chaos.

Clothes on the floor. Baskets & bags, unpacked & overflowing. The wardrobe door blocked by a pile of laundry I keep promising to deal with ‘later’. The bed unmade because usually I’m late for something and or I simply don’t have the dopamine.

So I’d just close the door and hope nobody would enter before I got around to ‘sorting it out’, you know, later.

I used to think this was because I was lazy. Or messy. “Bad at adulting” or my personal favourite framing of my entire self as “A Disaster”; a deeply unhelpful and cruel identity I’m still at 50 years of age, detaching from.

Of course I didn’t know until recent years about nervous system regulation. So once I started learning about it, I began tracking mine through my journaling practice.

Not in a routine, ‘productive’, prescriptive way. Just messy, honest writing & art about what I was actually noticing. What I was feeling. What kept happening. What I kept avoiding. What I wanted that I couldn’t quite name.

And slowly — over years, not weeks — something shifted.

It wasn’t that I became tidy. I’m still messy. Let me be very clear about that.

What changed was that I started to notice. I noticed that I felt worse when my spaces were chaotic. I noticed that I slept better when there was less visual noise in my bedroom.

I noticed that candles and ambient lighting did something to my body that overhead lights didn’t. I noticed I felt held by certain textures and aggravated by others.

I noticed that my environment was talking to my nervous system all the time and that I’d been ignoring what it was saying for most of my life.

There’s a name for this, it turns out. Stephen Porges calls it neuroception — the unconscious detection of safety or threat cues in our surroundings, happening below the level of conscious awareness.

Your body is always reading the room. Deb Dana, who’s brought polyvagal theory beautifully into therapeutic practice, calls the small environmental cues of safety glimmers; the opposite of triggers.

Isn’t that fab?

I didn’t know any of this language when I started. I just had a journal and the slowly-built habit of documenting what I noticed.

What the journal was doing, what it’s still doing, all these years on, was training me to be a space-holder for myself.

Someone who could pay attention to what her own system was asking for, instead of overriding it, instead of outsourcing the answer to whoever was loudest in the room.

Journaling also helped me unpack my anxiety & resentment around imposed standards, most of which I had internalised. These were manifesting as power struggles in relation to the tasks associated with the maintaining of more regulating spaces.

Once they ceased to be exclusively associated with morality or some kind of 'aesthetic respectability' and became instead about nervous system care, the power struggles too, were transformed.

The tidy bedroom (-ish; let’s not oversell it) isn’t the point. It’s a side effect. The point is that I learned how to listen to myself and over time, transform something that has made a huge difference to my daily experience of life.

The room is just one piece of evidence of that.

This is what journaling has given me, in no particular order:

• The ability to tell the difference between a real yes and a people pleasing yes

• A real relationship with my own emotions instead of being at odds with, afraid or ashamed of them

• The capacity to notice when I’m making a decision from a wound instead of from a regulated space

• A nervous system that’s learning, slowly, to trust me

• And, yes, spaces [and people] I actually want to spend time in [and with] and the superpower of being able to create [and meet] them, everywhere I go.

I don’t pretend journaling is a magic trick. It is however the most reliable practice I know for coming home to yourself. And I think doing it alongside other women doing the same thing can make the practice deeper than doing it alone.

Which is why I host weekly community journaling sessions on Zoom for my paying subscribers - zoom on, journals open, one hour of guided, witnessed, gentle time.

No pressure. No expectation. No sharing unless you want to. Just the practice of holding time and space for ourselves & each other, together.

How to join us:

The weekly sessions are part of my Substack subscription — €10/month or €110/year. That includes:

• Weekly online journaling sessions (right now we meet Wednesdays 7pm Irish time but times will vary)

• All my writing here plus exclusive access to worksheets, prompts & practices from the archive.

• The wider community of women doing this work together

If you’re already subscribed — scroll down for the details & see you later!

Amanda xx

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Once again, we were Graced with it’s medicine. Scroll to the end for the replay and also a special in-person event invite (paid subscribers)

This week, the spider showed up for one participant with a gun and a mouthful of teeth!

What Happens When You Journey With a Poem

The poems don’t change. We do. And they keep revealing what we’re ready to see.

The best way I find to get juice from a poem is to study it. Write it out in your journal, many times; in full and in parts. Meditate on it’s sentences, ideas, images, words through doodles, lettering, collage.

Fully adopt and explore the metaphor. Really get into it.

I like to think of poetry like my old doc marten boots. The ones I would buy off the dealers behind the iLac centre on Moore St in the early 90’s. If you don’t know what Doc Marten boots are, they’re the kind of footwear that will last you decades.

But you have to ‘break them in’ first, which meant wearing them all day everyday with massive socks, using lotions and potions to soften the leather, stuffing them with wet newspaper at night - it was basically a full time job.

And you did it because..well, the alternative was agony. If you wanted to wear docs and not bleed, you had to go through the process to break them in.

Poetry is the same.

If you want to live a ‘right for you’ life and not keep taking ‘wrong for you’ turns, you need a reflective practice.

And that practice, whatever it is (journaling for me) should ‘carry’ you like the kind of shoes that you had to WORK to break in but which will see you through the next couple of decades, at least.

That’s what these weekly sessions are for & what you get as a paid subscriber - it’s a time and space to slow down, create, witness each other and let poetry work its magic.

✨ Scroll Down For Last Night’s Replay + Next Session Details + Exclusive Event Invite.

See you soon.

Amanda x

P.s… If you’re into embodied living, nature, movement, yoga, hiking & adventure - and you live in Ireland - this event is co facilitated by my very good friend & yoga instructor Hannah Sara & I *urge* (like, super urge) you to check it out.

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If you’re a paid subscriber, scroll all the way down to see the replay.

Someone shared that the first time through, it was about learning to be kind to pain. This time however, the poem presented her with an image of herself as a young girl playing, in spite of pain & being present with joy.

Someone else realised their journal is becoming a sacred space; not for making beautiful things, but for being present. For safety. For play.

And I kept landing on this line: “as I walk careful out to the garden.”

Not “as I flung it out the window screaming.” Not “as I panicked and got someone else to deal with it.” Which I have done many a time.

Careful.

And I thought about how so much of the work is not the eradication of fear but learning to meet that which is scary with CURIOUSITY, COURAGE & NEXT RIGHT ACTION instead of just our ingrained TRAUMA responses.

Learning that kindness can have boundaries, it does not mean being a doormat. That you can be gentle with something and still say “this is my house and you need to leave.”

Why We Keep Working With the Same Poem

This is the second week with this poem. We’ll work with it all month.

Because poems don’t reveal everything at once. They work their medicine slowly. What you discover in week one isn’t what you’ll find in week four.

Life changes and while the poem stays the same, it also journeys with you. Hopefully you keep them like a personal record collection, a poem for every problem, vibe & mood. Helping you in the moments when all you can really do to stop from spiralling, is to remember something true.

These sessions happen weekly for paid subscribers - a chance to slow down, witness each other and let poetry do what it does best: show us what we already know but haven’t been able to name yet.

Next session: Wed May13th @ 7-8pm Irish Time

A paid subscription gets you: live access to weekly journal sessions, the full replay library, exclusive content and the messy real stuff I only share here.

See you next week.

Amanda x

P.s. I positioned my camera overhead on this call so you could see me journaling during our quiet time - I know people enjoy that and I think it adds a bit more interest / value to the call as well. One participant said it helped her be more courageous & loose.

Let me know what you think!

May 7th Replay is below

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These gatherings are sacred. Not polished. Not performative. Just real people witnessing each other’s actual lives as they’re happening.

We don’t listen to fix. We don’t listen to respond. We just witness; life as it is, however messy it is.

If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, these sessions are one of the main reasons to upgrade. You get:

• Live WEEKLY journal sessions + full replay library

• Exclusive journaling worksheets and prompts

• First access to new offerings (like my ‘mystery art journal page drops’ coming soon: as soon as I get medicated for the ol ADHD which has had me in a merciless state of freeze for too long)

• The messy, real stuff I only share here

May’s call is happening tomorrow, paid subscribers scroll down for the link to join or upgrade to get access.

Amanda x

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When I sent out that last-minute email opening the call to everyone - free and paid subscribers alike - I wasn’t sure who would show up.

I’d been MIA. I’d dropped the ball in March. Life has been challenging me in ways I’m still processing.

But you showed up anyway.

We sat with Andrea Gibson’s poem about pain as a spider. We journaled about mothers and fear and webs and mercy. About chronic pain and family divisions and the courage it takes to keep building when your work keeps getting destroyed.

Someone shared how the spider isn’t the pain itself - it’s the protector, weaving beautiful patches over wounds to hold us together.

Someone else realised their spider has been diligently building webs their whole life, waiting to retire once it’s safe to fall apart.

And I realised I’ve been acting like a spider who was only supposed to build one web ever, resentful every time it got hoovered it up and stubbornly refusing to build another; as if my silk was not abundant and stored inside of me.

The replay is available below for all subscribers.

Why These Sessions Matter & I WANT TO OFFER THEM WEEKLY

These gatherings are sacred. Not polished. Not performative. Just real people witnessing each other’s actual lives as they’re happening.

We don’t listen to fix. We don’t listen to respond. We just witness; life as it is, however messy it is.

If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, these sessions are one of the main reasons to upgrade. You get:

• Live WEEKLY journal sessions + full replay library

• Exclusive art journal worksheets and prompts

• First access to new offerings (like my ‘mystery art journal page drops’ coming soon: as soon as I get medicated for the ol ADHD which has had me in a merciless state of freeze for too long)

• The messy, real stuff I only share here

€10/month or €110/year - your monthly permission slip to tend to yourself with witnesses who get it.

Two Coaching Spots Available

During the session, someone mentioned feeling like they’ve done so much work but wondering when they’ll feel the benefits. Someone else talked about learning to be kind to pain instead of trying to crush it.

If either of those landed with you - if you’re in the messy middle of major life transitions and could use support that meets you exactly where you are - I have two coaching spots opening in May.

Investment:

• €600 for 5 sessions (flexibility to space them as needed)

• €400/month for ongoing support (minimum 3 months)

• Free discovery call to see if we’re a good fit

This work is for people who are ready to do the actual work, over time; not just think about it or read about it, but show up and engage with what’s real.

If that’s you, book a discovery call below or just reply to this email.

BOOK A CALL

What’s Next

We will begin our weekly sessions on WED 7th May, 7-8.30pm Irish time. I’ll send reminders closer the time.

This will be open to paid subscribers.

Brand New Art Journaling tutorials in progress (tech gremlins permitting).

Mystery art pages launching once I sort the logistics (and the brain).

And me? I’m sitting with the spider medicine.

Learning that webs get destroyed and spiders just... build another one. Because the silk comes from inside them. It’s what they do.

And sometimes webs need to be destroyed. Especially if we ourselves have become stuck in them.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up when I expressed my need for community, connection & witnesses.

Thank you for your patience while I figure out my next web.

See you in May.

Amanda x

P.s

My very Dear Friend shared the below track with us toward the end of the call. I teased her about being in her ‘Uncle Travelling Matt’ era (if you’re a Fraggle Rock fan, then you get the reference) but lucky for us, Tammi takes us with her, everywhere she goes.

So if you’re in the market for a wander & like to live vicariously through courageous others, go check out ’s Substack as she documents her lustful & lovely adventures around Europe.

Life got really messy for a bit (career stuff, health stuff, life stuff; let’s just say I have been managing a little more than the average chaos)

It better be preparing me for something great because WTF, horsey?

I’m not gonna lie, I have felt a little tongue tied over it all & I just haven’t been able to write about it - or write at all for that matter - I’ve dropped the ball here and for that I’m sorry.

I scheduled a journaling call for March, then forgot to attend it myself when the day came. I know some people were waiting on me and if you were one of them, I am truly sorry.

April & May journal sessions are happening though (they’re in my calendar, each with 4 reminding notifications!

Join us for April & May Journal Sessions

These monthly calls are where we tend to the messy, real, in-progress stuff together.

No polished lessons - just the actual living of it.

Paid subscribers get:

• Monthly live journal sessions (guided prompts + shared reflection)

• Access to all past session recordings

• Exclusive worksheets in archived posts

• First dibs on certain offers

• The messy middle stuff I don’t share publicly

Think of it as your monthly permission slip to tend to yourself with witnesses who get it.

Plus, I’m gonna be honest. I could really do with seeing your face.

There will be a replay made available for subscribers.

Scroll down for details.

I have LOTS more news & updates, which I will get to next week. For now, I just want to invite you to these calls.

That’s it. That’s the post. See you there.

Always,

Amanda

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Join me for a guided journaling session on zoom. It’s not a lesson or a class - we will literally just journal together, share & connect.

There will be a replay made available for subscribers.

Scroll down for details

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This is a conversation space exclusively for paid subscribers, kind of like a group chat or live hangout or as a way to connect between our monthly live calls.

Feel free to jump in anytime!

Join chat

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This is an opportunity to join me for a guided journaling session on zoom. It’s not a lesson or a class - we will literally just journal together, share & connect.

There will be a replay made available and posted to Substack for subscribers.

Scroll down for details + our January session replay

NEW PODCAST EPISODE!

It’s been a while. Life has been life-ing! Join us for a new instalment of TRBH where we talk about what has been keeping us away.

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Under these, I am wearing a luxurious slathering of the whipped body butter I gifted myself for my birthday back in October.

I massaged it thoroughly into my skin.

I’m nice & chilled now, still soaking in the after glow of having enjoyed a hot bath & a soapy foot massage prior to that.

Before any of this, I was eating dinner this evening when the thought occurred to me that I would drive to the shop, get chocolate and then get into a blanket fort bed and just…check out for the night.

I noticed the thought and the ease with which it almost passed the vibe check.

But my newly appointed pleasure-dome bouncer noticed, checked it’s creds at the door and declined admission, passing a note on to the administrator of my parts that ‘The usual imposter is trying to get in again’.

Admin read the note and instructed me to check-in instead.

If pleasure is what my imposter was trying to smuggle past coat check, then let it be conscious. explicit, sacred, unapologetic.

Let it be the real thing. I’m tired of settling for it’s surrogates.

And that’s what I want to invite you into this week, mo chara. A meditation on something you might be experiencing right now or lately as a ‘pull’ and what might be behind it.

For me, the ‘pull’, is pleasure. For you, it might be safety, it might be ease. It might be connection. That’s for you to figure out.

Checking out with chocolate in bed, for me, is not pleasure. Not any more. It is an escape hatch, a portal, a trick, - a way I distract & remove myself from something that either is or that I’m anticipating will be, unpleasant.

In this case, namely - it’s simply ending my day.

Ending anything [except that which I experience as ‘unpleasant’], is not an easy task for me. Neither is beginning, as it turns out.

Why?

Inertia: a property that explains why motion changes are hard to initiate or stop.

Shifting. Adjusting. Switching modes has always, always been a problem for me.

And a way I overcome it, is with bribes. Chocolate is a bribe, it releases dopamine [but which only lasts as long as I’m consuming the chocolate, the minute it ends, so does the illusion of ‘pleasure’]

I have many ways I bribe myself. Chocolate is just one and it’s one that just isn’t working for me anymore in the sense that it actually BLOCKS me from taking pleasure in other [more important as it turns out] ways; ways which I have dismissed and neglected, because society or culture or whomever told me it was shallow to take pleasure in these ways.

And God forbid an enneagram 4 risk being perceived as shallow - moi? Please.

Anyhoo, so I opted not for the head fake, but for something more sustainable, better value. A series of actions that release good feelings of pleasure and pleasantness; bath, skincare, pajamas, laying out tomorrows clothes & make up, hot water bottle, incense, tea.

And writing this piece for you.

Because my intention for this year is pleasure. And to discover that what actually pleases me isn’t what I thought it was; and that an unmitigated relationship with pleasure, is so much more accessible to me now, than it has been for me, probably ever but definitely since I initiated the biggest and most world altering change of my life, by having my malfunctioning gastric band aspirated, exactly 10 years ago this very week.

Reintroducing Pleasure After Years of “The Work”

For the last decade; through getting sober, through therapy, through all the healing and course-correcting, my focus has been on doing the work.

Absolutely Necessary. Absolutely Essential.

But now I’m at a point of replenishment.

I’m asking: Can I reintroduce pleasure consciously? Sustainably? Without it being a numbing mechanism?

This is interesting territory for someone with a history of addiction. Anything that gives me pleasant feelings and / or pleasure, automatically flags that thing. I try not to pathologise, but instead to proceed cautiously and consciously, with honesty and awareness.

My relationship with pleasure used to be about avoidance. About numbing unpleasantness.

Now I’m exploring: What if pleasure were something I sanctioned, actively celebrated & indulged in?

What Actually Gives Me Pleasure

Not just physical acts. What actually pleases me? Like on a spiritual level? What experiences can I create which are pleasant? Which fill me with genuine pleasure?

Like spending time with my infant niece over Christmas. When my brother & his wife thanked me for babysitting, my response was: “It’s my pleasure.”

Because it was.

I’m still dining on the pleasure I took in gathering supplies, setting up and facilitating a group family activity where everyone paired up around the kitchen table & painted each other’s portraits on New Year’s Eve - our first one together in over 30 years.

It’s a pleasure for me to guide people through choosing skincare products and treatments through my new job.

To coach people who engage my services, show up for themselves week after week to address their issues and learn a different way.

It’s a pleasure for me to share experiences I enjoy; taking someone for their first sauna, or sound bath. To recommend a book or an album, to introduce someone to something new that they might love.

I’m learning that I can prioritise time spent with people and in contexts that are pleasant and pleasurable. And I can limit time spent where it’s not.

This may be the most obvious thing to some, but to me, it feels revolutionary.

For Paid Subscribers

Behind the paywall:

• Photos from Christmas (plus a video of our portrait reveals - one in particular, was priceless - we laughed so much)

• The full journaling exploration on “pulls”

• First monthly live journal session gathering details for 2026

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The honest truth is that, like many, this year challenged me in ways I didn’t expect.

I changed jobs in October; I walked out on a situation that had unfortunately become untenable and into something exciting and new on the very same day.

(More on that another time, but the short version: I chose my dignity. And I’d do it again.)

The new role is in the beauty industry, which feels like a homecoming in a way, since my very first profession was as a beautician.

And I’m loving it. Though the transition meant the podcast and my Substack newsletter went quiet, and I’ve missed being here with you.

Here’s what I want to tell you, though.

I was in my office the other day, clearing some things out. I’d received a few lovely cards recently that I hadn’t put away yet.

I keep these kinds of letters and cards I’ve collected over the years in a drawstring bag tucked away in a bookcase in my office.

Some are from my late father and his sister, my Godmother & aunt. Some are from my husband. But mostly, they’re from clients, students, people who’ve become friends.

And they contain words of appreciation & thanks - a kind of ‘proof of impact’.

Usually I just slip the new card in and put the bag back in it’s place. But this time, I took a moment to pluck a few out & read through them.

And it undid me a little.

Because there’s this thing I struggle with and I’m just going to say it out loud:

I wrestle with visibility and growth and numbers and I have done for a long time.

The algorithms. The engagement. The offers that ‘only’ 10 people buy after I’ve poured weeks into creating them.

It’s a constant source of frustration and there have been moments over the years when I seriously questioned whether I want to keep doing ‘this’ at all - and by ‘this’, I mean… *gestures wildly at…whatever*.

When I measure myself against the metrics that supposedly matter, I come up short.

At 50, I still [happily & gratefully, mind you] live in my mother’s house. I also live in the ever present shadow of my father's success and the significant financial debt I've accrued, trying to emulate it.

I drive a 10-year-old car - which, it must be said, never gives me an ounce of trouble and for which I am also grateful - but it concerns me that I can’t afford to upgrade, because that necessity is inevitably coming.

By conventional standards, I am not at all “successful”, in fact, I am haunted by a profound sense of inadequacy & failure.

And yet… and yet… and yet…

There I was, holding a literal bag full of words from people telling me I changed something for them. That I helped. That my offerings to them, mattered.

It reminded me of a dream I had shortly after my father died. He was cremated and in the dream I was in an empty office, filled with ashes.

Every drawer I opened, every filing cabinet, nothing but ashes.

Piled on the desk. Covering the floor. I was sifting through it all, looking for… something. When I finally distilled that dream down, one line emerged:

Nothing of value can be contained.

The success my father had - the fame, the fortune - it all turned to ash. What remained was the imprint. The impact. The way he was with people, how he was remembered by the difference he made to their lives.

I haven’t fully accepted this about myself yet. The truth is that I discount my impact because of the lack of any accompanying financial success.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still lamenting and [more often than I care to admit] resenting that lack of material success. That it doesn’t sting.

But I’m trying to hold both truths at once: that I want more and that I already have something real.

It may come across as maudlin to admit but I sometimes draw comfort from imagining this bag of kind words as a living eulogy - a celebration of my existence that I didn’t even have to die to receive.

*chuckles in enneagram 4*

So thank you. For being one of the kind people in my bag. For reading these words. For listening. For showing up.

For staying here with me even when I go quiet.

What’s Ahead: Podcast news, New Moon Journaling Sessions, RAW in real life.

The podcast is coming back in January! I have guests scheduled and I’m hoping to record an episode with Melanie over the holidays.

Starting January 1st, I’m raising the paid SUBSTACK subscription to $10/month, because I’m adding something I’m genuinely excited about: monthly live journaling gatherings. [this won’t affect your current rate if you’re already subbed, only new subs]

These gatherings won’t be lessons or workshops; they’ll be guided sessions where we journal together, in community.

Time for quiet. Time for sharing.

I’m thinking around new moon time, with varied days and times so everyone has a chance to make one. All sessions will be recorded and live here for paid members.

I’m also continuing with a very small, select 1-1 coaching clientele as well as my Saturday journaling sessions in Killaloe. (simply reply to this email if you’re interested in either)

And I’m hoping to revive my RAW workshops as real-time, in person offerings at some point. But given that I am working full time now, this may be a challenge, we will see.

And… I would really love to do another USA RAW tour - which still feels pretty daunting. Partly because having to unexpectedly cancel & refund an entire year of scheduled workshops, both at home and abroad during COVID, honestly put me off ever organising anything ‘in real life’, ever again.

But mostly because of the executive functioning clusterfuck of it all.

[In the spirit of transparency, I’m finally pursuing an ADHD assessment. Because it turns out that persistent overwhelm in general and a ‘never not dysregulated’ nervous system is not in fact, ‘normal’. More on that as I learn more.]

For You This Week

I’m leaving you with a replay of last year’s Christmas episode with Mel; our conversation about self-caring through the holidays.

It holds up.

✨For paid subscribers✨

Something special is waiting for you. Almost 25 years ago, Mel and I co-hosted a Christmas morning radio show with our father for Ireland’s national broadcaster, RTE RADIO ONE.

It’s music and banter and his voice and us and it’s become so special to us. A friend of mine very kindly dug it out of the RTE archives for me last year and it’s something we will always cherish.

And as an offering of gratitude for your support as a paid subscriber, I want to share it with you along with an invitation to pour yourself something warm on Christmas morning and enjoy.

That’s what we will be doing. Scroll down to access it below.

So…

The Year of the Snake is done. Hopefully the shedding wasn’t too painful. The year of the horse is coming. Hopefully he’s not lame.

The word that keeps presenting itself to me for the year ahead is pleasure - but not the dopamine-chasing, pain-avoiding kind.

Something more conscious. More intentional. More sustainable. I’ll say more when I know more.

For now: thank you for being here. For reading. Listening. For staying.

Wishing you a safe, peaceful Christmas and whatever quiet magic you need to close out this year.

Always, Amanda xx

P.S. - If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to a paid subscription, now’s the time - you’ll lock in the current rate before it goes up January 1st.

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Elephants fascinate me.

Matriarchal societies. Highly intelligent. Sensitive, intuitive creatures who remember everything.

And when you test them? They rampage.

Now, I’m not suggesting we set out on a path of destruction. But I do admire the emotional honesty of it, the complete, unfiltered expression of rage.

When’s the last time you let yourself do that?

Not in a way that hurts anyone. Not in a way you have to apologise for later.

But in a way that’s honest. Raw. Uncensored.

She’s in there, you know. The woman who doesn’t shrink herself to make others comfortable. Who doesn’t swallow her truth to keep the peace. Who doesn’t perform “fine” when she’s anything but.

Do you ever let her rampage?

Creatively, I mean.

That’s what RAW gives you: permission to put it ALL on the page.

The rage. The grief. The feelings you’re afraid are too much. The dreams you’ve been told are impractical. The parts of yourself you’ve learned to hide.

In RAW, nothing is too much. Nothing is too messy. Nothing is unwelcome.

Over 4 weeks of live coaching, you’ll learn how to:

• Channel what you’ve been holding into art that heals

• Trust your creative instincts without second-guessing

• Express the truth of who you are without fear of judgment

• Transform the weight on your chest into images on the page

This is your invite to a creative rampage and it starts Monday.

But you have to decide now.

Doors close this Sunday at midnight. After that, this final live cohort begins without you and the opportunity for real-time guidance and community support is gone.

You get:

• 4 weeks of live group coaching

• Complete self-paced curriculum (lifetime access)

• Private community of women who get it

• LOTS of transformational bonuses (including Altered Book Journaling + Sacred Art of Transformation)

Plus: Our private Facebook group where the magic doesn’t stop when the calls end. This is where women show up messy, real, and completely themselves; and are met with nothing but support.

The “musts” and “shoulds” of life don’t need to sit on your chest like an elephant anymore.

You’re allowed to let it out. You’re allowed to take up space. You’re allowed to be completely, unapologetically real.

RAW shows you how.

I’M READY - SIGN ME UP

We start Monday. Don’t miss out.

With you in the wild,

Amanda xx