As we move into February by honouring the Irish Goddess Brigid and the part of YOU (whatever your gender) that is Divine, as well as working with the seasonal energies of the Celtic Wheel of the Year (renewal! Strength! Energy! Creativity!), we’re also exploring (with embodied journalling prompts) past, present and future. And the power of silence!
And to thank Half Moon (free subscribers) and Full and Super Moon (paid subscribers) members of the Sole to Soul Circle
there’ll be some bonus content winging its way to your inboxes tomorrow (a Past/Present/Future Brigid Oracle Card reading) and a deeper dive on Thursday (preparing for Brigid with a simple self healing ritual – complementary, ALWAYS SEEK APPROPRITATE MEDICAL ADVICE – for your whole household).
Let me know how you get on.
Le grá (with love),
FULL TRANSCRIPT
it's really about hope and light and warmth and bringing it back and cultivating it within yourself, recognising that renewal of your own strength and energy and so it's a lovely time of year. I mean, the whole year is a lovely
Hi, I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I am so excited to be sharing new trauma informed and ADHD friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of your Self: That highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself, as well as the basic self-care which we all know can be so challenging at times.
I really appreciate you tuning in. If you want a deeper dive, you'll be getting bonus content each week. Sign up to the Soul to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as €8.00 a month. And you can also find more ideas in the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.
Welcome to this new episode and this new month with the Feel Better Every Day podcast. We're moving into February. I know that it's technically still January, but we're honouring Brigid, the goddess and the saint for Brigid on 1/2/25.
It became a national holiday here in Ireland just last year or the year before, and it just feels appropriate as we move into February content as well as connecting with the goddess or god within you and treating yourself with all the love and care and compassion that you and everyone else deserves.
It's an opportunity to welcome yourself back to your body and to really think in all sorts of ways how would you be treating yourself if you genuinely loved and cared about yourself and always remembered that you are part of the divine.
Brigid, also known as Imbolc, is part of the Celtic Wheel of the Year where we celebrate spring and it's early February, so it always surprises me that we're celebrating spring so early, but it's like those first little shoots of growth, the beginning of the return of the sun and it's really about hope and light and warmth and bringing it back and cultivating it within yourself, recognising that renewal of your own strength and energy and creativity.
It's a lovely time of year, I mean the whole year is a lovely time of year. I'm recording this in January and we've actually got snow outside and it's beginning to melt and seeing those green leaves below it is that sense of Brigid coming in less than a month. But I want you to think for yourself, how would your self care, how would your days be different, what would you be doing differently, how would your environment be different if you knew with every fibre of your being that you are part of the Divine and that you DESERVE exquisite self care and that it doesn't have to be tedious and time-consuming and exhausting, but it can be light and it can be what brings you energy?
You might want to grab a journal, you might want to just sit with it or you might want to do some embodied journaling after listening to this. Embodied journaling, for those of you who aren’t yet familiar with my approach, is recording yourself. You might record yourself on your phone or like video, audio, whatever, but you can pick up a lot of information as you watch back in terms of what lights you up and what do you notice yourself feeling heavier or lighter around.
Following your natural energy, your natural rhythms, your natural cycles is so much more empowering than enduring and forcing yourself and being miserable with it all.
So notice when you think about your own energy being renewed, what pops up for you? Are you like, ‘I don't need it, I'm fine, I'm very energised and all is good’? Or are you feeling like you've been running on empty for ages and does that feel like a fairy tale that it could somehow be renewed?
Ask yourself what might help you feel more renewed, feel more refreshed, feel more energised and let yourself imagine your ideal in terms of if you have all the resources, all the times, all the energy available to you and also what might be actually doable, what might be realistic, what might be one thing or what might be even two things, but create a bit of a spectrum around it, like making it more sustainable for yourself and get curious about it.
Some things that you try, you actually won't need to do them for as long as you might think you need in order to get quite remarkable benefits. And something that's really helping me so far this year, for the past many, many years, I've done an almost annual 24-hour DIY silent retreat where I have no phone, no music, no telly, no washing machine even.
I let myself use the oven and boil the kettle and things like that, but I do my best to be as quiet as silent. I do my best to be telepathic with the cats and I always find it hard going into it around Christmas time, New Year, because we've got more time off and being self-employed, I'm always aware of that.
And I think to myself almost every year, ‘I love that, that was amazing, that was so cleansing, that was so energising, that was so creativity boosting. I'm going to do it every bank holiday or every month!’
And I've never done it at any time other than late January, sorry, late December or very beginning, no, always late December actually. And this year I thought, ‘You know what, Evei? You never do it throughout the year. So rather than tell yourself this all or nothing, like do 24 hours in one go, you got benefits after even an hour just knowing that you had this long stretch of time, you've got in the habit of having your phone on like last thing at night and first thing in the morning.
‘How would it be once a week to give yourself the gift of a 12-hour silent retreat where from before you go to bed until you wake up and then a few hours after that, you have complete silence, no phone, you do your yoga, you do all these things.’
And I can't tell you what a gift it's been. I'm going to be doing a longer episode around that for December but we're early days but I'm doing it every week so far and it's amazing. So think to yourself, what would be your ideal in terms of what might energise you and what is doable, what is realistic, what is something that you will actually want to gift yourself.
Thinking also in terms of strength, noticing have you been ill, are you recovering from injury, are you simply dealing, like everyone, with a tough few years? It feels like a lot of people, most people are being tested at this time with a lot of resilience building life experiences and challenges both global and personal and like more local.
So think to yourself about imagining yourself at your most vital, your most strong, your most resilient but not you know resilient like bracing yourself for yet more bad, more challenge, more negativity but imagining that strength like the new shoots of spring, having the courage to spring forth through the snow or through the cold, the baby lambs being born. Now I live in farm country, vegan in farm country and seeing like the baby lambs and there's such vulnerability and tenderness and also such strength and hardiness and connecting with that within yourself.
Noticing also when you feel most creative, when you feel most renewed, when you feel most in your element and safe and explorative and warm and hopeful, it might be that you are working on a new book or a new whatever endeavour it might be but that sense of hope, that sense of energy, that sense of knowing that it's a marathon not a sprint and it will take rewrites or the equivalent in whatever medium you're working in.
Even using your life as a creative project because you being alive is recognising you get to design your life in whatever way you choose and allowing yourself to connect with that creativity and to connect with your inner strength, your energy and move towards the environment that feels good for you.
So making tweaks in your home, changing behaviours that get in the way of you feeling creative and fulfilled and building more in, again recognising there's a spectrum with all of this.
Getting curious about it, just really noticing if you believed that you were part of the Divine, you know you are part of nature, you can't help but look around and yes there's a lot of sorrow and there is also a lot of magic, a lot of miracles. If you let yourself remember that we are part of nature and that all that is magical about the new growth, about the spring, about the renewal, about the strengthening, it's all possible and happening within yourself as well.
How can you make space for that? How can you honour what's naturally happening within you and cultivate it and attend to it with tenderness and with care and with kindness and with the awe that you and the world deserve?
Maybe thinking also to, we're going to go in the Half Moon bonus content into a Brigid Oracle Card reading for free subscribers, so if you want to join you can do that at evemc.substack.com but thinking of your own past, present and future.
Thinking about how a time or several times or your life might have been different if you had never forgotten what you were born knowing, that you are Divine, that you are part of the divine and that you deserve love, being cherished, being safe.
You may have ADHD, you may have survived trauma, you may have had many many challenges but you are still so so worthy and so like what would it be like to send some love, to send some acceptance, to send some tools back to Baby You? Child You? Teenage You? different times of your life with that real renewed push of energy and strength and creativity around your own recovery, your own healing, your own personal growth.
I love hearing from you so do comment, message, get in touch through the website thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com or you can listen at the feelbettereverydaypodcast.ie
And I look forward to sharing more with Half Moon and the deeper dive for the Full Moon and Super Moon members of the Sole to Soul Circle but I really encourage you whether you do that or not to connect, oh for the Full Moon members we're going to be going through some simple rituals you can do yourself to honour the time of year, the seasonal energies of Brigid in a few days.
So pay attention to your energy, notice what feels good, notice what doesn't, give yourself permission to go with your strengths, to go with your creativity and let me know how you get on.
I love hearing from you, I really appreciate you listening.
This episode like all episodes so far has been produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and you can listen via your favourite platform so if you subscribe there you're less likely to miss future episodes and also watching on YouTube if you prefer to do that.
I love hearing from you so do rate, review, comment, like, subscribe, whatever feels good for you but most of all whatever the weather's right now, know that spring is coming, know that it's always worth hoping, it's always worth planning for better and taking those steps that you're in control of with so much being out of your control that is likely to bring you the outcomes and the life that you want and deserve to be living.
So thanks again for listening and I will see you next week.
If you are a Half Moon member or Full or Super Moon member of the Sole to Soul Circle, you'll be getting your bonus material recordings tomorrow and the day after, and you can subscribe for free or a small monthly or annual amount at evemc.substack.com
Thank you so much for listening to this episode and all the episodes you've listened to of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I love sharing them with you and I also love to hear from you. So let me know your comments, your questions and please rate, review, share, comment, like, subscribe, whatever you feel like doing.
This episode was produced by me, your host Eve Menezes Cunningham and next week I'll be sharing some of my personal journey with mental health issues including trauma recovery, ADHD, anxiety, depression, CPTSD and various childhood memories that were good and bad and just looking back. As we talk so often about mental health awareness, I thought I'd share some of my reflections with compassion. It's a longer than usual episode, but I hope that it will empower you to seek the support that you need and deserve, or for you to be better able to support loved ones.
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