Lugh’s honouring of his varied interests and talents is helping me clarify my own offerings this week. I hope the new Monday Motivation structure helps you enjoy whatever you choose to do as you work with the seasonal energies of generosity, harvest and abundance, amplified at this point of the Celtic Wheel of the Year.
Welcome to your Monday Motivation!
A bounteous bundle of self care and Self care (that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most brilliant, joyful and miraculous part of yourself) ideas to support you through the week and beyond!
This week’s theme is Lughnasadh.
Celebrated on 1st (sometimes 2nd) August, this is a wonderful time to work with energies around abundance, harvest and generosity.
This post offers some of my reflections on Lugh and how his mythology has helped me.
The latest Embodied Wellbeing newsletter is about how generosity can help YOU as well as others. READ AND/OR SUBSCRIBE HERE
And Extra Embodied subscribers and Personal Peace members will be finding out how to enhance an abundance of all good things in your world. With a Power Animal oracle card deck Lughnasadh Full Moon reading.
Why is Lugh – the bundle of contradictions – my favourite Irish God?
The Irish God, Lugh, who this celebration is named for, was multitalented and multipassionate.
Legend has it that he was eventually admitted to Tara as a High King because while they already had a poet, warrior, craftsman, legal expert, artist, horseman etc, he was the only one who did it ALL. His reign was associated with peace and prosperity. READ MORE HERE
When I learned this about Lugh, at a Bealtaine Fire Festival at Uisneach when I first moved to Ireland, in 2019, I knew that even this KNOWLEDGE would help me better integrate all the different parts of myself – Indian Irish, London born, now living in the rural west of Ireland. Wearing so many different hats for work yet them all being so complementary. Country, city, sea…
For months now, to maximise the benefits for the Personal Peace online membership, I’ve been scheduling all the new content to be published on Monday mornings.
My preparations for this harvest celebration of the Celtic Wheel of the Year, reflecting and planning mean I’m doing deeper healing around this.
Wouldn’t it be better if I could somehow divide my offerings to schedule them throughout the week? Bite sized offerings for you?
But that simply won’t work with the membership and encouragement I offer readers as well as members to take a little time at the START of the week and schedule some self care and Self care IN.
I realised that instead of posting almost apologetically about all the new content each Monday morning (I know people can find it hard to fit ANY self care and Self care in – I didn’t want to overwhelm anyone) I could own it.
It reminded me a bit of how I used to feel a bit bad about all the ways I could work with clients. Until I outed all my offerings with the book, 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing in 2017, I was almost ashamed of all my therapeutic and coaching offerings.
Other people focused on one model and there I was offering so many because I’d done so many trainings in things that were – to me – so obviously complementary. Why did I keep doing additional trainings? (They all helped me with my own trauma recovery and learning to navigate life and ultimately thrive sober.) Why couldn’t just one be enough?
Looking back, obviously, I recognise HOW beneficial it is to be able to tailor my approach so collaboratively with my clients, supervisees and groups.
And I love supporting other multiskilled therapists and coaches with supervision, using what I’ve learned (including from the 9 years I served on BACP’s Coaching Executive (two as Chair)) to support my supervisees in working ethically, creatively and effectively, using their whole selves.
Not all of my clients want, for example, yoga, nlp, eft, or crystals or mindfulness. And that’s fine. But having created more clarity on my site, I made things easier for them to find me and my private practice has been consistently at capacity for years now.
Similarly, when putting together an outline for my presentation this autumn at a therapy conference, I was almost embarrassed at being able to offer more than the bits they specifically asked for.
Because I’ve been doing this for nearly 20 years, I grounded myself and got in touch, outlining my vision for the session. I figured they may well say, ‘Too much! No!’ but that it would at least give me plenty of time to refocus.
In reality, they sound really happy about it! I’m now looking forward to delivering the presentation even more, knowing we’re on the same page and I can deliver!
Since starting my Substack, I was asking myself each week, why was I creating so much new content for subscribers and readers? And yet, having a theme lent itself to exploration in different directions.
It IS an abundance of ideas to go with each week’s theme. But just as I made it clear that the book could be dipped in and out of, no one has to do any more than feels good for them.
Welcome to your Monday Motivation
I think this new framework will make it EASIER for you to pick and choose – or do it all!
It echoes the Monday evening timing of the weekly live Self care coaching call for Personal Peace members
Mondays’ offerings complement each other.
You can either start your week off with a big focus on taking better care of yourself as it relates to the week’s theme or simply dip in and out throughout the week (and beyond) anytime it suits you.
You can subscribe to Embodied Wellbeing with Eve at evemc.substack.com to help ensure you never miss an update and, if you want more, you can become a Extra Embodied for under €1.54 per week!
Grab your journal (if you want to)
You’ll find more journal prompts and reflections around abundance and generosity HERE but, as you ponder the Lugh within yourself, what are YOUR biggest bundles of contradictions?
How might you own ALL your gifts and talents and curiosities and interests more?
When do you feel most happy around your commitments and contributions?
Do you take time to acknowledge how far you’ve come?
What might help you reap the benefits of harvests you might have moved through so quickly you barely acknowledged all your hard work?
How else might you take time, this Lughnasadh to enjoy the fruits of your labour more?
Lughnasadh Yoga Nidra
I hope you enjoy this deep rest, helping your whole Self including your unconscious mind, work with these seasonal energies today and for the next few days. ACCESS IT HERE
Embodied Wellbeing subscribers (free and Extra Embodied) can join the subscriber only chat to support the ongoing 28 Day Lunar Cycle Yoga Nidra Challenge/INDULGENCE too.
Please feel free to share this blog post if you think others will benefit from it too.
with love,
