Mariella O’Brien - Mental Wellbeing

29/06/2022

So excited to be joining my coach Rohini and fellow Rewilder Guide Mentors in this free webinar series. Take a look and sign up if it speaks to you 💖

Are you a coach, therapist, healer, or another kind of solo practitioner?

Do you want to rewild your practice with joy and inspiration?

Join me and Rewilder Mentor Guides for the free six-week course: https://www.therewilders.org/rewilding-your-practice

It is time to STOP listening to the voices of insecurity in your head that:

- Tell you you need more qualifications
- Say you can’t charge that
- Ask you, "Who are you to do that?"
- Have you give away your time when your responsibility is to take care of yourself and your loved ones.
- Complain it is too hard.
- Lie to you and say you aren’t good enough and don’t have what it takes.
- Have you hide behind busy work rather than engaging in quality interactions that build your practice.

It is time to START listening to the wisdom of your heart so you can be of service and live beyond your conditioning of fear so you can:

Shine your unique light in the world.
Share your work in service to reducing the suffering of others.
Take care of yourself financially so the work is sustainable.
Say “YES” to your dreams.
Honor yourself and your calling.
What is required is straightforward and simple.

You don't need an expert.

You have everything you need inside of you to do the work your heart is calling you to do.

Let’s spend some time together this summer and have some fun starting or growing your practice.

Insecurity and inaction love shame and isolation.

Let’s step into the light together and have love carry us forward as we embrace all of who we are and express that more expansively in the world.

No matter where you are in the development of your practice this course will support you with taking it to the next level because it is about taking you to the next level within yourself.

If this calls to you join me and:

Cathy Sommerville Scharetg
Katrine Nysveen
Linda Hamilton
Mariella O'Brien
Monique Williams
Natasha Millard
Ruth Shteinbuk

For Rewilding Your Practice. A free six-week course designed to get you out of your head and into the joy of creating.

Click the link to learn more and register: https://www.therewilders.org/rewilding-your-practice

19/06/2022

Happy Father’s Day to all courageous men dedicated to their own growth for the benefit of their children

08/06/2022

“ALL feelings are safe, even the super intense ones. They come and go in the body. They are not permanent, and they just want to be felt, blessed, loved, offered safe passage, and move on” 🌈✨

I CANNOT LOSE MYSELF

I used to be terrified of feelings, my own feelings and the feelings of others.

I believed that if I went too deeply into feelings, if I let them exist for too long in me, if I allowed them to live in my body, I would go mad, or I would be destroyed by them somehow. Or they would never leave, and I would get “stuck” in them forever, sucked into their dark heart, no way out.

I feared “losing myself” in feelings.

I feared my own fear. I had anxiety about having anxiety. I was angry with my own anger. Like many, I believed that I had dark, sinful, dangerous energies inside of me, and that I had to avoid these ‘demons’ at all costs. This was all a child’s superstition, of course, totally reasonable conclusions for an innocent child to make.

But as I stepped into presence, into my adult and out of my trauma, I came to realise that ALL feelings are safe, even the super intense ones. They come and go in the body. They are not permanent, and they just want to be felt, blessed, loved, offered safe passage, and move on.

I did not have to fear or resist my feelings any longer, even the intense and uncomfortable ones. I could just relax, breathe, open, surrender, trust, and let them pass through.

I cannot lose myself for I am present even at the heart of loss.

- Jeff Foster

27/04/2022

Pure potential ✨

DO NOT DEFINE YOURSELF, MY LOVE.

Definitions are dead and of the past.
You are too alive for definitions.

You're not a success or a failure.
You're not a good person or a bad person.
You're not a wise person or a fool.
You're not beautiful, nor are you ugly.
You're not enlightened, and you can't be unenlightened, ever.
You're not any one thing, nor nothing,
nor many things at once.

You are pure potential.
A vessel for life,
prior to any incarnation.

You always knew you were changing
too fast to be defined.

No concept can capture your vastness.

No mouth can speak your name.

No word can capture
your outrageous fire.

- Jeff Foster

18/04/2022

Truth ✨

YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE WORTHY

F**k being worthy.

If you succeed, if you score an A+, if you get the promotion, if you win the race, you won't be loved more. You have to shake off that illusion.

Love isn't something that anyone can give you. It’s not something you have to beg for, earn, or deserve.

You don’t have to be worthy. You only have to be alive, and you are worthy.

Because you are inseparable from the stars, the mountains, the rustling trees in the meadow.

And you follow the breath as it rises and falls. And you make room in yourself for long-neglected feelings of shame, fear, unworthiness, sorrow. You learn to trust the body, its rhythms, the way it tries to protect itself, its unpredictability, its feelings of unsafety. You breathe into the sore places, make them safe. (Safe to even feel unsafe; that is freedom.)

To love the parts that feel unlovable;
that is the love you always dreamed about,
the love you never have to “deserve”.

- Jeff Foster

19/03/2022

✨You Were Made For This✨
~ by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.

Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.

It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing.

We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.

The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these -- to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. [...]

In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

26/01/2022

Highly recommend💖🌸

Following last week’s warm response, we are very excited to announce that we will once again offer the free Webinar next week. As many of you expressed interest in attending but were unable to due to its inconvenient time, we are offering it again later on the day. We hope that this will better accommodate your schedule and look forward to seeing you there.

Invite any friends, family, or whoever you think might like a little self-care time for themselves.

With love,
Christel & Bec Steele

Register here: www.bwellnutrition.co.uk/register

16/01/2022

❤️ this! “You are enough simply in your being”
Effort and busyness does not equal productivity and productivity does not make us more worthy, we already are just by being here ✨

LET YOURSELF REST

If you’re exhausted, rest.

If you don’t feel like starting a new project, don’t.

If you don’t feel the urge to make something new,
just rest in the beauty of the old, the familiar, the known.

If you don’t feel like talking, stay silent.

If you’re fed up with the news, turn it off.

If you want to postpone something until tomorrow, do it.

If you want to do nothing, let yourself do nothing today.

Feel the fullness of the emptiness, the vastness of the silence, the sheer life in your unproductive moments.

Time does not always need to be filled.

You are enough, simply in your being.

- Jeff Foster

11/01/2022

This promises to be a wonderful retreat with an amazing line up of teachers and practitioners ❤️

01/11/2021

Hello beautiful people!

As part of my second year training as a Rewilding Guide / Coach and Mentor I have the challenge of completing 50 coaching sessions in a limited timeframe.

I have decided to offer 20 free conversations to people on my page here on Facebook.

For whatever reason you have found your way here and I am grateful for your support. This is an opportunity to experience a coaching session with me.

Please get in touch if you would like to:

- Understand how we create our experience of life and get back to your true nature
- Create space for yourself to be fully supported and listened to
- Experience greater ease in your relationships with yourself and with others
- Gain clarity on a particular issue you’re dealing with
- Experience more peace of mind around your parenting

If none of these apply to you but you’ve read all this way, please still reach out and we can explore how a conversation can be supportive to you.

These are not sales conversations, there are no strings attached. The only thing that is required on your part is commitment to show up at the agreed date and time and show up fully for yourself; show up with an open mind and ready to see or hear something in a new way.

When something is offered free, we can easily consider it of little value and spare our commitment or cancel at short notice.

This is not one of those offerings.

I value my time. The service I offer and the space I create are sacred to me. It means a lot to share this space with you!

Are you prepared to commit this time for yourself and show up fully? If the answer is yes, I’d love to hear from you.

Ps. This offer is open until mid Jan 2022

20/07/2021

Please gift yourself the time to watch this powerful documentary, if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s being broadcast for free again between 28/7-1/8.
It might just change the way you see life and relate to yourself and others - with more compassion and understanding ❤️

Watch The Wisdom of Trauma Movie on July 28-August 1, Featuring DR. GABOR MATÉ Plus a 7-day teaching series on trauma with leading experts!

07/05/2021

Assumptions

How often do we live on assumptions? How often do we miss the mark?

We assume who people are based on their appearance.

We assume we know what people think and feel based of the way they look or behave.

We assume we know what people are thinking of us, based on a throwaway remark or a sideways glance.

We assume how someone is going to react, so we don’t even approach them with a request or a new idea.

We often fill in the gaps while not really listening to the person in front of us, assuming we know what they are about to say.

We assume we cannot do something based on out past experiences, or even on the temporary mood we are in in that moment.

I was catching up with and old friend last week and it struck me that we operate from assumptions for a big part of our waking hours. It struck me how life could be so different if we recognised the illusory nature of those assumptions. There is so much more freedom and so many more opportunities waiting ...

It made me examine how many assumptions I am making up on a daily basis. Yes, because they are made up!

Take a moment to ask yourself “what am I making up?” Are you creating a reality based on assumptions or true facts. In interactions with others are you taking the time to ask and understand better?

Putting this here so I can remind myself

05/05/2021

Some lovely feedback from a wonderful client. I do love this work 💖✨

"Mariella is a very discerning coach. I am loving working with her. I have been having a few sessions related to my personal and professional journey. Together we have been exploring my
habitual reactions and thought patterns which can often prevent me from connecting to my own inner wisdom and guidance.
She helps me to recognise negative and insecure thoughts and their self-righteous disguises. By learning to understand how they operate within me it becomes easier to let them pass when they arise. And whenever I try to analyse and complicate things Mariella grounds me and simplifies matters. This is the biggest bonus of all as I can lose myself easily.

I really recommend Mariella to anyone who wants to discover the path to their own Inner Wisdom and Guidance. I am loving the journey”

14/12/2020

✨Lessons from an 8 year old✨

“Why are you not using your new weighted blanket?, I ask my son at bedtime.

“I don’t deserve it right now, he explains. “I’ve been silly and behaved badly, so I’m not having it right now.”

Wow, that pressed an unexpected button deep in my soul!

“Yes you deserve it! Just have the blanket now!”, I snap and tuck him in with the said blanket. “You don’t have to do anything to deserve it, you deserve it because you are alive”, comes out of my mouth.

Then later on, once he is asleep the tears flood in. It went so much deeper than deserving a blanket.

How many times have I felt not worthy of self-compassion and self-care, of the good things in my life?

How long have I had my worthiness tied up to things, like my grades, my achievements, my hard work, making everyone else around me happy, the list goes on and on.

How and when did we get the wrong message?

We are worthy of love and compassion just because we are here. Because we are dancing through the ups and downs of this human experience.

“We can’t earn our place here. We are here by grace, and our very existence is a gift”, in the words of Michael Neill.

We are love! No need to be worthy or deserve it, we are it!

I must have needed this reminder today. I thought I’d share in case you needed it too 💖✨

13/11/2020

Give a little love ❤️ (to yourself)❤️

Today I’m focusing on self-care. I’m trying to slow down a bit and to be kind and gentle with myself. This is not easy for my conditioned self, that very harsh inner critic that drives me towards perpetual doing rather than simply being. It feels like such a luxury but it’s essential.

I’ve had so many reminders of it lately...

I just watched the new John Lewis Christmas advert and it warmed my heart (it’s another good one!) but also made me think.

Yes I do all I can to spread my love to others but am I doing the same for myself. The thought made me tear up. A wave of sadness for that little girls that’s still in me. The need for self-compassion and care because obvious.

We have to allow ourselves the time and space to fill ourselves up with love and then it will overspill to those around us. When we soften our own inner edges, we can show up to the world with more kindness and care.

What is your act of self care for today or for this weekend? Do you give a little love to yourself first? 💖

PS. Link to the lovely soundtrack in comments

04/09/2020

✨

THE COURAGE TO BE STILL

Overheard on a train, today:

“I’m just not able to relax!
I feel like I’m going crazy if I’m not doing something.
Like if I just sit there, if I don’t move, I just freak out, I think I’m gonna die...”

Aww. I feel so much compassion for people who feel this way! I know that restlessness so well. The fear of the body. The cry of unhealed trauma. The fear of stillness. Of silence. Of being alone.

The feeling of ‘crawling out of one’s skin’.

In the stillness, we must face... ourselves! All the thoughts we don’t want to think. All the feelings we have been spending our lives trying not to feel. All the ‘wild and dangerous and dark’ urges and impulses, the terrors and the rage, the grief and the boredom. All the life we have run away from. All the creativity we have suppressed.

This is the voice of unhealed trauma:

“Just keep going. Keep moving. Keep talking. Keep doing.

Just don’t stop. Don’t sit still. Don’t rest.

If you rest long enough, you will die…

If you relax, if you stop, and breathe, old trauma will resurface, suppressed and unconscious feelings will begin to break through into conscious awareness.

Keep busy. Distract. As if your life depended on it.

Feelings are bad. Feelings are not safe…”

Of course it’s not true at all. Feelings are the safest place to be. The body is the safest place of all. Intensity and discomfort do not necessarily equal pathology and danger and death.

But we have to learn to slowly, mindfully, gently, BE WITH the uncomfortable feelings. Lean in to the boredom, the loneliness, the fear, the despair. Prove to ourselves that these feelings are tolerable, survivable, even loveable, even pleasurable, life-giving, joyful, relieving, healing. When we feel them. When we let them move through us to completion.

“I’m just not able to relax....”

Friend, instead of “trying to relax”, can you just become curious about your lack of relaxation, and drench your restlessness with loving awareness, and breathe into the place in you that feels bored, and infuse the scared inner child with compassion and fascination and warmth? You may discover, the present moment is not as “unbearable” as your mind tells you, and in fact it’s your “running away” from yourself that makes it all a million times worse.

Be gentle with yourself, my love.
Settle gently into what’s here.
Lean in to the pain. Soften into the inner storm.

You are safe in the stillness.
You are held in the silence.

You can rest at the burning core
of your restlessness.

You can sink, now,
into sacred aloneness...

- Jeff Foster

29/08/2020

29/08/2020

Wow-wee! Our little book has got to #3 on Amazon! How amazing is that! ✨💫

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08GP8BQLF