It was SUCH a delight to speak to the fantabulous Dr Karen Ward again for this episode
She’s moved from Dublin to Cork and reminds us that we have everything we need within us. Yes, she’s now immersed in magical, Sacred Ireland (I love that oracle deck she created as well as her Brigid deck) but even in the midst of a city, you can connect with nature and the Divine.
I hope you enjoy listening (or watching) as much as I enjoyed catching up with her!
le grá (with love),
Ev3
CHAPTERS
(00:00) Sacred places, liminal spaces and belonging
(02:46) Karen’s journey into holistic and shamanic work
(08:17) FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. and creating a nourishing life
(10:13) Nature, place and the healing power of the sea
(15:32) Community, work and what truly regulates us
(20:51) Finding grounding and connection wherever you are
(24:34) Community care, Moon Mná and being held
(27:57) Advice for a younger self and trusting life
(30:46) Growth, healing and always learning
LINKS
Moon Mná https://moonmna.ie
Slí An Chroí https://slianchroi.ie
Dr Karen Ward https://drkarenwardtherapist.ie/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drkarenwardtherapist/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drkarenward
If you enjoyed this, check out:
Episode 20: Dr Karen Ward on energy work and Sacred Ireland
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/scvnM_X9mZY?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Episode 43: Honouring Brigid and the Divine within you
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8ohlnm6jt6k?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Episode 96: Sensory Soothers for Trauma and AuDHD this Brigid
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/D1NodOs26j8?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Book your free telephone consultation and access 100s of body-mind practices at https://solestosoul.ie/free-downloads
FULL TRANSCRIPT
But there’s something about here that it just seeps into my bones. It’s a very sacred place. I’m looking at the Skelligs, the Hag of Beara is down the road.
It really is an extraordinary place and I feel keenly the energies of the Cailleach now in my case. And interesting enough from the Skelligs, some people might know that it is said that there are two ley lines, like a DNA helix, one feminine, one masculine. And the feminine one comes ashore at the village where I live, travels over the beach where we got engaged many months ago, up the road to where we are.
And I’m at the, we’re both at the edge of the village. So it’s always said that the shaman lives at the edge of the forest, not quite in the centre, but just in that liminal place.
Hi, you’re listening to Soles to Soul Care for Trauma and AuDHD. Learn to love and care for all your parts from the soles of your feet to your soul. I’m your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham. This is Mighty Meadbh.
I’m a senior accredited supervisor, senior accredited counsellor, a therapeutic coach where I integrate all my offerings, including psychosynthesis counselling, the trauma-informed therapies, the neurodivergent-affirming therapies, AuDHD coaching, yoga, breathwork, meditation, crystals, EFT. I’m a senior yoga teacher and EFT international advanced EFT practitioner and mentor and an NLP master practitioner. I’m also the author of 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-Care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing, a columnist for Platinum Magazine, where I answer readers’ questions every month using the FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. framework that I use in these episodes.
So the focus is on self-care, connecting with that highest, wisest, truest part of yourself, and community care, collective care, the FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. framework. There are new episodes every Tuesday, so you can subscribe wherever you watch or listen, and you can also access older episodes, free resources, more information at solestosoul.ie/podcast. Thank you for listening.
I hope you enjoy this episode. So welcome back to Dr Karen Ward, the delightful Karen Ward. Thank you so much for joining me again.
I am absolutely honoured, Eve, delighted. Thank you so much for the invitation.
And I know your life has changed a lot in terms of your move, your new space, your everything, but do you want to start by saying, there’ll be a link in the show notes to our earlier interview as well, that episode, but do you want to start by saying a little bit about not just where people can find you online, but how you got into this kind of work, what you’re up to?
Thank you. I have been doing this work for many, a long moon, for many moons, as they say. I became a holistic therapist first. My background actually is in science.
I’m a microbiologist, believe it or not, from UCD, but I’ve always had a very curious mind. I was the child who played with the fairies at the end of her granny’s garden, but I also have a very logical, practical side. So back in the day, there wasn’t a term or a word for somebody who was very methodical.
We know this as OCD tendencies now, but also had this wild, free imagination, a very sensitive, energy-sensitive person. So I basically followed yoga as a practitioner. I became a teacher. Then there came the aromatherapy massage, the psychotherapy, the Reiki, and then the shamanism followed. So I felt like I have the whole package, the body, the mind, and the soul. Interestingly enough, I have three websites.
So there’s three strands, more or less, to what I do. With my darling husband, John, we have Slí An Chroí, which is Pathway of the Heart in Irish Gaelic, and that is a school of Irish Celtic shamanism, which more or less underpins everything that I do. It’s my spiritual belief system, very much in touch with nature.
And then of course, there’s the Moon Mná, and this is the women’s section. And really, oh, the work that I do there in community in particular is very, very heartwarming. And then finally, there’s the Dr. Karen Ward therapist, which is my more academic side of things.
I talk about my energy therapy technique that I train other psychotherapists, counsellors and psychologists. And I love to see the three strands weaving together, a bit like a triple spiral, to be honest. Yeah.
And I’m aware me doing your Moon Mná facilitator training, it was so soon after I moved to Ireland and being Indian Irish and having that blood link for the first time, but also very much being an immigrant, being a blow-in, and it was such an amazing welcome.
But also, even though I’m a trauma therapist, I’ve been doing the trauma recovery work for a long, long time, for decades, but it was so healing. It was so, I can’t, if anyone’s thinking about doing it, anyone who’s watching or listening to this, it goes through different, working with Sacred Island, working with the Divine Feminine, the Irish Goddesses.
There are things that I remember, like psychosynthesis, it started out as bio-psychosynthesis. It’s a very embodied, very transpersonal approach, very holistic. All my other things, my yoga therapy, all of it.
But I think the timing I came to yours, stuff that I’d kind of glossed through in earlier trainings and I knew they were important, but I hadn’t fully embodied them. And to give an example, it’s through your training in my late 40s that I stopped apologising for my boobs.
Because of course, as we know, Eve, that is not so unusual. I mean, it sounds, what? In fact, May is the month we have a lunar gathering. We do the Moons of Love Sacred Breasts. And I have to say, it’s the one theme out of the 13 where women go, what? There’s no Goddess, there’s no Rite of Passage, it’s breasts. And I would say it’s one of the most emotional ones and the most healing.
I agree completely. Yeah. It’s like, even now, I’ll catch myself before getting into the pool or whatever, just spending decades just embarrassed and trying to not be prey. And I know also being postmenopausal, like less predatory attention than when you’re younger. But it’s just the whole training, the whole 13 months, the reflection, this wasn’t meant to be an advert for your course, but I just want to thank you again.
I know I’ve thanked you. It’s just such a holistic, embodied, gorgeous way of working and just thank you. So you’ve given the websites, there’ll be links in the show notes.
In terms of your own ideal and actual self-care, I know we talked about this when the podcast began, you were one of my first guests. Now I’m using the framework I’ve developed, that FEEL. LOVE. HEAL.
It’s divided into FEEL. Your ideal and actual self-care around the regulatory stuff, the things you do when you have the bandwidth, the LOVE. For the… You don’t have to do a thing, you’re already part of the divine, you are part of nature, there’s nothing to change.
But that can often, especially with trauma, with AuDHD, be harder to access because we’ve… And also in a late capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal society, we’ve been conditioned to believe we have to fix and change so many things about ourselves. So then finally, the HEAL. part, that community care, and you do such wonderful work, not just with the training, but you also do the womb work, don’t you, for the world. I’m going to let you get a word in edgewise now.
I really love the way you… I mean, FEEL. LOVE. HEAL. I mean, that sums up so, so much. I currently am… Well, how would you say? I was a city gal, and now I’m a country crone, and I am Dublin, Dublin City, born and bred.
Anybody who knows Dublin will know that it’s quite a small city. So you’re at the sea looking at the mountains, you’re at the mountains looking at the sea, you could walk through it in a day. So, I mean, the Phoenix Park is very close to where I lived for many years, Bushy Park when I was a child.
But my segue into the country has been so smooth. It was like I was yearning for this. Now, keep in mind that I have been coming down to the Beara Peninsula for the last 26 years.
My husband came here as a child when he was eight. But there’s something about here that it just seeps into my bones. It’s a very sacred place.
I’m looking at the Skelligs, the Hag of Beara is down the road. It really is an extraordinary place. And I feel, keenly, the energies of the Cailleach now, in my case.
And interestingly enough, from the Skelligs, some people might know that it is said that there are two ley lines, like a DNA helix, one feminine, one masculine. And the feminine one comes ashore at the village where I live, travels over the beach where we got engaged many months ago, up the road to where we are. And I’m at the, we’re both at the edge of the village.
So, it’s always said that the shaman lives at the edge of the forest. Not quite in the centre, but in that liminal place. And the male line goes out to sea.
I don’t think it’s any surprise that I happen to be living on this ley line. I’ve always had my most amazing ideas from here. So, I can feel that.
But the love in this place is off the charts. Love for nature, love for my husband. It’s very much, we got engaged here.
But also, from that love of self. My mother was of an age where women, self-care wasn’t a thing. People thought you had notions, or there wasn’t money for that type of thing.
But interestingly enough, when I went back to my grandmother on my mother’s side, Granny Kathleen, she always got her hair done every single week. And it was just a thing she did. And I realised, oh my gosh, that was self-care.
But I didn’t realise it. My mother then, she was very sporty, took up to playing tennis and badminton. And of course, that was her self-care.
Watching The Late Late Show, listening to Gay Byrne on the radio, these were forms of self-care. I mean, I used to yearn for my father in particular, to tell me that he loved me. And it took me a lot of therapy to realise that when he fixed my bicycle puncture, that was, I love you.
So, that was always there. And of course, the healing, I sea swim like you. We’re called the Pearl Dippers because we swim in Trá an Phéarla, which is Pearl Strand.
It’s a cove really. But that love, the healing that comes with that, physically, mentally, emotionally, is incredible. And it’s as much about getting into Mamma Mara, the sea, as it is the community and how we come together and the chats and the cup of tea afterwards.
Biing here really feeds me in so many ways with that FEEL. LOVE. HEAL.
I feel getting into the sea, like it’s so different. Like yesterday, it was so calm, even though I forgot my snorkel to go snorkelling. Who does that, ADHD brain? It was, we were in the water for ages because it wasn’t like really choppy, really unpleasant. It was, I worked muscles I didn’t know I had because I was out of alignment. I didn’t have my usual, it was kind of like, ah.
But there’s something about, I know, especially like around COVID, after that initial two kilometre lockdown became five kilometres. And as the bird flew, I could make it to the sea and I could get in the sea. And it just felt like, because my bubble was basically me at the time, the sea held me.
And it was like, I wasn’t. And after that, it just felt like, I think, with the big feelings with ADHD and with, I’ve never felt too much for the sea. And sometimes, even when it’s choppy, wouldn’t swim out, wouldn’t be risking my life or anything.
But it just feels so soul cleansing, like you’re being held. And then other times, just like even letting myself be held floating in the pool or, yeah. What would be your ideal and your essential of what you’ve described so far?
I suppose it’s not just the sea. I think I alluded to it there. It’s the community. But I am often at my desk and it’s taken me a long time to realise, personally, with my OCD tendencies, with my, I would say if I did the test, I’m on the spectrum, but I’m on the lower end of it.
So I actually regulate by doing work.
Yeah. Yeah.
There’s an expression that we use as therapists, and maybe I’ve given the game away, Eve, for your listeners. Sometimes we need the session more than the clients need the session.
Vicarious healing.
Yeah. It’s focus. It’s being able to, the reciprocity, being able to come to give what we can to help somebody help themselves.
So I’m at the desk and then literally my brain is still here. My body is halfway at the door. I’m pulled.
It’s, you know, call it the elemental energies, mother earth, whatever. And I cycle through this beautiful countryside to the sea to meet whoever of the gang is there. Then there’s the immersion and the surrender to the sea.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have to confess, sometimes I’m swimming in the cove and my head is going, oh my gosh, is there a jellyfish? Is there a ____? Basking sharks.
And it’s… Basking sharks. I know, three. Peace of mind.
Basking sharks are vegetarians. Yeah, but amazing. It’s incredible.
We like to think they’re mommy, baby and daddy here. They come every year around this time. So then on the way back, especially if John is with me, we stop from May to September in this fabulous little coffee shack, the Barra Barista.
And we have our lunch. If it’s really sunny, I would take my book and I would go down to my little cove, there’s rocks and there’s a little kind of hidden place. I call it my happy place, one of my happy places.
And I can sit there reading, looking at the sea, the rocks where we got engaged and nobody sees me. It’s kept a little hidden space. And then I wander back up home, cycle back up, up the hill, get a bit of exercise in.
So I suppose it’s the whole package. It’s my body yearning to go out and exercise, being in nature, looking at the lambs, the cows, the horses, the birds. It’s everything.
But what might surprise you is equally doing the work is an important part of that as well.
Absolutely. It doesn’t, I mean, I am still, I’ve been here now like seven and a half years and stepping out of my door or in the house seeing the Reek, Croagh Patrick Mountain and stepping onto the lane and the changing seasons and saw a hare driving home this morning.
It paused, it looked at me. It’s like, I’m going to have to meditate on that later and kind of connect with whatever its kind of guidance is for me. But I feel like moving here has put me in a situation and an environment.
It’s the best I’ve ever felt in my life. Like it’s the most at home I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m so lucky with the neighbours and everything and being so close to the sea.
I was deluding myself thinking I’d climb Croagh Patrick once a month to get pictures throughout the year. I’ve done it once in seven and a bit years. But it is that real grounding and the connection with like, I’m next door to people who’ve lived there for generations.
On that land, connecting with the land’s ancestors, my ancestors, spiritual ancestors, just like, I feel a little bit tearful, but so, so lucky. And it also makes it all so much easier. The energy clearing, stuff like that, it’s much less than what I used to do in London or in Essex in like flats where there’s so much, like near the busy station, all of it.
I realise people might be, well, it’s all right for you, listening to that. What did you do in Dublin? Like what helped you with the city energy to look after yourself? Or what helps you when you don’t have the energy? Like you’ve set up a life that nourishes you on so many levels. But if you’re feeling ill, or if you’re travelling, or if you could only do one thing that you had, like I’m thinking cycling up the hill, I don’t know how steep that is, but if you don’t have the energy for all of that.
Very good question. I think it’s important to know that I lived in Dublin for 60 years. And people were very surprised.
And they would say to myself and John, you have a school of Irish shamanism and you live in the city, the capital city. But you know, the earth is always beneath our feet. Of course.
The sky is always above our head. A balcony, a pot of a flower on your windowsill, the garden, the local park. I mean, I used Dublin city bikes all the time.
I would cycle up to Phoenix Park. I had a happy place up there beside a hawthorn tree. And again, I had a Liffey walk.
So I would walk around three bridges on the River Liffey. And I would pass the Guinness factory. I would pass Heuston Station train station.
I would pass the park. But equally, people in the city. And I mean, you could literally open a window and just look out and let the sun shine on your face.
Yeah. Or let the moon reflect on your face. Yeah.
Or listen to a bird on a tree opposite. Yeah. It’s all there.
We sometimes we think we have to have all this fancy equipment. We have to do all the courses. Everything we need is here.
Absolutely. Our breath. Mm hmm.
We can close our eyes and do 10 deep breaths. We can close our eyes and in our mind’s eye go off to a holiday we once had. We can take ourselves out into nature through our mind’s eye.
And of course, as you know, and maybe some of the people watching and listening to this will know that. If we in our head run through a visual or even an auditory music, we can transport ourselves back to our forward to wonderful spaces that hold us. And the scientists have done research to see that the same parts of our brain light up, be it, you know, that dopamine hit or whatever it might be, that the power of our imagination, our subconscious is massive.
Our breath can bring us to those liminal places. Yeah. And of course, you alluded to at the start, you know, there’s parts of our bodies.
Oh, I don’t like this. My eyes are too small. Look at my neck.
Look at my breasts. But we have a body. Yeah.
We can we can walk. We can move. We can.
And maybe you can only just stretch in the bed or get to the couch, make a cup of herbal tea. That’s all you can do that day. But that in itself is a miracle.
Yeah. And I’m thinking like here in Westport, we have four seasons in one day on a regular basis. But even living here, it’s like if I’m out for a walk and it starts raining, I’ll be like rain cleanse or if it’s really windy, wind cleanse, like just imagining the wind taking the energies.
I no longer need the sun cleanse or whatever it is using whatever there is.
And do you want to say a little bit about the community care, the womb work, the light and also how you let yourself be held, how you let yourself be cared for? That’s a really good question. Moon Mná has been set up since I was called to set this up since 2009.
So a fair few years now. It was in person and then it went online. So now it’s international.
And it is incredible the tribe, the Tuatha in Irish Gaelic of women. I remember when I started the online, there was a Brazilian woman, a woman in Brazil, a woman in America and a woman in Australia who were the guinea pigs, if you will. And that would have been 2011.
And I assumed that when women came and did the course, then they float off into the sunset and that would be it or the moon set as the case may be. But actually, quite a lot of the women have stayed in touch. We have a very vibrant WhatsApp group.
And it’s very nourishing. And what’s wonderful is when we have our lunar gatherings, which the public can come to, but we also have our art of facilitation. So this is a part of the course for the 13 months while women train with me.
Many of the graduates said, can I still come to them? Yeah, of course you can. I didn’t know we could. Yes, come back.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it evolved over the years because women were asking that.
But it’s lovely to have the newbies, as I affectionately call them. Somebody who’s graduated a long time, somebody who’s just about to graduate, come together. And we support each other.
And they’ve been with me on this whole move. I mean, we’ve renovated an old farmhouse and that’s been a journey, I can tell you. But it’s so wonderful to feel that support and the reciprocity that I fulfil the role as a teacher, a mentor, a facilitator.
And then after the 13 months of the graduates, I become a colleague and a peer. And I think that’s really important. And to be quite honest, it’s not something that I saw way back in the day.
I assumed they’d finish, get their cert, and off they’d go. But it’s lovely to see. And the same with over in Slí an Chroí, where there’s men and women in the group.
I’m off to the Fire Festival. I’ve been to Kildare and Louth for the Brigid Festival. In other words, although the work’s online, every Celtic festival, I, myself and our John, go to a sacred site somewhere in the winter solstice.
We were at an amazing site in West Cork. And so therefore, the students, the graduates, can come and meet us and we can do ceremony and ritual, which is so enriching for me as well as them. And that’s very important.
Wonderful. And is there anything you wish you could send in the way of love, wisdom, advice, anything to any younger you that you’d like to share? I would like to reassure her that all will be well. And that the small things that can be a worry or what will I know, how will this work out, just to trust, to believe and surrender.
And I remind myself of that daily practice, that we are so held. There is a saying, it’s a Christian, I think it’s a biblical saying, you know, the lilies of the field are looked after. So why not you? I mean, in the midst of a field, a random field, you’ve got these stunning flowers.
Incredible. Nobody waters them. They’re not fed.
They’re not minded. They just grow themselves. The rain.
They’re looked after. And look how beautiful they are. So if the Universe, Spirit, God, Goddess, whatever you call that transpersonal element, is looking after lilies, why wouldn’t they look after us? Whatever is out there, up there, down there.
And yeah, so I would reassure younger Karen that all will be well, that just trust your innate intuition. Follow your heart. We’ve heard this in so many ways, follow your bliss, follow your passion.
But truly, that is the answer. And some of us have been through incredible challenges. But to know that there’s always a way forward.
Yeah. And I mean, over in the Dr. Karen website, the Energy Therapy Technique, I teach counsellors and psychotherapists and psychologists to use within your classic mental health, mental and emotional session, has been so freeing. I mean, I’ve seen people from the most unbelievable trauma, their lives completely changed.
And it is such an honour for me to teach others this. And on my website, there’s a whole list of people that anybody can go to if they wish. Yeah, that we are constantly evolving.
I mean, even here in this village, some people might think, oh, that’s it, she has her life sorted now, she’s got her man, she’s got the village, she’s got the house. But there’s a whole new layer of learning here for me. I mean, I’m astounded sometimes at the small little things I’m learning, and then the big or cosmic.
That’s life. We are always learning. Yeah.
I was thinking, I feel like I’m in the midst or at the end or at the beginning of an emotional growth spurt, like beyond teenage years, baby crone. But I mean, I always looked forward to becoming a crone from my like kind of early 20s. But it just feels like I mean, healing isn’t linear.
But also, the more we ground what we’ve learned, and also the more we like you say, all you have to do is connect with yourself. Like you have it all within you. Everyone has it.
And I knew it would be a joy to talk to you again. Do you want to say again where people can find you including any social media? Oh, yes. So the three websites are Slí an Chroí, which you can pathwayoftheheart.ie. And then there’s Moon Mná. Mná is the Irish Gaelic for women. That’s .ie too. And then drkarenwardtherapist, all one word .ie. And then each of those have their own Instagram and Facebook accounts.
So Monn Mná, Irish Celtic Women’s Circles, Slí an Chroí, and then Dr Karen Ward Therapist. And actually, it’s on that one that I chart the journey of the house. And it’s so funny because way back over a year ago, I said to my husband, maybe we contact Dermot Bannon and we go on one of those programmes.
And he was, no, he’s very private man. No, no way. And I used to think in those programmes, there’s always a bit of drama.
And I thought, they’re making it up for the cameras. Oh, they are so not. In fact, I’m sure they have their pick of drama.
Which one would we go for? So, you know, there’s always something. But I chart the journey of the house. And each time I post something about it, it brings me to a learning for me.
Therefore, the psychotherapy little nugget comes in. And that’s Dr Karen Ward Therapist on Instagram and social media. And thinking like, you know, the Nora Ephron, everything’s copy, like her parents were screenwriters.
She was a screenwriter and a director etc When Harry Met Sally and all. And just that thought of when you’re going through something, like, how can I write about this? Or how can I use this to help? It takes you out of the drama while it helps you smile at it a little bit or think one day I’ll smile at this a little bit. Or yeah.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
There’ll be links to all of that in the show notes. And Míle Buíochas. Míle Buíochas, a stór, thank you so much, Eve, for all that you do.
And it is always such a pleasure. I mean, we met through the course, but very much not peers in the work we do, colleagues, but a dear, anam cara, a soul friend. Thank you.
Before you get on with something else, I’m going to encourage you to pause for a moment and scan your whole being from the soles of your feet to your soul and the crown of your head. And notice what you’re aware of. Notice any physical sensations, pleasant, unpleasant, warmth, tingly, whatever it may be.
Just being curious about what you’re feeling as you’ve listened to this episode. Making a note. Asking what those sensations might be trying to help you with and what you might benefit from doing for your body right now.
And being aware of your thoughts. Noticing any feelings that feel more prominent as a result of listening to today. And any intuitions, any insights, anything that you can actually schedule in to ground and improve your life in some way.
So let me know how you get on. Make a note, doodle, journal, whatever feels good for you. And thank you for listening.
This episode, like all of them, was produced by me, your host, Eve Menezes Cunningham. And I look forward to sharing more next week. You can find out more, access old episodes and free resources and more information at solestosoul.ie/podcast.
See you next week.