A year ago, I started a new chapter: coaching and Her Circle, a community for women in business in West Cork. Getting ready to celebrate that, I felt something I didn't expect: unease. Here's what I've learned this year about celebrating honestly, without pretending I've arrived anywhere, and why doing it together might just be an act of rebellion.
I press the number 4 in the elevator, turn left twice, and I'm back in the corridors of my mother's workplace - a room full of women who built something real while somehow also building a life around it. When she retired, she asked me a question I still can't fully answer for her. This is what stayed with me after a conversation about flexibility this week.
The first question I ask a stranger is never small talk - I want to know what they've dedicated their life to. Today it was a farmer at the sauna. A year ago it was me, closing a business I'd built over thirteen years and starting again from nothing. September has a way of turning summer's dreaming into real decisions - and this year it's brought me to a conversation with Karen O'Reilly of EmployFlex about what's changing in how people find work.
"We have money like garbage" - my mother's phrase for the surprising truth that we always found money for the things that truly mattered. I grew up in that contradiction, and I've been living it ever since. This post is the most honest thing I've written about money, where the beliefs come from, why they're so hard to shift, and what I'm beginning to understand about changing them. The next Lighthouse Talk goes deeper. Tuesday 9th June, online, €10.
I reached out to someone last week, in the middle of everything that’s been happening in Ireland. I asked: “Can I support you? What do you need?” They were surprised. And grateful.
We’re all getting very good at being grand. At wearing the mask for work, for the children, for the sake of keeping things together. But at night, it slides off — and there’s nobody there to hold us.
This post is for anyone who’s lying awake, not quite knowing how to be. The real face has been there all along.
Blow-Ink. met on Tuesday mornings at Clonakilty Library, with a hunger for connection and writing. The group was small but deeply invested in sharing work, translating and writing new work in both English and their mother tongues. We had participants from France, Spain, Poland, Pakistan, Mauritius, Israel and Ukraine. This zine is the result not only of the workshops, but also the energy, enthusiasm and artistic talent of the group.
When I heard that our WhatsApp group was “too busy,” my first reaction was panic. Had I ruined something that mattered?
Instead of reacting, I used the Double Diamond design thinking process to pause, reflect, and redesign my communication. What I discovered changed the way I make decisions in my business — especially when feedback feels uncomfortable.
This is a story about clarity, courage, and refusing to make decisions from stress.
From a young age, I trusted an inner compass—a felt sense of integrity and direction. Following it gave my life meaning, but it also led me through loneliness, grief, and a painful reckoning with the belief that meaning guarantees safety.
This is a reflection on will, integrity, and what changes when we stop outsourcing our safety and learn to sail with the forces within us.
info@thinkvisual.ie
☎ +353 86 3743132
By subscribing you agree to Substack's Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy and our Information collection notice.
