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In this episode of Lemons & Pineapples, I’m talking about Shamanic Soul Retrieval; one of the most requested sessions I offer, and one of the most powerful ways to reconnect to yourself when you feel lost, disconnected, or like you’re living life on autopilot.

Soul retrieval is about reclaiming the parts of you that got pushed into the background for safety — often in response to trauma (big T or small t). It’s not about “fixing” you. It’s about bringing you back into wholeness.

In this episode, I cover:

• What shamans mean by soul loss (and how it can show up in everyday life)
• Common signs: feeling like you don’t belong, losing joy/creativity, over-functioning, people-pleasing, fear of being seen
• A personal story from my childhood that shaped a long-standing fear of being judged or “looking stupid”
• What happens in a soul retrieval session (journeying, finding the wound + the belief contract, restoring essence)
• Power animals as archetypal allies (including an owl example)
• Why integration is the key — insight alone doesn’t shift your life, action and nurturing do

Ready to work together?

If you’re feeling disconnected from yourself, your voice, or your direction, soul retrieval can be a beautiful way to reconnect with your authenticity and your power.

You can book a free call HERE or book a session directly HERE.
And if you’re in Johannesburg, you’re warmly invited to my Weaving a New Way weekend workshop (14–15 March) - find out more and book HERE.

DM me on Instagram: @EmmaOBrienCoach if you have questions or want to share what landed for you.

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.

Send a text

The Andean Medicine Wheel: A Powerful Map for Real Change

In this episode of Lemons & Pineapples, I’m sharing one of the most transformative frameworks I use in my own life and with my clients: the Andean Medicine Wheel.

If you’ve ever thought:

• “I know this isn’t working…”
• “I understand why I do this… but I can’t change it.”
• “Why do I keep repeating the same pattern?”

This episode is for you.

The Medicine Wheel offers a grounded, cyclical map for navigating change — working not just at the level of insight, but at the level of the unconscious where our behaviour patterns actually live.

We explore the four directions:

🐍 South – Serpent: What needs shedding? Old stories, inherited patterns, identities you’ve outgrown.
🐆 West – Jaguar: What needs facing? Shadow work, fear, suppressed emotions, truth-telling.
🕊 North – Hummingbird: What perspective is missing? Meaning, wisdom, vision and possibility.
🦅 East – Eagle/Condor: How do we bring the vision into reality? Practical action and aligned embodiment.

This is the framework I’ll be guiding women through at my Weaving a New Way weekend retreat in Johannesburg (14–15 March), and it’s also the foundation of my one-to-one shamanic coaching work.

If you’re ready to stop circling the same story and start creating something new, this episode will give you a map.

Find out more about Weaving A New Way HERE.

Learn more about Shamanic Coaching Sessions HERE.

Book a Discovery Call HERE.

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.

Send a text

Three years ago, if you’d asked me whether I’d ever call myself a shamanic practitioner, I would have laughed.

And yet here we are.

In this episode, I unpack what shamanism actually is (beyond feathers and smoke), what shamanic journey work involves, and why — despite the mystical language — it’s one of the most practical healing tools I use with clients.

Shamanism is not a religion. It’s not about blind belief. At its heart, it’s a cross-cultural, nature-based philosophy rooted in right relationship — with yourself, with others, and with the living world around you.

And journey work? It’s a way of accessing insight beyond the analytical mind.

I talk about:

• What a shaman actually does (hint: it’s about restoring balance, not being a guru)
• Ordinary vs non-ordinary awareness and why you don’t need to “believe” in anything to benefit
• Why insight alone isn’t enough to change patterns
• How integration is the piece that makes this work powerful
• Soul retrieval and how it maps onto trauma and dissociation
• Power animals as embodied inner resources (yes, even porcupine 🦔)
• Why this work doesn’t re-traumatise you and how it can help reconnect you with lost parts of yourself

I also share a personal example of ancestral belief work that helped me uncover and begin healing a deeply rooted “women are worthless” lineage pattern — something I could not have accessed through intellect alone.

If you keep finding yourself repeating the same patterns…
If you have insight but can’t make change stick…
If you know there’s something deeper running the show…

Journey work may be the missing piece.

Work With Me

If you’d like to experience this work directly:

✨ Shamanic Healing Sessions (60 mins) – guided journey work + integration coaching
✨ Soul Retrieval (90 mins) – deeper ancestral and soul part healing
✨ Power Animal Retrieval (60 mins) – discover and embody your inner resource

You can book HERE.

If you’re in Johannesburg, I’d love to invite you to Weaving a New Way (14–15 March at Windrush Studio), a weekend immersion working with the Andean Medicine Wheel — serpent, jaguar, hummingbird and eagle — to help you shift patterns and make real change take root.

This work is mystical.
It is practical.
And it’s deeply, profoundly human.

Find out more HERE.

If this episode resonates, I’d love to hear from you - send me

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.

Send a text

In this episode, I’m talking about conscious femininity; why the world needs more of it right now, where the phrase comes from (Marion Woodman, via Sharon Blackie’s If Women Rose Rooted), and what it looks like in everyday life.

We explore the difference between unconscious femininity (living “from the neck up,” outsourcing self-worth, over-adapting, over-functioning) and conscious femininity (embodied self-awareness, nervous system regulation, boundaries, cyclical living, and truth-telling with kindness).

I also unpack why this isn’t about man-bashing — conscious femininity is about balance: healthy feminine (intuition, empathy, feeling) + healthy masculine (structure, boundaries, action). In other words: structure with feeling.

Practical takeaways:

• Come back into your body daily (breathwork/HeartMath, walking, nature)
• Learn your nervous system patterns (fight/flight/freeze/fawn)
• Honour your cycles + energy rhythms (stop pushing like a machine)
• Set boundaries without over-explaining
• Notice over-giving/over-functioning — and practise receiving support

If you relate to over-functioning, S5EP1 is a great one to listen to HERE.

Want to go deeper?

Join me in Johannesburg for my in-person weekend workshop, Weaving a New Way (14–15 March, Fourways).

Find out more HERE.

Or explore 1:1 coaching + shamanic healing sessions with me HERE.

I'd love to connect - message me on Instagram @EmmaOBrienCoach.

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.

Send us a text

What if feeling lost in midlife isn’t a failure… but an invitation?

In this episode, I’m exploring something I see again and again — both in my own life and in the women I work with. That moment (often in our 40s and beyond) when we wake up and quietly think:

Is this it? Is this really how I want the rest of my life to look?

Midlife has a way of stripping things back. Our hormones shift, our tolerance drops, and suddenly the roles, relationships, and choices we once managed to hold together just don’t fit anymore. What used to feel “fine” starts to feel heavy, exhausting, or even unbearable.

Rather than seeing this as a midlife crisis, I believe it’s something much more powerful — a midlife awakening.

In this episode, I talk about:

• Why so many women feel like they’ve “lost themselves” in midlife
• How societal conditioning teaches women to put everyone else first — and the anger that surfaces when that no longer works
• The role of perimenopause and hormonal shifts in changing what we’re willing (and able) to tolerate
• Why being confronted with our own mortality can actually be a profound gift
• The fear and discomfort of the liminal space between who you were and who you’re becoming
• What we can learn from snake medicine — and why shedding an old identity is meant to feel uncomfortable before it feels freeing

If you’re in that in-between space — not who you were, not yet who you’re becoming — please know this: you’re not destined to be unhappy forever. You’re in transition, and you don’t have to navigate it alone.

✨ Work With Me - If this episode resonated, I’d love to support you further:

🐍 Ending an Era – Online Workshop

This is a powerful, guided workshop where I help you consciously shed old stories, identities, and patterns that no longer fit, so you can create what comes next with clarity and intention.

👉 Access the workshop HERE.

🌿 Johannesburg Weekend Retreat (In-Person)

If you’re based in Joburg and craving a deeper, embodied reset, I’m also hosting a weekend retreat designed for women in transition. This is sacred space to reflect, release, and reconnect with yourself — supported, held, and guided.

👉 Details and booking info are HERE.

Thank you so much for being here, for listening, and for being willing to ask the bigger questions 💛

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.

Send us a text

In this episode, I explore why change so often feels uncomfortable, slow, and frustrating, especially when we’re ready for something new but life hasn’t caught up yet.

I reflect on the transition from the Year of the Snake into the Year of the Fire Horse, and why the early part of change is often about shedding old stories before momentum arrives. Using the Andean medicine wheel, I talk about serpent energy as the first stage of transformation; where we release outdated identities, beliefs, and narratives that quietly keep us stuck.

Episode highlights:

• Why change moves in cycles, not straight lines
• The frustration of waiting for external results after deep inner work
• How old stories become part of our identity
• Why repeatedly retelling the past can prevent forward movement
• Serpent, Jaguar, Hummingbird and Eagle as stages of change

I also share four journal prompts to support your own shedding process:

1. What part of my current life story has already expired, but I’m still carrying?
2. Where am I choosing familiarity over aliveness?
3. What does my body tell me about the situation I wish I didn’t have, but keep participating in?
4. What am I afraid would unravel if I stopped telling this story?

Ready to go deeper?

I’m hosting a live online workshop, Ending an Era – A Serpent Workshop for Conscious Shedding, on Thursday 5th February. It’s a 60-minute guided space to help you identify and release the stories keeping you where you are.

£22 | Live on Zoom | Replay included
Sign up HERE: www.emmaobriencoach.com/endinganera

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.

Send us a text

How to Stop Over-Functioning & Reclaim Your Energy

Are you exhausted from doing everything for everyone — at home, at work, and in your relationships?

In this episode of the Lemons & Pineapples Podcast I explore over-functioning — the hidden pattern behind burnout, resentment, and chronic over-giving. You’ll learn why so many capable, high-functioning women end up carrying the emotional, mental, and practical load, and how this pattern often starts in childhood.

I unpack how over-functioning shows up in relationships, family dynamics, and the workplace — and why it’s fundamentally a self-worth issue, not a productivity problem.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• What over-functioning really is (and why it feels “normal”)
• How over-functioning and under-functioning keep each other in place
• Why saying yes resentfully leads to burnout
• The link between over-functioning, fear, and self-worth
• A powerful question that helps you start changing the pattern

If you’re tired of being the reliable one, the capable one, the one who “does it all” — this episode is for you.

👉 WATCH MY FREE OVER-FUNCTIONING MASTERCLASS
Go deeper and learn the practical steps to stop over-functioning and reclaim your energy HERE

Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share if this episode resonated with you 💛

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.

Send us a text

Divorce can feel like an ending… but what if it’s actually a portal?

In this episode, Emma O’Brien is joined by Isabelle Ulenaers—psychologist, trauma specialist, and best-selling author—who supports women through the emotional aftermath of divorce using a neuroscience-informed blend of psychology, coaching tools, EFT, EMDR, and somatic integration.

Together, we explore why the hardest part often isn’t leaving the marriage… it’s everything that follows: the identity collapse, the shame and guilt, the fear of being “the villain,” and the slow realisation that you’ve been abandoning yourself in tiny, socially acceptable ways for years.

You’ll also hear powerful re-frames—like why it’s okay to leave a relationship that looks “fine” on paper, and how to begin coming back to yourself through small, grounded choices that rebuild self-trust.

In this episode, we cover:

- Why divorce isn’t a failure—it can be the beginning of freedom, identity, and self-return

- The “good wife / good mother” conditioning that keeps women stuck in roles they’ve outgrown

- How self-abandonment happens slowly and subtly—one micro-moment at a time

- The difference between guilt (I did something wrong) and shame (I am something wrong)

- Why leaving a “fine” marriage can feel harder than leaving an obviously bad one

- Isabelle’s Michelin restaurant vs burger and fries analogy (and why it hits so hard)

- What women actually need to rebuild after divorce: inner safety, nervous system regulation, and identity repair

- Why “What do I want?” can be too big at first—and the better starter question to ask

- The practical path back to self: noticing where you feel seen/heard, and where you disappear

- How fear works (and why it shows up the moment you change anything)

- The “fear witch” / Rapunzel metaphor: how fear keeps you in the tower—and how to move anyway

- A potent closing reminder: your needs are non-negotiable

A gentle reflection prompt (from the conversation) If “What do I want?” feels too big, try:

Do I want to be on this stage?

Where do I feel seen, heard, and connected?

Where do I abandon myself—and why?

Connect with Isabelle:

Connect with Isabelle on Instagram—send her a DM and she’ll guide you from there - @isabelle.ulenaers

Loved this episode?

If this landed for you, take a breath and let this be your permission slip:
You’re not “too much.” And you don’t need a dramatic reason to choose yourself.

If you’re done playing small and ready to lead yourself — you’re in the right place.

I’m Emma O’Brien — Martha Beck trained and certified life coach, HeartMath practitioner, and shamanic healer helping high-achieving women stop second-guessing themselves and finally trust their own voice.

Through nervous system re-calibration, strategic coaching, and deep energetic work, I help you move from self-doubt to self-trust so you can create a life you actually want to be in — no external approval required.

🌀 Want to work together?

Explore the 6-week Nervous System Reset, 1:1 coaching, or Shamanic Soul Retrieval sessions here: emmaobriencoach.com

Questions or ready to chat?

DM me on Instagram @emmaobriencoach
or book a free connection call HERE.