Pat Kelly Counselling

31/12/2025

☘️ An Irish blessing for your Wednesday 🇮🇪

27/12/2025

The team at R U OK? will be taking a break over the holidays. Our social media channels will not be monitored until 12 January 2025.

If you experience difficult emotions over the holiday period, we encourage you to reach out to someone your trust, or contact one of these specialised services for a free and confidential chat.

If you're concerned for your own safety or that of others, please call 000.

27/12/2025

Saying Hello To 2026 ☘️🙏

AT THE END OF THE YEAR

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them...

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the blessing, 'At the End of the Year,' from the books
Benedictus (Europe) / To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Winter Sunset at the Cliffs of Moher
County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

19/12/2025

☘️🙏Pat

14/12/2025

If you are feeling overwhelmed by today's events, speaking to someone can make all the difference.

We are here for you 24/7.

If you or someone you know needs support, please call Lifeline anytime on 13 11 14, or text us on 0477 13 11 14. You can visit lifeline.org.au for our online chat service or lifeline.org.au/toolkit for resources to self-manage what you’re going through.

12/12/2025

So poignant at this time of year 🙏☘️

Each one of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. Most of the activity in society is subconsciously designed to quell the voice crying in the wilderness within you. The mystic Thomas a Kempis said that when you go out into the world, you return having lost some of yourself. Until you learn to inhabit your aloneness, the lonely distraction and noise of society will seduce you into false belonging, with which you will only become empty and weary. When you face your aloneness, something begins to happen. Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes into a sense of true belonging. This is a slow and open-ended transition but it is utterly vital in order to come into rhythm with your own individuality. In a sense this is the endless task of finding your true home within your life. It is not narcissistic, for as soon as you rest in the house of your own heart, doors and windows begin to open outwards to the world. No longer on the run from your aloneness, your connections with others become real and creative. You no longer need to covertly scrape affirmation from others or from projects outside yourself. This is slow work; it takes years to bring your mind home.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the book, Eternal Echoes
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

County Clare Cottage, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

07/12/2025

My soul friend is so nourishing to the spirit 🙏🙏🙏☘️☘️☘️

ANAM CARA

In the Celtic tradition, there is a beautiful understanding of love and friendship. One of the fascinating ideas here is the idea of soul-love; the old Gaelic term for this is anam cara. Anam is the Gaelic word for soul and cara is the word for friend. So anam cara in the Celtic world was the "soul friend."

In everyone's life, there is a great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home.

The anam cara experience opens a friendship that is not wounded or limited by separation or distance. Such friendship can remain alive even when the friends live far away from each other. Because they have broken through the barriers of persona and egoism to the soul level, the unity of their souls is not easily severed. When the soul is awakened, physical space is transfigured. Even across the distance, two friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each other's lives. With your anam cara you awaken the eternal.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from his book, Anam Cara,
25th Anniversary Edition, with commentary from John's close circle of friends.
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/anam-cara

Fanore Beach, County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

03/12/2025

Beautiful WA

01/12/2025

The essence of the Christmas season, a season of Hope ☘️🙏

15/11/2025

46 - 19 ☘️🇮🇪 my Irish spirit is smiling

13/11/2025

🙏☘️