We may have a spark within, a desire or longing for a part of ourselves we feel we have lost – or a part that we feel we might once have had, but never knew or knew for a short period of time.

We compromise parts of ourselves for safety, belonging, or societal roles.

The ancient Celtic Selkie story mirrors the journey of The Session, shedding layers of conditioning, expectations, and identities that suppress authenticity, preventing one from fully embodying their true self. I’d love to share this story with you.

On an island just beyond the edges of your dreams, where long white beaches meet rocky coves and stormy seas, there lived a mystery between the winds and waves: the selkie seals. These were no ordinary seals. On the full moon, they could shed their skins and take on human form, dancing beneath the stars on the silver-lit sand.

One such night, a fisherman, wandering the shore, stumbled upon their secret. From the shadows, he watched as seals peeled away their skins, revealing men and women of breathtaking beauty, dancing and laughing in the luminous moonlight. His eyes settled on one woman, overcome by her, he crept closer and stole her skin. As dawn broke, the selkies returned to their skins, slipping back into the sea.

But the woman could not follow—her seal skin was gone. She searched desperately but found nothing. Heartbroken and stranded, she sat weeping on the shore. The fisherman approached her, his voice soft and promised to care for her if she would stay.

With no way to return to her home in the sea, the selkie woman reluctantly agreed. In time, they were married and had children. He feared her leaving from where she came, so he kept her selkie skin hidden in a locked chest. She did her best to care for her family, and each night, she wept, for her hope began to fade of returning home.

The seal woman grew slower and sadder, fading in a place where she could not find a way to belong.

Her children began looking for her skin, searching every part of the house and eventually, found her skin, buried in a pile of ropes. As they picked it up it, it began to disintegrate.

They brought it to their mother, who froze at the sight of it. Tears filled her eyes as she realized what it was.

Something called to her, something so deeply a part of her nature that she could not resist it. It was her essence, her true self calling.

She must find her way back to herself. Through a journey of transformation with courage enough to face the shadows & restore the disintegrating skin, the selkie woman returned to the sea, transforming back into a seal at peace, her true self restored.

Reflection

Our skins maybe have been lost early on at a young age, or perhaps were stolen by another or we surrendered it in exchange for safety and belonging. Or perhaps we hid it away so deeply for safekeeping that we forgot we ever possessed it. It can feel like we’ve lost our true selves in a world that values logic over emotion, one that disconnects us from our bodies.

The deeper parts of her—her wild, tender, and unbounded nature—are stifled.

A SESSION, illuminates the shadows—those hidden parts of ourselves—and reintegrates them to become whole.

The skin we adopted—crafted to seem stronger, safer, adapted to belong, and feel worthy—acts as a rigid, protective shell, allowing us to survive but not to fully live.

The journey to rediscover our original skin, the essence of who we were before the world told us who to be, is one of peeling back layers. It calls us to transform, to reclaim our power, authenticity, and the fullness of our true expression.