On the Lemons and Pineapples podcast, no-nonsense life coach & entrepreneur Emma O'Brien shares inspirational stories, tried & tested tools and amazing guest interviews to guide you on your self development journey.
Learn how to shift your mindset and change your life for the better with fun and entertaining weekly episodes that will help you live on the lighter side of life.
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If you’re a woman over 40 and suddenly feeling more emotional, more reactive, more… done with everything, you’re not alone.
And no, it’s not just your hormones.
Yes, perimenopause brings very real hormonal shifts. Sleep gets disrupted, moods fluctuate, your energy drops. All of that is true.
But what’s often missing from the conversation is this:
Perimenopause doesn’t just change your body. It changes your tolerance.
The things you’ve been managing, carrying, and quietly putting up with for years? They start to feel unbearable.
In this episode, I’m unpacking the deeper layer beneath the “it’s your hormones” narrative and why so many women hit midlife feeling angry, exhausted, and completely fed up.
Because what looks like “midlife rage”… is often a lifetime of self-abandonment finally coming to the surface.
✨ What I explore in this episode:
- Perimenopause and the hormonal shifts that genuinely impact your mood, sleep, and emotional capacity
- Why being labelled “hormonal” can be dismissive and what it overlooks
- The reality of over-functioning and how many women have been carrying far more than their fair share for decades
- How midlife removes your ability to keep tolerating what isn’t working
- The hidden cost of being “the capable one”
- Why anger isn’t something to suppress, but something to listen to
- How your emotions are pointing you toward what needs to change
- The midlife threshold: continue as you are… or choose something different
🎁 Free resources to support you
If this episode hit home, I’ve created a couple of resources to help you start shifting these patterns:
✨ How to Stop Overfunctioning Masterclass - Access It HERE Understand why you’ve been carrying so much and how to stop
✨ How to Set Boundaries Without Feeling Guilty (PDF Guide) - HERE Learn how to honour your needs without the guilt spiral
💬 Want Personalised support?
This is exactly the work I do.
👉 Book a free discovery call HERE Let’s look at what’s really going on beneath the surface and what your next step is
⭐ Loved this episode?
If this resonated, I’d love you to:
Leave a 5-star review
Share it with a friend who needs to hear this
Or send it to the woman who’s quietly holding everything together
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.
You’re not lazy. You’re not unmotivated. And you’re definitely not “just overthinking it.”
But if you keep finding yourself stuck in the same patterns; procrastinating, people-pleasing, staying quiet, or getting triggered by things that shouldn’t feel like a big deal…
There’s a good chance a younger part of you is running the show.
In this episode, I’m breaking down what that actually means to have your inner child running your life in a way that’s practical, grounded, and (most importantly) something you can recognise yourself in.
I explore how unconscious childhood patterns quietly shape your adult life and why trying to “logic” your way out of them never works.
I walk you through:
Why you procrastinate on things you know would move your life forward
The real reason you don’t ask for what you need in relationships
Why small things trigger big emotional reactions
How over-functioning and people-pleasing are rooted in early experiences
What’s actually happening when you feel stuck in the same patterns on repeat
And most importantly — how to start shifting this.
🧠 The part most people miss
You don’t change these patterns by pushing harder.
Or “getting your act together.”
Or being more disciplined.
Because the part of you running the show…isn’t logical.
It’s younger. It’s protective. And it genuinely believes it’s keeping you safe.
The work is learning how to meet that part with compassion not override it.
S5 Episode 8: How To Release Energetic Cords & Reclaim Your Power
Cut the Cord: How to Release Energetic Ties & Reclaim Your Power
If you’ve ever found yourself stuck in a loop; replaying conversations, holding onto old hurt, or feeling emotionally drained by a person or situation this episode is for you.
In today’s conversation, I’m diving into the world of energetic cord cutting: what it is, why it matters, and how it can help you finally move forward when mindset work alone just isn’t shifting things.
We explore how energetic ties form through our relationships and life experiences, and why not all cords are unhealthy—but some can quietly keep you stuck in patterns of anxiety, frustration, or emotional heaviness. If thinking about someone (or something) brings up tension, anger, or that familiar “ugh” feeling… it might be time to clear it.
I also walk you through how I use guided visualisation in my coaching sessions to help clients safely release these ties—allowing them to let go, reclaim their energy, and create space for something new.
Because here’s the truth: you don’t have to keep carrying what’s already happened. You get to choose what you take forward.
🌿 In This Episode I Cover:
What energetic cords are and how they form
Why some connections become draining or unhealthy
How unresolved experiences can keep you stuck in repeating patterns
The link between your thoughts, emotions, and energetic attachments
How cord cutting helps you release, reset, and move forward
💫 Ready to Try It for Yourself?
I’ve created a free guided cord cutting meditation to help you feel lighter, clearer, and more like yourself again—in just 15 minutes.
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.
S5-Episode 6: A Powerful Framework For Real, Lasting Change
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.
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:
S5-Episode 4: Conscious Femininity - What The World Needs Right Now
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).
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.
S5-Episode 2: Shedding The Old - From Snake to Fire Horse
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:
What part of my current life story has already expired, but I’m still carrying?
Where am I choosing familiarity over aliveness?
What does my body tell me about the situation I wish I didn’t have, but keep participating in?
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.
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.
This is where the work I do comes in.
Not just insight. Not just awareness.
But actually changing the unconscious patterns driving your life.
This is where things start to shift quickly.
🎧 If this episode hit home…
✨ Download My Free Cord Cutting Meditation HERE A 15-minute guided process to help you release the energetic ties to patterns or situations keeping you stuck.
✨ Book a Discovery Call HERE If you’re recognising these patterns in your life and you’re ready to actually shift them, we can talk through what’s going on and how I can help.
⭐ If you enjoyed this episode?
I’d love you to:
Leave a 5⭐ review
Share it with someone who needs to hear this
Or send me a message and let me know what landed for you - Instagram is where I hang out most @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.
And if something deeper is ready to shift for you, you’re so welcome to book a discovery call with me HERE. We can explore what’s coming up for you and how I can support you in moving through it.
💌 Let’s Stay Connected
If you try the meditation, I’d genuinely love to hear how it lands for you—come and share with me on Instagram @EmmaOBrienCoach.
You don’t need to spend years stuck in old stories.
Sometimes, the most powerful thing you can do… is let go.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If this episode resonates, I’d love to hear from you - send me a message on Inst
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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