Explore every episode of the podcast Simply Holistic Living - Feeding the mind, body and soul

Fiona Brennan from ‘Inspire, Action, Success” is a professional business coach.  She combines her 20 years’ experience as a project manager with mindset and neuroscience coaching to help her clients achieve the business and personal success they desire.   Fiona's mission is “to help you discover your full potential, see your limitless power and become the best you can be.”  Fiona is an advocate of regular daily meditation as a tool for our real personal growth.  In this episode Fiona chats about her experience of meditation and the reasons why she practises meditation and encourages her clients to do the same.   We finish this episode with an experience of meditation you can go back to anytime. Fiona runs an online meditation club.  The club is opened to new members only every quarter-  now at a cost of €99+VAT for the year.    This link allows you to purchase  membership for a discount of €77 + vat for the year. https://subscribepage.io/join-the-ceo-meditation-club Fiona can be contacted through her website https://inspireactionsuccess.com/

In episode 3 Life Coach Máirtín Óg McDonagh and Julie Clarke chat about overcoming life challenges and growing through them to come out the other side.   

Máirtín Óg brings a wealth of life experience and professional qualifications to the table. An entrepreneur, responsible for building two successful businesses in the past, employing a skilled workforce and managing teams. A casualty of the downturn in 2010, losing everything he had worked so hard to achieve. This difficult time in Máirtín’s life gave him a huge understanding and empathy of how frail our mental health can be. How we need to draw on inner strength and how with determination and the right mindset you can rebuild your life, with an emphasis on the quality of your life rather than the material acquisitions.

This experience led to a passion for helping others and resulted in him studying and acquiring an accredited Life Coaching Qualification in 2019.

In 2020 Máirtín set up Mind Over Mountains, an initiative that combines coaching, mentoring and the great outdoors. Encouraging positive and productive teamwork through a healthy mind health body ethos to his clients.

For more about Mairtin see his website  www.mindovermountains.ie

Julie Clarke had a successful career in training and education when in 2006 she had a car accident that changed her life forever.  Shortly after completing the Connemara half Marathon Julie was involved in a car crash – this left her with an injury to her brain causing muscle movement disorder.   It was a long road to recovery leading her down a road of great personal growth. The turning point for Julie was when she faced the fear of what was happening to her body and at that moment decided she was going to survive this.   Julie kept a vision of running the London Marathon in her heart and bought herself a pair of marathon runners to wear every day during the years of her recovery.   In 2012 Julies dream came through when she ran the London Marathon with her friends and husband.    

Following her recovery Julie set up her own artisan candle business called Julie Clarke Candles – at the heart of this business lies Julie’s passion for health and well-being.   The podcast Simply Holistic Living has grown out of Julie’s journey of recovery and passion to help others.  

The website for Julie Clarke Candles is www.julieclarkecandles.com

Tracie is a passionate lifelong horsewoman and yoga practitioner originally from the United States but settled in the west of Ireland for 17 years.  She believes that it is every horse rider's responsibility to show up mentally and physically for their horse, and yoga is a great way to help us do that.   Tracie offers yoga classes, horse training services, and courses and clinics combining horsemanship and yoga for people of all ages.  

Tracie Burroughs

Horseback Yoga Ireland

Kylebrack West

Loughrea, Co Galway

+353 (0)87 76 75 922

Email - horsebackyogaireland@gmail.com

https://www.instagram.com/traciehorsebackyoga/

A trailer for series 2 of the podcast Simply Holistic Living - Feeding the mind, body and soul.

The series will be released on April 4th 2024 and will feature topics such as connecting with sources of food; how can we enjoy good mental health; changing the conversation around mental health; caring for our bodies; connecting with nature and there will be a guided meditation episode.

Presented by Julie Clarke

This podcast series is sponsored by Julie Clarke Candles and Mervue Natural Skincare – check out our websites www.julieclarkecandles.com  and www.mervuenaturalskincare.com 

Mairtin Og is a mindset coach based out of Kinvara in County Galway.  Mairtin uses his experiencing of overcoming loss and rebuilding his life to work with clients who are struggling or stuck in their own lives.   He set up Mind over Mountains in 2020 – it is an initiative combining coaching, mentoring and the great outdoors.  

Mairtin chats about mindset, overcoming struggles and coming out the other side with tools for creating a healthy mind & body. 

https://mindovermountains.ie/

Siobhan Moylan is a well-established yoga teacher over many years.  Her yoga studio is called SETU and is based in Kilcornan, Chainbridge. County Galway.  

Siobhan talks to us about her Yoga journey and work and the difference Yoga can make in our everyday lives.  

We finish the podcast with some tips from Siobhan on what listeners can do today to start practising some Yoga.  

https://flowyoga.ie/

Kelly is a Yoga Ayurvedic Living Educator and senior Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance Professionals.   Kelly works from  her Yoga Ayurveda Living Centre based in Setu Studio Space, Bungalow 7, Clarin bridge.  

Kelly says “Ayurveda and Yoga balance what you need vs what you want. This is your medicine, you can call it stress relief, stress management, work life balance.  It is relaxation and mental health for wellbeing. Yoga and Ayurveda are a simple path to wellness.”

In this podcast Kelly talks about Yoga Ayurvedic Living and what it means and how it can help us calm our minds. 

Kelly gives some practical tips to listeners on what they can do today to calm the mind.  

https://yogaayurvedaliving.com/

Yvonne Daly is the Skincare Developer and Educator at Mervue Natural Skincare in Galway City.    Mervue Skincare is a certified organic skincare brand launched in 2021.

Yvonne chats about the basic principles for healthy skin and some good simple daily self-care habits to create - promoting healthy skin. 

https://www.mervuenaturalskincare.com/

Clare Grady is a qualified Nutritional Therapist (NT) and advocate for healthy eating and lifestyle medicine.  She is owner of ANU Wellness a Galway based holistic Nutritional Therapy practice in Oranmore, County Galway.  

She discusses that food is energy for our bodies and get us to think about what we eat and how we eat.

She suggests some simple changes we can make today in our food.

https://galwayphysio.com/services/nutritional-therapist/

Fiona is a Success Coach – she believes we all have the “power to do and be whatever we choose, once we decide, commit, believe, and take action!“

Through her business Inspire, Action, Success Fiona works with female business owners and individuals to help them transform their lives.  

Fiona is based in County Clare.

She chats about the power of having a vision for your life and she gives us some tips on how to go about it. 

https://inspireactionsuccess.com/

A trailer for the upcoming podcast series Simply Holistic Living - Feeding the mind, body and soul.

The series will be released on September 28th 2023 and will feature topics such as creating a vision for your life, how food is medicine, self care and healthy skin, calm, relaxation and mental health, Yoga for everyday and mindset and overcoming struggles.

Presented by Julie Clarke

This podcast series is sponsored by Julie Clarke Candles and Mervue Natural Skincare – check out our websites www.julieclarkecandles.com  and www.mervuenaturalskincare.com 

In episode 2, I have a conversation with Psychologist Willie Horton about the practises he teaches through his various programs, helping us to become who we really are and hit the off button on the autopilot running our lives. 

Willie Horton is an Irish Psychologist living in France.  He has an amazing program called the ‘The Psychology of Success Online Program’ and an inspiring podcast ‘To Succeed Just Let Go’.  Through his podcast, online program and free videos and other resources on his website, Willie teaches us how to change our lives, how to become who we really are and to stop paying attention to the thinking mind which he says is the false self. 

Willie’s work is truly inspirational and changing lives.   To find out more about his work click on to his website www.willie-horton.com

In this episode I chat with Dr Gladys McGarey, 103-year-old medical doctor still practising medicine and inspiring everyone who meets her with her wisdom and life experience.  Our chat focuses on the six secrets she talks about in her most recent book. 

The title of her book is – ‘The Well Lied Life.  A 102-year-old Doctor's Six Secrets to Health & Happiness at Every Age.’  This is truly a life changing, inspirational book.    

Dr McGarey is known as the mother of holistic medicine and has a dream for a Village of Living Medicine putting “the sacredness of love and life at the forefront in healing”.  She talks and writes about the physician within each of us.   

For more about Dr McGarey see her website https://gladysmcgarey.com/  and her Instagram @begladmd

A trailer for series 3 of the podcast Simply Holistic Living - Feeding the mind, body and soul.

Episide 1 will be released on September 4th 2024, with 3 more episodes to follow every week in September.

 The theme running through the 4 episodes in this series is – becoming who you really are.  We have the inspirational 103 years old Dr Gladys McGarry sharing her wisdom and talking about her six secrets to a well lived life.   In episode two we have Irish Psychologist Willie Horton in conversation about connecting with our real self to reach our full potential. In episode 3 Life & Business Coach Mairtin Óg McDonagh from Mind over Mountains on the experience of overcoming life challenges and connecting with who they really are.   In the final episode, Business Coach Fiona Brennan from ‘Inspire, Action, Success’ chats about the power of meditation.

Presented by Julie Clarke

This podcast series is sponsored by Julie Clarke Candles and Mervue Natural Skincare – check out our websites www.julieclarkecandles.com and www.mervuenaturalskincare.com 

Kelly is a Yoga Ayurvedic Living Educator and senior Yoga Teacher with Yoga Alliance Professionals.   Kelly works from  her Yoga Ayurveda Living Centre based in Setu Studio Space, Bungalow 7, Clarinbridge.  

Kelly says “Ayurveda and Yoga balance what you need vs. what you want. This is your medicine, you can call it stress relief, stress management, work life balance.  It is relaxation and mental health for wellbeing. Yoga and Ayurveda are a simple path to wellness.”

In this podcast Kelly guides us through a beautiful meditation to help us enter into that calm space within.

www.yogaayurvedicliving.com

I chat with Niall Breslin – one of Irelands leading mental health advocates, host of multi-award winning ‘Where is my mind’ podcast, musician, composer, and inspirational life transformation speaker. 

Niall is currently doing his Ph.D. examining the history of how we dealt with mental health in the past in Ireland both at state and community levels.  Niall believes Ireland can be transformational leaders on the world stage in how we deal with mental health challenges as a state and society.  Niall’s personal struggles with his own mental health has informed his journey to become one of Ireland’s thought leaders in mental health.  

In this episode we look at where mental health sits in Ireland today on an individual, community, and national level and how things are changing.  

www.niallbreslin.com

Kathy runs a successful private counselling practice in Trim in County Meath.  

She is a psychodynamic counsellor and integrates other approaches such as CBT, SFT, Mindfulness and Dreamwork Therapy – this she believes can allow you to unlock closed doors and open up an avenue of growth and freedom.

Kathy says “I truly believe that each one of us has the capacity to lead fulfilled lives, and the only thing holding us back are the negative stories/narratives/beliefs and even lies, that we have told ourselves.  Sometimes you just need to take that first step to explore what’s behind those closed doors and you will find that you can set yourself free.”

In this episode I chat with Kathy about navigating our mental health and the different things that help us on our mental health journey. 

Kathys website is www.willowavenuetherapy.com  and her email is kathleencrinion@gmail.com

Rory is a physiotherapist and owner of Ratoath Physiotherapy in Ratoath County Meath. 

In addition to his training as a physiotherapist Rory has pursued training in cutting edge therapies emerging from around the world.  He has completed extensive education in Neurokinetic Therapy, Integrated Cranial, Structural Joint Balancing and Systemic Kinesiology and uses a combined approach of these therapies to uncover the root cause of musculoskeletal dysfunction and bring lasting results even in chronic conditions. Rory is a Level 3 Advanced Neurokinetic Therapy practitioner, a member of the Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists and is registered with CORU.

Rory is a passionate therapist, and this passion is evident in our chat for this episode.  In this episode I talk to Rory about how we can take better care of our bodies. 

Rory can be contacted on 01 689 6701 and his website is www.ratoathphysio.ie

Clare is a qualified Nutritional Therapist (NT) and advocate for healthy eating and lifestyle medicine.  She is owner of ANU Wellness a Galway based holistic Nutritional Therapy practice in Oranmore, County Galway.  

In this episode Clare is back on the podcast to talk about connecting with natural food sources.  She says a good way to judge that we are connecting with natural food sources is - to check if our grandparents were going to our supermarket today what would they recognise as food.  

Clare can be contacted through the website below.

https://galwayphysio.com/services/nutritional-therapist/

Guest:   Doctor Lena Subbotina  - MD

Purpose – A deep dive into the positive impact of switching off from the noise of the world on our mental and physical health

Key points –

• What happens to our mind & body when we are on that spinning wheel
• The neurobiology of stress
• The nervous system

Takeaways

• Decide to take the first 30 minutes of the day as a device free time
• Nominate one evening per week as a device free evening

Find Dr Lena on revenkoscenar@gmail.com

Guest – Yvonne Daly from Mervue Natural Skincare

Purpose – to look at what good skincare looks like and develop good skincare habits as part of an overall wellness ritual. 

Key Points –

Research your skincare products.

Make educated choices about your skincare products. 

Choose products that can be multipurpose – more economical.

Less is more when it comes to good skincare.

Integrate your skincare with a nice nighttime wellness ritual – 10 minutes at night.

Takeaways

Become an educated skincare consumer

Take 10 minutes out at night for a nourishing skincare routine and some self -care – helps sleep. 

Email contact for Mervue Natural Skincare is the same as for Julie Clarke Candles jcsales@julieclarkecandles.com - we work side by side and all emails will be passed on to Mervue Natural Skincare. 

Yvonne Daly works as the product formulator and educator at Mervue Natural Skincare – a certified organic skincare brand launched in 2021 and made in Mervue, Galway City. 

Yvonne trained as a chef originally and went on to train and work as a beautician – she has a life long passion for taking care of our skin from the inside out. 

In this episode Yvonne shares some of her knowledge about becoming a more educated skincare consumer – using the principle less is more for the skin.  She also chats about developing a good skincare routine as part of our self-care.  

Guest - Meditation Teacher Dora Ross

Purpose - exploring meditation and how it can change your life

Key Points

Neuroscience behind meditation 

How meditation can change your life

A few tips to get you started with meditation 

A 3-minute meditation to close 

Takeaways

• 5 minutes meditation practise each morning

Dora Ross is a mindfulness and wellbeing coach and behavioural change specialist. She helps people with busy, demanding lives pause, reset, and reconnect with what truly matters through meditation and practical mindfulness tools. Alongside her corporate role in behavioural change within cybersecurity, Dora delivers wellbeing mentoring, coaching, and meditation sessions for individuals and in corporate settings. Her work focuses on helping people manage stress, reduce overthinking, and bring more calm, clarity, and balance into their everyday lives.

In this episode Dora explores with Julianne the benefits of practical mediation as a tool for tuning in and living our best life.  Dora also guides us through a short meditation.  

You can find her on Instagram, Insight Timer, and Substack under Dorika Wellbeing

Guest – Siobhan Moylan Setu Yoga Studio

Purpose – Exploring yoga as a mind body practise for everyone regardless of age or physical ability. 

Key Points 

Yoga is and should be accessible for all ages and physical abilities.

Yoga helps us to connect within –it is a moving medication.

The power of the breath to calm the nervous system. 

Takeaways

Through the day practise taking a deep breath through your nose and exhaling through your nose.   Make sure the exhale is longer than the inhale.  Write a few lines in your journal at the end of the day about how you feel after doing this practise. 

Siobhan Moylan is a Yoga Teacher and Yoga Teacher Trainer with over 25 years of experience – working from her studio ‘SETU’ in Kilcornan, Clarinbridge, County Galway.  

Siobhan’s mission is delivering Yoga classes that are accessible for everyone in the community regardless of age or physical ability.  She sees Yoga as a moving meditation helping is to connect within and calm our nervous system. 

In this episode Siobhan shares our deep knowledge of Yoga and her mission to deliver accessible yoga.   There is a short breathing exercise at the end of this episode we can all use during the day to create that calm from within. 

You can find Siobhan on Instagram @setustudiospace and at her studio in SETU, Kilcornan, Clarinbridge, County Galway if you are in the Galway area. 

This is a solo podcast with host Julie Clarke.

Purpose – Sharing my journey of recovery and waking up to the real me.

Key Points

• Letting go
• Trusting yourself
• Foundation for letting go
• Tuning in through meditation
• Setting an intention for the day

Takeaways

Setting up your day – practical meditation

Pausing during your day - taking a few deep breaths 

Stop trying and start trusting

Email contact for Julie Clarke Candles is jcsales@julieclarkecandles.com

Julianne Clarke has a master’s degree in Adult and Community Education.  She worked for many years for various Government Organisations and Rural Development Companies in community education settings.   

Julianne had some time out of work to recover from injuries sustained in a car accident.  Following her recovery, Julianne co-founded two brands Julie Clarke Candles and Mervue Natural Skincare.  At the heart of these brands is a passion for wellbeing and creating calm spaces. 

In more recent years Julie has trained as a Yoga Teacher and Breath Work Coach – she is planning to do more work in this area brining some tools to her clients for living their best life.  

In this episode Julie shares some of her story of recovery in the hope that it helps listeners who are in challenging situations.  

Simply Holistic Living Series 4 will launch on Thursday 4th June 2026.

Welcome to Simply Holistic Living – Practical Tools for Waking Up to the Real You.

After taking some time away, I’m returning with a fresh eye.

This podcast is for people who feel they are on a spinning wheel and just surviving but want to change, want to slow down, breath and reconnect.   

In this podcast we explore grounded, practical ways to reconnect with yourself and build a more balanced, rounded life.

So, if you’re ready to slow down, tune in and live with more clarity, you’re in the right place.