What Gets in the Way of a Steady Irish Pagan Practice?

Every time someone registers for one of our free Moon Bootcamps at the Irish Pagan School, the form asks them one question, which is:

What makes staying consistent with your practice difficult for you right now?

More than two thousand registrations came in for the bootcamp this month, and 945 of those people wrote an answer about their own problems with spiritual or magical practice.

10 things came up consistently across all those answers.

They were: time, focus, work patterns, caring for somebody else, illness and disability, exhaustion, mental health, not knowing where to start, practising on your own, and having nowhere in the house that belongs to you.

Everything below is quoted exactly as people wrote it, with first names only for privacy. After each one I've shared what our eight week programme Find Your Way Back does to answer these problems, and help them or support our students as they solve their own problems... because a programme that can't help with these issues honestly has no business asking anybody for eight weeks of time and effort, right?

Why can't I find time for my spiritual practice?

The word time is in 206 of the 945 answers, and most of them describe the same long slippery slide from morning to bedtime.

Kayleigh wrote, "It feels like each day goes by so fast that by the time I'm going to bed I realize I didn't practice".

Find Your Way Back runs on a weekly rhythm instead of a daily one. A new week opens every Friday and stays open for our students to engage with at your own pace, so nothing expires on an overnight deadline and there's no streak to break.

The essentials of each week have been synopsised so that on a time poor week (or every week) can be done in under an hour when shit is against ye, and you still get the benefit of that week's work, without the stress and 'failure' of not getting it all done.

Work, job or shift turns up in 151 of the answers we read through (yes I went and counted all of these myself!), with shift workers, night workers and people holding down two jobs naming the same collision.

Jessica put it as "my shrine is dusty and it really feels like the best I can do is keep up with news on short breaks at work".

Nothing in the programme is only available live. The weekly Q&A session with myself and Jon runs every Sunday at 5pm Irish time for all eight weeks, with every one of em recorded and available right there in the same group location immediately after the session is done, so no hunting down zoom links or waiting for recordings to be uploaded days later.

If you want to know what that time is where you are, google '5pm Irish time in' with your own city after it, and take the recording if the answer is the middle of your night or smack in the middle of family commitments.

42 answers name children or caring for somebody, from parents of small children to people minding a spouse or an elderly mother.

Nicole wrote, "I feel like 24 hours in a day is not enough".

Jayney Nicole, we feel you on that one for sure. 😭

The weekly workpack for this programme is built to be done in small managable bite size pieces, and the integration or reflection part of each week is about fitting the practice into the life you actually have.

Your access runs a full 70 days from the day you enroll, which gives you ten weeks to walk through the set up and content of our eight week programme.

Why can't I stay consistent even when the time is there?

Focus ran through a great many of the answers, and ADHD, autism or neurodivergence is named outright in 40 of them.

Teresa described it as "My brain skips away from it, and I pull it back, and away it goes again", and Jackie wrote, "I have ADHD and staying consistent with anything feels difficult right now".

As a late diagnosed neurodivergent person myself (are we actually 'divergent' from some 'typical' brains, really, or just lagreyly undiagnosed or misdiagnosed? Anyway...) and the parent and grandparent of an entire ND lineage, I designed this entire fecking thing to be usable for us spicy brains because I personally am sick of feeling like I'm broken or incapable of keeping up with stuff that simply is not designed for us. 

The programme asks for a week at a time rather than a day at a time, and it's built as a Meitheal, a dedicated working group - body doubling, anyone? - so everyone moves through the eight weeks at the same pace with the same week open in front of them.

The 2-3 hour extra support studies inside each week are marked optional, because the week is complete without them... but sometimes we get that hyper focus going on and just want to dive right on in. We got ya

Exhaustion and overwhelm carried their own set of answers, and they came from people who did have the hour but burnout in various stages is kicking their arses.

Leah wrote, "Its hard to show up on the days I dont have alot of energy."

Week 1 content is about centring, grounding and protection taught as easy to fit in, everyday supports, so you get tools to use practically throughout the programme (and your life) from day one.

Maura came through the first Meitheal and described her first reaction to the opening lesson as "Phew the relief that it will not be yet another thing on the to do list, and yet another course started with the best intentions that later burdens me with guilt and debt."

Mental health was named clearly and talked about as it should be, openly and honestly, and depression or anxiety by name came up in 19 different answers.

Alissa wrote, "Executive dysfunction and depression lol. I've always waxed and waned with my spirituality".

The programme makes no claim on your mental health, and while it's definitely not a replacement for therapy or medication under professional supervision, the design leaves you room to integrate spirituality and energetic or magical work as a support, not a chore.

There's no catching up to do, nothing is submitted for marking, and a fortnight where you read nothing leaves the week still sitting there when you come back to it.

If you do need the accountability though, the Meitheal online group and the weekly check in sessions with myself and Jon are there for you to find safer supportive space than you'll get mostly anywhere else online, or in person even.

How do you practise with chronic illness, or on your own?

Chronic illness and chronic pain are named in 23 answers, alongside disability, surgery and recovery.

Karla wrote, "I have a chronic illness which makes a consistent practice hard. I'm trying to figure out to have a practice that feeds my soul but is also within my capacity."

The weekly workpacks are built to be achievable on low energy, limited time or a neurodivergent processing style, and every teaching comes with a written transcript as well as the video. We've worked really hard (as we always do) to make accessibility a priority throughout the programme.

Inma told us they used those transcripts through the first Meitheal to work the material in translation.

31 answers are about practising alone, with no group anywhere near them.

Anna wrote, "I have no one to practice with or share my experiences", and Erica put it as "I get discouraged because I don't really have anyone around to share in the practice".

Meitheal is the Irish tradition of shared work, where the whole townland turns out for one family's harvest, turf cutting, or building project, and then moves on to the next when it's time for that. It's the shape this whole programme is built on.

There's a group space for the eight weeks and a live session with the two of us every Sunday.

Chelle from the first Meitheal said what changed it for her was "When I realised it wasn't school and I could engage as much or as little as worked for me."

A smaller set of answers came from people with nowhere physical r safe to practise.

Stephanie wrote, "I live with a bunch of other people and am also working while going to school. Time and space are two constraints I've been trying to navigate around".

More than one person told us they live with somebody who wouldn't have a practice in the house.

The traditional Irish ways we teach use what's already in your house, so the first small practice and most of the rest of them in the programme will be done with an object you already own.

MaryBeth told us she did hers with a bracelet she found and left on the living room table.

Week 6 goes further into building a relationship with land and place wherever you are in the world, or whatever situation you find yourself living in at the moment.

Where do you start with Irish Pagan practice?

22 answers say that the person doesn't know where to begin, and several name the reason, which is that the (elseweb) available information disagrees with itself.

Steven wrote, "I don't have a current practice, and starting one seems like staring out into the sea and not knowing where or how to start", and Candace named the harder version, "Not really knowing what is authenticity from propaganda."

Find Your Way Back is eight weeks in a fixed order with dates on them, starting with draíocht and the foundations of Irish magic and finishing with Irish witchcraft and traditional magical practice.

In between is even more quality, authentic content on making offerings, the Irish festivals and sacred time, guided journeying with Lora's unique Irish methodology, decolonising your Irish spirituality, sacred sites, and relationship with gods, ancestors and the Irish Otherworld.

Myself and Jon teach all eight weeks between us from here in the IPS HQ in County Waterford, Ireland, and Week 5 is on the weekly content list because the guilt, the consumerism and the pan Celtic slop sold as Irish tradition get in the way of a genuine spiritual practice.

ENROLLMENT

Find Your Way Back opens occasionally through each year (we had two Meitheal working groups in 2026, for example) and runs for eight weeks.

You can pay in full and save some money, or take advantage of the three Month or eight week Payment plans we always offer, to split the cost into manageable chunks.

It carries a fourteen day money back guarantee that runs from the start of the programme rather than from the day you pay.

Full details, and the waiting list (or enrollment, if it's currently open) are found [RIGHT HERE] ✨