Acorn of Wisdom
CIARÁN O'NEILL · SOMATIC COACHING FOR ENGINEERS

You get one run at this.
Stop living someone else's plan.

You feel stuck, and you can't name why.

I help you see the pattern underneath it.

Then we build a real plan around who you actually are.

Mind · Emotion · Body · Action alignment.
Most people are working hard on goals that were never theirs. I read your blueprint, sort what's yours from what you absorbed, and build a real plan around what's left — so the life you're living matches the one you're actually for.

Book a free 20-minute clarity call Remote and in person · Ireland · Switzerland · Peru
01

If you're at a crossroads

You don't need more information. You need someone to help you see the pattern, decide what's true, and then hold you to a sequence.

Twelve years sequencing billion-euro programmes. Now, one-to-one somatic coaching for the people who run them.

This work tends to find people who are competent and stuck: the career that looks right and feels wrong, the ending that hasn't been named yet, the sense that you're running someone else's plan well. You've likely read the books and done some of the work. What's missing isn't insight. It's structure, and someone who won't flinch.

This work is for you if
  • You keep repeating the same pattern, even though you can see it clearly
  • You feel disconnected from your body, or like you're living in your head
  • You're carrying more than you've told anyone
  • Something is ending — a career, a relationship, a version of yourself — and it hasn't been named yet
  • You're successful on paper and quietly unsure it's yours
  • You're overwhelmed and can't tell which thing to move first
  • You want to go deeper, and you want it held properly

You don't need to know what you need. That's the first thing we work out together.

The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.
Carl Jung
02

What a session actually feels like

Before you wonder whether the method works, you'll want to know something simpler: what is it like to be in the room with this person?

Nobody hires someone to work on their shadow, their patterns or their life because of a list of methodologies. They do it because they need to feel safe enough to say the true thing out loud. That comes first. Everything else on this page is only useful after it.

So, plainly: you set the pace. You are never pushed into material you haven't chosen to open. Nothing you say gets used against you later, repeated to anyone, or turned into a lesson you didn't ask for. If you want to stop, we stop, and that costs you nothing.

I won't perform serenity at you or speak in a special voice. It's a real conversation between two adults, one of whom has done this work on himself and will say so when your question lands somewhere he's still working out.

Presence

You get my full attention for the whole hour — no half-listening, no waiting for my turn to speak. For a lot of people, being properly listened to is itself the unfamiliar part.

A space of peace

Most people arrive wound tight. We settle first. Nothing useful happens in a nervous system that's still braced, so we don't rush that part.

Safety

Trauma-informed, which means consent at every step, no surprises, and knowing when something belongs with a doctor or therapist rather than with me. I'll say so when that's the case.

No judgement

You will not shock me. Whatever you've been carrying, whatever you've done or not done, it's met plainly. Shame is usually the thing keeping the pattern alive, so I don't add to it.

Directness

I'll tell you what I actually see, with care and without softening it into uselessness. You can push back. You should. The point is that you leave with something true.

Confidential

What's said stays between us. No names, no stories, no examples borrowed for someone else's session or for social media.

People will forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
03

Your blueprint

Before we build the plan, we read the pattern already in you. Not to predict your life — to give you a compass for it.

I work with your natal chart, Human Design and Jungian archetypal analysis as a structured lens on temperament, motivation and direction. What comes out is a map of mission and purpose: what you're built for, what reliably trips you up, what you keep circling back to, and where your stated goals do or don't line up with who you actually are.

As above, so below — the pattern in the chart, the pattern in the life.

Psychology

Carl Jung's work on archetypes, individuation and shadow — the study of how a person becomes fully themselves. A serious body of thought, and the spine of this section.

Symbolic

Natal astrology, Human Design and Ayurvedic constitution: symbolic systems refined over centuries, used as a vocabulary for temperament and pattern. A map isn't the terrain, and still gets you across it.

Tested

Everything read is checked against your actual life and history. If it doesn't match what you recognise in yourself, we drop it. Nothing here asks you to take anything on faith.

See every tool I use, and when →

These are frameworks for reflection and self-understanding, not clinical, diagnostic or predictive tools, and not a substitute for medical or psychological care.

Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakes.
Carl Jung
04

The method

Six stages. The same sequence I've used to plan billion-euro programmes, turned on the one project that actually matters.

01

Clarity

Where you actually are, not where you say you are.

02

Vision

Where you're going, and whether it's yours.

03

Strategy

The roadmap, sequenced and real.

04

Action

Move, in order, with support.

05

Reflection

Learn, adjust, re-sequence.

06

Embodiment

It stops being a plan and becomes how you live.

Tús maith, leath na hoibre.
A good start is half the work.
Irish proverb
Bachalpsee, Bernese Oberland
05

Discernment

There is an enormous amount of teaching available now and almost no filtering. Most of it is sincere. Some of it is sound. Almost none of it was written for you.

Telling those apart is most of the value. Every teaching or practice I put in front of you comes with why it fits you — your blueprint, your history, where you actually are — and what it asks of you. If the reasoning doesn't hold, we don't use it.

Due diligence

Nothing is recommended because it's popular. It has to fit you and hold up to scrutiny — the standard I'd apply to a schedule with millions riding on it.

Respect

Traditions are named, sourced and left belonging to the cultures they come from. Not stripped for parts, not rebranded as mine.

Your authority

You're the final say on your own life. My job is to widen what you can see and sharpen how you weigh it — never to hand you a doctrine and ask you to trust me over yourself.

Don't make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions.
don Miguel Ruiz · The Four Agreements
06

What you actually leave with

Not a feeling that fades by Thursday. Things you can point at.

A blueprint
A written read of your pattern

Your chart, design and archetypes worked through in plain language — what you're built for, what trips you up, what you keep repeating.

A roadmap
A sequenced plan, not a wish list

Real steps in a real order, with dependencies named. The thing I'd hand a client on a capital programme, applied to your life.

A filter
Your own discernment, sharpened

You leave able to tell what's yours from what you absorbed — without needing me to tell you.

Momentum
Blocks moved, not described

The point isn't understanding why you're stuck. It's not being stuck.

Vision without execution is hallucination.
Thomas Edison
07

Why work with me

You can find a coach who will encourage you, and you can find a planner who will organise you. The useful thing is someone who does both and won't flatter you.

Rare mix
Engineering rigour, inner work

Twelve years sequencing billion-euro programmes, and years of practice in traditions of change. Most people in this field have one or the other. The combination is why the plans hold.

Honesty
I'll tell you the real timeline

I'm trained to say what something will actually cost and how long it will really take. You'll get that about your life, delivered with care but without softening.

Lived
I don't teach what I haven't done

Everything I bring, I've worked through myself. Where my experience ends, I'll say so and point you to someone better.

Yours to keep
You leave with the method

The roadmap is yours, the discernment is yours. I'd rather you not need me in a year than have you booking sessions forever.

Plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
08

Work with me

Three ways in. Same method, different depth.

RefProgrammeLengthFee
AW·12

12 Week Programme

The core engagement. Blueprint read, then a full sequenced pass through all six stages, ending with a written roadmap that's yours to keep. Practices chosen to fit you, not applied off a shelf.

Book a clarity call to apply →
12 weeks
On the call
AW·26

6 Month Transformation

For deeper or slower-moving change. The same six stages with room between them — more integration, more discernment work, more time for the plan to take root and become how you actually live.

Book a clarity call to apply →
6 months
On the call
AW·AH

Single session

One decision, one stuck point, or a periodic check-in. Remote by default; in person when the work calls for being in the same room.

Book and pay for a session →
Per session
At booking

Programme fees are discussed on the clarity call and confirmed in writing before you commit to anything.

Optional · Separately arranged

In-person work alongside a programme

Each programme above is complete on its own and is delivered remotely. Some people reach a point where being in the same room does something a call can't — and where deeper in-person work, including traditional practices, becomes worth considering.

That is never bundled into a programme, never priced as an upgrade, and never a condition of working with me. It is a separate conversation, entered into only by mutual agreement, only in person at scheduled events, and only in jurisdictions where the practice in question is lawful. Health and psychiatric screening comes first, preparation and integration are part of it, and you can say no at any stage without it affecting your programme.

Raise it on the introduction call if you're curious. Nothing is arranged on a first conversation. See Journeys for how these practices are held.

Free guide

Reset your nervous system

A short, practical guide to settling a system that's running hot — the groundwork everything else here is built on. No cost, no call required.

Send me the guide

One email with the guide. One email with the guide, sent personally within a day or two. Occasional notes when there's something worth saying.

09

Journeys

Small-group experiences in the three landscapes that shaped this work — for people already in the work who want to take it further, into embodied reflection and, where it's a genuine fit, traditional practices held in the cultures they come from.

Ireland
Galway Bay · Origin
Switzerland
Bernese Alps · Precision
Peru
Sacred Valley · Depth

Allies, not requirements

Some of the oldest tools in this work are the quietest. Rapé — finely ground sacred snuff, prepared from mapacho tobacco and ash — has been used across Amazonian traditions for generations to settle a scattered mind, clear the head, and bring someone back into their body before deeper work. Ceremonial tobacco is treated in those cultures as a teacher and a protector, not a habit.

Where it fits, rapé can be a good ally: grounding, sobering, and useful for arriving properly in a session. Where it doesn't, we simply don't use it. Nothing here is ever pressed on anyone, and declining is a complete answer that needs no explanation. It contains nicotine and isn't suitable for everyone — anyone with respiratory issues, blood pressure concerns, pregnancy, or a history with nicotine should say so, and we'll leave it aside.

Said plainly. Cacao ceremony, rapé, kambo and 5-MeO-DMT are physiologically significant practices carrying real medical and, in some cases, legal considerations. Where they're part of a journey, they are held strictly as:

  • By mutual agreement only, arranged in conversation — never sold, packaged or booked from this page
  • In person only, at in-person events — never part of any online programme or remote work
  • Only in jurisdictions where the practice is lawful
  • Facilitated by named, credentialed local practitioners, introduced before anything is agreed
  • Preceded by health and psychiatric screening, described fully before you decide anything
  • Supported by real preparation and integration, never a single isolated session
  • Always optional — offered, never urged, and declining changes nothing
  • Entirely separate from the coaching programmes above, which stand on their own

If this is something you're drawn to, it's a conversation before it's anything else. Bring it up on the introduction call and we'll talk honestly about whether it fits you, where it could lawfully take place, and what it would ask of you. Nothing is arranged on a first call.

No medical or therapeutic claims are made. This is not a substitute for medical or psychiatric care, and no journey is a condition of any programme.

The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
Joseph Campbell
Join the journeys waitlist
Sacred Valley, Peru
10

About Ciarán

I came to this work sideways, through engineering.

For twelve years I've planned and scheduled large pharmaceutical, engineering and construction programmes — critical-path schedules on capital projects from €50M to over €1B, where poor structure costs millions and months. The work has taken me across Ireland, the UK, Switzerland, Germany, France and Belgium, and to both coasts of the United States. Programmes have been delivered for Eli Lilly, MSD, Johnson & Johnson, Lonza, Google and Microsoft among others. BSc in Science and MEng in Engineering, University of Galway.

That's not a former life I'm apologising for. It's why this work has a spine. A scientific and engineering training gives you a particular kind of mind: you learn to find the actual constraint rather than the loudest symptom, and to say plainly what a thing will really cost and how long it will really take. That's what I bring to a person's blocks. Most people at a crossroads have had plenty of encouragement and very little of that.

The other half came from my own path — Ireland to Switzerland to Peru, and years of study, practice and living with these traditions rather than reading about them.

Certified

5-MeO-DMT facilitation — Mindscape Institute. Kambo practitioner — International Kambo Institute.

Practice

Trauma-informed facilitation, Reiki, life and direction coaching.

Study

Jungian psychology, Human Design, natal astrology, Ayurvedic constitution.

Engineering

BSc Science, MEng Engineering, University of Galway. Twelve years planning capital programmes across Europe and the United States.

I don't teach what I haven't lived. Everything I bring to a client I've done the work on myself, and I'll tell you plainly where my experience ends.

Ní neart go cur le chéile.
There is no strength without unity.
Irish proverb
11

How I work

01
First principles, not formulas

You leave understanding why the sequence is the sequence, not just following it.

02
You own the roadmap

Every engagement ends with something concrete and yours. I don't sell dependency.

03
Discernment over doctrine

I'll show you the reasoning behind everything I bring, so you can weigh it yourself. The authority stays with you.

04
Due diligence, not enthusiasm

Nothing gets recommended because it's popular — only because it fits you and holds up.

05
The best out of one life

This isn't self-improvement for its own sake. You get one run at this, and it should be spent on what actually matters to you.

Acorn of Wisdom · The tools

What I actually use,
and when I use it.

No mystery, no proprietary system, no secret method. Here is every framework, practice and tradition I draw on, where it comes from, what it's good for, and where it stops being useful.

12

Frameworks for reading a person

These build your blueprint. None of them predict anything. They give us a shared vocabulary for pattern, temperament and motivation — and every reading gets checked against your actual life.

Jungian analysis
Depth psychology · c. 1912
Ongoing study

Carl Jung's work on archetypes, individuation and shadow — the study of how a person becomes fully themselves rather than a well-adapted version of what was expected of them. This is the spine of the blueprint work and the most academically serious tool here.

Shadow work in particular: the parts of you that got exiled early because they were inconvenient, and that run the show from underneath until they're met.

Best for: understanding why you keep repeating something you've already decided to stop doing.
Natal astrology
Hellenistic · c. 2nd century BCE
Ongoing study

A symbolic system refined over roughly two thousand years, used here as a language for temperament and timing rather than prediction. The chart is a starting map: where your energy naturally goes, what you're drawn to, where the friction tends to sit.

I use it the way you'd use any model — it's useful when it matches the terrain, and we discard it when it doesn't.

Best for: naming a pattern you've felt your whole life but never had words for.
Human Design
Synthesis · 1987
Ongoing study

A modern synthesis drawing on astrology, the I Ching, the chakra system and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life. Newer than the others and I'll say so plainly. What it's genuinely good at is decision-making style — how you're built to say yes and no, and what happens when you override that.

Best for: people who consistently make good decisions badly, or agree to things they knew were wrong.
Ayurvedic constitution
Indian subcontinent · c. 1500 BCE
Ongoing study

A traditional system of constitution and balance. I use it lightly and for one thing: matching the pace and shape of a plan to the person following it. A schedule that suits one constitution will break another.

Used here for reflection and pacing only — not as medicine, diagnosis or treatment.

Best for: people who have failed at plans that were structurally wrong for them and concluded they lack discipline.
Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
Carl Jung
13

Practice and structure

Reading the pattern is half of it. The other half is method — and this is where twelve years of planning capital programmes stops being a footnote and starts being the point.

Critical-path planning
Engineering · 1950s
BSc, MEng · 12 years applied

The discipline behind every large capital programme: find the real constraint, sequence the work honestly, name dependencies, and say what something will actually cost and how long it will really take.

Applied to a person, it produces a roadmap rather than a wish list. Most life plans fail because step four secretly depends on step nine.

Best for: everyone. This is the part nobody else in this field is doing.
Trauma-informed facilitation
Contemporary clinical practice
Certified

Knowing how to hold a session so that difficult material can surface safely, at your pace, with consent at every step — and knowing when something is outside my scope and belongs with a therapist or doctor.

Best for: making everything else here safe to do.
Reiki
Japan · 1922
Certified

A Japanese practice of hands-on or near-body work, used here for settling and rest. I offer it where someone wants it and leave it entirely aside where they don't.

No medical or therapeutic claims are made for this practice.

Best for: people who arrive wound tight and need to land before anything useful can happen.
Direction coaching
Contemporary
Certified

The conversational craft: asking the question that opens something rather than the question that sounds clever, holding you to what you said you'd do, and being willing to say the unwelcome thing.

Best for: the weeks between sessions, when the plan meets real life.
Be impeccable with your word.
don Miguel Ruiz · The Four Agreements
14

Three landscapes

Ireland, Switzerland and Peru aren't a travel list. They're where this work was formed, and each one taught a different half of it.

Ireland
Galway Bay · Origin
Switzerland
Bernese Alps · Precision
Peru
Sacred Valley · Depth
Ní neart go cur le chéile.
There is no strength without unity.
Irish proverb
15

Traditional practices

These belong to the cultures they come from. They are never sold from this site, never bundled into a programme, and never a condition of working with me.

Rapé
Amazonia · Traditional
Practised, in person only

Finely ground sacred snuff prepared from mapacho tobacco and ash, used across Amazonian traditions to settle a scattered mind and bring someone properly into their body before deeper work. Ceremonial tobacco is treated in those cultures as a teacher and a protector, not a habit.

Where it fits it's a good ally. Where it doesn't, we don't use it. It contains nicotine and isn't suitable for everyone.

Always optional. Declining is a complete answer.
Cacao
Mesoamerica · Traditional
Practised, in person only

Ceremonial cacao, used in group settings for opening and connection. The gentlest practice here, and often the only one that's appropriate.

Always optional.
Kambo
Amazonia · Traditional
International Kambo Institute

A traditional Amazonian practice using the secretion of the giant monkey frog. Physiologically significant, with real medical considerations and genuine contraindications. Screening is not a formality here.

In person only, in lawful jurisdictions, after screening, by mutual agreement.
5-MeO-DMT
Traditional and contemporary
Mindscape Institute

The most serious practice referenced anywhere on this site, and the one I'm most conservative about. It is legally controlled in most countries, medically significant, and inappropriate for many people.

Only where lawful. Only in person. Only after screening, preparation and an agreed integration plan. Never on a first conversation.

How these are held, without exception:

  • Never sold, priced, packaged or booked from this site
  • By mutual agreement only, arranged in conversation
  • In person only, at scheduled events
  • Only in jurisdictions where the practice is lawful
  • Facilitated by named, credentialed local practitioners, introduced before anything is agreed
  • Preceded by health and psychiatric screening, described fully before you decide anything
  • Supported by real preparation and integration
  • Always optional — declining changes nothing about your programme

No medical or therapeutic claims are made. Nothing here is a substitute for medical or psychiatric care.

16

How they fit together

The frameworks read the pattern. The planning turns it into a sequence. The practices support the work where they genuinely fit, and sit unused where they don't. You keep the authority over all of it, all the way through.

Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.
A Course in Miracles
Book a free 20-minute clarity call
17

Questions people ask

Do I have to believe in astrology or Human Design for this to work?

No. They're used as a vocabulary for pattern and temperament, and everything read gets checked against your actual life. If it doesn't match what you recognise in yourself, we drop it and keep going. Plenty of people I work with are sceptical about the symbolic side and get most of their value from the planning and the discernment work. That's fine.

Is this therapy?

No, and it isn't a substitute for it. I'm not a psychologist or a doctor, I don't diagnose or treat, and where something belongs with a clinician I'll say so plainly and help you find the right person. What I do is help you see your pattern, decide what's yours, and build a sequence you can actually walk.

How much time does it take each week?

A session, plus whatever the current step in your roadmap asks of you. The plan is built around your real life, not an idealised version of it — if a step doesn't fit the week you actually have, it's the wrong step and we re-sequence it.

Do we meet in person or online?

Remote by default, which works well and keeps this open wherever you are. In person when the work calls for being in the same room, and at scheduled events. Based in Zürich, regularly in Ireland and Peru.

Do I have to do any of the plant medicine work?

No. The programmes are complete on their own and are delivered remotely. Traditional practices are never bundled in, never priced as an upgrade, and never a condition of anything. They're a separate conversation, only where lawful, only in person, only after screening — and declining changes nothing about your programme.

What if I don't know what I want yet?

That's the normal starting point, and it's the first thing we work out. You don't need a clear question before the call. "Something is off and I can't name it" is enough to begin with.

What if you're not the right person for me?

Then I'll say so on the first call and point you somewhere better. That's part of what the twenty minutes is for. I'd rather turn away work than take on someone I can't genuinely help.

How do payments work?

Programmes are arranged after the clarity call, once we both agree it's a fit. Single sessions can be booked and paid directly. Terms are confirmed in writing before you commit to anything.

18

Start with a conversation

You get one run at this. It should be spent on what actually matters to you.
Ciarán O'Neill

Twenty minutes, no cost, no pitch. Tell me where you are and what's stuck. If I'm not the right person, I'll say so and point you somewhere better.

01You book a time

Pick a slot that suits you. Nothing to prepare, no forms to fill in.

02We talk for twenty minutes

You say where you are. I listen, ask a few real questions, and tell you honestly what I think would help.

03You decide, in your own time

No pressure on the call and no offer that expires. If it's a fit, we start. If it isn't, you leave with something useful anyway.

Book a free 20-minute clarity call