St. Patrick’s Day
St. Patrick’s Day has always been one of my favorite holidays. Not just because my name is used synonymously with the day, or because I am most Irish per 23and Me, and my Dad’s incessant telling me tales of growing up in Southie, but because I liked the idea of the Luck of the Irish.
The concept that I was naturally going to have a guardian angel, or in my case I imagined the Lucky Charms leprechaun on my shoulder helping me out through life, gave me confidence in life when I really shouldn’t have had it.
Not just because I enjoyed digging out the marshmallows from a box of cereal and ditching the useless remnants, but knowing life would all be ok, let me believe it would be, in times when I might not have been the most likely scenario.
My belief in the luck of the Irish also convinced me getting a tattoo of a shamrock at 19 on my ankle was a great idea, but let’s partially chalk that up to a 1990s trend and college stupidity.
I had no idea where the origins of the Luck of The Irish came from until I looked it and that it was actually derived as an insult.
“During the gold and silver rush years in the second half of the 19th century, a number of the most famous and successful miners were of Irish and Irish American birth….Over time this association of the Irish with mining fortunes led to the expression ‘luck of the Irish.’ Of course, it carried with it a certain tone of derision, as if to say, only by sheer luck, as opposed to brains, could these fools succeed.” (IrishCentral.com)
I am here on March 17, 2018 to reclaim the Luck of Irish for all of us. Even if your DNA and Me profile is different from mine, or you do not get as excited as I do when I see the Empire State Building is lit up to be green and white it is all good.
So as you go about your day today and maybe you will go get a pint of Guinness, or die your kids milk green or treat the day like any other Saturday know that in the words of the current motivation speaker, author and coach, Gabrielle Bernstein “the Universe has got your back”. I have no idea if she is Irish, likes the color green or Lucky Charms, but it does NOT really matter now does it?
Erin Wathen
As a Holistic Health Coach, it is Erin’s big hairy audacious goal is to change the dialogue around how we look at weight loss. It is not a matter of being it Ketosis or Food Swaps but the feelings we have that we are avoiding by overeating. Why are so many of us not tackling the real issues we have? It is easier and safer to obsess over the latest diet fad. Whether it be with our job, or our Mom, boyfriend, politics… until we address how we manage our feelings in the world, we are not going to.
