When we're living a life that's not really working for us (The Selkie story)

In this episode, Scott Bryson, PhD, reflects on the haunting North Atlantic legend of the selkie—the seal-woman who sheds her skin, lives for a time among humans, and eventually feels the irresistible call to return to the sea.We explore the story not simply as folklore, but as a metaphor for something many of us experience in our own lives. In the tale, a hunter hides the selkie’s sealskin, forcing her to remain on land. Over time she builds a life, even a family, but something essential within her begins to fade. When she finally finds the hidden skin and puts it back on, she returns to the ocean—to the part of herself she could never truly abandon.What might that sealskin represent for us?Sometimes, over the course of a life, we set aside a part of who we once were—a calling, a longing, a way of being that once felt natural. We build careers, relationships, identities. Yet something inside us keeps calling, asking us to remember.The selkie story asks a simple but unsettling question:What part of ourselves might still be waiting for us to come back and reclaim it?