Celtic Myth, Modern Mind: How Story Heals the Brain

Paul Simon Bryant is a shamanic teacher and storyteller based in Devon, England.
Rooted in the Celtic and Druidic traditions, his work bridges mythic psychology, energy medicine, and trauma healing.

Through private teaching and community practice, Paul helps people “reweave” their personal stories by integrating ancient wisdom with modern neuroscience.

His approach combines lived experience, therapeutic training, and 30 years of study in Celtic myth and symbolism.

“Gentleness is its own kind of power,” he says — and it’s the principle guiding all his work.

Pauls’s Top Quotes

• "Every story you've ever told about yourself lives somewhere in your body."

• "The body remembers the story — until the story remembers the body."

• "When you retell a memory with compassion, the brain rewires the meaning."

• "Gentleness is its own kind of power."

A journey from ancient story to modern neuroscience — where healing begins with the tales we tell ourselves.

"Every story you've ever told about yourself lives somewhere in your body."

In this masterclass, Paul Simon Bryant — a shamanic teacher rooted in Celtic tradition — sits down with Taniya Hussain to explore how ancient myth, energy medicine, and neuroscience are all telling the same story about healing.

Paul unpacks the Celtic myth of Math and Arianrhod, revealing how “curses” in old tales mirror the psychological scripts we inherit in modern life. Through lived experience — from addiction recovery to community building — he shows how story itself becomes a neurological pathway for change.

Together, Paul and Taniya bridge Celtic wisdom, Sufi reflection, and modern brain science, demonstrating that healing isn’t a mystery — it’s memory, retold with compassion.

Five Takeaways:
- How the brain rewires itself through conscious storytelling
- The link between mythic “taboos” and inherited emotional patterns
- Practical use of energy medicine and EFT for releasing old narratives
- Why gentleness and integration heal more deeply than force
- How story, faith, and science speak a shared healing language

⏱️ YouTube Chapters

00:00 — Meeting the Story Healer
07:42 — The Power of Myth in Everyday Life
15:55 — The Dark Night and the Call to Change
24:38 — Curses, Scripts, and the Celtic Brain
33:50 — Unweaving Memory: Story as Neuroplasticity
43:45 — Energy Medicine and the Body's Story
54:20 — The Snake and the Staff: Shared Symbols Across Faiths
65:05 — Circles, Kings, and the Brain's Geometry
73:10 — The Deer and the Warrior Code

The Story Beneath the Story

“Every story you've ever told about yourself lives somewhere in your body,” says Paul Simon Bryant, shamanic teacher and mythologist from Devon.
In this Reflective Space Masterclass, Paul sits with Taniya Hussain to explore what happens when ancient Celtic storytelling meets modern neuroscience. His framework — Celtic Myth → Energy Medicine → Neuroscience — reframes storytelling not as performance, but as a healing technology.

He begins with the Welsh tale of Math and Arianrhod. In that myth, a mother curses her son with three taboos: he shall have no name, no weapon, and no wife. Paul pauses. “That's every human life right there — we all inherit a story that tells us who we can and can't be.”

From Curse to Conditioning

Paul connects these ancient “geises” to what psychology calls conditioning. The curse in myth becomes the emotional programming written into our early experiences — “the math test when you were eight,” he says, “when you decided you weren't clever enough.”

By revisiting those formative moments, not to relive them but to re-author them, the brain begins to form new neural pathways. This is where myth meets neuroscience. “When you consciously retell your story,” Paul explains, “the brain literally rewires itself — memory becomes medicine.”

The Body as Storyteller

Paul's approach bridges the energetic and the scientific. His shamanic process, known as Power Retrieval, aligns with contemporary trauma work: regulating the nervous system, releasing stored emotion, and restoring coherence.

He brings in tools like EFT tapping and the polyvagal framework, showing that ancient rituals of touch and rhythm are early forms of what we now call somatic regulation. The insight is simple but profound: the body remembers the story until the story remembers the body.

Unity in the Brain and Beyond

In conversation with Taniya, Paul traces shared archetypes across traditions — Moses' staff and Merlin's wand, the serpent that sheds its skin. “Different myths, same nervous system,” he smiles. “Transformation through surrender, not domination.”
The discussion turns to circles — Arthur's Round Table and the Prophet's community in Medina — as symbols of equality and coherence. “When the circle is whole,” Paul says, “the brain is too.”

Gentleness as Power

Near the end, Paul recalls his power animal vision. Expecting a bear, he met a deer instead. “At first I was disappointed,” he admits. “But then I realised — gentleness is its own kind of power.”

That single image becomes the masterclass distilled: strength that doesn't need to dominate, healing that doesn't need to perform. He leaves us with a quiet truth:
“You don't need to find a new story. You just need to remember you're the storyteller.”

Key Takeaway:
Celtic myth teaches that healing isn't about escaping the past, but reweaving it — thread by thread, memory by memory — until the story and the self remember each other again.