About

My own journey home

What kind of world is possible when we come to know our open and liberated heart? Who are we here to be and become? What wants to live through us? How can we be of service to each other and to the larger world?

These questions fuel me. They call to me from some deeper place. And I’m making a life and a practice out of living into them, not to find answers necessarily, but to be transformed by the inquiry itself. This is my mission: to listen and sense into the deep potential of life and be a catalyst for transformation.

I’ve come to this work through my own process of transformation. I know what it’s like to live inside the constraints of core limiting beliefs. I’ve struggled with the parts of myself that push away love and support. I’ve lived in hiding and in stories of self-doubt. I’ve pushed myself to improve. I’ve berated myself for not being enough.

Through it all, I’ve come to welcome and embrace the parts of myself I once wanted to extricate. I’ve come to see the transparency of old stories and the beauty of the life that’s here waiting in every moment to be known, touched, seen, felt, and lived.

I’ve spent the last 15 years exploring and practicing contemplative spirituality, meditation, depth psychology, and counseling practices. As part of this exploration I went deep into Vajrayana Buddhism. For a decade, I devoted my life to studying and practicing these teachings with one teacher, committing to thousands of hours of meditation practice at home and in retreat. I found a home in a lineage of practice among committed peers, and I received a lot of benefit from focusing within one tradition. Then it came crashing down, and eventually I walked away from it all.

I had lost contact with my own inner compass and given too much of myself to someone else’s vision. It was a harrowing and disorienting experience. The identity I had constructed as a spiritual practitioner crumbled. But surprisingly, it was less like a fall from grace and became more like a fall into grace. I let the scaffolding of that identity go and began to touch an innate wholeness within as I found my own way.

Through it, I learned something really valuable about guiding others: that we don’t know what is best for someone else, that we can’t know the right path for another person. So in my work with clients, you bring your own intentions for growth and evolution. My job is to help you clarify those intentions so you can listen into the future that wants to emerge. Rather than imposing a specific developmental path, I’m here to witness and facilitate what wants to unfold in you.

The thread in all of this experience and tragedy for me has been about cultivating the capacity of presence. It brings me great joy to witness another, to hold space for their emergence, to celebrate their uniqueness, to invite them to look deeper into themselves, and to help them navigate the dark interior and the shining bright light at the center of their soul. Ultimately I think this is what we need from each other: to be loved, supported, and challenged.

At the center of my life, I am a husband and a father. I live with my wife and our daughter in Victoria, British Columbia. Being a dad to a toddler is the sweetest, most rewarding, and most challenging journey I’ve ever embarked on. Somehow being a father makes it all real. If I can’t show up as the dad I want to be and need to be, then it’s all just talk. It’s the ultimate, grounding reality-check. Being in relationship, being a parent: these are the most important things to me.

Training & Background

As part of my path of study and development, I have:

• Graduated from a two-year Comprehensive Training in the Hakomi Method, a somatic mindfulness-based approach to psychotherapy.
• Completed a cohort based training in Vital Human Coaching with Jane Weintraub
• Facilitator for Generating Transformative Change a nine-month leadership development program with Pacific Integral
• Completed Recognizing Developmental Stages with STAGES International
• Completed Developmental Coach Training with Coaches Rising
• Completed Embodied Transformation Coach Training with Coaches Rising
• Completed Emergent Leadership, with Pacific Integral
• Attended Naropa University’s Contemplative Psychology program
• Obtained a BA from Vermont State University with a concentration in Psychology