About me

My aim in all that I do is to be inspired and driven by love, and by the deep conviction that love is always available to us, or, more than that: it is in some fundamental way the natural state of things. When we are free of unnecessary constraints to how we think and feel and move, we choose love and notice that love is always choosing us. And we are so much more free than we think we are. For all the academic study I have done, all the engagement with psychological and philosophical teachings, I’m not sure that I *know* anything the way that I know this. 

And so all of my work - one-to-one or in groups, talking or listening or writing or creating or holding one structure or another - comes back to this. To a wonderful, enlivening sense of duty: the duty to communicate that knowing and express that love, whatever it might look like. 

As a result, my work is highly responsive to the individual, the group and the situation. In most cases, it is about not doing too much: cultivating an ever-greater sense of safety and welcome so that those around me can surrender into their own truth. And yet at times that sense of safety and welcome is best served by doing more - speaking passionately from the heart, say, or stepping in with clarity, offering a firmer guiding hand. 

My influences in all this are wide-ranging to say the least. Buddhist philosophy and practice is especially dear to my heart, especially the Soulmaking dharma as developed by Rob Burbea and Catherine McGee. 

Something about these teachings helped open up my previously secular, intellectual mind to a whole world of spirituality that I had previously labelled as not for me. This then culminated in training as a Minister with the OneSpirit Interfaith Foundation, deepening my engagement with a whole range of religious and philosophical influences. At the same time, I was exploring more secular structures, which influence me to this day: The Wheel of Consent; Non-Violent Communication; Internal Family Systems. And right now I am training in group facilitation with The Field.

I also owe a debt to A Band of Brothers, a community and charity where we support young men who have been in the criminal justice system, and where I have learnt so much, both formally and informally, about how to hold both individuals and groups. My understanding of men - including myself - would be a pale shadow of what it is without my brothers in the Bristol circle.

Before all of this started truly flowering, I was a secondary English teacher for five years; before that I worked at the United Nations in Rome and the Education and Employers Taskforce in London. I have also worked as a dessert chef, a spoken word compere and an open-top bus tour guide. And before that, I studied English at Cambridge and then Politics and Media at the LSE.