About Me
First, a few facts: I grew up amid the pristine waters of New Zealand, moved to the alluring horizons of Los Angeles in 2004, and then to the seismic creative vortex that is New York City three years later, where I met my future wife. We landed in North Carolina in 2015. I turned 40 in 2022.
I think we each have a stream of underlying themes and directions that inform our life’s path. My adult life has been animated by several core, interrelated threads that have captivated me and fueled my journey. Some of these themes could be expressed as questions, such as, What is the nature of full human development and human flourishing? How can we respond to the whispers of life, to the mystery that calls us, and allow our life to be a response to and an expression of our ever-emerging true nature? How can we create more life-supporting economic and societal dynamics in our world? And how can we apprentice to and in some way articulate even an echo of the profound elegance, intricacy, and beauty that underlies the vastness and mystery of this creation in which we find ourselves?
These threads that I’ve followed have led to a deep and lifelong relationship with contemplative practice and study. They gave rise to a nine-year career as a songwriter and recording artist, an initiatory journey that brought me to the US as I sought to serve and realize a creative vision. They’ve accompanied me through a long apprenticeship in the art of supporting people on their own unique journeys: My first counseling training took place in 2002 at the age of 20 after I decided to join a yearlong person-centered counseling training program during my undergraduate days and then volunteered as a telephone counselor in Auckland, New Zealand. And they’ve motivated my studies and work within the broadly-defined categories of economics and systems.
Over the past 20 years, I’ve created music; I’ve studied and trained; I’ve guided quests and developed programs; I’ve counseled and mentored; I’ve written and researched; and I’ve served in leadership positions for organizations active in economic and societal innovation, international social entrepreneurship, and mental health. But more than anything, I’ve followed (as well as I’ve been able) what I think of as life’s emergent quest—that endless, initiatory journey of soulful unfolding, of ongoing awakening and integration, of apprenticeship to life’s emergence and the evolving vision that calls, and of learning to embrace this precious life and live one’s authentic expression and connection in the world. I consider myself a lifelong student on this endless path. I’ve experienced many of the great openings and opportunities as well as the challenges and pitfalls of walking this kind of path, and I consider myself a student who will always be learning and growing on this lifelong apprenticeship. I’m no stranger to grief, tragedy, and struggle, and I’m grateful to be able to say that neither am I a stranger to the awe-inspiring depths, grace, and vastness of this life of which we’re a part.
After years of walking a richly emergent path and supporting others on walking their own paths, I decided to create Soulcentric Psychotherapy as a space that can hold the multiple layers of what might prompt someone to seek therapy. I think it’s not unusual for people to seek psychotherapeutic help for dynamics that are not only taking place within the typical purview of psychotherapy, but that are also very much brewing on a deeper unconscious or soul or emergent awareness level—dynamics that are ready to be known, to be in conversation, if only given the appropriate space and invitation. Similarly, I think it’s also not unusual for soulfully or spiritually inclined people to seek spiritual help for dynamics that are not necessarily or solely rooted at the level of soul or awakening, dynamics that can be much more effectively integrated when one’s embodied and psychological dimensions can be fully included. I think there are many people who are best served by a container that has room and expertise for all these levels. I founded Soulcentric Psychotherapy with the intention of being able to support people who seek a space that is able to meet them in their fullness. I’m moved by the incomparable value of traversing dark territories—the soul riches they reveal, the strength they forge, and the healing gifts they offer. I’m similarly inspired by the mystery of the larger intelligence and movement of life that weaves its way through each of our paths and invites us to dance with it. Ultimately, I endeavor to support people in increasingly discovering and living from their inherent freedom and wholeness and from a place of deepening purpose, soulful alignment, and intimacy with life.
To be invited to accompany someone on their journey is a great privilege, and it is with this sense of reverence that I approach the opportunity to work with someone as a therapist. It’s an opportunity for us to come into contact with the deeper currents of your life, to tend to what seeks your awareness, and to turn toward what is beckoning, all while honoring the natural pace of your rhythm and this particular moment in your journey. By bringing ourselves to this process, we can more fully honor not only the evolutionary dynamics of our own path, but also the larger dynamics in which we participate through our relationships, our work, and our place in culture and in the world. It’s not always easy to live from the ever-emerging wholeness of who we are, given the present state of our world and culture. Yet I believe that it is by orienting toward the greater conversation with life and with soul that whispers to us, toward the murmurs of what wants to be born in and through us, that we can most authentically serve our own unfolding as well as the known and unknown lives we touch. I believe psychotherapy can be a venue for this process, and it is with this understanding that I accompany people through the challenging and beautiful passages of their lives.