Thoughts
Here you will find articles on the five types of service I offer organisations and the people in them. These will hopefully give you a flavour of how I work and what inspires my approach. If you have any questions about these services please contact me.
Filters
- About Still Waters 7
- Accept Change 9
- Coach 7
- Consultant 4
- Dream Big 10
- Facilitator 6
- Help & Advice 5
- Make Small changes 10
- Mentor 3
- Mindset 9
- Personal Stories 11
- Principles 1
- Published Material 7
- Support Large Changes 7
- Teacher 3
- Tools 7
- climate crisis 1
- eco-coaching 1
- ramblings 16
- reflections 39
- resources 17
- reviews 29
- service 1
The Benefit of Paying Attention
Like a lot of people during the pandemic I now work predominantly at home. And often when I am working at home, I like a coffee in the morning. And often when I like a coffee in the morning, I treat myself to a couple of biscuits (especially if I have earlier been for a run). It was on one such morning, with coffee and biscuits procured and on my cluttered desk and several things on the go in my head and on my computer, that it happened. I lost the biscuits.
Universal Enquiries?
I’ll soon be running my fourth coaches retreat at Hazel Hill Wood. It’s an annual event in magical ancient woodland that I’ve really enjoyed creating. I’ve noticed that every year I bring the same set of enquiry questions for the group to work with. We explore in different ways, always using the trees as part of our facilitation team, but the questions remain the same. Am I just being lazy or might these in fact be universal enquiries?
Creative Writing in the Woods
I write a lot, often for my work, sometimes for this website and occasionally for no good reason at all. There’s something about getting out of the way and setting the pen free (and yes the pen is mightier than the laptop). It’s a pleasure that is hard to describe, ironic given that’s what I’m trying to do here.
Regenerative Mindsets
I never need much of an excuse to write about mindsets. It’s a topic that fascinates me and ended up being the north star for my journey through work (even though I couldn’t see it for much of the time). Recently a training event at Hazel Hill Wood (link) provided a wonderful opportunity to dive deep into ‘regenerative mindsets’, an idea that had me as excited as my dog gets when my children visit.
Rehearsal for Revolution?
Can drama really be an effective weapon for change in the 21st century? With all that we are facing into now, how do theatrical processes play a part in the solution? Twenty years after graduating and over five years since last having a go, I recently dusted off my understanding of Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed.
Group Coaching
I’ve been a group coach a long time but have never really thought about it until I was asked to write this chapter. I don’t call myself a group coach and, to be honest, was not really aware of the term until fairly recently. I’ve been doing this work much longer than I realised. In other words I am ascribing theory retrospectively to practice. All of which feels like history repeating itself.
Stories as the Currency of Culture
How do you know there has been a cultural shift in the organisation you work for? How would you write a business case to determine the benefits of investing in culture change work? Why does culture matter and how can we prove it? These are the questions I’ve been asked in the past when working as a consultant, coach or facilitator in businesses.
Coaching Community Collaboration
How might I, as a coach and facilitator, contribute more helpfully to the climate and societal challenges the world is facing today. And what might that require of me and my coaching practice? These are the two questions that have occupying much of my time this year and so I’ve decided to organise a coaching community collaboration, made up of unlikely bedfellows – a retreat in nature and an on-line book club.
Climate Crisis Coaching
“As groups self-organise around the world to process this collective anguish, virtually all experts agree on two therapeutic components: sharing the grief with others and transforming it into collective action on behalf of life” (Joanna Macy, Active Hope. How to face the mess we are in without going crazy)
Energy is Everything
Increasingly we’re all experiencing storms. We’re all leaders all of the time apparently. It was with these two propositions that I began an exploration of leading through storms at the fantastic St. Ethelburga’s. Where I ended up was an unexpected and welcome surprise (if not a neat and tidy set of answers).
Nature Immersion For Climate Distress
The eagle-eyed among you will notice I’ve not published any articles on the environment for a few months. I tell myself it’s because I’ve become busy with work and life in this post-pandemic period. Or that perhaps I’m distracted by more imminent crises. The truth of it though is that I’ve got stuck in my own enquiry about what it means to be an ordinary person fully present to, and in service of, a changing world – a term I call being an eco-citizen.
Rejection #4 (2020)
Deep down I know this will be my last attempt. I know because time moves mercilessly on -my birth mother is turning 80 next month. I know because I am ready to move forward, I can feel it in my bones. I’ve done a lot of healing in the last four years and it’s time. Life is short and precious, this is not how I want to spend my remaining time. I know because I’m facing open heart surgery and am ‘getting my affairs in order’ just in case.
Waking Up To Being Adopted
I’ve had an article published in the Hoffman Institute UK monthly magazine, and so thought I would share it here.
Grasping For Connection (2011)
I’m sitting at my computer when the world grinds to a temporary halt. I stare at the screen trying to make sense of it with a scrambled brain and pounding heart. Linked In, of all things, has been the cause of this suspension of reality. It seems like hours but is probably less than a minute. The rest of the screen reduces to pixels as the message throbs at me. My mouth has turned dry and everywhere else is sweating. I’ve had contact from someone who is probably my half-sister.
Rejection #3 (2003)
I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting here. My heart is pounding, my head aches and my stomach is going like a washing machine. Part detective, part stalker. I’m in my car in a street in Isleworth. Strategically parked about fifty metres from the front door of a house my birth mother apparently lives in. How did I end up here?
Primally Wounded Or Not?
A fellow adoptee, Simon Benn, and I had a conversation recently about the impact Nancy Verrier’s book, Primal Wound, had on us. It was recorded as one of his regular podcasts and I’d though I would share it here.
Born For This (2021)
“I am the luckiest man in the world. I found what I was born to do.” The words of Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill, or ‘Brother Blue’ as he was better known as. As I read them I smiled and realised he had a message for me. At nearly 57 I am finally ready to hear these words and believe that I may soon be able to say them too.
Rejection #2 (1990)
Playing the detective satisfies on so many levels. It’s a puzzle to solve, it’s a secret to bear, it’s an adventure to have, it’s a mother to find. I‘m not going to bother looking for my dad. I’ve decided he is a peripheral figure, a sperm donor if you like. It’s my biological mother I’m hunting and nothing is going to stop me! Except of course, me, I need to play it cool, not appear to needy. “I’m doing this for her” I say it so many times I have convinced myself. So I start, then stop, then re-start, then pause; pendulating between search and avoid, like a child moving their hand towards a fire.
Who Am I? (1987)
I’m lost. The world seems an alien place, like I don’t belong here. But if not here then where? I’m alone. My mum is busy, my dad absent and my sister building a new life both inside and outside her womb. I’m on strike(link) so my moorings have come loose and I’m floating around without power or purpose. I’ve messed up with my girlfriend. I can’t talk to my mates, it’s too pathetic.
In Appreciation Of The Primal Wound
About ten years ago my coach at the time (the wonderful Wil Pennycook) tentatively offered me the idea that I have an unhealed wound deep within me. I accepted the suggestion and our work moved on, but it has only been since reading The Primal Wound by Nancy Verrier that the significance of that tentative idea became apparent to me.