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 Confront Model
I find myself using the confront model more and more in my work. There is much that needs confronting and yet it often feels to me like we are becoming less skilled at the art doing it successfully. Too often conversation leads to difference, which leads to debate and then breakdown; with entrenched views, righteousness and ‘othering’ being the norm. The difficulties we have with confronting situations lead to us become either more aggressive in our position or conflict-avoidant. This is the essence of the confront model.
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.
Let’s Go Local
I’ve been a follower, and occasional advocate, of the the Local Futures community for a few years now, having met the founder, Helena Norberg-Hodge, at Schumacher College in 2015. It’s an international non-profit organization dedicated to renewing ecological and social wellbeing by strengthening communities and local economies worldwide. And it’’s latest offering is a Localisation Action Guide, that I really like.
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.
Rethink X
In the 2020s we stand at a crossroads. In one direction we face collapse, caused by resistance to change and a clinging on to the age of extraction as it falls apart around us. In the other we see a breakthrough to the Age of Freedom, where embracing new, largely technology-led, ways of being takes us to a bright future we can barely imagine. So speaks James Arbib and Tony Seba, the authors of the ambitiously titled Rethinking Humanity, published in June 2020.
Aging and Retirement
A few years ago at a work meeting a colleague concluded his ‘check-in’ by saying, in the most casual way that, at the age of 52, his best years were behind him. This sparked a variety of reactions including, in me, an emotion I have no word for but is something like a sad anger. Perhaps I was railing against my own mortality or just I didn’t fancy spending the day with Eeyore.
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?
Is It The Hope That Kills You?
Will Monday 9th August be the day the world finally woke up to the probable/inevitable impact of climate change on our planet and the lives of everything and everyone living on it? I’ve asked myself this sort of question many times in the past, a heart filled with hope. Each time I ask, my hopes end up being dashed and the nausea in my stomach grows. But perhaps this time will be different…?
The Power Of Vulnerability
I’ve lost count the number of times I’ve recommended Brene Brown’s Ted Talk, The Power of Vulnerability. It’s probably something like a hundred. And almost every time I advocate for it I feel the need to watch it again myself first. I tell myself I’m watching to make sure it’s relevant for the person I’m suggesting it too, but actually I think it’s as much for me as them.
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.
The Four Ps
People use the four Ps tool as a way of developing a clearer understanding about their own attitude in any given situation. It is a simple tool to use but one that people seem to find really helpful as a way of codifying and legitimising how they are feeling, and therefore better able to own and describe their mindset. It also helps people notice whether they are getting stuck in a dominating attitude over time, which in turns can cause a personal breakthrough.
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.
How To Save Our Planet
The title of this book is unsubtle and the ultra-simple way the book has been written also offers no place for ambiguity or nuance. Even the subtitle – “The Facts” gives no wiggle room. Professor Mark Maslin wrote this book during Covid lockdown and he’s pulling no punches.
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.
Being A Citizen
In using the term eco-citizen as part of Still Waters I am tapping into a long-running and not entirely resolved debate about what it means to be a citizen. Scholars can’t even agree when the concept of citizenship began. The modern interpretation, based on a legal definition applied to being a member of a nation-state, is different to the more classic Greece-invented idea. For Still Waters I am going more with the Greek definition.
What Are Challenger Tools?
I was introduced to the concept of challenger leadership when I joined Relume (link), who are the well-spring for all thing Challenger as far as I am concerned. ‘Challenger tools’ is a term I, and they, use a lot, but what does it mean? There is no official definition that I am aware of so how here’s mine:- An assortment of helpful devices for accessing and activating the possibility of change.
There Is No Planet B
“When the challenges are so global, and each one of us so small, it can be tempting, but wrong, to think there is nothing an individual can do to help humans get a grip. To do so is a cop out.” I was so happy not to have read this book before I thought up the section of Still Waters on becoming and eco-citizen. And I was even happier to read it almost immediately after my new website went live.