About Me

From Isolation To Working With People For A Better World

It was almost enough to make a grown man cry. From where I stood looking out from the farmhouse a little way up the hillside at the valley below, all I could see was water. Brown, muddy flood water. The field of Elephant grass was flooded, the pastures where the cows usually grazed were flooded and the floor of milking shed was under at least a foot of water.

There was a forlorn looking horse standing somewhere near where the road used to be, mane and tail dripping. Back in the house there was no power and there was no water in the taps, I know because I’d already checked.

It seemed an eternity since I had arrived on the farm on the North Island of New Zealand. As was usual for holiday cover herdsman/cow milkers, I had arrived the day before the farm owner and his family were due to go on vacation. It meant a quick look around the farm to get to know where everything I would need to be able to take care of the place was located and how it worked.

Milking shed and machines – check. Bulk milk tank – check. Cow feed – check. Cow grazing pastures – check. Phone number of Aerial sprayers in case Army Worms ate the Elephant grass – check. Motorcycle for getting around-check. Electric pump for the water – check. Turkey – check.

I was just about 20 years old and as an acutely shy person I had thought that working out on remote farms in the wilds of New Zealand would be just the job for me. I would hardly need to interact with other people at all. In this case I was on a farm 13 miles down a dirt road from the nearest one-horse town with only an old motorcycle for transport. Great choice!

Well, I could not get the old motorcycle started, I was going nowhere. It had rained solidly from the moment I arrived until the place was completely flooded. The power was off, that meant that the pump was off and there was no running water. No power meant no milking and also that the previous days milk was in a bulk tank that was not cooled because there was no power – it would go sour. To cap it all I could not find the turkey anywhere.

I saw not another single soul all the time I was on that farm. There was no one to phone and we are talking pre internet days, of course. Right then and there I made a decision. As soon as I could get off that farm and get into town, I would buy myself a car. I would make some different choices. I would base myself somewhere where there were other people, and I would not be so isolated.

That’s what I did. I bought an old banger car. I headed to New Plymouth, a pleasant coastal town. I rented a place in a shared house, and I got myself a job in a factory. Shy or not I knew that complete isolation was not for me. From that point on I made choices that brought me more and more towards living and working with others. A few years later I was to have found my groove in personal growth and ‘working with people for a better world’.

 

An Important Pivot Point

On returning to England, I rented a cottage in a rural location just outside a small city in the middle of the country. I got a position in retail sales of hifi, TV, video and computers.

I did not want shyness to define me. Working among other people and living in the cottage which I sublet meant that I was practicing interacting with others. Living in a rural setting meant that I could easily commune with nature and enjoy solitude if I wished. The best of both worlds.

Within a decade the business I was managing was being sold as the owner was retiring. Another Pivot Point. I had started to feel that life was a little predictable, I was comfortable, and I had become a little complacent perhaps.

 

Jumping Out Of My Comfort Zone – Towards Greater Alignment

By now shyness was not the impediment it had once been. I was more relaxed, more confident and had greater self-esteem. I was feeling more at home in my own skin. However, more of the same would just not cut it. I felt the urge to try something new. Something that my intuition told me would take me towards becoming more in alignment with the person I wanted to become.

I moved to a small city on the South coast of England and took up a position in an organization running a project to ‘Bring People Back Home’.

We closed the last of the large, long-stay hospitals in the area. These had been out in the countryside and housed people with all sorts of disabilities or health issues. They were impersonal institutions run on minimal staffing and largely a hangover from the Victorian era.

I was now firmly Working with People for a Better World.

A few years on, I was managing nine services for people with learning disabilities. I supervised over 100 staff and felt well rewarded and fulfilled.

 

Change – The Only Constant

By my mid–thirties I was doing well. At least I looked like I was doing well from the outside. I had a well-paid job, a pretty cottage in a good area. I was living with the woman I loved. Life was sweet. Well, life looked sweet.

Under the surface I felt like a duck stuck in the current. You know, paddling like crazy and getting nowhere.

My job was stressful at the best of times. Then there were changes being introduced and it became a nightmare. I often felt stressed out and overwhelmed.

What should have been relaxing weekends and even vacations didn’t hit the spot anymore. I was often waking in the mornings not properly rested and feeling anxious and stressed out.

This was not fun. Also, it was not at all how I’d expected my life to look at this point. Where were the goodies?

To cap it all my health started to suffer and at the same time my partner got a horrible health diagnosis.

By this point enough really was enough. I was done with feeling disappointed and frustrated. I was unsatisfied, unfulfilled and discontented.

Making changes was not an option now. It was imperative.

 

Survival Mode

For a period, I was in survival mode.  It was just a case of getting through the days and weeks. I was stressed at work. I was stressed at home. I was stressed on vacation and at the weekends. It was horrible.

Barbara’s condition deteriorated quite quickly. She died a few years later.

I needed to make drastic changes to help me feel myself again.

 

Where Am I Going? Why?

I felt I had to get dialled in to what I really wanted out of life. I needed to find ways to stay centered whatever life threw at me. Most of all I just needed to feel better day to day and connect with the fun side of life again.

Yes, that was it darn it, I needed to have fun again. I needed to move forward with more lightness and ease. I knew that I would need to leave behind any sense of victimhood to become empowered to create lasting change.

Right then and there I committed myself to growth. I would find out what makes my heart sing.

I would seek to fully become myself on my own terms.

Guess what my biggest surprise was? Well, my big surprise was that there was such a huge wealth of wonderful methods, strategies, techniques and modalities to choose from. When I started to get into personal growth in earnest, I soon saw that there is such an abundance of great material designed to help a person improve how they feel.

I found a local teacher of a Somatic Education method that they said could help me to move through life more easily. It offered a more fluid, skillful, easy way of moving. It promotes a sense of confidence and wellbeing. It could boost relaxation, resilience, attention and life-long vitality.

How wonderful. I was in!

I started classes.

It worked! I started to feel much better.

Over the next two decades I experimented with so many ways that helped me improve the quality of my life exponentially. Treading the path less travelled, and ultimately clearing the lane between my head and my heart and feeling truly free to be myself.

Some highlights of that journey include:

• I joined a four-year professional training course in Somatic Education, I graduated in 2003.
• I became a Lead Trainer of the Stanford University Chronic Disease Self-Management Course after working on a project within the UK Department of Health. 
• In 2004 I joined an Intensive Personal Growth course and after one year I moved to the Personal Growth Centre where the course took place. I continued with the course and became general manager and later director of the Centre.
• I graduated from the course in 2009. I became an accredited Meditation Leader in 2011.

 

Deep Acceptance

I have enjoyed many benefits from being in the world of Personal Growth.

At the heart of the work I do is encouragement into a deep acceptance of who you are and where you are right now. From accepting precisely who you are, you can grow and blossom into more of who you truly want to be.

Then life becomes more of a pleasure. An exciting adventure.

“One of the most powerful things you can do is to accept who you are. The great paradox is that through deep acceptance, you open the doors to your own self transformation. I love working with people for a better world. I would love to lead you through this process of self-discovery.”

Nowadays each day starts with expressing gratitude for where I am, what I have and the opportunities that lie in front of me. I am enjoying my onward journey.

Time is so precious – I make sure to manage it wisely. I make time for family and friends. They’re priorities.

I love to have a few projects on the go. I love variety so I set aside time for physical work as well as exercising my mind and imagination.

Looking out from my bay window overlooking the ocean to the west and watching the sun set fills my heart with joy. It can be the simplest of pleasures that lift our souls. We need the time, space and outlook to take full advantage.

I do believe that we can create a life that fulfills and excites us. If that is what we truly want.