My Story
I've always been a bit weird. It's in my blood.
My mom -- a 6th generation resident on a little island in the Pacific Northwest -- embodies the stubborn grit, ferocious independence, and creative genius that is true to her audacious, homesteading ancestors. My dad -- a midwestern boy who moved out west to start a woodworking company from the ground up in his mid 20's -- was one of those mountainlike men with a laugh like a bear and a heart of gold. Together, they decided to raise my four siblings and me on a little plot of land deep in the mossy green forests of the Pacific Northwest and educated us in a method they called "unschooling." In short: there was no curriculum, no tests, no grades, no bells, and very few rules. Instead, we were given free rein in the outdoors and spent most of our time running around in naked (not exagerrating). I loved it.
What followed was a hellish couple of years in which I began a degree in engineering on a full ride scholarship at a reputable university. On the outside, I was crushing it. On the inside, I was slowly wasting away.
I eventually reached a depth of suffering that made me unsure if I wanted to be alive, and this scared me. I took a leap of faith and dropped out of university, rescinded my scholarships, and got on a plane to Europe. I was 20 years old and scared shitless, but I didn't know what else to do. It ended up being the best decision of my life, and may have saved it.
But it wasn't some glorious "coming to god" moment. It turns out I was capable of being just as depressed in Europe as I could in the U.S.
As was my plan, I began hiking the 500-mile pilgrimmage across northern Spain known as the Camino de Santiago.
About 10 days into my walk, I hit the lowest low of my life. I remember it like it was yesterday...
I'm lying on my back on hot packed clay on a dirt road in the middle of f*cking nowhere Spain, the sun beating down relentlessly, mocking the fire inside me that seemed to have been extinguished. I was lost, I was injured. I was done. I'd had enough. And that's when some sort of grace arrived in the form of a thought: I need to think different thoughts.
See, for the previous two years my mind has been lost in a labrinth of self-loathing and self-denigration.
I still don't really know what made me do it, but I stood up, wiped the tears from my cheeks, and began walking, repeating the word "love" over and over again. It was my last hope. And I really had no idea if it would make a difference. It turned out to be the beginning of the greatest discovery of my life.
For the following three weeks, I spent 8-10 hours each day walking and repeating the word "love" with each step. Soon, I added "joy," "forgiveness," "peace," "now." As I mentally verbalized each word, I rehearsed and visualized what that word felt and looked like.
I will spare the remaining details, but by the time I reached the end of that pilgrimmage, my pereception of reality (and myself) had shifted so dramatically that I hardly recognized myself. I was excited. I was grateful. I was alive.
And I was also curious. What had happened in my mind and body to stimulate such a dramatic shift in such a short period of time? I became utterly fascinated by the workings of body and mind. I began searching for answers.
Within a couple of years, I was introduced to Tibetan Buddhism, and somehow it felt like home to me. I studied and practiced intensively in a Tibetan lineage for several years before deciding to become a monk. While my monkhood was relatively shortlived, it left an indellible impact, rendering my awareness of reality vaster, wider, and more fluid.
But life wasn't done with me. In fact, it's almost funny to reflect on how woke I thought I was, and how swiftly life obliterated me.
It began with my fathers death. I was lucky -- I had a dad who was the most kind, strong, enlightened man I've ever met. His unexpected death felt like the Sun of my universe had imploded. The gravitational field through which I made sense of things was suddenly not there, and I was cast out into space without bearings.
A year later, one of my three brothers suffered a brain injury that left him permanently severely disabled. Navigating this experience without my father's steadying presence pushed me so far beyond my perceived capacities that I truly thought I might break.
From where I sit now, all of this has been a profound (and ongoing) initiation embedding me ever more deeply into the nature of being alive. I will not for a moment pretend that I have "graduated" from this initiation. I don't even think of that as the point anymore. But I do know it has changed me in ways nothing else could have.
Now, I remain passionate about the mind and body and the exploration of what it means to truly be alive. The quote that lives at the heart of what I offer is from Howard Thurman, who said, "Do not ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. And go and do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Everything I offer -- from writing to illustration, from facilitation and men's work, from grief work and coaching -- is grounded in my own life experience and training.
Thanks for being here :).
Eventually I decided I wanted to give public school a try, and it didn't take long to figure out how to rig the system. But what started as an interesting game soon became a desperate pursuit of "A's". "A" for approval, "A" for acceptance, "A" for accolades.
I ended up graduating from the local highschool with a valedictorian medal hanging heavily around my neck and a heart that felt lost and frozen. Ironically, the speech I gave at graduation was all about happiness...clearly I was already searching for answers. (you can watch that very cringy speech below :)
