Explore the inner world.
Uncover all that you are.
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- A picture of me and my father. I share this because I have spent years bringing presence to our wounds and healing this relationship.
- A picture of my family when I was a child. I share this because of the irony in it: my mother and father are dressed as babies, while I’m dressed as Batman—in a mask, not being seen, while being raised by adult babies. Yeah, a lot of “work” went into healing the child within.
- I share this because of how much has shifted throughout the four-plus decades of my life. Breaking free from old stories and building new foundations with my “blood” family has been uncomfortable at times, and I’m deeply grateful that we’ve continued to lean into it. We have changed so much.
- I share this because of my love for nature. Whenever life feels out of sorts, I enter her mountains, rivers, oceans, and forests, and somehow, my life finds its quietude and rhythm again.
About Me
I love mountains, rivers, oceans, animals, adventure, laughter, music, deep conversation, coffee, and moving my body.
I’m a brother, son, friend, partner, musician, mountain biker, backpacker, writer, and lifelong student in presence.
What I’ve Lived
My path has not been a straight one.
I’ve lived through childhood trauma, sexual trauma, death and loss, addiction and recovery, mental health challenges, deep shame, intimacy struggles, and relational challenges.
For much of my life, I learned to perform, achieve, escape, and keep moving—through work, alcohol, drugs, exercise, sex, adrenaline, relationships, and whatever else could keep me from slowing down enough to feel what was underneath.
Those ways of moving through life served a purpose. They helped me survive, cope, belong, and keep going.
But eventually, I began to wonder what might happen if I stopped running.
IFS
Along the way, I discovered Internal Family Systems.
IFS became a transformative part of my journey. It taught me a way to approach fear, shame, protection, desire, grief, judgement, escape and stories with curiosity.
Instead of asking, “How do I get rid of this?” I began asking, “How is this part of me trying to help?”
That changed the way I relate to myself—and slowly, the way I relate to everything else.
What Has Shaped My Path
A desire to understand suffering and the human experience provided me a very little compass/intuition to follow which led me all over, lol. Sometimes I didn't and that cost me greatly.
Exercise, breath-work, and meditation taught me to listen beyond the mind which settled, slowly, my nervous system and helped me come back into my body.
Nature has always been one of my greatest teachers.
Being outside with the Earth calibrates me.
Mountain biking, backpacking, and adventures outside into the unknown have taught me about fear, faith, trust, confidence, uncertainty, and aliveness.
Relationships have taught me about vulnerability, intimacy, boundaries, communication, honesty, and when I was using and not using my voice. Through presence, I am forever learning and leaning towards becoming a more conscious builder of relation ships.
All of these paths have gradually woven together.
IFS. Recovery. Embodiment. Nature. Movement. Adventure. Relationships.
Different doorways into the same experience:
Presence.
Return2Presence
grew from this journey.
For me, it's no longer about escape. It's about creating enough space to listen, face what feels difficult, and uncover home within.
I know what it is like to feel disconnected. I know what it is like to lose touch with reality. I know what it is like to escape. I know what it is like to push myself to the edge. I know what it is like to judge every part of me that does all of those things and.........
I also know what it is like to come back to my Self.