About me

It’s not easy to distil oneself like this in any meaningful way. It’s good to make the attempt though – especially for a coach, who often asks people impossible questions like “What has made you the person you are today?” and “What makes you tick?”.

Places have been very formative for me - here are some of them:

1. Growing up in Belfast during the Troubles
2. Moving straight to abnormally beautiful Oxford from there, to study
3. My first adult home – a cave house in the Shaanxi (south Gobi) desert, thanks to a VSO placement in Yulin (yes, you COULD see the old Great Wall from the courtyard!)
4. The night skies on the Tibetan high plateau (VSO again)
5. Living in a boat on the Yorkshire canals for four years
6. A traditional ité-thatched house in Aishalton, Guyana, (short on windows, heavy on scorpions and worse) doing community development work alongside the Jesuits
7. Moving to the Silver Coast of Portugal long-term

I’ve lived and worked in extremely monocultural and extremely multicultural environments on three continents. This has attuned me to real, deep difference. It’s broadened hugely what I can hold space for, both in one-to-one listening and with groups.

Events have been formative too of course – music and singing, 27 years of my life spent with a remarkable man, leaving 9-5 work in 2015 to devote myself freelance to work I love, silent retreats that drop in deep, bereavements, being celebrant at my nephew’s wedding to my beloved newest niece-in law…

And then there is the hardwiring I was born with, most obviously fascination and enthusiasm (loving things). This includes (but is by no means limited to) music, languages, wine, and taking photographs with wide-awake eyes. This hardwiring also comes with a lot of passion and compassion, and a resultant need to cultivate dispassion and equanimity.