The original version of this newsletter can be read here.
Greetings,
I am very pleased to introduce my new Mentoring offering. For quite some time now I have been considering developing a way of working with people that offers something different to psychotherapy, and will appeal to those who would like to work together because of my various interests and experience, but are not seeking therapy. Distinctions between Mentoring and Therapy are discussed in detail on my website.
The range of themes and topics I can help you to explore during the sessions reflects an ongoing synthesis of personal and professional experience over the past twenty years, in the fields of Art, Psychotherapy, Spirituality, Nature, Mental Health & Social care.
You can find out about all aspects of this endeavour on my website by clicking this link, or any of the images below. If you would like to make an enquiry about working together, or have a question, please contact me by replying directly to this email, or via the form at the foot of any page on my website.
I will be working online with people throughout the UK, and also internationally. I am unable to offer Mentoring for those I have previously worked with as a Therapist (and vice versa). If we are already known to one another in some other capacity, it would just be for each of us to consider how we navigate the working relationship together.
Whilst some styles of Mentoring/Coaching follow a prescribed pattern, or maybe only aim at financial success, the kind of mentoring sessions I am offering are a little different, and will be tailored to what you might need from them. The sessions are essentially conversational. This means we will develop a sense of mutual ground, rather than adopting a traditional expert/client or teacher/student relationship. My personal vision for Mentoring is a process of collaboration in which we are both participants adopting the spirit of enquiry, for the purpose of serving your deepest vision for life.
If you are aware of an individual or organisation who may be interested in this work, you are very welcome to forward this email to them. Thank you.
Soul-oriented online Mentoring & Coaching sessions with me will provide you with a confidential, informal, and compassionate space in which to explore and develop your life through soul-filled conversation. We will cultivate an appreciation for mysteries of psyche and soul, and welcome the richness, inspiration and meaning that is available through spiritual, depth psychological, and artistic perspectives. Our conversations will be aimed at listening carefully for the wisdom of your inner life, developing a deeper understanding of yourself, and meeting the world as fully as possible by bringing your gifts closer to the surface.
The key areas I can help you to explore
Creativity | Spirituality | Work & Purpose | Nature
You might have specific aims in mind for our work together, or your purpose could simply be engaging in heartfelt and meaningful conversation around themes of significance to you. This offers a kind of genuine freedom that can hold real transformative potential, as we embark upon the journey together.
Art and Creativity
For makers and creatives of any kind, at any stage of the journey/career, who would like to explore their work and its themes in depth. We can look at the sometimes difficult to navigate terrain of the artists path, sources of inspiration, creative processes, and why you do what you do (in an imaginative and life affirming way, rather than a reductive one). Perhaps there is a particular project or piece that you are working on which is posing questions for you. Or maybe you would like to develop your work within the support of a mentoring relationship.
If you have an appreciation for art, or work in ‘the arts’ but do not necessarily regard yourself as an artist or maker, we can bring the art that inspires you into the center of our conversations.
You might be keen to embrace your creativity, but be finding it difficult to connect with, or unsure how to begin. We can look at your interests, and anything that might be holding you back in this respect.
Spirituality / Transpersonal
Whether you have a particular religious faith, or your path is more inclined to the mystical or magical, we can explore your experience. Transpersonal implies the ‘spiritual’, but more broadly refers to a sense of connection with something greater than your individual sense of self, and reaching one's potential as a human. If this area is unfamiliar, but you are interested in engaging with this aspect of yourself in a new way, then we can consider what that might look like for you.
If you are feeling somewhat isolated in your spiritual life—which is not unusual in cultures that have lost much their reverence for the divine—you might consider this an invitation to a form of spiritual companionship.
Work, Purpose and Meaning
Whether you work within a large company, or are an individual with your own endeavor, together we can explore the significance of work in your life, the rewards and challenges it presents you with, and how a vision for soul and creativity can be present to enrich the working life.
Psyche, Soul, and Nature
Living with awareness of the more-than-human-world and our place within the web of life. We can cultivate and honour your reverence for Nature, and explore how connections weave their way through art, work, vision, and a sense of being in the world. We can hold a space for witnessing both the beauty and power of places, landscapes, and other species that resonate with you, whilst also acknowledging experiences of grief relating to damage, changes, and loss.
Counsellors, Psychotherapists, and others in the field of caring for body, mind, and soul
A time and space that nurtures you and your work in a different way to clinical supervision (but is not a replacement for it). Perhaps some of the themes mentioned above are of interest or importance to you, but feel like they are ‘squeezed out’ of professional life. Please get in touch to discuss how meeting for Mentoring sessions could be useful for you.
Walking your path. The lifelong journey
of becoming who you are
“Traveler there is no path. The path is made by walking.”
We could hear this excerpt from a poem by Antonio Machado in relation to feeling stuck, alone, or lost. These lines suggest that if there is a path ahead which seems clear and well-trodden (i.e. ‘easy’!) then perhaps it is not your own path that you are walking. Even if we feel a deep certainty about the way, we might recognise challenging terrain ahead and fear to tread it. Alluding to the necessity for action in transforming our lives, we can note that the path is not made only by thinking or dreaming.
As a way forward, we might learn to be cautious of prematurely seeking answers, and place more emphasis instead upon finding and nurturing our most inspiring questions to live by — which often make themselves known to us through images, visions, dreams, ideas, passions, and sometimes puzzles — that seem to come from the very core of our being.
Questions like this may feel part gift, and part burden to carry. What we are being tasked with is to understand how the kind of answer required of us is about meeting these questions and visions with our most wholehearted attempts to give them expression. A communicative and relational response that deepens and expands upon the mystery, bringing them to life. In this way we can move into new and creative ways of travelling our respective paths, living more fully with both ourselves and others as we go. The deepest questions we are presented with in life are there to be lived rather than solved.
To borrow from a poem (Sometimes) by David Whyte;
Questions that can make or unmake a life.
Questions that have waited patiently for you.
Questions that have no right to go away.
My experience and background
&
Influences on my work as a mentor
On this page I refer to some of the artists, writers, and schools of thought that have influenced all aspects of my work. This also includes my educational and professional experience. Most recently I have participated in the initial modules of Transformational Mentoring: A Psychosynthesis Coaching Training, with Mark Jones and Keith Hackwood. This creates an appropriate link back to my first experience of a therapeutic modality, which was in Psychosynthesis. Often overlooked in the current psychotherapeutic landscape, it has much to offer as a Transpersonal psychology, described with a rare clarity.
Thank you for reading. See you next time.