What kinds of people do you work with?

I work with people from all kinds of backgrounds and with a variety of interests and aims. No particular kind of experience is required. Perhaps the only prerequisite for working together effectively is an openness to being in the process of exploring oneself and one’s place in the world. This work is particularly useful for people who are interested in any one or more of the following areas:

  • Healing, growth, and self-knowledge

  • Deepening your understanding of your authentic path and your purpose

  • Processing emotional challenges or pain in a transformative context and learning to work with this material more effectively

  • Self-inquiry, the journey of awakening, and deepening your experience of your inherent freedom and wholeness

  • Embracing an initiatory path of soulful emergence

  • Learning to welcome a potent meditative space without struggle or resistance

  • Integrating your inner life with your work and impact in the world

Ultimately, this work acquaints people more fully with their freedom, wholeness, and the depths of who they are, supporting them in cultivating the skills of living in authentic alignment with the core of who they are. It is this foundation that is the basis of the healing, transformation, and growth that unfolds in the work.

 

Is Emergent Inquiry psychotherapy?

No. My work through Emergent Inquiry is not psychotherapy. If you live in North Carolina and are interested in working with me within a soulcentric, psychotherapeutic setting, please visit my website specifically for psychotherapy.

 

Is it best to bring difficult situations in my life into my sessions, or can we work without any particular situations in mind?

Either way works well. We work with whatever is arising and most alive for you at this moment. Life challenges and situations are often part of the fuel for our ongoing opening and growth. In fact, working with the deeper dynamics of challenges is one of the most direct routes to transformation and opening. At the same time, working from a place of relative contentment also allows for its own opportunities for shifts and for being surprised by what wants to emerge. Either way, we’re working with what is most pertinent at the time and allowing this to be the fuel for awakening to our depths, while also building the capacity for our responses to life to arise from this more integrated and aligned place.

 

Where are you from?

I grew up in New Zealand. I moved to Los Angeles when I was 22 and lived there for several years. I later spent seven years in New York City before moving to the Chapel Hill/Research Triangle area of North Carolina, where I’ve lived since 2015.

 

Do you know Flight of the Conchords?

Yes.

 

Aren’t those guys from New Zealand?

Yes.

 

Aren’t New Zealanders called Kiwis?

Yes.

 

Why are you named after a fruit?

Kiwi is actually the name of our national bird—a flightless, nocturnal bird.

 

Why are you named after a flightless bird?

New Zealand is full of flightless birds (well, it used to be, before many of them were killed by introduced predators—hard to escape when you can’t fly). I guess the kiwi is unique and quirky, just like us.

 

But are you from New Zealand or Australia? Aren’t they somehow the same thing?

No. They’re distinct countries separated by a sizeable sea.

 

Sorry. It’s probably really offensive that I just asked if you’re Australian, right?

Don’t worry. It happens all the time. I really don’t mind, and it’s understandable given the cultural similarities and geographical proximity of the two countries.

 

Wasn’t The Lord of the Rings filmed in New Zealand?

Yes.

 

Is the country really that beautiful?

Yes.

 

Did you know that you look a little like Elijah Wood?

Thanks—I guess?

 

So are you a hobbit?!

Now we’re bordering on offensive. On the other hand, I think The Lord of the Rings is brilliant both as literature and cinema, so perhaps being likened to a hobbit is a high compliment.

 

Do you prefer people to avoid asking you these questions? Is that why you’ve included them on your FAQ page?

No! I’m totally happy to talk about any and all of this. Please feel free to chat. I just can’t help myself whenever I have an opportunity to play around and write something for my own amusement. Especially when I’m in the middle of writing new pages for my website.

Photo location: Sedona, Arizona