Most of my life I have been exceptionally good at guiding people to better tell their own stories, to reach their best performance. That is what I have been good at for most of my life. I have never been particularly good at expressing my own story, in fact I didn't believe I really had a great story to tell.
So being a theatre director suited me well because I it meant I could literally hide and be well known at the same time. I always kept my personal life personal, not just from the public but even from the people in my life. What I discovered when I began my own healing and spiritual journey was that I was actually hiding and withholding who I really was because of shame. I had a deep seated fear of not being worthy of acceptance and love because of how I saw myself.
From the time I was young, I knew that my purpose in life was to serve a good greater and to make a difference for people in the world. I think very few of us aspiring world-changers and light-bringers realize that it is our own deep, unresolved hurt and shame that mostly propel us to want to fix and change the world outside of us.
So being a theatre director suited me well because I it meant I could literally hide and be well known at the same time. I always kept my personal life personal, not just from the public but even from the people in my life. What I discovered when I began my own healing and spiritual journey was that I was actually hiding and withholding who I really was because of shame. I had a deep seated fear of not being worthy of acceptance and love because of how I saw myself.
From the time I was young, I knew that my purpose in life was to serve a good greater and to make a difference for people in the world. I think very few of us aspiring world-changers and light-bringers realize that it is our own deep, unresolved hurt and shame that mostly propel us to want to fix and change the world outside of us.
What really shaped my perspective and personality, however, was the experience of growing up in the last two decades of Apartheid South Africa, and adventuring with my single-parent mother and my baby sister. My mother moved around the country doing very different kinds of work as a hotelier in the interesting, emerging hotel industry, and in the dance world as a choreographer, teacher and studio owner. She was also a very passionate political and human rights activist. Through her I got to see and experience so much of this country which gave me great love for people, the arts and revolutionary politics.
In the 80’s, we participated in many of the marches, boycotts and and defiance campaigns where I experienced the darker side of this country. Our home was often under surveillance and there were constant threats of detention and isolation. We also experienced judgment and shaming of people around us. Frequently being called a 'kaffir-boetie' and witnessing first hand violence and prejudice of racism which made a huge impression on me. I felt helpless and angry and I was deeply ashamed to be white; in fact, I believed I was born with the wrong skin colour and the wrong heritage.
The second area that shaped my outlook was my relationship to men. I had never known my father growing up, but when I did find out about him, I was left with a story that he had tried to take me away from my mother in a custody battle. This, I later discovered, was not what happened, but at the time the story and belief stuck. I decided that men were a threat and since then struggled to connect with any man especially those who came into my mother's life. For the most part my mother's friends were female or gay, so I grew up with an affinity for the company of women. Often, I would overhear my mother and her friends complaining about men and the horrible things they did and somewhere there I decided that I did not want to become one of those when I grew up.
My Sunday school teacher would share this bible quote with us: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." What it meant to me at the time was that children were by the nature of their innocence still righteous and untainted by the sins of living. This really strengthened my resolve never to become an ignorant careless adult.
Needless to say, despite all my resistance, I inevitably became an adult and one with the existential conflict of not wanting to be either white or male. You can appreciate my dilemma. I was living in denial of myself and was completely unaware of it at the time.
So instead of seeing my shame, I focused my attention on blaming society: I blamed the 'system', I blamed white people and I blamed the rich for creating an unjust world. I was, at the time, defiantly anti-establishment and angry, and I expressed all of this through theatre. Protest and physical theatre were then a robust and powerful expression in South Africa, which spoke to power in the face of censorship and police action. It was a place to direct my anger.
In the 80’s, we participated in many of the marches, boycotts and and defiance campaigns where I experienced the darker side of this country. Our home was often under surveillance and there were constant threats of detention and isolation. We also experienced judgment and shaming of people around us. Frequently being called a 'kaffir-boetie' and witnessing first hand violence and prejudice of racism which made a huge impression on me. I felt helpless and angry and I was deeply ashamed to be white; in fact, I believed I was born with the wrong skin colour and the wrong heritage.
The second area that shaped my outlook was my relationship to men. I had never known my father growing up, but when I did find out about him, I was left with a story that he had tried to take me away from my mother in a custody battle. This, I later discovered, was not what happened, but at the time the story and belief stuck. I decided that men were a threat and since then struggled to connect with any man especially those who came into my mother's life. For the most part my mother's friends were female or gay, so I grew up with an affinity for the company of women. Often, I would overhear my mother and her friends complaining about men and the horrible things they did and somewhere there I decided that I did not want to become one of those when I grew up.
My Sunday school teacher would share this bible quote with us: "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." What it meant to me at the time was that children were by the nature of their innocence still righteous and untainted by the sins of living. This really strengthened my resolve never to become an ignorant careless adult.
Needless to say, despite all my resistance, I inevitably became an adult and one with the existential conflict of not wanting to be either white or male. You can appreciate my dilemma. I was living in denial of myself and was completely unaware of it at the time.
So instead of seeing my shame, I focused my attention on blaming society: I blamed the 'system', I blamed white people and I blamed the rich for creating an unjust world. I was, at the time, defiantly anti-establishment and angry, and I expressed all of this through theatre. Protest and physical theatre were then a robust and powerful expression in South Africa, which spoke to power in the face of censorship and police action. It was a place to direct my anger.
After University, I joined a well-known African contemporary dance company as an actor and dancer. I then went on to become a theatre director focusing mainly on exploring South African non-white narratives and creating productions such as Suip!, Cry the Beloved Country and Joe Barber. I avoided associating with white people, instead I became the honorary coloured, Indian or black man in the circles I socialized and worked in. There I experienced a kind of acceptance that I did not know how to give to myself at the time.
Even though I had a successful career as a director and producer, winning awards, creating long-running productions, touring internationally and doing socially relevant work, I found I was always processing and telling other peoples' life stories as a way of avoiding my own.
The truth was that, underneath it all, I had become emotionally and spiritually dead. I struggled to express vulnerable emotions to people unless I experienced huge distress or loss. I was only able to cry when watching a movie and I only felt alive when I was on the rehearsal floor. I was living vicariously through the experiences of other people.
While this made me really good at my work and empathetic with people and their stories, deep inside what I actually desired was to authentically express who I really was and experience real connection. At the time, I could not see that was blocking me was my stones of non-forgiveness. I thought that this was just how I was: shy, reserved and intense.
Even though I had a successful career as a director and producer, winning awards, creating long-running productions, touring internationally and doing socially relevant work, I found I was always processing and telling other peoples' life stories as a way of avoiding my own.
The truth was that, underneath it all, I had become emotionally and spiritually dead. I struggled to express vulnerable emotions to people unless I experienced huge distress or loss. I was only able to cry when watching a movie and I only felt alive when I was on the rehearsal floor. I was living vicariously through the experiences of other people.
While this made me really good at my work and empathetic with people and their stories, deep inside what I actually desired was to authentically express who I really was and experience real connection. At the time, I could not see that was blocking me was my stones of non-forgiveness. I thought that this was just how I was: shy, reserved and intense.
AN ADVENTURE OF DISTRACTION AND DESTRUCTION
For a period of time, drugs and alcohol became the escape out of my shell. To say I was a heavy user is an understatement; I lived by the party mantra ‘go big or go home’. I joined the alternate life in the dark hours of the weekend and I had a huge friendship circle of exuberant, crazy party people. We would dance through the night until the early hours of the morning. People who knew me in that time would not recognize me during the day. I found a way to keep my worlds separate and private. I would party each weekend; clubbing and socializing before crashing back into the reality of work each week. It was an amazing and fun adventure under the lights. However each morning I had to come back home to the same me. In the come-downs I sank into darker and darker spaces of shame and self-doubt.
For a period of time, drugs and alcohol became the escape out of my shell. To say I was a heavy user is an understatement; I lived by the party mantra ‘go big or go home’. I joined the alternate life in the dark hours of the weekend and I had a huge friendship circle of exuberant, crazy party people. We would dance through the night until the early hours of the morning. People who knew me in that time would not recognize me during the day. I found a way to keep my worlds separate and private. I would party each weekend; clubbing and socializing before crashing back into the reality of work each week. It was an amazing and fun adventure under the lights. However each morning I had to come back home to the same me. In the come-downs I sank into darker and darker spaces of shame and self-doubt.
My personal life was very bumpy as a result. I was in and out out of relationships, never able commit. This was my second subconscious aversion playing out: being male. I was so desperately trying not to become the horrible man that I had heard women talk about. Ironically, I hurt people more by trying not to hurt them. Whenever things got serious in my relationships, I would find a way to sabotage it and get out. I would cheat or leave or I would choose volatile relationships with little future possibility. The impact, apart from breaking many hearts, was that I was in and out of depression and anxiety, medicating my disconnection with distractions.
This finally catapulted me into two years of pschotherapy where I began my journey of dealing with my own life and my own stories. The process was valuable but expensive and slow. I stopped taking drugs and partied much less. Later, I abandoned therapy and I went onto anti-depressants, which lessened my anxiety but also muffled all my other emotions. This was all happening in the background while my career continued at full speed.
MY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY BEGINS
My turning point came when I first encountered the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. This caused a major paradigm shift in my perspective. Everything he said resonated absolutely and unmistakably true with me. It was like a light was shone in a direction I never considered to look. I saw my my path and it was absolutely spiritual. I discovered an unshakable inner peace and sanity that had nothing to do with my very busy mind or cultivated personality.
What no one really tells you is that embarking on a journey of transformation is an invitation for spiritual lightning to strike, revealing all self-sabotaging habits and showing up all that needs to be released and healed. This was a very uncomfortable shake-up that brought years of old hurt, tears and shame to the surface. I could no longer keep my worlds apart, I had to deal with my own heart, which felt like a blessing and a curse at the same time, because I could now feel everything and no longer had control over it. It was a messy process and I did not like mess.
Over a period of five years, I intensively pursued various development courses and leadership programs including those at Landmark Worldwide. I studied teachings of spiritual masters and guides, practised meditation every day and embarked on a life-changing journey to India, Thailand and Cambodia. Each experience was in itself an illumination with the theme of forgiveness and shame showing up again and again. Doing all this healing work allowed me to change the trajectory of my future; I opened my heart to the vulnerability of relationships and life with a profound and deep acceptance of all that I am.
I finally was able accept myself as a beautiful, pale-skinned man with an Austrian name, with a profound love for humanity, for all men, women, children and nature. I am now married to a woman who I absolutely adore. She is my spiritual lighting all on her own. There is no greater accelerant to self-realisation than journeying with your soul partner. I also transformed my relationships with my family and created a connection with my father and his wife. None of this would have been possible without first transforming the distortion of shame stories and non-forgiveness that I had unconsciously been holding onto. In no way do I feel like I have my life handled, it is a still messy. I embrace that it will never be handled, only that it will be adventurous, uncertain and rewarding. The most important thing is it's my own.
In this period, I began coaching people and facilitating transformational processes. Years of character study, directing and working closely with actors and their lives had equipped me with the empathetic capacity to know where people were at emotionally and guide them to where they needed to be. I still continue to direct theatre, but with my focus now on the theme of transformation.
My major spiritual awakening, however, happened on an Ayahuasca journey where I experienced for the first time complete and intense communication with Spirit. I experienced the presence of divine love such that my body could barely hold or comprehend its vastness, and I was given crystal clear messages by Spirit regarding my life path and my purpose. I was shown how every step of my journey, every interaction, every misconception I had, all the shame I carried, every moment of hurt, love, loss, joy and sorrow was a prefect orchestration of experience and teachings to prepare me for who I am now and what I have to share. I was also told to use my voice to sing and heal.
Initially, my reflex was to dismiss the experience as an induced hallucinatory event. However, Spirit has continued to be powerfully present in my life and with each unfolding step I experience the presence of being guided. This led me to become a facilitator at Ayahuasca ceremonies, holding the space for others through my singing.
I always wanted to commune directly with Spirit and not through a middleman or through the lens of any dogma - and I feel I experienced this. I embrace my journey as that of a modern mystic; this is my path. I believe each and every person is gifted with the same capacity to connect and commune with Source.
The process of Journey of Stones has thus emerged out of these experiences and my ongoing coaching interactions. It brings together all my life experience and knowledge of various journeys and life practices of forgiveness that leads to the transformation of the past. I strongly assert that no-one, however good their intentions or how powerful or influential they are, can ever have clear spiritual sight while there is non-forgiveness in their heart and being. True forgiveness is the path and the way to a pure heart, to vulnerable connection and joy. I believe that this is the work we all need to practice ongoingly to create the world we want.
What I am is a transformation storyteller, a mystic, a life and performance coach but most importantly I see myself as a forgiveness activist. My guidance and teaching comes from love, not having set answers but understanding the frailty and fallibility of our humanity and our perceptions. I know that I am guided by Spirit all the time and I love guiding people in reconnecting with their hearts and their greatness. This is my purpose and my path.
“We are not here to “save” the world, but to serve an emerging paradigm of love, connectedness, and generosity of heart.” - Michael Bernard Beckwith.
This finally catapulted me into two years of pschotherapy where I began my journey of dealing with my own life and my own stories. The process was valuable but expensive and slow. I stopped taking drugs and partied much less. Later, I abandoned therapy and I went onto anti-depressants, which lessened my anxiety but also muffled all my other emotions. This was all happening in the background while my career continued at full speed.
MY SPIRITUAL JOURNEY BEGINS
My turning point came when I first encountered the teachings of Eckhart Tolle. This caused a major paradigm shift in my perspective. Everything he said resonated absolutely and unmistakably true with me. It was like a light was shone in a direction I never considered to look. I saw my my path and it was absolutely spiritual. I discovered an unshakable inner peace and sanity that had nothing to do with my very busy mind or cultivated personality.
What no one really tells you is that embarking on a journey of transformation is an invitation for spiritual lightning to strike, revealing all self-sabotaging habits and showing up all that needs to be released and healed. This was a very uncomfortable shake-up that brought years of old hurt, tears and shame to the surface. I could no longer keep my worlds apart, I had to deal with my own heart, which felt like a blessing and a curse at the same time, because I could now feel everything and no longer had control over it. It was a messy process and I did not like mess.
Over a period of five years, I intensively pursued various development courses and leadership programs including those at Landmark Worldwide. I studied teachings of spiritual masters and guides, practised meditation every day and embarked on a life-changing journey to India, Thailand and Cambodia. Each experience was in itself an illumination with the theme of forgiveness and shame showing up again and again. Doing all this healing work allowed me to change the trajectory of my future; I opened my heart to the vulnerability of relationships and life with a profound and deep acceptance of all that I am.
I finally was able accept myself as a beautiful, pale-skinned man with an Austrian name, with a profound love for humanity, for all men, women, children and nature. I am now married to a woman who I absolutely adore. She is my spiritual lighting all on her own. There is no greater accelerant to self-realisation than journeying with your soul partner. I also transformed my relationships with my family and created a connection with my father and his wife. None of this would have been possible without first transforming the distortion of shame stories and non-forgiveness that I had unconsciously been holding onto. In no way do I feel like I have my life handled, it is a still messy. I embrace that it will never be handled, only that it will be adventurous, uncertain and rewarding. The most important thing is it's my own.
In this period, I began coaching people and facilitating transformational processes. Years of character study, directing and working closely with actors and their lives had equipped me with the empathetic capacity to know where people were at emotionally and guide them to where they needed to be. I still continue to direct theatre, but with my focus now on the theme of transformation.
My major spiritual awakening, however, happened on an Ayahuasca journey where I experienced for the first time complete and intense communication with Spirit. I experienced the presence of divine love such that my body could barely hold or comprehend its vastness, and I was given crystal clear messages by Spirit regarding my life path and my purpose. I was shown how every step of my journey, every interaction, every misconception I had, all the shame I carried, every moment of hurt, love, loss, joy and sorrow was a prefect orchestration of experience and teachings to prepare me for who I am now and what I have to share. I was also told to use my voice to sing and heal.
Initially, my reflex was to dismiss the experience as an induced hallucinatory event. However, Spirit has continued to be powerfully present in my life and with each unfolding step I experience the presence of being guided. This led me to become a facilitator at Ayahuasca ceremonies, holding the space for others through my singing.
I always wanted to commune directly with Spirit and not through a middleman or through the lens of any dogma - and I feel I experienced this. I embrace my journey as that of a modern mystic; this is my path. I believe each and every person is gifted with the same capacity to connect and commune with Source.
The process of Journey of Stones has thus emerged out of these experiences and my ongoing coaching interactions. It brings together all my life experience and knowledge of various journeys and life practices of forgiveness that leads to the transformation of the past. I strongly assert that no-one, however good their intentions or how powerful or influential they are, can ever have clear spiritual sight while there is non-forgiveness in their heart and being. True forgiveness is the path and the way to a pure heart, to vulnerable connection and joy. I believe that this is the work we all need to practice ongoingly to create the world we want.
What I am is a transformation storyteller, a mystic, a life and performance coach but most importantly I see myself as a forgiveness activist. My guidance and teaching comes from love, not having set answers but understanding the frailty and fallibility of our humanity and our perceptions. I know that I am guided by Spirit all the time and I love guiding people in reconnecting with their hearts and their greatness. This is my purpose and my path.
“We are not here to “save” the world, but to serve an emerging paradigm of love, connectedness, and generosity of heart.” - Michael Bernard Beckwith.