Leading Yourself

Who this is for

You might recognise yourself here.

• You provide and keep things running, but you don't feel like yourself anymore.
• You and your partner work well as a team. You're just not as close as you used to be.
• You're carrying pressure you haven't told her about, because you tell yourself she's already carrying enough.
• You know the conversation you need to have. You keep avoiding it.
• You're home, but your head's somewhere else. Playing with the kids and thinking about work.
• Everything has become another thing to get done. Even the gym.
• You've got the life you wanted, and you feel guilty for not enjoying it more.

What this isn't

Straight talk before you go further.

This isn't therapy, and I won't promise to resolve trauma or fix your marriage. Anyone who promises that is overselling. It also isn't generic motivational coaching, another habit tracker or a course you work through on your own.

It's twelve weeks of 1:1 work on how you're living, with someone who's in his own version of this work, not lecturing from outside it.

It's probably not for you if you want someone else to change, you want a guaranteed result, or what you need is clinical support. You don't need it all figured out. You do need to be willing to look at your part in it, and try things between sessions.

And it isn't crisis support. Feeling flat and going through the motions is common. Feeling hopeless most of the time, struggling to function, or having thoughts of harming yourself is something else. If that's you, please talk to your GP or call Samaritans free on 116 123. If I think you need more than coaching, I'll tell you straight.

The 12 weeks

How the twelve weeks go.

Underneath all of it are five things we keep coming back to: awareness, regulation, responsibility, connection and action. It's not a rigid sequence. Each session goes where it needs to.

Awareness gives you a choice. What you do with it is on you.

How this is different

I'll listen. I won't just listen.

You don't have to perform in here. That matters, because it's what lets you be honest. But understanding why you do something doesn't change it on its own.

If we've talked about the same conversation for three weeks and it still hasn't happened, I'll say so. Then we look at what's in the way, what you might be protecting, and what it's costing you. And then I'll ask what you're going to do about it.

Every session ends with something specific to try. The next one starts with what happened when you tried it.

How you'll know it's working

You'll know by what you do.

At the start, the middle and the end, you'll score yourself from 1 to 10 on seven things: how connected you feel to yourself, how present you are, how you handle it when things get hard, how you communicate, whether you're living by what matters to you, how much you're enjoying life, and whether you trust yourself to follow through. Every score needs one real example to back it up.

Every week we look at:

• What did you notice this week that you'd have missed before?
• Where did you respond differently, even slightly?
• What did you avoid or put off, and what happened when you got close to it?
• What will you do before we next speak?

Progress isn't a straight line. Sometimes your score goes down because you've stopped kidding yourself. That counts.

How it works

Logistics.

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We meet every week for 90 minutes over twelve weeks, by video call. Between sessions, you can reach me directly over WhatsApp.

I work with the whole of you, not just the part that feels stuck. That means paying attention to your body as much as your thinking. What you're carrying, where you hold it, and the patterns that keep repeating even when you know better.

We look at the beliefs and patterns running underneath the stress, shutdown or anger. I'll offer you ways of seeing it, and you decide what fits. No labels, and no single theory that explains every man.

It's structured enough to hold you accountable and deep enough to get beneath the surface. In some sessions, that means having a hard conversation about what you've been avoiding. In others, it's practical: making a decision, setting a boundary or choosing something you'll go and do differently.

Either way, you leave more capable of leading yourself than when you walked in.

My approach draws on somatic coaching, Jungian and depth-psychology-informed perspectives, developmental and attachment-informed work, parts-informed work, reflective inquiry and practical behavioural accountability.

What you bring stays between us, within the normal limits of professional safeguarding. We'll go through the coaching agreement before we start, including what confidentiality does and doesn't cover. Anything body-based, and any time I push you, happens with your agreement. You can always say no.

My role

I'm not someone who's finished this work.

I'm not going to sit across from you like I've got it all figured out and you don't. I'm building this because I'm sick of watching men function while quietly disconnected from themselves, their partner and their kids. And because I'm still doing my own version of this work while I help you with yours.

My job isn't to give you answers. It's to help you lead yourself again, and need me less by the end, not more.

A few things worth knowing

What's expected between sessions?

Small experiments in your actual life. Small enough that you'll do them, big enough that they matter.

What if I don't do the thing?

Then we look at why. Not to tell you off. What got in the way is usually the most useful thing we'll talk about that week.

Will you push me?

Yes. Directly, respectfully, and with your agreement. You didn't come here to stay the same.

Do I have to be a father?

No. A lot of the men I work with are dads, and family usually comes into it. But this is for any man whose life works on paper and doesn't feel like his anymore.

From 1:1 clients

Have a question first?

Send me a message.

If you're not ready to book a call but want to ask something before you do, put it here. I read these myself.

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