My story begins in childhood, with a fight on the playground—and my deep, almost uncomfortable need to get in the middle and help resolve it. Though my jumping in wasn’t well received back then (though it did bring a peaceful conclusion to the argument), I knew in my gut that I was drawn to conflict. I felt called to help people get what they truly hoped for: acknowledgment, healing, peaceful resolution, and forward momentum.
And so the story goes, I learned over time that I needed to not only be around conflict, but to be a part of it, too, in order to develop the skills to resolve it. I’ve found that I help people by drawing on personal experience; I’ve felt the pain, disappointment, hate, anger, love, and forgiveness. I’ve learned what it feels like to be in a situation that seems hopeless, to have the darkest thoughts about life, and then to come out of it with hope. It’s given me the ability to see a bigger picture, and integrate everything I’ve come to understand about the world and about people, so that I might hold a candle on a broader perspective so that others may see their situation a little differently.
I’ve come to observe that conflict and change are an opportunity for learning and growth, something to lean into rather than run away from.
The work I strive to do centers around one theme: the possibility of what life could be beyond the pain, the conflict, the transition. Paikea Mediation is about each of us finding our own “inner knowing”, to see adversity as opportunity, our hardships as lessons, our solitude as time to reflect and know ourselves better. As human beings we are all in this journey together, though our circumstances may vary greatly. And I believe it is each our journey to know and share our story, and then move forward to what lies beyond.
