Hi. I’m Michael. Welcome to my site.
How did I get into the business of generational trauma and unconscious shame? Unconsciously, of course. I wasn’t even born at the time.
In 1932, my grandmother had an affair. My grandfather not only divorced her but went to court for custody of my mother. He was a retired Royal Air Force Wing Commander, twice decorated for bravery in the Great War; she was what was termed a ‘bolter’. He won.
This emotionally destroyed my mother. The shame that her mother had abandoned her crippled her for life. There was a similar tale on my father’s side. As a sensitive child, I inherited my parents’ unresolved feelings through epigenetic inheritance.
Emotional Reverse Engineering
As a child I was less interested in playing games than inventing them. I wanted to understand how they worked.
I became a process analyst at the largest cannery in the southern hemisphere. I didn’t know it at the time, but process manufacturing is a very good model for understanding seemingly inconsistent human emotional behaviour in a consistent, structured way.
I discovered that using the concepts of process manufacturing—stages, inputs, processes, outputs—I could reverse engineer the root causes of dysfunction from their symptoms. Once understood, root causes—inherited or otherwise—could be permanently resolved. I called this Emotional Reverse Engineering.
My career led from the cannery in New Zealand to an IT consultant for industrial and governmental clients in the United States, Britain, and Hong Kong.
It was a high-income, high-consumption, high-carbon, high-porn lifestyle—and it was completely toxic. Eventually, I hit the wall.
The “shambles”
I began—unconsciously at first—to apply my analytical skills to my own behaviour. I discovered the “shambles” described by 1960s British counter-culture psychologist R.D. Laing:
“When our personal worlds are rediscovered… we discover first a shambles… genitals dissociated from heart; heart severed from head; heads dissociated from genitals.”
— R.D. Laing
My family narrative was a tissue of lies, half-truths and evasions that cascaded down over the course of 4 generations. No one came out smelling of roses. I grew up in a toxic mix of lack of nurturing, abandonment, unexpected death, bigamy, and traumas from World War II.
Healing this “shambles” took a quarter of a century, cost everything I had and more besides, and hurt beyond anything I could imagine. I hurt others too, when my dysfunctions and distortions collided with theirs. Yet I eventually healed the wounded side of my being—my emotions and sexuality.
As well as software analysis and development I worked in organisational development, creating and delivering training.
Education
This led to the world of education. In 2010 I was commissioned by Global Education MK (under the anti-terrorist Prevent programme) to create a primary school musical on the emotional roots of extreme behaviour. With a score by Claire Bachelor, When Chemistry goes Bang! was staged at several schools in Milton Keynes.
In 2016 I partnered with the Milton Keynes Council to create Stepping Stones: building school capacity to resist radicalisation. This workshop was successfully delivered to local primary schools. I was also the Chair of Governors of my son’s primary school.
I was part of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s ChildLine Schools Service, educating primary school children to recognise all forms of abuse. I have an NCFE-certified Advanced (Level 4) Diploma in Life Coaching from Stonebridge College.
Bringing the unconscious to light
I’ve spent the last quarter of a century bringing the unconscious to light. I’ve healed deep damage and gained extraordinary insight into the human condition in general and badly wounded male sexuality in particular.
I found that the issues I faced were responsible for our environmentally, economically and—above all—emotionally unsustainable planet. Carl Jung identified this decades ago. I’ve been strongly guided by his maxim:
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
— Carl Jung
My passion is to help you empty your own unconscious with as much clarity, ease and grace as possible.
How I add value
- Identifying unconscious principles and processes.
- Graphic representations of psychological processes.
- Distilling complex emotional spaces into structured layers.
- Identifying the details that matter among the data points.
- Providing and passing on calmness among the swirl.
- Genuine listening where you feel held and heard.
- Supporting you to create your own solutions.
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