From sneaking in through the back to standing on one’s own ground

I’m lucky in that I don’t feel that I usually need to enter spaces through back doors. In most of my professional life I’ve stood comfortably on my ground — confident in the rooms I enter and the conversations I help shape. But every now and then I find myself drawn to spaces that sit just beyond my familiar terrain, and I notice a flicker of hesitation at the threshold. This weekend’s Existential Psychotherapists’ conference — Dying to Live, Living to Die — was one of those moments.

The gathering brought together wise, grounded academics with big brains, and loving practitioners with big hearts who have spent decades exploring what it means to live and die well. Their language is one I understand and deeply value, even if their academic qualifications are not the same as my own.

The theme — Dying to Live, Living to Die — felt perfectly timed for Samhain, that exquisite threshold between light and dark, life and death, endings and beginnings. I’d been especially looking forward to a session on Friday night called Navigating Loss and Embracing Life. The title alone was enough to make me sign up for the weekend’s sessions. So when I learned on Friday morning that it had been cancelled, I felt more than a pang of disappointment.

While having my shower — that place of magical insights — I had a flash of inspiration: I should put myself forward as speaker! This is my ground too, my way of living and being in the world. Navigating loss and embracing life is what I do, day in, day out. Not in theory or as an academic discipline, but as lived practice — walking, again and again, through losses into life.

I didn’t have a presentation at the ready, nor the credentials of those on stage, but I still reached out to the headline organiser and offered to help, as humbly as I could, knowing it was a long shot. In the event, my contribution wasn’t needed — Dr Robert Neimeyer, already presenting on the Friday night, and whose work I deeply admire, had agreed to extend his session to fill the planned time. An excellent solution, and I learned a lot from his many case studies. But I was glad I’d offered — glad that I’d honoured my belief that I too have a voice in this field, even if my way in wouldn’t have been a conventional one.

The rest of the weekend seemed to echo that same rhythm of inner-outer alignment. On Sunday, instead of running a Geneva 20 km as I so often have done at this time of year, I chose to go on a gentle jog in the woods near my home. The rain was coming down heavily, and I couldn’t face the schlep into town. Instead of tarmac and other panting bodies, the forest was alive with the sounds of dripping rain and the scent of must and decay. I ran carefully, eyes flicking across the slippery-slick terrain, scanning for mushrooms just in case, breathing fully in the damp air. It felt like another integration — a small autumnal act of will, choosing presence over pressure.

And on Saturday evening, with friends from La Maison de Tara, the hospice where I volunteer, we gathered for a Samhain celebration. We lit candles and invoked our ancestors — both those in our family lines and the sweet beloveds who have left too soon – for aren’t those also ancestors, whose wisdom we can carry forward? We reflected on what we were ready to let go of as the year turned, and the strengths and gifts we carry forward from those who came before. I felt immense gratitude — a sense of family lineage that continues composting, nourishing and renewing my life today.

As I jogged and reflected on the past days — the conference, offering my services, the Samhain ritual, the decision to run in the woods — I found myself considering three of the (many) psychological threads that shape my coaching work: existential, transpersonal, and psychosynthesis.

From existential psychology, I feel I honour the call to face life’s givens — loss, uncertainty, mortality — with awareness and choice. From psychosynthesis, the principle of Will — not the forceful, pushing kind, but the gentle, powerful kind that comes with aligning inner and outer. And from the transpersonal, the remembering that we are part of a much larger system, forever unfolding in time and space — a web of life continually dying, transforming, and being reborn.

Together they form a seasonal map for living well: an invitation to compost what is finished, to act with integrity, and to trust that what falls away can become nourishment for what wants to emerge.

Going for a run is where I integrate stuff — where fragments of ideas and even tiny experiences can expand a little to find form. It might not be academically tight, but it’s how I make sense of all that is, as it continues to unfold.

The threads of this weekend — offering my voice, honouring ancestors, running through damp forests — mirror what I try to cultivate in my work: a way of meeting life’s questions, uncertainties and thresholds, with openness, courage and curiosity. Through Kaleidoscope, I invite leaders to do the same — to stand on their own ground, act from deeper will, and remember their belonging within the wider web of life. When we do this, everything becomes a rich space for growth.

All photos my own