ABOUT ME
My Story
My goal is to help men whose lives have taken a turn for the worse to rebuild their lives by rebuilding themselves.
To help make this happen, I’ve helped run and facilitate a weekly men’s group in the Northern Rivers of NSW for the last several years.
My interest in working with men comes from being one. A man whose learned some hard life lessons along the way. My cherished illusions of having the perfect nuclear family living happily ever after in a dream home I was building for us spectacularly imploded over a decade ago just weeks before I finished the house.
The fallout from that devastating event forced me on a long, hard journey of disappointment, grief and re-discovery, a path I’m still walking today.
I’ve spent the last ten years studying, reading, in therapy, attending and facilitating men’s groups, and humbly re-learning much of what I thought I knew as a younger man.
Men
My interest in working with men comes from being one. As a father, teacher, youth worker, counsellor, and men’s group facilitator, I’m naturally motivated to help my fellow men and boys grow and mature, as many of us are suffering solo and silently.
For thousands of years, across various traditions and cultures, we had rituals, ceremonies and initiations to help boys cross the threshold into manhood. For millennia, men and boys sat around fires after working, hunting or fighting together, sharing their collective wisdom. For those of us in the West, these vital structures no longer exist. These days as boys move into manhood, many of us on our own with no map and little, if any, help. Our culture celebrates, elevates and rewards boy psychology, while there’s a tangible shortage of healthy, mature men. It is my goal to help men move on from their wounded boy selves into healthier, more whole and mature men, for the benefit of themselves, and all those around them.
Screen Addictions
My interest in helping support those with screen addictions comes from being a father of two screen addicted teenagers, as well as having been a high school teacher for over twenty years, and witnessing first hand the changes, not always for the better, that the introduction of this radical new technology has had on all of us, but particularly on our younger generations. I started teaching last century in the pre-phone era and stepped back from teaching in a device saturated environment whose affects on mental health were devestatingly felt first hand when my beloved teenage daughter nearly died from an eating disorder fuelled in large part by the screen.
My goal is to help people to reduce their screen use so they can get back in touch with themselves, their loved ones and the natural world.
Eco-Grief/Anxiety/
Depression
My passion for helping those struggling with eco-grief/eco-anxiety comes from a mixture of personal and professional life experiences. I have a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and History, which has helped me understand where the world has been, as well as a Master’s degree in Sustainability Studies, which helps me make sense of where the world is headed.
Along the way, I’ve travelled, lived and worked on all seven continents. While working for longer periods in both Antarctica and Alaska, I’ve seen the glaciers melting rapidly firsthand. After more than a decade of living on a creek in the green volcanic hills, I’ve lived through the biggest ever floods and fires, and experienced the extreme changes firsthand. My goal is to help people navigate their valid feelings of grief, fear and overwhelm in the face of our climate and eco-crisis.
Contact Me
Interested in working together? Fill out info and I will be in touch shortly! I offer free 15 minute consultations to answer any questions.
Or email - deepoldrootscounselling@gmail.com
Or text/call 0494-751-056
