I live with an ongoing curiosity about the lessons hidden within our unique experience of being alive.
Hello! My name is Asher. I love having connecting and open conversations with people where we put down 'right' and 'wrong', allow curiosity to guide us and explore our shared worlds of experience to find new pathways and new possibilities rooted in the present moment.
I find myself inspired and at home climbing over boulders and through the trees that line the Dart River in Dartmoor National Park, my nose occasionally pressed against the moss or lichen that carpets the place, looking for tiny things.
​What brought me to coaching?
Quite early on in my life in response to how complex and challenging I found it to live with balance and wellbeing, I apprenticed myself to learning about my inner world - my relationship with life. I committed to learn from my experiences, especially those times that felt heavier and harder to live through. In those harder times, I felt pointed towards what was missing, needed attention and was being blocked. I sensed that hidden in the darker corners of my experience were gems of understanding that could bring brightness and possibility in. I found that I wanted to share what I was learning with others so that together we could find greater connection and meaning.
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A big part of health I believe is to be found in connection with others, and in my journey of looking for learning I have had many experiences of feeling deeply and skilfully held by teachers, mentors and friends. It is rare to be in communication with someone who is truly listening and not just waiting to give advice or their opinion. These moments taught me a great deal about sitting with others, and hidden in such encounters was something so inspiring I felt sure this was my path.
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It was in my mid-twenties that I discovered Integral Development Coaching and felt I had finally found a form that fit me. I have found the approach insightful, inclusive and welcoming of our humanness. It has a really clear thread throughout that we can't get this wrong, there is no expert here, we can just keep learning together. It spoke to my deep curiosity for life, and gave space to respond to a person exactly where they are with creativity and flexibility. The methodology of Integral Development Coaching welcomes us as whole beings taking into account our bodies, minds, environments, relationships and more. It is client lead and draws from many different wisdoms.
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Other work that inspires and influences me:
Grief Tending in Community - https://grieftending.org/
Internal Family Systems - Richard Swartz https://ifs-institute.com/
Focusing - Eugene T. Gendlin https://focusing.org/felt-sense/what-focusing
Mindfulness/Meditation practices - origins in Buddhism
Healthy Human Culture - Sophy Banks https://healthyhumanculture.com/
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Training and Qualifications
During my life I have engaged with a variety of different trainings and group work, such as:
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Core Process Psychotherapy Introduction (week long)
'Apprenticing to Grief' Training
Facilitating 'Way of Council' circles
Internal Family Systems (Introduction)
Facilitation for Transformation - Working with Power and Privilege (week long)
ICF accredited Integral Development Coaching programme
Level 1-5 course for Proficiency in Focusing Partnership Award PFPA
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My previous clients have described my coaching as Non-Judgmental, Insightful, Trustworthy, Sensitive and Warm.
This website
This website, through a combination of images, words, colours and space is telling a story of where I come from and what matters to me. Some of the images like the one at the top of this page were taken in Dartmoor National park, southwest England, and specifically the areas that are still covered in forest and moss. These places are full of singing birds, clean rivers and lush greenery but also full of damp decaying wood and leaves, mushrooms and mist. On a wet overcast day it can be dark and foreboding, reminding us its good to have a fire and a safe home to return to. On bright sunny days its bursting with life and light and inviting us out into the world to move and create. I believe this dance between movement and rest is an essential part of our nature, the natural world around us and a healthy life.
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I want this website to represent both growth and decay, not just using imagery to represent brightness, lightness, and ascent, but also of darkness, death and rest. In these times our culture seems to put more emphasis on the light, on things being normal and fine, relegating the difficult and darker experiences of our lives into the background, but "what we exile grows hostile". This is why it feels so important to include the dark. This extract from Francis Weller's book The Wild Edge of Sorrow speaks volumes on this:
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"Psyche, we must remember, was shaped by and is rooted in the foundations of nature. As such, psyche also experiences times of decay and death, of stopping, regression, and being still. Much happens in these times that deepen the soul. When all we are shown is the imagery of ascent, we are left to interpret the times of dissent as pathological; we feel that we are somehow failing.”… “ when we are able to see times of loss as inevitable and, in a very real way, necessary, we are able to engage these moments and cultivate the art of living well, of metabolising suffering into something beautiful and ultimately sacred."