About Richard
Welcome to this introduction about me and my type of coaching. I’m so pleased you are considering a coaching partnership for your current journey, whatever that might be.
Snapshot
I have a BA in Psychology, with additional specialized courses in mental health and motivational interviewing. I am nearing completion of my certification as a Jungian Coach from the Jung Platform.
For over 35 years I was a manager, executive, or board member in the business and non-profit sectors. These roles were working with people and I learned that my greatest satisfaction comes from seeing others grow and thrive.
I have two published books on beauty, and a life-long love for writing, poetry, and design. I think beauty has a unique ability to open us to wonder and joy.
My wife says I am the most non-judgmental person she has ever met. This is because I stive to understand people, their motivations, and challenges; and I know that most people are carrying a heavy load or facing a difficult challenge.
Those who have observed my coaching say I’m compassionate, calm, and deeply empathetic.
Who Do You Work Best With?
I work especially well with people navigating mid-life transitions, burnout, and other life transitions.
I have tremendous compassion for people struggling with the disorientation of faith in flux: whether you are deepening, questioning, leaving, or simply trying to live out your faith tradition.
I work patiently and quietly with people who are highly sensitive — those who have always felt things more intensely than society tends to allow.
I work enthusiastically with vision-driven professionals who have poured themselves into meaningful work and are unexpectedly exhausted, adrift, overboard, or marooned.
To use a canoeing analogy, imagine a canoeist who has been a long time in the wilderness. They round a bend in the stream and find themselves facing a massive beaver dam, forced to stop and consider their options. They look around at all the pooling water, the flooded forest, the eroding river banks. Everything feels waterlogged, the flow has stopped, and they wonder, “what now?”
That is such hard and wonderous moment for most people, but often they are overly focused on the hardness, rather that the wonder.
I know how this feels. After 24 years as a leader in a non-profit organization, I reached a place like that. It was a reality I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge — complicated working relationships, endless administration duties, feeling burned out, and seeing the slow erosion of my will to go on.
What followed was one of the most disorienting, but ultimately clarifying, passages of my life. A single dream, a letter I wrote to a teacher from my past, a therapist who asked, quietly, whether I’d ever considered doing this work myself, and within a few months I was back in the flow again, paddling with renewed energy and enthusiasm.
Parts
I believe there are no bad parts in us. No broken pieces or irreparable wounds. I see parts that have been working very hard, for a very long time, to keep us safe or to get our needs met. There are some wounds for sure, some of them healed, some not, but flowing through it all is a hidden unity, something that makes you, you.
And that is where stream work begins. Your True Self.
My Type of Coaching
Jungian Coaching is named after Dr. Carl Gustav Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology.
I came to Jung early — as a young writer, reading his biography with the half-suspicious fascination of someone who suspects a door might open there.
Life took me elsewhere for a very long time. I went to University, got married, had a family, forged a career. In my spiritual life I moved from the deep rituals of Anglicanism, through a period of evangelical faith, agnosticism, and eventually found a quiet spirituality that has helped me find my way.
Coaching comes naturally to me. I have always loved to encourage people and see them thrive. My philosophy of management was shaped by my faith, by my exploration of Buddhist ideas, and by holding to a clarity about what is, and is not, within my control.
My coaching practice builds on this experience and I went back to that door I sensed as a young man. The Jungian method is a strong theme that runs through my work, and ties in to the theme of the two books I wrote for Adam’s Media.
The thread that connects all of it? — There is beauty in some things and some people that comes from the hard knocks of existence. There is a beauty in the way things grow to accommodate disease and adversity. Semi-arid steppe lands and alpine meadows contain hardy plants adapted to the harsh conditions. Sometimes their beauty is obvious, and sometimes it takes some work to appreciate them. I’m good at seeing this kind of beauty, in nature and in people.
You do not have to be a polished version of yourself to be worthy or ready or able.
Sometimes it takes deliberate work with others to see our own beauty, however, and that is part of my coaching style. You can be yourself with me, and know that I will be looking for the beauty, the gifts, and the unique self that is calling you forward to greater things.
Details About My Qualifications
BA in Psychology - University of Victoria
Certificate in Jungian Coaching, The Jung Platform (completing Sept 2026)
24 years in management and executive positions at Island Crisis Care Society
Core Motivational Interviewing training and certification from John Burke
Mental Health & Addictions I & II - Shelternet
Author, Wabi Sabi Simple and Wabi Sabi for Writers
Diploma in Creative Writing - David Thompson University Centre
Certificate in Biblical Studies - Covenant Bible College
Where and When
I offer coaching in person or via video conferencing. I have a home office for sessions in Nanaimo. I’m available Monday and Tuesday, from 9 am to 8:00 pm, Pacific Time.
Book a 15 minute Q&A session with me here: https://cal.com/stillstream
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