Meet Peter — Up Close and Personal

Meet Peter • Up Close and Personal • Coaching for Essential Well-BE-ing

The Question Mark "?" — a metaphysical metaphor that represents my life's journey. Curiosity — the container that supports me to carry my "question mark" with me on my journey. Consciousness — the juicy catalyst that supports the "question mark" to inform my personal growth and development. Without consciousness, my questions had always been about others, "them", and the world "out there."

So, now, guided by consciousness and curiosity, my "question mark" operates at the 50,000-foot level — "Why am I on the planet?" My "question mark" operates at ground level — "Who am I?" and "How am I?" right here, right now, in this moment? My "question mark" operates at all levels in between.

I wasn't sure how I came to be born with my "question mark"; it's really not important. I wasn't clear on how I came to be curious, and that, too, is O.K.

What I do know, is that I was born largely "unconscious." For a major part of my life, I wandered, reactively, through life — being a son, a brother, a student, a friend, a boyfriend, a lover, a husband, a runner, a professional, an artist, a poet ...

...largely reactive — angry, resistant, defensive, isolated, self-hating, frustrated, overwhelmed, fearful, insecure, unfocused, confused...

until two defining moments occurred in my life:

The first happened in 1981 when, having moved into New York City from the suburbs, I took up running. Long story short, my life began to change. On the surface, in a cold-turkey fashion, I eliminated alcohol, red meat, sugar, diet foods and artificial sweeteners from my diet. But more than that, below the surface, I began to experience a more internal sense of well-being. I began to experience what I would later come to understand more deeply as the "mind-body" connection.

However, after some years, while in good physical health, I was still experiencing my dark side, my "shadow self" as negative thoughts, emotions and feelings continued to thread their way through my daily routines. The endorphin "high" that came from running was short-lived. I began to seek for something that would bring a greater and more consistent sense of well being. My search led me to the second defining moment.

In 1992, several years after moving from New York to the end of Long Island, I met my partner, collaborator, playmate and wife (since 1995), Catherine. Catherine had been on a spiritual path for some 20 years; she became the catalyst for the next part of my journey. Never one to proselytize, Catherine introduced me to the spiritual life, to my spiritual self. (You can read more about Catherine )

With her guidance, direction and invitation, I found myself diving into my own personal and spiritual exploration, doing "The Work." I discovered another part of my self, a part that was a stranger, a part that was also born with me...and hidden deep, deep down. From that time until now, I've been doing "The Work" — slowly, methodically and painstakingly — yet lovingly and compassionately to begin to brush away the masks, the lies, the self-deceptions, the fears, the beliefs, the self-images that hid what I have come to know as my True, Real and Authentic Self.

"The Work" was, and continues to be, a self-discovery process which supports me to probe, inquire into, explore, discover, and challenge my Self in a way that allows me to live more consciously in the world and create my life. The work has supported me to understand what it means to "be" and "do" as a whole person — consciously living from an integrated experience where thoughts, sensation, intuitions and feelings arise as part of a unified awareness informing my life and my choices. This is the ever-growing evolution of my lived experience of the integration of body, mind, spirit and emotions.

One of the most important "ahas" I've come upon is that I never could be in an honest, true, real or loving relationship with my Self, or with others, at work, at home or at play, until I learned what it meant to show up authentically. And in order to show up authentically, I needed to get to the source of my unconsciousness — the source of my self-defeating and self-limiting choices that kept me in a caldron where, daily, I experienced a consistent low-level degree of frustration, negativity, resistance, resentment, fear, worry, and jealousy.

I also discovered that I would never experience true and real meaning in my life — at work, at home or at play — until I discovered and explored my inner Heart and my Core Values, and learned how to access my Internal Source of Wisdom which gives me Right Knowing, Right Action and Right Understanding.

Finally, I discovered that for much of my life, I was living someone else's vision, someone else's purpose, someone else's dreams — ping-ponging off a different "someone else" depending on the life-work decision of the day. Half the time, the "someone else" was some person, icon, idol, model "out there" in the world. The other half of the time, the "someone else" was my internal judge and critic operating according to "someone else's" "should" or "should not". I discovered that, unconsciously, I had another closet in my bedroom, not one for clothes, but one for personalities. So, every morning, or evening, I would go into this other closet and put on a personality that I thought would get me through the day, or night. Sadly, I, the True and Real Peter, was seldom in control of my life's choices and decisions.

Up until the time I chose to do the work on my self, I moved through life not unlike a sleepwalker - attended school and earned a Ph.D., worked in various jobs inside and outside academia, started my own consulting company, lived alone for nine years with little to no social contact outside of work, (my "desert time" where I focused on my painting to express my frustrations, anger, sadness, depression), moved into and out of relationships (all failures, including one failed marriage - 13 years), drank to some excess, became addicted to exercising, all the while wondering "Why the hell is the world and everyone in it so screwed up!?" Blaming, finding fault, nagging, whining, bitching, moaning, complaining. Living whatever appearance of happiness I could; never experiencing true, honest and authentic happiness.

So, my work.

After having been introduced to the notion of spirituality and the mind-body-spirit connection in 1986, I began a deeper and more serious undertaking engaging in deep mind-body-spirit study, processes and practices to support my unfolding. Through "The Work," I continued to more deeply see the source of my unconsciousness, see the source of my being an automatic response mechanism, see how my "internal map of reality" — rules, beliefs, values, decisions, strategies, fears, limitations, self-images, world views, assumptions, scripts, programming, even the language I spoke — prevented me from being aware of how I created my life and my life's circumstances. I discovered why, up until 1996, I was creating a life that was largely unhappy and self-destructive.

While engaged in the work, while slowly healing, maturing, transforming and getting in touch with my deeper Inner Source and Self, and desiring to share my experience and learning with others, the coaching profession called to me. I undertook my coaching studies and was certified in 1996.

My life's work is now threefold:

1. To continue "The Work" of my individual evolution and healing through my integrated functioning as I continue my personal journey of lifting the veils and deepening my own SpiritHeart and "Essential Well-BE-ing."
2. To live, learn and love with Catherine and our four cats (who teach us both an enormous amount about joy, relationship and the preciousness of the moment) as together we grow a life of "Essential Well-BE-ing."
3. To support the evolution and healing of humanity through developing the understanding and processes of Coaching for "Essential Well-Be-ing" and its application in support of the integrative functioning and awareness that allows people to utilize the intelligence of their body-mind-spirit and emotions as guidance for growing their True and Real Self and their own SpiritHeart and "Essential Well-BE-ing."

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