About Daniel...

Over the past few years I have been looking back more closely at my early formative years to understand the drivers of some of my habitual responses that kept showing up in disruptive ways in my relationships. I was born in London into a turbulent dysfunctional family. My mum committed suicide when I was 5, a final step that concluded a series of leavings that were themselves the culmination of periods of extreme disturbance, emotion and fury. My dad also suffered from depression and would withdraw to paint or sleep. What I learned way back then were ways to keep myself safe in an environment that felt anything but. I discovered that if I was helpful, good, compliant, didn't fuss, was capable and responsible, the adults around me appreciated me, noticed me, loved me. And that felt good, better than worrying about my mum - was she sad or angry, my dad - was he sad or .. or what, and my younger brother - was he hungry or wet?

It is no surprise that this early conditioning, these childish strategies, still sat at the core of my psyche. As a 3 year old I learned that if I could make my mum smile and laugh - experience happiness and joy, then if she was sad or angry it must be because I was not doing a good enough job. And the fact that she left (and took my brother with her) was proof that I had failed her in some way.  So fast-forward 15 years to girlfriends and a similar pattern emerged. My attention was out - scanning my environment, checking, checking, checking. How is she responding, what does her response mean, how can I make myself be more acceptable to her, how can I make her like me, appreciate me, love me? Growing up in the rise of the feminist movement fitted really well. The women I was in relationship with seemed to want an attentive, caring, sensitive, compliant man; skills I had spent my life honing. But there was a downside to this strategy - I was completely disconnected from myself. I had no idea, could not feel, was detached from what was actually true for me.

There was a part of me that was continually seeking to merge with a woman. To regain an existential state of bliss that I knew fleetingly from when I was nestled in the bosom of my mum - when there was no separation, there was just an undifferentiated love-bubble. In that place Daniel did not exist and that felt like Heaven. And this Nirvana is what I wanted and so began a lifelong search for it. Many years of seeking followed, looking for an elusive something, some exultant, conscious expanding, psychedelic magical mystery that blasts me heavenwards towards the ultimate union - with God. Some wise person once said that the truth is right in front of my nose, upfront and personal, not out there as some thing to be discovered or possessed. And so it was. I hit a time in my late thirties when everything fell apart, pretty much all of the things I could point to that defined me, including my marriage fell apart.

What I have been learning, sometimes painfully, over the past 15 years, has been that I just have to stay right here. The more intimate I am with my experience of life in each moment, the more awe inspiringly magnificent it is in its ordinariness. Kate and I have been engaged in an exploration of how it is to be these weirdly wonderful, mortal humans moving through this landscape of consciousness manifesting. This work that we do with couples has been arising from our experience of awakening as embodied consciousness.

It was the difficulty I experienced in my relating with Kate that lead me to Somatic Experiencing, a body-based psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr Peter Levine, for working with the effects of trauma. This approach has been incredibly effective in helping me to free-up the energy bound up in un-resolved and incomplete responses to traumatic events. Inspired by the impact this approach had on my life I have spent the past 8 years learning these body-based approaches and using them in my work with people. Understanding how our nervous systems work, learning how our minds operate, and working from the ground of presence has been a potent blend. 

Apart from working with couples, I run detox retreats one week a month. Here I get to work with a broad cross-section of humanity who come to us because they have reached a point in life where they recognise that they need to stop, take stock of where they are, and from there look afresh at their lives. They share a commitment to their own process, they dare to stop running in the hamster wheel of life and question. They are inspiring. Check out our website here:  Sura Detox.

I also work with individuals as a therapist, supporting people in unwrapping the effects of chronic stress and trauma. You can find more details about that here: DanielJohnsonSomaticWork.com 

I have found writing a bio quite challenging - compressing my 63 years into a few paragraphs. What to include, what to leave out? What is revealing itself is a life-long committment to exploration that has taken me down many nooks and crannies. I find myself with an expanding sense of calling to work with people and share some of the insights and skills I have picked up along the way. I am blessed to be supported and inspired in my journey by my spiritual teacher Adam. He reminds me to be here, now, experiencing in this moment as it arises.

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