My life has been two roads consistently converging into a rather exciting, and, at times, rather messy, one life adventure. One road is my career as a singer-songwriter, and the other road is my career as a therapist. Both lead me into conversations with folks about seeking meaning and direction within our respective lives. Sometimes these end up being rather deep conversations, and other times we might just sit and laugh about how amazing on the one hand, or how messed up things are on the other. All those interactions mean a lot to me. I’ve been the guy people talk to since high school. It’s become my life and I’m a lucky man.
Music—whether listening, writing, or performing—can can be cathartic for us all, much like a killer therapy session. What tends to drive me as a songwriter, and as a therapist, is the fact that I am a hunter of sorts. I’m on the hunt for the silver lining—the “beauty in the breakdown,” to quote Imogen Heap. I’m a songwriter who typically travels the terrain of everyday struggles, and offers a perspective that might help someone connect with what they’re going through and enable them to get through that challenging childhood they’re wrestling with, or cope with realizing they’re not getting any younger, or deal with facing loss and even death. I’m hardwired to do my best to see the world in a way that’s new and liberating. Whether its through a song or an interaction with someone I’m helping, I’m about finding a way to burst open the floodgates of grief, or joy, or passion – so people express and feel something they haven’t felt and couldn’t access before. So folks might see things from a different perspective.
I feel really fortunate to be able to forge meaningful relationships with people — whether as a musician or a therapist—even though, and maybe even because, I’m in as much need of help as anybody else. The bottom line is that the deeper and longer I inhabit someone else’s story, whether through writing a song about someone or knowing them as a therapist, the more I get to experience a connection with my own humanity. My own need for transcendence. It’s about being understood; that’s what we all long for, and, at the same time, can be terrified of. That’s what really lights me up, trying to create opportunities for those kinds of moments.