Is this all there is?
For men in mid-life who’ve spent years building a life around what was expected of them, and have lost themselves in the process.
Until something cracks: a marriage strains, a milestone birthday comes round, loss or redundancy hits, a child arrives, or a moment simply stops you in your tracks.
And you long for a life that finally feels like your own.
I know this place well.
I'm standing in a windowless room. I'm wearing a suit that doesn't feel like me. My hands are sweating. There are ten people around the table to whom I am trying to sell something: counter-fraud software.
I’m selling counter fraud, but feeling like a fraud. This job had none of me in it. Right in the middle of my pitch, the product failed.
Ten pairs of eyes on me. Humiliated, I fumbled through an apology, gathered my things, walked out of the building, and stood on the pavement outside furious, mostly at myself.
"Is this what my life has come to?"
I'd arrived at that room through a series of junctions where I'd said no to myself and yes to everything and everyone else.
My life had become a performance: “I know who I am and I know what I want.” But I didn't.
I wonder if any of this sounds familiar:
Going through the motions of a life that to others looks fine, but is at odds with what’s going on inside.
Following a path someone else laid down, and wondering whether it was ever yours.
No longer wanting to be defined by a job title, but struggling to see who's there without it.
Having an ache for a bigger, more joyful life.
Wanting to trust our own read on things again, and to feel clear and excited about what’s next.
Back to those junctions.
I have an old photo in my drawer. I am 7 years old, in my grandfather's garden. My grandfather, my father and I, are all carrying swords, standing to attention. Two successful, decorated soldiers and some big boots for me to fill.
These are two giants in my life and I love them both.
Years later I joined the army. To this day I'm not sure how much of that was my own need for their approval, or the path already laid out for me, or to satisfy my own desire for adventure.
I spent those years feeling like an imposter. I went to battlefields to prove my worth, and they were the last place I would ever have found it.
Leaving the army didn’t fix it, though. That windowless room was always going to contain me, unless I looked somewhere other than the next horizon. So I found some wonderful guides and started looking inward.
Now I'm leading men again, but this time in the battlefield of their own psyches. My job is to listen and tell the truth. And I've come alive.
I am also a father to a boy. I want him to see what it looks like when a man lives his own life.
Many of us are asking what our life is for, and we are doing it feeling tired, confused and alone. And because we’re expected to have it figured out by now, we tell everyone we’re fine. Sometimes even ourselves.
We fear making the wrong move and losing people and things we have worked so hard for. But merely maintaining the life we have already built also fills us with dread.
There is a real risk that we reach the end of our lives still performing, and regretting that we didn’t let anyone see or benefit from who we are without the performance, or the armour.
This work is an invitation to look more closely at who that is. And, importantly, do it in the company of other men who are navigating similar waters.
From the Harbour to the Sea
A six month journey into deeper purpose
These days, the image I work with is a harbour and the open sea.
The harbour is the life we build around security, expectation and identity. The sea is the deeper life that calls us beyond it.
This journey is an invitation to adventure beyond the harbour walls and return with a clearer sense of self and what our work in the world is.
Depth before direction.
Witnessed by other men, in partnership with nature and guided by soul.
Soul purpose is something we recognise, follow and live. Live out of step with it for long enough and we start to feel like frauds in our own lives.
Following it can bring you to your knees, to even more uncertainty and to painful goodbyes. It also brings you to a much, much larger life.
Men tend to come away knowing what they want, trusting their next step and taking it. They are more present with the people they love and more able to weather the storms in their lives.
We have to be ready to confront the sea. If you aren't, that's okay. If you are, follow this link to the Journey Page.
I’m Hamish,
For over fifteen years I have worked with people at threshold moments, guiding them to live with more honesty, clarity and courage so they can do their true work in the world.
We look directly at the parts that want security and approval and the parts that want adventure. All of them belong.
Groups are small, no more than six. One-to-one guidance is also available.
This is a deeply experiential journey. It draws on practices people have relied on for thousands of years, like meditation and time alone in wild places, alongside what psychology now understands about why we get stuck.
I’ve served as an officer in the British Army, worked in business across Asia, been made redundant, and worked as a leadership consultant in the UK. That journey has given me a particular understanding of what it means to sense a bigger life calling, and what it takes to answer it.
I live in Somerset and seek out wilderness whenever I can. My deepest wish is that we all find the courage to trade the harbour of security for the wild, open sea of soul.
Reflections from Participants
“I came in feeling lost and like a fraud. Six months later, I’m finally able to embody the change I want to see in myself. ”
“The earth beneath my feet became my greatest guide and support. And I have noticed a subtle growth of assurance in who I am, what I’m doing and where I’m going.”
“I am healthier and fitter in mind, body and spirit, and more committed to their balance than ever before.”
The Harbour Guide
Try The Harbour Guide - A short guide to help you recognise where you are standing in your life and what might be keeping you there.
It includes a self assessment. All you need is twenty quiet minutes.
“In the end the only safety, in this increasingly uncertain world, comes from being willing to risk becoming ourselves more fully.”