Garrett’s Life Vision
Updated: August 2024
Prayer
I have everything I need right now. Everything I need is here in this moment. Spirit, please guide me to the places you want me to be, with the people you want me to be with, doing the things you want me to do. Take me in service of your will and write this life vision through me. Help me remember that writing this at all is a big step to be celebrated regardless of what happens.
Mission
My mission is reconnection and cultural repair. I embody my gifts when I am most connected to self, people, nature, and spirit.
Village Building School
My children are raised in a deep nature connected and multigenerational community in the West Coast of Canada. We are living on 300-500 acres of land surrounded by a wild park area. The purpose of the community is to run a village building school that focuses primarily on deep nature connection (8 Shields & Animas Valley curriculum), deep human connection (Authentic Relating and Circling), and grief ritual (Malidoma/Sobonfu Somé lineage). The school has a 9 month immersion program for adults where students live here while deepening connection with nature, humans, and ancestors/spirit. Core approaches we use are 8-shields, circling/authentic relating, grief ritual, forum, and compassionate inquiry. The mentors mostly live on site and are deeply embedded in my children’s life. We are a “fake it til’ you make it” village practicing regular men’s circles, women’s circles, forum, sharing food together that always comes with gratitude and prayer. There are annual rites of passage for youth and adults, which are open to the public. My children will grow up surrounded by uncles, aunts, mentors, elders and other children all living deeply connected with each other, the earth, and our ancestors/spirit.
Every night there is a central fire where the stories of the day are caught, where people coming home from traveling adventures are welcomed back and their stories are caught. There is a culture of catching each other's stories of the day and the main ones rising to the top for the community to hear around the fire. Playing music together, crafting, ancestral skills, and sharing gratitudes around the evening fire. It’s not mandatory, it’s just a part of the flow. There is a beautiful space to host workshops, yoga, breathwork, and weekend retreats. This is a common space to host people coming through on speaking tours. There is also a wide varieties of activities around personal development, conscious relationships, eros, sexuality, breathwork, dance, bodywork, plant medicine ceremonies, and other cool things. Schools that inspire this vision are Wisdom of the Earth, Tracker School, Animas Valley Institute, Wilderness Awareness School, Teaching Drum, Tamera Healing Biotope, Wilderness Torah, Orphan Wisdom School, and Esalen Institute.
Way of life
I am living with my partner and children in a house with lots of sunlight and nature around. I have a separate small cabin nestled in the woods where I work in deep solitude, heated by a wood stove, with a pull up bar and weights, small kitchen to host a friend privately for dinner, lots of sunlight, windows all around to let in the sound of the birds - the view embodies a perfect sit spot. My mornings are spent non-verbally in a sadhana practice of breathwork, yoga, meditation, sitspot, and prayer. Followed by 2-hours of deep undistracted work. Then in the later morning I transition into mentoring or coaching/counselling calls. 2-3 days per week are spent doing coaching/counselling work and 2-3 days are spent mentoring the adult immersion and youth programs for the village building school. Evenings and weekends are spent in the West and NorthWest mode, feeding my relationships and Being.
I have epic brothers in my life that are ambitious, heart centered, integral, sensual, warriors. We regularly sit in sweat lodge and other ceremonies together, go on sacred hunts and share the meat with our families and community. We are tracking the boys and young men in the community, talking about them, setting up rites of passages for them, mentoring them, and giving them blessings. When a brother from outside the community is visiting, he is welcomed to sit in our weekly circle. Hunting is a core pillar that bonds us and the younger men.
Conscious Corporate Empire
My main income is coming from my corporate coaching practice. This has a simple business model that generates high income. I can work online while living in the forest and tending to the village building school. I am coaching and teaching authentic relating/circling skills to the world’s most powerful/influential corporate, academic, and government leaders. I am also offering annual in-person expensive retreats for these leaders that include ingredients of nature connection, plant medicine, wilderness rites of passage, and circling/authentic relating, and compassionate inquiry. Bridging some of them into the world of the village building school. My main anchored income comes from an embedded coaching gig with 1-3 company clients at a given time each paying $200-300 USD per hour. I also run a Conscious Communication Mastery cohort every trimester of the year with max 8 people per cohort paying $2,000-5,000 USD each. I have successfully filled an 8-person cohort completely with F500 executives who will leave with fundamental AR/Circling skills. The CCM and High EQ Team Building workshops are the way in, and landing embedded coaching gigs for myself or other coaches is the big $. Building an empire of conscious personal development leaders disrupting the workplace with badass conscious, heart centered, mission. Executives that take this CCM training realize that their whole team needs this and make the “level 1” 5-week course a mandatory training for their executives and managers to have the basic skill sets of conscious communication principles. Think of some combination between the Conscious Leadership Group, ALMA Coaches, the Connection Institute, and School of Lost Borders. My coaching clients receive compassionate inquiry from me to become more self aware of their childhood trauma and how it is limiting their present moment experience. I have a personal assistant to support me with all the logistical stuff in my business.
The man I am becoming
The man I am becoming is actively working on cleaning up his addictions, coping mechanisms, and behaviours that are no longer serving him. Some of these include using food as a coping mechanism (emotional eating, binge eating, over eating, sugar, etc), leaky sexual energy with sisters, self centered attitude always looking for what he can take from others, procrastination/avoidance of uncomfortable actions that are good for him, people-pleasing/fawning/withholding. The man I am becoming has an attitude of looking for how he can feed/tend/give to his relationships (human and non-human). He has as a strong priority on his morning ‘not-sucking-today’ sadhana as a devotion to spirit/universe to help spirit move through his thoughts, actions, behaviors, feelings, words, decisions, visions. This practice includes ingredients such as breathwork, yoga, meditation, and prayer. He is a skillful hunter that is deeply connected with earth, spirit, and mystery. He practices the core routines from 8-sheilds in his daily life and relationships to embody the 8-attributes. These routines include sit spot, ancestral skills, tracking, bird language, gratitudes, wandering, story of the day, mapping, music, storytellers mind, expanding the senses, etc. He regularly spends his free time with his brothers in sweat lodge, ceremony, planning rites of passage for young men in community, tracking the lives of young men in the community, and going on sacred hunts together. Hunting is a centerpiece in my relationship with his brothers.
The partner/father/uncle/teacher/mentor I am becoming… has strong support systems outside of his partnership to emotionally hold him, call him out on his shit, and keep him accountable. Brothers and older people are tracking his life. He’s in an active long term men’s group, receiving regular therapy, in close relationship with at least three solid mentors at least 10 years older. He prioritizes taking care of his body and regulating his nervous system through exercise, breathwork, yoga, meditation, and sit spot. He is deeply connected with nature and regularly practicing the core routines.
Timeline:
Fall 2024
Rising Hawks Leadership Program at Thriving Roots Wilderness School term 1/3.
Masters in Counselling Psychology term 2/7.
West Coast Circling: 4-5 immersions (add Vancouver).
Hunting trips x 3
Winter 2025
Rising Hawks Youth Program at Thriving Roots Wilderness School term 2/3.
West Coast Circling: 5 immersions (add Victoria), launch apprenticeship cohort, launch first online immersion.
Village Building School: Launch website for people to register for the 9-month weekend immersion
Grief ritual on Salt Spring Island
Spring 2025
Rising Hawks Youth Program at Thriving Roots Wilderness School term 3/3
Masters in Counselling Psychology term 3/7
Summer 2025
Art of Mentoring
Masters in Counselling Psychology term 4/7
Big fishing trip in Ucluelet
Fall 2025
Launch 9-month Village Building School program beta (9 weekends)
Big hunting trip in Northern BC
Masters in Counselling Psychology term 5/7
West Coast Circling: 5 immersions, apprenticeship cohort, and an online immersion.
Winter 2026
West Coast Circling: 5 immersions, apprenticeship cohort, and an online immersion.
Spring 2026
Masters in Counselling Psychology term 6/7 - Practicum
Summer 2026
Conceive our baby!
Masters in Counselling Psychology term 7/7 - Practicum
Fall 2026
Start counselling work with the RCC designation
2027-2028
Our baby is born!
Purchase land with CoHo BC
Launch full immersion