The Moment Before You Respond
When something touches a sensitive place, a response often assembles itself before you have chosen anything: the defense, the explanation, the message you know you shouldn’t send, the decision you put off for one more week. It arrives so fast and with such conviction that it feels like you, and like an accurate reading of the situation.
The first thing that changes in my work is not the response. It is the recognition that a response is being prepared, and that preparation is not yet a decision.
Imagine someone saying something that immediately feels like criticism. Before you have even considered what they meant, you can already feel yourself preparing to defend, explain, or withdraw. The reaction feels almost inevitable. But what happens if, for just a moment, you recognize that preparation without acting on it?
That interval, between what your history prepares and what you choose, is where I work with people. Nothing in it asks you to suppress what you feel, argue yourself into a better thought, or rewrite your past. A memory can remain part of your history without remaining the lens you see through.
A Path of Inquiry and Experience
My work with people began in 1995, when I trained in transformational coaching and leadership development.
In 2006, I became Director of the Leadership Program at Mastery in Transformational Training (MITT).
In 2010, I presented the emerging ideas behind Thinking in Images in a workshop in Hacienda Heights, California.
In 2026, I published the 10th Anniversary Edition of Thinking in Images: A Path to Being, reflecting the continued development of this work.
The book behind the work. It looks at how memory, emotion and identity shape what we experience as reality, and what becomes possible when we begin to notice the difference.
