My path into this work began unexpectedly.

In 2012, after leaving a military academy and returning home feeling lost, without direction, I began spending long days in libraries and coffee shops searching for something that made sense of the questions I was carrying. During that time I stumbled upon my first book on Taoism. Raised in a strict Catholic environment, Taoist philosophy felt like discovering an entirely new language, one that spoke directly to something intuitive and deeply human within me. It was clean, direct, and free of guilt or pressure. That moment opened the door to a long and ongoing exploration of Eastern philosophy and contemplative practice.

Soon after, a deep curiosity about the world led me to spend a year traveling through Sweden, Italy, and Greece through cultural work exchanges. Living among travelers from dozens of different cultures and backgrounds reshaped how I understood perspective, conditioning, and identity. Those conversations taught me humility and revealed how much wisdom exists when we are willing to listen across differences.

In the years that followed, nature became one of my greatest teachers. I spent four seasons working as a bear and fly-fishing guide in the remote wilderness of Alaska, often seeing more than 100 bears in a single day and standing just feet from full-grown grizzlies along salmon rich rivers. Flying by bush plane into areas deep into grizzly country with no roads and no exits taught me a deep respect for presence, awareness, and the intelligence of the natural world, all qualities that continue to shape how I hold space for others today.

That curiosity eventually led me deeper into nature-based traditions and plant medicine work, including time spent in Central America where I studied with traditional healers in the jungles of Costa Rica. Those experiences awakened a profound reverence for ceremony, for the intelligence of the natural world, and for the ancestral wisdom that lives within many Indigenous traditions.

Over time I came to understand that the deepest teachings were not meant to be collected or spoken about, but embodied. Life eventually offered a powerful integration of those lessons. After building a technology and training company, a series of events forced me to shut the business down and file for bankruptcy. It was one of the most disorienting and challenging periods of my life, yet it became one of the most transformative. During that time meditation and endurance running became anchors, simple practices that taught me how to remain present through uncertainty and rebuild my life one step at a time.

That chapter ultimately led me to formally study meditation through the Dharma Moon and Tibet House Meditation Teacher Training program, where I spent hundreds of hours studying Buddhist psychology and contemplative practice. As the world entered the upheaval of the pandemic, I found myself holding meditation spaces for others navigating their own uncertainty.

Along the way I continued expanding my studies through personal development work with Tony Robbins and Chloe Madanes, as well as through the modern men’s work movement, which explores the relationship between masculine and feminine energies within individuals and society. These teachings helped illuminate how psychological patterns, cultural conditioning, and emotional literacy shape our relationships with ourselves and each other.

Today, my work integrates these diverse influences, meditation, endurance practice, philosophy, men’s work, nature immersion, and ceremonial traditions, into grounded spaces for reflection, healing, and growth.

Co-founding Return to Rhythm feels like a natural continuation of the journey that began many years ago. In many ways, the person I became through my experiences in Costa Rica is the same person who now helps guide retreats there.

At the heart of my work is a simple belief:

Human beings are part of the natural world, not separate from it.

When we slow down enough to listen, to our bodies, to each other, and to the living systems around us, we begin to rediscover the rhythms that have always guided human life.

My role is simply to help create the conditions where that remembering can happen.