The Front Yard Tree

MENTORING

One-on-One Mentoring

To help you get a sense of what it's about, I offer you a description below

Welcome to my mentoring work

In the spirit of my many teachers, I’ve tried to offer something original here — something that meets the times we live in with creative freshness and heart. While always a work in progress, this approach has been years in the making — shaped by my own experiences undertaking similar kinds of work with my teachers and mentors. At the center of it all is something I call a Quest — a way of honoring our deep need for growth, meaning, and the call to live an epic, engaged life.

What is a Quest?

A Quest is a focused, time-bound mentoring journey — a collaborative container designed to support deeper exploration of a particular theme, question, or area of growth. Rather than open-ended sessions, a Quest is an intentional arc:

  • A set number of sessions;

  • Over a defined period of time;

  • For a set cost.

 

Each Quest is co-created around your current interests, challenges, or stirrings — and comes with customized materials, practices, and invitations tailored to your unique process. These might include readings, writing prompts, somatic and creative practices, ritual elements, and more.

Quests offer meaningful commitment: with enough structure to support transformation and enough spaciousness to honor your pace and unique process.  

 

Whether you’re navigating a threshold moment, longing to reconnect with something lost, or simply want a grounded way to deepen your personal work, a Quest creates a vessel for insight, embodiment, and change.

A Template-Not a Rule

The Quest format is just one way we can work together. While many of us benefit from structure at key moments, it’s not something we all need all the time. There are seasons when a clear path and rhythm can be deeply supportive—and others when what’s needed most is spaciousness, rest, or open-ended exploration. This approach honors that ebb and flow, recognizing that structure is a resource we can lean into when the timing is right, not a permanent requirement.  

 

For those drawn to a less structured rhythm, I continue to offer open-ended mentoring as well.

 

That said, the Quest model was created with a particular kind of alchemy in mind. It invites your creativity, intuition, and lived experience into the process. It’s not a top-down teaching — it’s a co-crafted path where what you learn becomes a living expression of your own voice and timing.

When you do the work of your Quest, you’re already giving something back. The insights you gain, the questions you wrestle with, and the practices you develop — they ripple outward. Your inner journey becomes a real-world contribution, simply by having been walked with care.

 

And, If you choose, you can also offer a version of your Quest to others if    you choose. This becomes a “self-guided” version, a traceable map for fellow travellers navigating similar terrain. In this way, the learning becomes collective, rooted in real-time experience, and responsive to the moment we’re in.

 

This approach also honors the many ways we each arrive at this work — with different resources, capacities, and timing. Someone with the means to invest in a personalized Quest might help seed a self-guided version that becomes accessible to others who can only afford a membership. Over time, the tables may turn — and the web deepens. This is how we might begin to grow a mutually supportive ecosystem of learning, reflection, and contribution — one that is regenerative on all levels, including financially.

 

Whether you’re drawn to a Quest, a more organic mentoring rhythm, or simply curious for now, this is a place to get a sense of things.  So take a look below and read a bit about my approach and how to engage.

What it is not

It’s not therapy. While I practiced the art of psychotherapy for almost twenty years, the development of whatever skills I have to help others on their journey was not undertaken to become “a therapist”. Being a social worker and a therapist have offered incredible opportunities to share with so many people from all over the world and in many cases, rich and meaningful relationships developed. Yet I have been on my own journey with therapists, mentors, teachers and teachings of many kinds, to whom I continually sought (and seek) guidance. Suffice it to say, that in the depth of my own searching, I reached for something that had yet to be imagined by me nor by the vast majority of the culture that I am living in. I had to. From that, over time, I grew an expanded vision of what supporting others involved beyond what the society’s meaning of “therapy” could include. So it’s not therapy.

 

It’s not for everyone; nothing is.

 

It’s not for solving anything urgent.

What it is working towards

 

  • A human-to-human, soul-to-soul journey — where both mentor and mentee recognize they are engaged in the shared, often vulnerable struggle with identity, meaning, and belonging.

 

  • An understanding rooted in the acceptance that this struggle is both universal and natural — yet shaped by the unique and complex challenges of our time.

 

  • A mutual journey of remembering that the sharing of knowledge and the nurturing of others’ growth has been a central, enduring human concern across all cultures and times.

 

  • An understanding that each one of us inhabits a unique place in the Big Story of Life, and that the diversity of these “unique places” is far greater than any one of us can fully imagine.

 

  • My intention is to support the mentee in an honest way, according to my place in the journey, with the hope that some threads of knowledge and support might uplift and empower them—always with the understanding that all gifts bloom according to natural processes.

 

  • An understanding that each mentee is responsible for their own journey—and for engaging in deep, thoughtful questioning about what forms of knowledge and support are truly right for them at any given time.

 

  • A world that honors whatever in us is willing to try to grow towards our nobility, embodying courage and steadfastness in our bodies, minds, and souls.

 

What does it include?

  • The foundation of every session is the art of conversation and open-ended exploration. While we focus on specific areas of one’s life, this is done with the understanding that open-ended, playful conversations often have the greatest capacity to uncover veins of wisdom and connection. We leave room for a full spectrum of emotions and experiences, always tending to the present moment. We allow space for both grief and praise, honoring the complexity of the journey.

 

  • A guided onboarding process to help you gradually deepen your work with me.

 

  • The possibility for personalized “quests” designed to address specific areas of life that you’re interested in developing. These quests combine decades of study and personal experience from my own journey. They come in all shapes and sizes, tailored to your needs. Think of them as “homework meets the epic imagination” and structured in unique ways that build off our conversations and your current place in life. We balance open-ended exploration with ‘quests’ that provide energy and direction to our unfolding imagination.

 

  • Mentoring for coaches, therapists and somatic practitioners.

 

  • Optional personalized, private online learning environment.

Onboarding Guidelines

At every stage, you are encouraged to ask, “Is this a good fit for me?” That question is always welcome here.

Step 1: Email Request for Consultation

Send an email sharing a bit about what’s calling you to mentoring, and the
questions or themes you’d like to explore.

I’ll respond within a few days with the next steps.

Step 2: Schedule Free 1-Hour Consultation

We’ll meet on Zoom for an initial conversation where you can share your interests, ask questions, and get a feel for how we might work together. If it feels like a good fit, we’ll explore next steps. That could include designing a focused “Quest” — a short series of sessions (often at a discounted rate) centered around a specific theme or area of growth — or taking a more open-ended approach with individual sessions that unfold organically.

Step 3: Co-Create a Plan

Together, we’ll explore the direction, resonance, and shape your journey might take—tailoring the number of sessions and focus to match your needs.

This could unfold as an open-ended series of individual sessions, or as a “Quest”: a short, intentional arc of work around a specific theme or area of growth, often offered at a discounted rate.

Depending on what feels right, your journey might include guided readings, self-reflective practices, movement, visualization, ritual, archetypal and somatic work, creative exploration, and more—all tuned to where you are now, and to the level of challenge that supports your unique process.

Step 4: Private Shared Learning Space (optional)

Depending on what we decide, I’ll create a private space within The Front Yard Tree where your materials live and where we can interact privately and creatively. It’s a ‘just for us space’, not available to anyone else.

Mentoring Offerings

Offering Description Price
1-Hour Individual Session A single, focused mentoring conversation $200
1.5-Hour Individual Session Deeper, wider session space $250
3-Session Exploration Bundle 3 one-hour sessions to explore direction $500
1-6 Month "Quests" Set number of sessions with set price Ask me in our initial conversation
Or some other creative arrangement we come up with together!

Onboarding Guidelines

At every stage, you are encouraged to ask, “Is this a good fit for me?” That question is always welcome here.

Step 1: Email Request for Consultation

Send an email sharing a bit about what’s calling you to mentoring, and the questions or themes you’d like to explore.

I’ll respond within a few days with the next steps.

Step 2: Schedule Free 1-Hour Consultation

We’ll meet via Zoom to explore your interests, ask questions, and feel into our potential fit. If it feels aligned, we’ll discuss moving forward with a three-session exploration bundle or another agreed upon path.

Step 3: Co-Create a Plan

We’ll explore direction, resonance, and the shape your journey might take—tailoring the number of sessions and the content to fit your needs.

This can include readings, self-reflective work, visualization, ritual, archetypal work, somatic tools, creative explorations, and more. It’s all based on where you’re at and finding the right level of challenge that aligns with your unique process.

Step 4: Private Shared Learning Space

If you move into a Quest, I’ll create a private space within The Front Yard Tree where your materials live and where we can interact creatively. It’s a ‘just for us space’, not available to anyone else.

Mentoring Offerings

Keep Exploring!

And see if something here speaks to you.

Home

Begin Here

A Vision

Meeting the Times with an Epic Imagination

Join TFYT

Where we gather

About Chris

Meet the hands and heart behind the work

Growing the Sprout!

Our Fundraiser