Tight buds on a branch in soft morning light

Working together

Embodied coaching for people who are already self-expressed and sensing there's more that wants to come alive.

Who this work is for

This work is for those who want to participate in their own becoming — and who would welcome companionship in the process.

It tends to draw people who are tired of feeling like they're always trying to fix or push themselves, and are curious about what it might be like to relate to themselves differently.

“Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
— Søren Kierkegaard

What sessions feel like

Each session follows what's alive for you in the moment, held within what we've agreed on for our work together.

From there, each session begins with what you noticed in the time between, and what's alive for you in the moment.

For example, you might notice you're feeling upset about lack of progress and that you've been avoiding dealing with it. We don't rush to fix or solve these experiences with immediate strategies. That's probably what you've tried before anyway. Instead, we slow down and understand these experiences more deeply. What is the “upsetness” really wanting for you? What is the avoidance protecting you from? As we do this, new self-understanding arises and from that, clarity and new possibilities for action emerge.

What surprises people is how often the resistance itself has the most to tell us.

The avoidance, the upset, the parts of you you'd usually push past — they're playing important roles from their own perspective, and they shift when they're met. Everything is welcome here: frustration, longing, something you've been carrying alone, or aspects of yourself you've kept hidden.

There's no fixed program. We stay in touch with what's arising and follow it as it unfolds. You'll arrive with something that's asking for attention, and leave with a clearer sense of what to do about that next — and a deeper familiarity with yourself in the process.

Themes I often work with

Over the years I've worked with clients across a wide range of issues and life circumstances. Below are some of the territories that have come up repeatedly. Expand any that resonate for some more info.

Some clients arrive after a relationship ends, a role changes, a location shifts, or something inside surfaces that asks for something different. These moments often carry a quality of disorientation — the familiar structures have shifted before the new ones have formed. We give attention to what wants to emerge next in your life, and let clarity arrive in its own time.

For many people, what draws them to this work isn't a clear problem — it's a sense that something in how they're living isn't quite the full version of themselves. In their creative work, their relationships, how they speak or what they choose to pursue: something feels compressed, held back, or not yet found. We give that gap honest attention. What's often discovered is not a new self, but a truer one.

Drawing on my years co-founding Keap Candles and working in corporate strategy and analysis roles, I've worked extensively with founders and creatives who are clear about what they want to build but sense unconscious patterns that get in their own way — self-doubt, distraction, losing trust in their own instincts. We explore the deeper layers beneath those patterns. We also might work on continuing to clarify the evolving vision for their business or creative project, if that's where they want support.

Some of the richest conversations I have with clients live in this territory: the longing for genuine contact, the gap between sexual experience and felt intimacy, shame that's gone underground and stayed there. It's in our relationship to these things that we have often learned to hide, to perform, to shrink. We'll share honest, grounded conversation about what's actually alive for you, without rush or agenda. Giving this aspect of your life time and attention is a life-affirming experience, and it's often where powerful and surprising shifts emerge that ripple out into the rest of your life.

If you're a gay man and this territory is where you're feeling the pull, I wrote more about how I work with gay men specifically here:

→ Coaching for gay men

Sometimes the territory people want to give attention to is a partnership itself — romantic, creative, or business. The patterns each person carries into their relationships surface in our work: what gets defended, what stays unsaid, the places where listening breaks down. We work with those patterns one-on-one, or with partners in the room, and find what's wanting to be expressed underneath. People often come to relational work wanting to give intentional focus and shape to what's already alive and unfolding between them. Co-founders and business partners arrive with the same impulse: to build a partnership that fosters more of what's possible between committed people.

Magnolia blossoms in warm afternoon light

In my clients' words

I asked some of my clients to share what it's like working with me. Here are a few reflections, shared with permission.

Stephen helped me actively develop more self-compassion, clarity about what matters to me, and practical tools for sustaining high performance. He is an incredible resource for helping navigate identity and authenticity alongside personal success in professional life.

— Andrew C., Brooklyn-based entrepreneur

Ways of working together

One-on-one coaching

The primary way I work with clients is through ongoing, conversational sessions, usually weekly or bi-weekly. Most sessions are virtual over Zoom. Some can be held in person in New York City depending on schedule.

Single sessions are $250. Packages are available at a discount for ongoing engagement. A sliding scale is available on a needs basis — just ask if cost is a barrier. All private work begins with a free introductory conversation.

With the right fit, this work can also include partners in the room, in the same conversational format.

Book an introductory call to explore coaching →

Small group work and workshops

From time to time, I open small groups for shared practice and exploration. Themes emerge from my own personal interests and what I'm hearing in one-on-one work.

Group work is announced through my newsletter rather than on this page. If it sounds like something you'd want to know about when it comes around, joining the newsletter is the way to hear first.

I will be hosting a series of in-person workshops on Fire Island this summer, and I am currently planning two workshops for the fall of 2026 — exploring intimacy, the erotic, and navigating relational difference.

Further questions you might have

Most coaching stays in the head — analyzing patterns, making plans. “Embodied” widens the frame. It means attending to your whole experience, not just your thoughts: your feelings, your sensations, the things that are hard to articulate but clearly present. What's happening in you beneath the level of analysis.

In practice, that might look like slowing down to sense into something rather than immediately explaining it, or noticing what a feeling is like from the inside, or having an inner conversation with a part of you that's asking for attention. These are always offered as invitations, never requirements. What they tend to surface is a kind of self-knowledge that purely analytical work misses — and from that, clarity and new possibilities emerge.

That's a common starting point. You may think you're unfamiliar with this open-ended way of working, but you're most definitely not — you've been doing it your whole life from the moment you were born: sensing, acting, learning, adjusting, growing.

Think of it as remembering your innate capacity to problem-solve and grow, the same one you've drawn on your whole life without naming it. The work is to give that capacity room to work, with care.

No. I'm a coach, not a therapist. The work can feel therapeutic, and it draws on practices rooted in therapeutic traditions, but it's not a substitute for therapy. Coaching here focuses on what's alive for you now and on creating possible futures. Therapy more often focuses on healing from the past. The two complement each other well, and many of my clients do both. I'm happy to refer you to a therapist if that's what you need.

A free 60-minute Zoom call where we get a sense of one another and feel out the fit. We'll spend time exploring what's drawing you to this and what you're sitting with. My aim is that you leave with more clarity, even if we determine I'm not the right fit for you.

Start with a conversation

For private work, I suggest we always begin with a free introductory conversation. It's the best way to get to know one another and feel out the fit. I make these sessions a full 60 minutes so they're not rushed, and they give a good sense of what working together is actually like.

Book an intro conversationBook a free introductory conversation