My Writing
As a trauma therapist, leadership consultant, military officer, and Zen student, I am dedicated to helping people live more fully and authentically — including myself. My work, and now my writing, explores the profound connection between our inner world and our outer impact. I publish two Substack newsletters exploring care,
presence, leadership, and the meaning we find in everyday life.
Follow the Writing
If these themes resonate with you, you can subscribe to receive new essays by email.
Subscribe to Uncommon Care – reflections on trauma-informed leadership, care, and systems
Subscribe to Uncommon Meeting – reflections on presence, art, and everyday experience
My Two Substacks: Companion Paths
These two Substacks are companion pieces — one focused on how we care for people and systems, the other on how we meet and find meaning in everyday moments.
Both ask the same question from different angles:
How do we show up for life with more presence, wholeness, and love?
Together, they explore how care and attention shape our inner lives, our relationships, and the meaning we make of everyday moments.
1. Uncommon Care: Toward a Kinder Existence
Compassion in practice — for leaders, helpers, and humans.
This page explores how we care for ourselves, look after one another, and shape the cultures and systems that hold us. Through reflections on trauma-informed practice, leadership, mindfulness, and healing, I examine care across levels — from self, to relationships, to culture, and climate.
What you’ll find
Writings that integrate psychology, trauma-informed care, military service, and leadership development. I explore the connections between our nervous system, our internal stories, and our external impact.
You’ll find practical insights for:
regulating your nervous system
leading with clarity and compassion
building relationships rooted in dignity and care
sustaining yourself in helping roles
Core belief
The highest calling is to meet our circumstances and one another with love — and to participate in the slow, steady movement toward wholeness, both personally and professionally.
2. Uncommon Meeting: Finding Lessons in Every Moment
Presence in practice — discovering meaning in art and everyday life.
This Substack is an invitation to radical presence: bringing embodied attention and deep attunement to the everyday. It rests on the belief that every moment holds a profound lesson.
What you’ll find
Reflections on awareness and genuine engagement that allow us to be transformed by what we encounter. Here, I look to art, literature, cinema, music, and lived experience for wisdom.
One post might explore what a film reveals about grief; another might reflect on a line of poetry that changes how we listen to a loved one. This is an exploration of what happens when we uncommonly meet the world as it is.
Core belief
When we meet the world with unwavering attention, we discover the transformative power of ordinary moments.
Which One Should You Read?
Choose Uncommon Care if you want:
Practical insights for leadership, relationships, and helping roles
Trauma-informed perspectives on behavior and systems
Tools for regulation, resilience, and growth
Reflections on care across levels — self, relationships, culture, and climate
Choose Uncommon Meeting if you want:
Reflections on art, literature, and film
Practices for presence and deep noticing
Philosophical insights from everyday life
A slower, more contemplative way of seeing
Read both if:
You believe growth requires both intentional care and deep attention to the world around you.
A Final Word
My hope is that the observations from my journey — both personal and professional — offer companionship and support as you find your own path.
Much of this work is guided by a simple idea: care grows outward — from how we tend to ourselves to the cultures we create together.
I hope you will join me in this conversation.
Thank you for reading.
- Ryan