Welcome to Our World
Al’s Story
By the time you reach your 60s, life has a way of showing you what really matters. At 66, my greatest joy isn’t just the work I do now, but the adults my three children have become, each living their own version of a conscious, wholehearted life.
I was born into a diplomat’s family and grew up moving between countries, Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Jamaica, and England.
Learning to adjust again and again, changing schools, languages, friends, and even the “rules” of what was acceptable, showed me how fragile and arbitrary so much of life actually is.
Watching whole worlds appear and disappear every time we moved made it impossible to believe that reality was only what I could see on the surface, and that’s what left me with a deep sense that there had to be more to life than met the eye, and that quiet sense of “more” pulled me into a long apprenticeship in the body, mind, and spirit.
Over the last 35+ years, I’ve trained in contemporary dance, karate (eventually becoming a 5th Dan sensei), remedial and relaxation massage, structural and craniosacral work, energy healing, and a range of coaching and facilitation modalities inside the worlds of personal development and spiritual awakening.
I’ve run dojos and multidisciplinary clinics, worked alongside doctors and alternative practitioners, and sat with clients navigating everything from chronic pain and burnout to grief, relationship breakdown, and spiritual emergency
The way I work grew out of that life path: that the body is honest, that nothing changes until we take radical responsibility for our inner world, and that genuine spirituality must be lived in the middle of bills, family, and everyday mess, not in some pristine bubble.
The 7 Simple Shifts themselves, though, were not something I “invented” at a desk; they arrived over time as a clear, structured download from higher consciousness, evolving in meditations, on walks, and in quiet moments with clients. They organised everything I’d been teaching into one coherent map.
The longer story of how they came through is in the video below, but what matters most is this: they are a living framework that continues to guide my own life as much as the lives of the people I now walk alongside.
Our Way of Life
These days, life is simple on purpose. My partner Anne and I live in a small house by the ocean in a vibrant New Zealand village, where walks, sea air, and everyday connection matter more than hustle or proving ourselves. We still work, but the old stress and constant striving have been replaced by a quieter rhythm: local shopping, time together, and plenty of beach walks with our dog Molly, who keeps us firmly rooted in the joy of the present moment.
At the heart of it all is one core choice, we put inner alignment first. We organise our days around how life feels, not how it looks from the outside, choosing self‑first living as an act of self‑love rather than selfishness.
The 7 Simple Shifts are woven into this way of life; they’re how we navigate challenges, stay present with each other (and Molly), and keep returning to ease, honesty, and trust in something larger moving through every moment.
Our Philosophy
We don’t believe anyone is broken or needs fixing. What we see, in ourselves and in others, is people who have simply forgotten the truth of who they are under years of expectations, coping strategies, and old stories.
The 7 Simple Shifts are not ideas on a shelf; they are a living, breathing way of moving through life, one conversation, one choice, one breath at a time. We’ve seen, over and over, that small, consistent shifts in how you relate to yourself and your world can quietly transform everything without blowing up your life.
We also believe that real spirituality has to work in real life. It needs to stand up in family dynamics, money worries, health challenges, aging, and ordinary Tuesdays, not just on retreats or in peak moments. That’s why our work is both deeply esoteric and very practical: it points you to something vast and sacred, while giving you grounded tools you can actually use.
Finally, we trust community. Walking this path alongside others who are honest, kind, and awake to their own becoming makes the journey softer, braver, and far more magical than trying to do it all alone.