Happiness Counsellor · Author · Speaker
Is happiness always one thing away?
A better job. More money. A relationship. A different body. More success. For work to calm down. For something to finally change. A different version of yourself.
I help people stop making happiness dependent on what happens next.
The bargain we keep making
There is always another condition.
Most of us have some version of the same bargain running quietly in the background.
- When this changes, I will feel better.
- When I have enough, I will relax.
- When I meet the right person, I will be okay.
- When I become the person I think I should be, I can finally enjoy my life.
The details change. The bargain does not. And when one condition is met, the mind is remarkably good at finding another one.
Happiness moves with the finish line.
The work
So what do I actually do?
Bring me the thing your mind has decided needs to change before you can feel okay.
We look at what is actually happening underneath it. Not simply what happened. Not merely the explanation you have repeated a hundred times. But what you are asking reality to give you, what you believe will happen once you get it, and why your ability to feel okay has become tied to that condition.
I am not here to hand you another ten-step system. We look properly. We question what appears obvious. And we see what remains when the usual explanation stops being enough.
- The job.
- The relationship.
- The money.
- The decision.
- The resentment.
- The fear.
- The ambition.
- The version of yourself you are trying to become.
Who this is particularly for
You probably already know the advice.
- Therapy.
- Counselling.
- Coaching.
- Books.
- Courses.
- Podcasts.
- Self-help.
- Gurus.
Some of it may have helped. Some of it may have helped enormously. But knowing more is not always the same thing as living differently.
My work is particularly for people who have reached the strange point where they can explain themselves incredibly well, and are no longer convinced that another explanation is what they need.
I am interested in what remains after you have already been given the advice.
The approach
A sustained assault on self-awareness.
Most of us become extraordinarily good at explaining ourselves.
- Why we are the way we are.
- Why we need what we need.
- Why someone else is the problem.
- Why the next thing matters so much.
The difficulty is that the explanation itself can become something we stop questioning. My work is an attempt to make that harder. Not more self-analysis. Not endlessly digging through your past. A closer examination of the assumptions, identities, demands and bargains operating underneath the life you are already living.
Sometimes the thing worth questioning is the explanation that makes the most sense to you.
A Session With Norwyn
Bring me the thing you cannot stop circling.
- A decision you cannot make.
- A relationship you cannot leave alone.
- Something you cannot forgive.
- A future you are trying to control.
- A version of your life you are convinced will finally make you happy.
Or simply the sense that something needs to change before you can feel okay. Bring me that. We look at one thing properly.
Sessions are R799, one at a time. No programme, no package, and no further sessions unless you actually want them.
This is not about feeling good all the time.
A human life contains grief, fear, anger, disappointment, loss and uncertainty. Nothing I do is about eliminating those, or pretending a happy person never feels them. I am more interested in the additional suffering created when we continually postpone our ability to live until reality finally behaves the way we want it to.
Happiness here is not permanent pleasure. It is not requiring the next thing to happen before life can begin.
The book
Nothing Ever Lasts
Including the person you keep trying to become.
A book about what happens when human beings ask temporary things to provide permanent security. Relationships change. Bodies change. Careers change. Success changes. People leave. We change.
The library
Four books, one subject.
Permanence, expectation, suffering, and how much of it we build ourselves without noticing.
Latest
Nothing Ever Lasts
Demanding permanence from things that were always going to change.
Out of print
We’ve Screwed Up This Life
Making life make sense so you can get on with living it.
Out of print
The Cure for Wellness
The greatest deceptions about our wellbeing.
Out of print
After the Dotted Lines
The art of preventing your customers from ever leaving you.
Free to read
I write most days.
Short pieces on happiness, the mind and the strange ways people get in their own way.
The Daily Letter
A regular letter on the mind and what sits underneath the way people are living. One observation at a time.
SpotifyThe podcast
Short-form thinking on happiness, suffering, performance and freedom. One question at a time.
For organisationsThe Emotional Language Class
A four-week workplace cohort on the stories people believe and the fight they add to difficult feelings.
Speaking
The same subject, to a much bigger room.
Keynotes on happiness, the mind, self-awareness, burnout, stress, expectation and identity. The flagship is A Sustained Assault on Self-Awareness.
What are you waiting for before you let yourself be okay?
You do not need to know the answer before we speak. You only need to know what you keep circling.