Hi, I'm Libby.

I was born in Melbourne, Australia, to an Australian mother and Russian-Yugoslav father. Our family moved to Hobart, Tasmania, when I was nine. At 17, I left home and returned to Melbourne. Entering university as a 21-year-old "mature-aged" student I worked four part-time retail clothing jobs to support myself through a Bachelor of Arts with majors in Politics and Philosophy.

 

After graduating I joined Telecom — a telecommunications monolith that employed 96,000 people at the time. A love of writing landed me a Courseware Development position in the training division, which led to post-graduate qualifications and work in Instructional Design followed by subsequent roles managing projects and teams.

 

As a Learning and Development Manager I saw how often employee training programs were a misguided attempt to address different, deeper, organisational issues. This realisation led me to the Graduate Diploma in Organisational Change and Consulting at RMIT — a progressive and highly-experiential program led by Naomi Raab and Sallyann Miller — the premise of which was that one had to know change to lead change. It was an intensely personal learning experience. Looking back now, my heart swells in gratitude for that wild journey and those two intrepid souls.

​

2001 was a time of transition. During my 11 years with Telstra/Telecom, the company had entered a competitive market and culled 60,000 people from its workforce, the impact of which had become increasingly difficult to witness. Round upon round of 'cost-cutting' brought emotional distress for dismissed staff and enlarged workloads for those who remained. I saw senior managers with 30 years service  — their role suddenly deemed 'redundant'  — be summarily marched from their offices under secure escort, often by a member of their own team. Eventually, the ethical dissonance became too much for me, and, with the help of a gentle Gestalt therapist, I resigned.  My next steps were entirely unclear, so I took a six-month sabbatical, which included a long solo road trip and a good deal of quiet contemplation.

 

In 2002, I ventured into self-employment, first as a contract Instructional Designer, and shortly thereafter as an Organisational Development Consultant under the business name, Making Meaning. As Making Meaning, both independently and with trusted colleagues, I consulted to leaders and teams in all kinds of workplaces, helping to generate learning, growth and change. The scope of my work varied but was always, essentially, relationship-based. I approached organizational challenges from a people-first perspective, helping leaders and team members to break through the wall of 'business-as-usual' and have courageous conversations which facilitated connection and created lasting positive change. 

​

Around 2010, my focus narrowed to Leadership Development, simply because leaders have the greatest capacity to influence change in any organization. I'd become intrigued by the way a leader's relationship with themselves would invariably be mirrored in the culture of the team or organization under their care. By this time, I had both deeply explored authentic leadership and  built my own psycho-spiritual foundation — through professional development, individual and group therapy, meditation, self-enquiry, movement practices and learning from spiritual teachers and teachings.  When a consultant friend invited me to coach his executive clients, I realized I was ready. Ready to guide and support organizational leaders to develop their own authentic leadership capacity and practice; work that I found to be humbling, moving, enriching, engaging and consistently satisfying.  

​

And then... in 2018, my heart led me to Canada and I took a deeper dive into a lifelong fascination with the relationship between psychology and spirituality. The Master of Psychotherapy and Spirituality (MPS) at St. Stephen’s College, Edmonton, was a journey which empowered and nourished my own lived enquiry into authenticity, meaning, purpose, freedom, spirituality and death. In the context of this program, I also completed an auto-ethnographical thesis, based on personal experience, entitled, Love beyond death: Suicide, acceptance and the awakening of the bereaved.

​

Acknowledging a calling to work with people facing or navigating loss, death, bereavement, transition and/or transformation, in 2019, I joined Jewish Family Services Edmonton as a contract facilitator of bereavement support groups, work which continues to nourish and stretch me in many ways. It is a deep privilege to hold "brave space" for the courageous souls that join our groups from within the depths of sorrow and despair. Our journeys together inspire me. What strange joy it is to witness, time and again, that meaning and growth may be born from our darkest days.

 

Now a Canadian Certified Counsellor (CCC) and psychospiritual therapist, I work with individuals and groups seeking growth and change. People, like me, for whom an unexamined life is not really an option. People, perhaps like you too, who have the good sense and courage to seek support, perspective, counsel and inspiration as you make your way through the challenges and opportunities of this existence. 

 

These days, from the on-ramp to elderhood, my fervent and only real wish is to become increasingly more available for beauty, authenticity, humour, cosmic connectedness and ordinary silliness to flow through me into this world.

As this wild life continues, I am endlessly grateful to be accompanied by other dear humans — clients, colleagues, friends and family — who remind me, especially when I get lost, that our deepest natural state is one of openness, acceptance and love. Bless you all.