An Evolving Man Podcast

Today I wanted to give an update to our documentary, Boarding on Insanity.

With the resignation of Justin Welby, who is the head of the Church of England and Archbishop of Canterbury, this is so relevant. 

Justin Welby, who boarded at St Peter's School at 8 years old and then to Eton as a boy and also spent time with the Iwerne Trust where John Smyth was abusing children when he was younger.

What is the impact of having leaders who have been to boarding school in charge of big institutions and government?

Will they cover up and hide what is happening?

To sign up to become an Ambassador of the documentary, Boarding on Insanity: https://www.piers-cross.com/boarding-school-film

Justin Welby was a “dormitory officer” for the Iwerne Trust: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/13/justin-welby-church-scrutiny-sadistic-christian-camp?bcmt=1

Did Justin Welby already know about John Smythe in the 1980s? https://news.sky.com/story/why-has-archbishop-of-canterbury-justin-welby-resigned-and-what-happens-next-13253198

Take care,

Piers

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

AEM # 115 Giles Moffat Boarding School Survivors Taking Their Schools To Court

How do you take your school to court? How do you get a prosecution for sexual and physical abuse when no one else has listened?

A fascinating conversation today with Giles Moffat about how a group of child abuse survivors took their schools to court.

Giles talks about how he connected with Nicky Campbell, the BBC DJ, who attended the same school as him.

Gradually they built a large network of survivors who managed to get not only the police but also the schools and courts to listen.

A very powerful and inspiring conversation.

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Giles became a boarder at the Edinburgh Academy in 1980, where he was abused like many others.

In 2022 Giles formed the EA Survivors group with Nicky Campbell.  

Today he shares his insights into effective campaigning and the power of survivor groups.

Questions for Giles:

1. I would love for you to share some of your journey. How did you get into the work you are now doing?
2. What were your boarding school experiences like?
3. How did boarding school impact you as an adult?
4. - naming perpetrators and the legalities around that (basically, go for it. We named several people in the media because of their age and have yet to receive a single legal letter in 2 years)
5. Understanding UK defamation law (I have a qualification in this)
6. Influencing prosecution (we lobbied the police and crown office and got 6 arrests in December 23)
7. The experience of giving evidence in court situations 
8. The therapeutic and empowering benefits of speaking up
9. What motivates survivors when they campaign
10. How to engage with the authorities and get the best out of them. 
11. Working with the media to achieve your aims.
12. Planning and strategy for survivor groups. 
13. Historical cover-ups. 
14. You have worked in positions of leadership. How did your boarding school education impact the way you lead?
15. Boarding school leaders: Could you please speak to those leaders who have been to boarding school. David Cameron, Boris Johnson. What do you feel about their leadership?
16. What is the work that you are doing now?

#childabuse #childhoodtrauma #nickycampbell #edinburghacademy 

To connect with the survivors group: https://easurvivors.info/

For Seen and Heard: https://seenheard.org.uk/

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

Today I wanted to continue the conversation about cults which Wyndham Wallace talked about in my last podcast: https://youtu.be/NYTA8dm6X6g

HereI wanted share some of the literature on cults by some of the world's leading experts on them.

What is a cult?

And what are the main characteristics of a cult?

And finally how much like a cult is a boarding school?

6 Characteristics of a Cult: https://andynaselli.com/sociological-characteristics-of-cults

What Is A Cult? https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/freedom-mind/202106/understanding-cults-the-basics

Book on Cults:: https://a.co/d/7kXgyFe

#cults #boardingschool #cult #boardingschoolsyndrome 

Take care,

Piers

---

Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

Wyndham Wallace is a Berlin-based writer whose critically acclaimed first book, Lee, Myself & I – about his friendship with Lee Hazlewood, the man behind These Boots Are Made For Walking – was published in 2015. 

He began his career as a music publicist in the mid 1990s, before running City Slang Records’ UK office for eight years, but now works as a music critic for, among others, Uncut and Classic Pop. He also worked as music consultant on Sebastian Schipper’s Victoria, for which composer Nils Frahm won a German Film Award, and can be seen fronting Almost Fashionable: A Film About Travis, which won the Edinburgh Film Festival Audience Award. 

In 2024, he helped lead a number of victims of child sexual abuse over three decades to a public settlement with Horris Hill prep school, and he continues to campaign for justice for all those abused in private education, past and present.

Questions for Wyndham:

1. I would love for you to share some of your journey. How did you get into the work you are now doing?
2. Your own experience at Horris Hill, and how sexual abuse was the only angle that the law would accept to bring a case even though other equally appalling things took place there, leaving other victims without satisfaction
3. The broader issues of a culture that has outlived its usefulness, if it was ever useful, and its wider effects on society
4. Whether, for all their talk of safeguarding etc, schools today have genuinely learned anything from the last decade or two of abuse exposure. With new cases emerging it would appear not much has changed at all.
5. The absurdity of separating a child from its parents at a young age when it’s clearly seen abroad as seriously detrimental, even as a punishment, to a child
6. The need for mandatory reporting and how Duty Of Candour could have helped me (and other Horris Hill victims) put this largely behind us as early as 1985.
7. Your belief that what we are actually dealing with here is a cult, pure and simple. Most of the signs are there, and it takes victims years to deprogram. I believe it’s also helpful to think this way in terms of our parents, who had been similarly inculcated and are victims too, yet never receive an apology from schools (even when former pupils do)
8. The link between music and memory.
9. What is the work that you are doing now?

#csa #horrishill #boardingschool #sexual abuse #boardingschoolcults

For more information please visit: http://www.wyndhamwallace.com

To purchase his first book: http://jawbonepress.com/lee-myself-i/

---

Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

On my podcast this week I am interviewing Wyndham Wallace who is an author and music critic.

In the episode we were talking about music and how powerful it can be for healing childhood trauma.

In today's video I talk about how we store emotion in the music that we listened to at school.

Both the music that we liked and the music we didn't like.

A really fascinating exploration of music therapy to heal childhood trauma.

For the full podcast you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/NYTA8dm6X6g

Take care,

Piers

---

Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

Today on the podcast I welcome back author and psychotherapist Rod Boothroyd as we revisit the archetype of the Sovereign, King or the Queen. 

The Sovereign is the part of us that is responsible for vision, power, potency, blessing ourselves and others, and bringing order to our internal and external worlds. The King is also the part of us responsible for the spiritual side of our lives. 

Today Rod goes deeper into the subject of the King archetype with the release of his new book, Finding The King Within. What are the positive aspects and what are the shadows? How do we connect to this energy in a benevolent way? 

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Rod Boothroyd is a counsellor, psychotherapist, a certified “Healing The Shadow” practitioner and the author of the books Warrior, Magician, Lover, King – a guide to the male archetypes updated for the 21st century and Finding The King Within. 

He works with men, women and mixed groups to heal the wounds of childhood with Marianne Hill and also trains people in the art of working with the shadow and healing emotional wounds.

Some of the questions for Rod: 

1. What is the King or Sovereign archetype?
2. What makes a balanced and mature King?
3. In writing the book you talk about 41 different qualities and values that a mature King embodies. What for you are 5 of the most important qualities that we need to cultivate?
4. What are the shadows of the archetypes?
5. What are the specific shadows of the King archetype?
6. I would love you to speak more about the importance of emotional intelligence in the realm of the sovereign? Why is it so important? If we don't have access to our emotions how might that affect the relationship to our sovereign?
7. “Many men today are really a kind of adolescent “boy-man”, arrested in development between boyhood and mature masculinity.”( p.7) Could you please talk to this. How do we move into mature masculinity?
8. What would you say is the key emotion of the King and why is this emotion so important for a mature male? What are some ways of embodying this emotion?
9. Could you please talk about stewardship and the connection to the sovereign archetype?
10. How do we cultivate the King - what are the steps that we can take to embody the King more fully in our lives?
11. You give 20 different ways of embodying the King energy. Which of these methods are the most relevant to today's man? If someone was to start with 5 practices what would you start them out with?

#kingwarriormagicianlover #kingarchetype #rodboothroyd 

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

I begin today with a heart felt quote from Minnie Driver in her book, Managing Expectations.

She talks about phoning her mother to come and pick her up.

Her mother ignores her.

So today I wanted to read through 10 biographies of well-known people and their stories of feeling like they were captive or “counting down the days like prisoners” as Bear Grylls puts it.

I share the words of John Rentoul's biography of Tony Blair where he tells the story of how he tried to run away.

I talk about how Clive Woodward, the former England Rugby manager and World Cup winner ran away 3 times from his boarding school only to be sent back each time by his father.

Other biographies include: Stephen Fry, John Peel, Roald Dahl, Christine Jack, Jack Whitehall and Jeremy Paxman.

What a fascinating subject.

#captivity #prison #boardingschool

Take care,

Piers

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

Why do some of our political, business, and societal leaders seem to have such disdain and in some cases almost hatred for the everyday person?

Where might these attitudes come from?

Where does the sense of entitlement, and even looking down on those that they serve arise from?

I was reading Jeremy Paxman's autobiography A Life in Questions last night. 

I came across a passage where he talks about his prep boarding school.

He sees the headmaster's son set light to the moors. Once the police come the son blames the local “teddy” boys 'who were blamed for just about everything that went wrong in the school.'

As George Orwell wrote in The Road to Wigan Pier: 'Common people seemed almost subhuman.'

In today's video I share about some of my own similar experiences at boarding school. 

How we looked down upon the porters, the cleaners and saw them as less than human.

I also talk about Nick Duffell from Wounded Leaders asking: 'Could it be that the British working class as an entire group have been suffering from projective identification from the upper classes?'

'Have they been standing in for the stupid, messy, incompetent children the latter wish to distance themselves from in their own collective psyche?'

I also share some of Richard Beard's thoughts from Sad Little Men.

#workingclass #disdain #leaders

Take care,

Piers

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

What is love addiction also known as limerence? 

And what is intergenerational trauma? How does that pass from generation to generation?

Today I am speaking with a psychotherapist who originally trained as a medical doctor.

His speciality is working with people around relationships and limerence.

Today he shares his journey at boarding school and how he ran away, never to come back.

He also talks about his father's experiences of the Nazi concentration camps and how this trans-generational trauma was passed onto him.

He talks about how we can start to heal from love addictions.

Really fascinating. Thank you David.

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Dr. David Perl originally qualified as a medical practitioner from St. Thomas’ Hospital, London in 1984. He then went on to create and develop docleaf one of the UK’s most successful crisis management consultancies.He holds qualifications in Leadership Coaching and is a qualified psychotherapist and is experienced in hypnotherapy and NLP. 

Questions for Dr Perl:

1. I would love for you to share some of your journey. How did you get into the work you now do?
2. I would love for you to talk a little about your boarding school experiences. What happened?
3. I would love for you to speak to intergenerational trauma. What is it and how does it impact people?
4. Could you please speak to limerence. What is it? How is it linked to childhood trauma? How do we heal from limerence?
5. Could you please talk about relationships? What are some of the most common problems that you see when you are working with couples?
6. How do people find out more about your work?
7. Other areas to talk about:

• Emotional benign neglect
• Parenting and Daniel Mac
• All trauma is relational
• Leadership
• Attachment theory, trauma and boarding school

To find out more about Dr Perl's work: https://themarriedtherapists.com/

Or here: https://limerence.net/

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/ 

What was it like to go to boarding school at age 7?

And how did that impact my guest's adult life?

From addictions, to breakdown and then path of recovery to finding purpose, my guest today shares his own journey. 

In today's episode I am speaking with Chris Braitch who is the director of the not for profit, Seen & Heard, which supports the emotional wellbeing of past pupils of boarding and independant schools.

He talks about his boarding school years: bullying, dissociation, and trauma.

And he shares how he recovered and how he has now found purpose in life.

A very inspiring and heart-felt episode.

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Chris Braitch is a father of 3 first and foremost. He is also a 1-2-1 and organisational coach, speaker, and founding director of the not for profit Seen & Heard. Seen & Heard supports the emotional well being of ex-pupils of boarding and independent day schools, and their families.  Chris has found his calling supporting others on their journey to healing and joy, utilising his diverse life experiences, and professional skills learned over a 20-year career in sales, marketing, and management at some of the world’s largest food companies.

Questions for Chris:

1. I would love for you to share some of your journey. How did you get into the work you now do?
2. I would love for you to share some of your boarding journey. What was it like?
3. Could you please share your path of healing? What things have you tried and what really worked for you?
4. You have worked with me for a couple of years. How has that experience been?
5. You are part of the charity Seen and Heard. What do you do and what is your mission?
6. You were part of the Coming Home retreat as part of the documentary. How was that for you?
7. What is next for you?
8. How do people find out more about you?

For more infromation about Seen and Heard please visit: https://seenheard.org.uk/

To find out more about Chris' one to one work: https://growthwave.uk/

#childhoodtrauma #booardingschoolsyndrome #seen&heard #trauma #healingtrauma

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Piers is an author and a men's transformational coach and therapist who works mainly with trauma, boarding school issues, addictions and relationship problems. 

He also runs online men's groups for ex-boarders, retreats and a podcast called An Evolving Man. 

He is also the author of How to Survive and Thrive in Challenging Times. To purchase Piers first book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Survive-Thrive-Challenging-Times/dp/B088T5L251/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=piers+cross&qid=1609869608&sr=8-1 

For more videos please visit: http://youtube.com/pierscross 

For FB: https://www.facebook.com/pierscrosspublic 

For Piers' website and a free training How To Find Peace In Everyday Life: https://www.piers-cross.com/community 

Many blessings, 

Piers Cross 

http://piers-cross.com/