Founder Story · Fitz-Gerald Cushnie
The Story of
Fitz-Gerald
A life of inquiry, leadership, fatherhood, self-discovery, and the journey to building spaces for human transformation.
Long before there was a Self Place, there was a question that kept returning in different forms:
What helps a human being live a more loving, kind, fulfilling, authentic, and conscious life?
Read the story
01 · Before the titles
The inquiry began long before the work had a name.
From childhood, I was interested in people.
I wanted to understand why we become who we become, why we hurt one another, why we hide parts of ourselves, why some people seem able to live freely while others become trapped inside expectations, fear, conditioning, pain, or lives that no longer feel like their own.
I was especially interested in what might help people move toward lives that were more loving, kind, fulfilling, authentic, and true to who they actually were.
Even then, I noticed something that has stayed with me: people often wait.
We wait for the relationship to fall apart. For the loss. For the crisis. For life to become unbearable. For some drastic event to finally give us permission to ask the questions we may have been avoiding for years.
Why do we so often wait for life to force us to live?
I wanted to understand what might allow us to ask those questions sooner - to become active participants in creating lives that feel honest, meaningful, connected, and alive.
Something else was present early
People trusted me with the parts of themselves they did not always show elsewhere.
Throughout my life, people have often come to me for guidance, a fresh perspective, clarity, or simply a place where they could say what was true without worrying that they would be judged.
They trusted me with vulnerability.
With questions they could not easily ask elsewhere. With decisions. Relationships. Fear. Confusion. Possibility. Sometimes with parts of themselves they were only beginning to understand.
I learned early that there is something powerful about being fully seen and heard by another person without immediately being corrected, categorized, shamed, fixed, or exposed.
Sometimes what a person needs first is not an answer.
It is a safe enough space to hear themselves.
I did not yet have language such as “holding space” for this. It was simply something I found myself doing.
Years later, that quality would become one of the foundations of Self Place.
02 · Learning, systems & leadership
A curious mind eventually found its way into technology.
I entered university at the age of 15.
My early academic interests included physics, mathematics, geography, computer science, and the underlying systems that help explain how things work.
That curiosity eventually led me more deeply into computer science and information systems and into a professional career spanning technology, project management, program management, business operations, and organizational leadership.
One of the significant positions I held was Director of Program Management.
In that role, I was responsible for managing and directing multidisciplinary teams that included software developers, quality assurance specialists, and project managers. I worked with C-level executives, directors, business leaders, technical teams, and other stakeholders to move projects from conception through planning, development, implementation, and completion.
Much of that work involved complex technology initiatives, competing priorities, significant organizational dependencies, executive expectations, risk, communication across disciplines, and multimillion-dollar projects.
I earned the Project Management Professional (PMP) credential and developed a professional life centered on taking complicated ideas and helping people, systems, and resources move together toward an outcome.
Leadership taught me that systems matter - but systems are always inhabited by human beings.
03 · Entrepreneurship
Eventually, I began building for myself.
My professional journey led me into entrepreneurship and to founding The Project Firm.
It allowed me to bring together years of experience in project and program management, technology, web development, digital services, consulting, strategy, and organizational problem-solving.
Entrepreneurship required another level of responsibility. I was no longer simply helping execute someone else's vision. I had to determine what I believed was worth creating and accept responsibility for bringing that vision into being.
04 · Doctoral inquiry
I kept returning to the question of how knowledge moves between people.
I pursued doctoral study in Information Systems, completed the doctoral coursework, and had my dissertation idea and proposal accepted.
My dissertation research was focused on knowledge sharing- particularly the barriers that prevent knowledge from moving effectively between people and within organizations.
Life changed direction before I completed and defended the dissertation.
At the time, it may have appeared that I was leaving one field of inquiry behind.
Looking back, I do not think I did.
The question evolved
I was still studying knowledge.
I had simply begun asking about a different kind.
What prevents us from knowing ourselves?
What keeps us from sharing truthfully with one another?
What happens when conditioning becomes so familiar that we mistake it for identity?
How does information become wisdom?
And how does wisdom become something we actually live?
05 · When life changed direction
The work moved from systems around people to the systems within us.
Life eventually took a turn toward wellness, meditation, yoga, embodiment, healing, self-inquiry, and a much deeper exploration of the human experience.
It was not simply a professional pivot.
It became a reorientation of my life.
After years of working with technology, organizations, projects, processes, and systems, I found myself asking with increasing intensity:
How are human beings shaped?
What do we carry that we did not consciously choose?
Why do we repeat patterns even when they hurt us?
What does the body remember?
What changes when we begin observing ourselves consciously?
Who might we become if we stopped performing a life and began living one?
Those questions became increasingly personal, embodied, and lived.
And eventually they required a place.
06 · The birth of Self Place
I did not want to build only a business. I wanted to build a place where people could return to themselves.
That place became Self Place.
Self Place is difficult for me to describe simply as a yoga studio, meditation center, healing practice, educational space, or wellness business because its intention sits underneath all of those things.
It was created as a sanctuary for self-discovery, holistic healing, embodiment, conscious practice, meaningful personal transformation, and human flourishing.
At its center is a conviction that human beings are not merely problems to be fixed.
Sometimes we need conditions that allow us to slow down enough to hear ourselves. To notice our patterns. To feel what the body has been carrying. To question what we have accepted as truth. To remember what matters. To become more honest about the life asking to be lived.
Space to become still enough to listen.
Safety to be seen and heard without performance.
Practice that helps insight become embodied.
Honesty that makes a more conscious life possible.
Today, Self Place brings multiple pathways together around that intention: meditation, yoga, breath, embodiment, self-discovery work, private support, healing services, courses, workshops, community experiences, and reflective practice.
I am a certified yoga instructor and a certified Mental Health First Aider, alongside the broader study, practice, leadership experience, and lived experience that inform how I hold this work.
Credentials matter. Preparation matters. But I do not believe a credential alone teaches a person how to truly meet another human being.
Presence matters too.
07 · Fatherhood
Then one of life's greatest teachers arrived: my son.
I am a single father, and I homeschool my young son.
Fatherhood has become one of the deepest classrooms of my life.
It has made questions about childhood, conditioning, emotional development, education, identity, freedom, boundaries, communication, presence, and relationship impossible to keep theoretical.
I have to live them.
Parenting is not only about who the child is becoming.
It continually asks: Who am I becoming while raising this child?
That distinction has become central to my understanding of conscious parenting.
I am less interested in constructing the “perfect child” than in examining the consciousness of the adult who is meeting that child.
08 · Beginning early
A conscious life can be learned.
Every Saturday, I facilitate a children's mindfulness and self-discovery session.
The idea behind it is simple: if awareness, emotional understanding, mindfulness, self-reflection, compassion, connection with nature, and healthy relationship with oneself can be practiced, why wait until adulthood to begin?
What might change if children grow up knowing they can observe their thoughts, understand their emotions, listen inwardly, ask meaningful questions, care for others, and recognize themselves as part of the wider living world?
The intention is not to tell children what to think.
It is to give them opportunities to develop awareness through which they can learn how to relate consciously - to themselves, to other people, and to all of nature.
09 · Wisdom stories
Some teachings needed to become stories.
My work with children has also expanded into writing.
The Little Light Inside You, the foundation book of the Wisdom Story Series, is currently being prepared for publication.
The series is another way of introducing children and families to ideas such as inner wisdom, awareness, intuition, presence, connection, and the quiet guidance that can become difficult to hear in a noisy world.
Even the publishing process has become part of the practice. After reviewing the book digitally, I ordered a physical proof through Amazon. The printed copy revealed details that looked acceptable on screen but did not yet meet the standard I wanted for the physical book.
So I returned to the work.
If something is going into the hands of a child, I want the care behind it to be visible.
10 · A growing body of work
The work has continued to take different forms.
Over time, I have been developing teachings, frameworks, courses, workshops, workbooks, reflective tools, children's resources, and educational experiences around self-awareness, inner peace, embodiment, relationships, forgiveness, conscious family life, emotional responsibility, self-discovery, and conscious living.
My writing and developing body of work includes projects such as:
Forgiveness
A Path to Inner Peace and Wholeness
Self-Discovery & Inner Peace
A Path to Mental and Emotional Wellness
The Conscious Family Connection Workbook
You Are the Path
A developing body of work
The Little Light Inside You
Wisdom Story Series
I am not interested in creating information simply so that more information exists.
I am interested in what causes a person to stop, reflect, notice, question, integrate, and perhaps live differently.
Information becomes meaningful when it becomes lived.
11 · Expanding access
Self Place could not be the whole vision.
As the work grew, another reality became impossible to ignore: the people who may most need support are not always the people with the greatest financial access to it.
That concern contributed to the creation of Sacred Self Sanctuary, the nonprofit expression of the larger vision.
Its purpose is to expand access to mindfulness, self-discovery, healing, education, community, and supportive experiences through access-centered programs, donations, scholarships, community initiatives, and the development of a broader sanctuary model.
Self-Discovery Saturdays are one expression of that commitment: creating opportunities for people to receive individual support without cost being the first barrier they encounter.
The longer-term vision reaches further - a physical sanctuary where people can step away from the demands of everyday life and enter an environment shaped intentionally around restoration, self-discovery, movement, meditation, holistic support, education, nourishment, nature, community, sustainability, and conscious daily living.
12 · Community
The community has grown person by person.
The community surrounding Self Place was not built around celebrity, mass visibility, or becoming an influencer.
It has grown through relationship.
It includes people who attend meditation and yoga, people who have come to workshops and events, individuals I have supported privately, children and families, readers, students, professional connections, Meetup members, people who find us through community partnerships, and those who simply heard about the work from someone they trust.
Across these different spaces, there is now a growing community of hundreds of people directly connected to the work, with a wider reach through events, education, digital platforms, professional networks, children's programming, nonprofit work, referrals, and community engagement.
I deliberately do not add every platform number together and call it an audience size. People overlap. A person is not more valuable because they follow three accounts instead of one.
I would rather describe the community honestly.
Size matters when it represents greater access and greater impact.
But depth matters too.
Trust matters. Relationship matters. What happens within the space matters.
13 · Looking back
What once looked like separate lives now looks like one journey.
The child trying to understand people.
The student who entered university at 15.
The person drawn to mathematics, science, technology, and systems.
The Director of Program Management bringing developers, quality assurance specialists, project managers, executives, and complex initiatives together.
The entrepreneur.
The doctoral student studying barriers to knowledge sharing.
The person whose life changed direction before the dissertation was completed.
The student of meditation, yoga, embodiment, healing, consciousness, and self-discovery.
The father.
The homeschool educator.
The writer.
The teacher.
The person people have trusted to sit beside them while they try to see themselves and their lives more clearly.
The founder of Self Place.
I no longer see these as different identities.
The subject changed.
The deeper work of understanding, integrating, building,
and serving did not.
14 · What achievement means to me now
There are accomplishments I am grateful for. But they are not the final measure of the life.
I am grateful that I entered university at 15.
I am grateful for the technology career, the leadership opportunities, becoming a Director of Program Management, managing multidisciplinary teams, working alongside senior executives, leading major initiatives, earning the PMP credential, pursuing doctoral study, having my dissertation proposal accepted, becoming an entrepreneur, founding organizations, writing, teaching, and building Self Place.
I am grateful to be a certified yoga instructor and Mental Health First Aider.
I am grateful for the books, programs, frameworks, classes, conversations, and communities that continue to emerge.
And I am deeply grateful for the privilege and responsibility of raising and educating my son.
But increasingly, I do not measure my life primarily by titles, credentials, degrees, projects, organizations, or things I can place after my name.
I ask a different question:
What are these things being used for?
The work continues
I want the things I build to serve life.
I want my son to inherit something deeper than possessions.
I want children to grow up knowing there is an inner life worth listening to.
I want adults to know that they are allowed to examine who they have become - and to choose again where choice is still possible.
I want people to have spaces where they do not have to perform wellness, spirituality, strength, success, or perfection in order to belong.
I want us to remember that how we relate to ourselves shapes how we relate to other people, and how we relate to one another shapes the world we create together.
And I want to build work that can continue serving people beyond my own lifetime.
Perhaps that happens through Self Place.
Through Sacred Self Sanctuary.
Through books and teachings.
Through children and families.
Through communities.
Or through an idea carried forward by someone I may never meet.
That is what the work of my life is becoming.
- Fitz-Gerald Cushnie