George Stoimenov

I am Bulgarian-born, UK-based author and frontline worker. I grew up during the turbulent collapse of Communism in Bulgaria. It was a chaotic time that shaped my community in ways that are still felt to this day... and I carried much of that within me for a long, long time.

Because of the trauma I carried (unbeknownst to me), from the age of fifteen, I spent nearly a decade trying intentionally to become someone I was never destined to be. The boy who was once enchanted by nature and believed in the 'magic' of life, became a young man who—his soul anaesthetized by substances—pursued pleasures in the nightclubs in search of the bliss that was now more and more elusive.

I had a wake-up call; my heart was stirred by love. And that's what made me take the one step which would change my life forever...

My new girlfriend and I came to the UK in 2009 with a suitcase and a determination—she, to find a new life and adventure; I, to become someone different from the person my history had made me.

It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.

Because, just as the 'outer' journey of hardship was happening around me, I found that I had to take a deep 'inner' journey—and that was the game-changer...

But it was worth every minute of hardship; and it is a journey I am still on. It was a journey through breakdown, loss of self (the self I knew; the self I was used to) , and the long road back to something resembling purpose and wholeness...

Seventeen years later, I have a wife who loves me—well, on most days anyway—and two beautiful, lively young daughters who adore me—most of the time, at least!

I work on the frontline of the UK criminal justice system — with men on probation, many of whom have committed serious offences. Before that I worked with homeless young people and freshly arrived asylum seekers. I can now say that I have sat with some of the most broken people in Britain. I've sat with men who have done terrible things and men who have had terrible things done to them...

I am not a therapist; I am not an academic—I am someone who has done the inner work himself, and has spent over a decade helping others do the same.