To South Africa and Back… Twice!!!

Working with teacher trainees in Limpopo Province, South Africa 1991

A non-traditional first-person and personal way of telling you my story….

David Hesketh, MSc

Neuro-Medical Science & Education

Born to an Anglican priest and his wife on the Niagara Peninsula in Ontario, I was a curious, gregarious, athletically-inclined lad and I loved singing. I describe my upbringing as ‘flexible religiosity’ but my life experience in my youth was spiritual, mostly in the outdoors: In a traditional, Canadian canoe.

It was the times like these that I spent alone are where I first became conscious of ‘something more’ than the ordinary.

Buckhorn Lake, Near Peterborough, ON – about 7 years old

High School. John F Ross CVI Guelph, Ontario

I was a good student until High School which coincided with my experience of being bullied. My emphasis shifted to social acceptance from academic.

Post-high school, saw me working toward my goal of $1,000,000 and a Jaguar XJ-12 by the time I was 25 through such ‘careers’ as newspaper management, life insurance sales, gasoline jockeying and dispatching cement trucks.

Circulation Manager’s Prize-Giving.

Guelph This Week (ON)

With Elliott F Brady at Grad – Trent U BSc BioPsych (Hon)

Thanks to some hard-hitting advice from mentors, I realized my goal was farther than I first imagined. So, I decided to enrol at Trent University (Peterborough, ON). I was introduced to the ‘Hippocampus’ (“What’s That!?!”) in a 1st yr Psych course. Upon discovering it as a primary brain area, I jumped headlong into a science degree (Honours BSc, Bio-Psychology), while being involved in university leadership roles.

My summers were spent working for Parks-Canada and Trent U (in sales). So, by age 25, not only did the $1 million exist soley in my imaginary bank account, but my Jag looked an awful lot like a Toyota!

Warming my paws as ‘Boomer The Beaver’ – Parks Canada mascot. Lakefield ON

During this time, it was a solitary moment where I felt I was bathed inside and out in a flood of intuition, like God speaking to me from the inside, that gave me the direction in medicine for my future. It was also then that I took a keen interest in Astronomy and The Cosmos.

Masters (MSc) Degree earned at McMaster University Medical Centre. Hamilton, Ontario.

In pursuit of a medical degree, I continued my studies in Neuro-medical science (and ice hockey!) at McMaster University (Hamilton, ON) serving in student leadership positions there, too. The feeling and sensations persisted that I was to make some kind of significant contribution to the world, although I did not know what that was to be.

The search for knowing took me on a 10-day solo journey into the Temagami Wilderness – Sacred Anishnaabe land and old growth forest.

Powerful and Profound.

While applying to med school, I became a French substitute teacher. I was so turned on by teaching that I abandoned the idea of med school.

But I was turned off by the government education system. I felt that many of my fellow teachers were in if for the job and not for the love of the children, many of whom came from difficult backgrounds.

Hampton Heights Middle School – Gr 6 Home Room

Quilted image of The Toronto Waldorf School by Mary Hesketh (Thanks, Mum!!!)

During this time I was introduced to the work of the Austrian spiritual scientist, Rudolf Steiner, and the method of schooling he started.

When I first visited the Waldorf School in Toronto, I had a deep experience of the love for children and a healthy way they were being schooled into the world.

I felt this was right for me and I pursued a year-long study (Toronto) in developmental methodologies used in Waldorf schools which closely coincided with awakening healthy brain development.

With fellow Teacher trainees. We had such a gas of a time learning. Special group!

Prepping for the next day’s lab lesson.

Before the program was completed, I landed a 1-year high school sciences contract in Johannesburg, South Africa, at the time when Nelson Mandela had just been released from his 27 years in prison. That 1 year became 5 heady years as the process of transition to a democracy bumped its way into being.

Toward end of this time my son arrived. Assisting the home birth in a candle-lit bedroom surrounded by friends and family was perhaps the most profound of spiritual experiences of my life.

Reading together was daily Dad & Lad time.

With the dismantling of Apartheid in SA came criminal violence. I took the opportunity to move my family to the safety of Vancouver (BC). Teaching the sciences and undertaking many administrative and leadership roles, I finally quit smoking for good and took up triathlons to regain full health.

After 9 years, both my marriage and my life ‘went South’ and I returned to Johannesburg to co-parent my son.

After 2 more years, I called formal classroom teaching a day.

My Grade 11 Mob at Michael Mount. The last as a classroom teacher.

I then started my own health enterprise ‘dna Centre’ and promoted stem cell release products while lecturing for StemTech Africa throughout South Africa.

Stress, I learned, was a large reason why we get sick. I was motivated to develop a brain-based program, using Waldorf methods, to give people tools they experienced and could apply in their day-to-day lives to empower them to reduce stress and lead happier and more productive lives.

A happy group of graduate accountants!

This was the beginning of BrainFocus.

Focus is the antidote to Stress.

Corporations and schools became my target market. The uptake was tremendous and the results consistently good, which I was able to show statistically (See the Results page on this website).

A course at Sun International at Sun City

Some of the boys at St Stithians College and Gareth Murray

The privilege of teaching across the spectrum of cultures is a South African gift!

The experiential decommissioning of stress to awaken a person’s higher purpose, and experience of success in achieving that (called joy, happiness, inner peace, contentment, etc.) became my mission.

Through practical higher brain exercises that bring out the best in human potential, I have taught thousands of people how to lower the cost that the mindset of stress has on so many people’s lives.

Step 2 of 5 in defining an engaging and sustainable online program.

Since moving back to Toronto, I added my curriculum development expertise to my mindset coaching to assist Chiropractors and other professionals with their vision of developing businesses based on engaging programs that will have a transformative impact on their clients and themselves.

I am use my scientific background to collaborate with professionals that want to positively impact the future of humanity and the planet through delivering programs that raise consiousness to a new level of awareness.

At the same time, I spent much time writing ‘Awakening Conscious Thinking’ a book that in the process of being published. It shows, in very practical ways, how thinking, consciousness, identity and the brain develop from birth to adulthood in lock-step, if the conditions are right. For most, these conditions are not met because of generational Trauma and indoctrination of limiting beliefs. This gives rise to the various levels of unconsciousness thinking we can observe that continues to result in war and violence, environment problems and social inequalities. It describes the inner journey to consciousness and healthy self-identity, with practical examples of how we can raise our children to optimize their independent thinking and to support adult populations to evolve to higher levels of consciousness on the planet.

Conscious Parenting – 2025

With the tremors of change rumbling beneath our feet, I have developed a program based on my previous research and experience to help professionals who are struggling with the stress of balancing their work and personal life with parenting to build a Parenting Framework, based on how the brain grows up and wakes up, so that their children can be happier, healthier and more success and so that the entire family can experience more joy and time-freedom.

You see, what I’ve found is that most parents are focused on what they don’t want. Instead of building a structure that gives them what they do want, many parents have developed a life of stress and worry about things like AI, future jobs/life, social media impacts, global issues, etc. They want to create a joyful, loving, supportive life for their kids, but spend hours stressing about situations and behaviours that are out-of-synch with their values.

The main problem parents feel is the pressure of not enough time or money to provide a lifestyle that would allow them the freedom they need. This causes them to use strategies from friends or trends or to fallback on their own experience as modelled by their parents. Many of these yield limited results, and increase frustration.

The truth is that most successful parents have a framework which informs their decision-making and parenting style that also gives them time back to build a life they really want.

My ultimate objective is to provide a global online curriculum for anyone to use that is based on the holistic development of the individual human being while being able to provide income to those who subscribe.

And, I have a viable plan to do it.

dh 2025