Wholehearted: Six Movements Toward A Centered Life

Do we understand how powerful play can be? What if, in all our efforts to be responsible and productive, we are neglecting something that has the power to transform how we think, feel, and be?
Over my career as a leader and experiential facilitator, I’ve met more than a few people, leaders, teams, and organizations with a “nose to the grindstone” mindset. They struggle to make fun a priority in life, school, or the workplace. Not surprisingly, they often struggle with engagement, cohesion, trust, and even productivity.
The world we inhabit is saturated with distractions, intractable problems, and issues beyond our control. The life we live and the work we do ask more and more of us in adaptation and resilience, and the stress of it all is a heavy burden to bear. Fun that is generated through playfulness helps us not only survive, but thrive in the midst of the struggle.
To play means to punctuate life with unstructured rhythms centered in joy, fun, and laughter. It runs counter to the numbing, scrolling, and compulsive busyness that fill our lives and stunt our connection with ourselves and others.

Most of us were taught to ask one question about life: How am I living the good life? It sounds reasonable. It’s also quietly built around a single person, me.
Connecting is fueled by a conviction: my sense of self is shaped by my relationships with others. I am not a self-contained entity. I am woven into my community and into humanity as a whole, not only for survival, but for a fulfilled and meaningful life. To have a healthy sense of self, I have to recognize how profoundly my identity has been formed by others.
This mindset, a way of being and not just an idea, unleashes compassion, kindness, and collective responsibility. It puts the common good ahead of individual interests.

The Embodying Movement is about an integrated state of being.  It's the opposite of being scattered, conflicted, caught in endless cycles of thoughtless or meaningless thinking.
Embodiment means you are naturally in your body. It is inhabiting your body as a place of grace, not achievement.  When we fully embody our beliefs they are no longer just ideas we hold, but ways of being that others can feel.
 

Before anything else, wholehearted living requires trading autopilot for the choice to live your one life as gift.  It's not about productivity.  It's about showing up, paying attention to the person right in front of you, saying yes to the calling and work right in front of you, and stepping into the day instead of watching from the sidelines.

6 Movements Toward A Centered Life is a conversation about what it actually takes to lead a centered, healthy life — not just to think differently, but to practice differently, one movement at a time. It's a roadmap about how to engage in wholehearted living, for anyone who hungers to live a life of vitality and purpose.