ALIVENESS
A philosophy and practice for living fully in the awareness that life is finite.
Last Sunday I gave my first major Aliveness workshop, at Medicine Festival in the UK. I would be lying if I told you I was not nervous.
If you don’t know it, Medicine Festival is a gathering of 10,000 people and the largest wellness festival in the UK, built around connection, nature, indigenous wisdom and healing.
People come to learn from elders and traditions from around the world, eat healthy delicious food and generally reconnect with something deeper than everyday life.
You can enjoy experiential workshops, inspirational speaker and beautiful music of multiple genres (from world to house). It’s a place to talk about what it means to be alive, and I was honoured to be invited to present my work.
I was even more grateful to discover I had been allocated a prime time on the ‘Haven’ Stage which is a very generous venue. I had no idea of how many would turn up, but there was a massive queue and 170 people appeared!
Next week I’m running a free two-day event to help people standing in front of a big, daunting decision they haven’t yet made. Together we’ll find the first real step out of anxiety and toward your authentic life.
August 26th and 27th. 2x 90 min sessions. FREE.
I’ll let you in on a secret… I have always had a fear of public speaking. It’s not really the speaking, it’s the being seen. All those eyes on you, and the voice in your head narrating what you imagine they’re thinking. Makes me feel frozen inside as my mind comes up with stories like: Who does he think he is? What makes him qualified to stand up there and talk about such things as death, about how to live? Etc etc.
It’s a fear of judgement and for a long time it’s kept me postponing the very thing I most want to do, step into my truth, and have conversations about mortality and living fully. I find this conversation to be utterly fascinating, and I come alive inside because because it turns into a chat about human consciousness and evolution.
So this fear of judgement… if you follow that fear all the way down, you reach something older than any stage. The fear of being judged is really the fear of being cast out. For most of human history, to be exiled from the tribe meant you didn’t survive. Alone, you died. So we’re wired to dread the disapproval of the group as if our life depends on it, because once, it did.
Which means even this, the fear of me standing up and being seen, is at its root a fear of annihilation. This is the same for all fears. If you trace them far enough back they all grow from a need to survive.
So this wasn’t just a workshop. It was me practising aliveness in real time. Stepping straight into the fear I’d been avoiding.
The morning of my workshop I made sure to do the Aliveness practice. I lay in bed and pictured myself at the end of the day, lying back down in that same bed, satisfied, knowing I’d done the talk, and done it well. I held that warm fuzzy feeling for a while. Then I got up and went to make it real.
Just before I walked on stage, my wife and children found me. They wrapped me in a hug and wished me luck. Wow did that feel good. Then I stepped up in front of around 170 people, and we began.
We explored what Aliveness actually is. We did the practice together. We did the Ultimate Meditation, the one where you reverse engineer your life from how you want to feel at the end and see what truly matters most in your life.
A room full of strangers, going to that place together. It was beautiful.
And my fear? It lifted the moment I started. The dread was in the buildup, as usual.
What I hadn’t expected was what came afterwards. People stayed behind to talk. A whole queue of them, wanting to tell me what had shifted or arisen in them during the session. And it didn’t stop when the festival did. My phone has barely gone quiet since.
What people keep describing is the powerful clarity. Something about looking back at their life from the end shook loose an answer they’d been circling for months, sometimes years.
And with the clarity comes the rest of it. Relief. A lightness they hadn’t felt in a long time.
That’s what Aliveness does when it lands. It doesn’t just make you think differently. It changes how you feel, and what you do next. It’s the first step towards deeper potential and purpose in life.
That’s why I am dedicating my life to this and I’ve still got a LOT work to do. I want to grow Aliveness into a recognised philosophy and practice like mindfulness.
Thank you, Medicine Festival. I hope to be back.
LAST CALL FOR MY FREE EVENT - 26 & 27th Aug
Next week I’m running a free two-day event to help people standing in front of a big, daunting decision they haven’t yet made. Together we’ll find the first real step out of anxiety and toward your authentic life.
August 26th and 27th. 2x 90 min sessions. FREE.
Thank you for being here. Make the most of the time you have.
Live happy,
Hoppy
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I am a former CEO, filmmaker, soul midwife and druidic bard. As I entered midlife I realised I was living a life that no longer aligned with the person I had become. So I changed direction and created Aliveness. I have a dream that Aliveness becomes as impactful as Mindfulness. A daily practice that helps people live more bravely, leave fewer regrets and build a more present and generous world.
Touched By This BrOther 🙏🤍🫂🪞