Aliveness uses an awareness of mortality not to make us fearful of death, but to make us more awake to life.
By remembering that our time is limited, Aliveness helps us gain radical clarity about what really matters, appreciate the ordinary miracle of being alive, become more present with the people we love, live with greater gratitude and courage, and ultimately reach the end of life with fewer regrets.
Who Is This For?
Aliveness is for self aware people whose life may look successful from the outside, but who no longer feel fully alive inside.
You are highly-functioning. Responsible. But something has gone flat. You keep circling the same decision. You know something needs to change, but you are still waiting for certainty, the right time, or permission to act.
People I speak to describe it as:
“I’m drifting.” / “I’ve been in the talking stage for ages.” / “I’m sitting in fog and indecision every day.” / “I’m living someone else’s life.”
I developed the Aliveness Practice after several near death experiences and training as an end of life guide, where I discovered something unexpected: an awareness of our mortality can become a catalyst for living fully.
Why We Drift
Most of us do not consciously choose the wrong life. We drift into it.
A job that started as temporary becomes a career. A relationship becomes routine. The thing we always wanted to do gets pushed to next year. Nothing dramatic goes wrong. But slowly, almost invisibly, life begins to happen by default rather than design.
One reason is that we live in a culture that largely avoids death. We hide it, sanitise it and rarely talk about it. Without a conscious relationship with mortality, it becomes remarkably easy to behave as though there will always be more time.
So we postpone. The conversation. The creative ambition. The change of direction. The adventure. The life we actually want to live.
At the same time, our instinct to stay safe can make fear feel like fact. Fear of failure, judgement, uncertainty and being seen becomes:
I’m not ready. I’m too old. I can’t risk it.
And so another year passes. The real danger of drift is not disaster. It is reaching the end of your life and regretting that something important was left unlived.
Aliveness exists to interrupt that trajectory while there is still time.
How Aliveness Works
Aliveness brings mortality back into view, not to make life darker, but to bring life into focus.
When you regularly remember that your time is finite, something changes. The noise falls away. Priorities sharpen. Things you have been postponing become harder to ignore. Decisions that felt tangled can begin to look surprisingly simple.
Mortality is not the destination of Aliveness. It is the lens. The end clarifies the now.
The Aliveness Practice turns that insight into a practical way of living. It is built around five principles:
• Time is limited.
• Do not postpone your life.
• Live by design, not by default.
• Choose courage over comfort.
• Spend your life on what matters.
The practice then works across four time horizons. You imagine the end of your life to understand what matters. You redesign your year to move towards it. You review your week to stay on course. And you live each day in a way that does not waste it.
The purpose is not to think about death more. It is to become more alive.
What Changes When You Practise Aliveness?
The point of Aliveness is not to spend more time thinking about death. It is to help you feel more alive.
Practised regularly, mortality awareness becomes a compass. It helps you notice what matters, what you are postponing and where fear may be making decisions for you.
A sudden, radical clarity about what actually matters. Not a vague sense of it… the stuff that would matter at the very end, rising up clear enough that the noise falls away and you can finally see what your life is for.
You make the decisions you have been avoiding. The job, the relationship, the conversation, the move. Choices become less driven by fear and more by courage.
You become more present with the people you love. You listen properly. When you stop taking people for granted, ordinary time with your children, partner, parents and friends stops feeling disposable.
Your relationships become more honest and intimate. You say what needs saying, stop performing who you think you should be, and become more available emotionally and sexually.
Your mind and body begin to feel different. Less energy spent on what you cannot control. Better sleep. Less background stress. Healthier choices. More movement. More energy.
You know what you are doing and why. Not as a grand life mission, but on an ordinary Tuesday. Your time starts to feel deliberately spent rather than accidentally lost.
You feel more alive and grateful. More willing to act, create, connect, take care of yourself and use the time you actually have.
And underneath all: the feeling that you are making the most of your one life.
Here’s What Subscribers Receive
Free Subs get:
The Aliveness Practice mini course. A two minute daily practice to stop ordinary days disappearing on autopilot and keep you focused on what actually matters.
The Aliveness Questions guide. Eight honest questions to reveal where you've drifted, clarify what matters and identify what needs to change.
A weekly essay. A story or reflection each week to keep you living awake, not on autopilot.
For $10 a month, paid subscribers support my work and receive:
Recordings of Aliveness Workshops to keep you focused, plus your questions answered on big life changes and living differently.
(NEW!) The Aliveness Book as I write it, one chapter at a time.
My AI guides, Reverstory and LivePurpose. Two tools I built to help you see the life you’re heading toward, and uncover the one you’re actually here to live.
The Aliveness Practice eBook. The complete philosophy and practice in one place, to read slowly and return to whenever you feel lost.
What People Are Saying
After attending my Aliveness workshop, one participant decided to remain in the UK rather than relocate to the US after reflecting on how few years remained of his child’s childhood.
Another spent the following weekend fully present with his family and reconnected with his mother around three things he wanted to do with her.
Another person told me that the Life Audit exercise changed his behaviour immediately, and created a colossal reframing of his existence.
“John has a rare ability to guide people beyond their fear of death and into a deeper connection with life... helping others awaken to their true purpose and live with greater courage and clarity.”
Marc J. Francis, Sundance filmmaker
“Hoppy’s vision is profound, important and joyful... reminding us that by facing death we can meet ourselves with integrity.”
Dr Rosalind Watts, Clinical Psychologist & TED Speaker
Why I Created Aliveness
For most of my adult life, I thought success would make me feel fulfilled.
I built a career as a filmmaker, directed high profile commercials, made a feature film, won awards and went to Sundance. Later, I founded Celestial, a drone art company that grew into the largest in the UK and created shows for Glastonbury, Eurovision and London New Year.
From the outside, it looked successful. Inside, I was becoming increasingly disconnected from the life I had built. Eventually, the strain became physical. I began having panic attacks which triggered memories of near death experiences from earlier in my life.
Around the same time, I heard philosopher Ram Dass describe sitting with dying people as the highest work he had ever done. I asked myself the question: “Maybe I was supposed to work with death?”
I trained as a Soul Midwife, an end of life guide, and began sitting with dying people in hospital. Those experiences changed how I understood life.
I started to realise that at the end of life, status and achievement mattered far less than I had imagined. What remained was love, relationships, presence, and whether someone had actually lived the life that was theirs to live.
That realisation forced me to look at my own life differently. Eventually, I stepped away from the company I had built, sold my house, and travelled around the world with my wife and children. Now we live in Costa Rica.
Somewhere along the way, the ideas I had been exploring for years finally found a name.
Aliveness.
A practice built around a simple truth: when you remember that your time is finite, you become much clearer about how you want to spend it.
Some Of My Most Popular Articles
If you want to read my essays, dive into the full WEBSITE.
Going Deeper
For most people, the practice and the weekly essays are everything they need. Some want closer help through a bigger life change.
I coach a small number of people privately. Mostly self-aware founders, creatives and leaders in midlife who can feel called to change, but haven’t yet made the decision their life is asking of them.
I’ve also begun presenting Aliveness workshops, helping groups face the one subject we tend to avoid, and leave braver and more alive.
There is an aliveness community coming.
If you would like to enquire about me facilitating a workshop or coaching, get in touch at hello@aliveness.be.
Thank you for being here. Make the most of the time you have.
Live happy,
Hoppy
Tools / Essays / Events / Instagram / Manifesto / About
If this article landed with you, please share it with one person who needs it.
I am a former CEO, filmmaker, Soul Midwife and Druidic Bard. Several times in my life, the life I was living no longer aligned with the person I had become. Finding the courage to make difficult changes led me closer and closer to my purpose, and eventually to work I could never have imagined doing today. Aliveness grew from that journey, with a dream that it might one day become as impactful as Mindfulness: a daily practice that helps people live more bravely, leave fewer regrets and build a more present and generous world.
I agree. Only when we become aware of our mortality do we truly begin to live!
Oh yes, Aliveness. Love the rebrand. I was looking through my recommendations and didn't know who it was.