If I had a magic wand, I'd make it OK to play openly and feel the big feels without judgement, fear or shame.
It’d be a world where you’re enough as you already are - no need to try so hard.
Hello. I’m Chris. I help people experience a fuller, deeper and richer life with more of what brings them joy.
People who long for fun, exploration and variety - as antidotes to relentless productivity and seriousness.
Chris Kenworthy
Coach | Improviser | Facilitator
Until I get that magic wand...
I’ll keep helping humans have fun, edgy, profound yet comfortable experiences, one-by-one, at group workshop events, and in individual coaching sessions.
Why I do this
I’m prone to overdoing, overthinking and under-feeling. I had to mature fast as a youngster - with high expectations, big responsibility and low-support.
So I know how to be serious. Up and on it. A grown-up. Maybe even a bit grumpy.
Can you relate?
Of course, the world needs mature adults to get stuff done. I welcome mine - he’s necessary.
And I also need the part of me full of wonder, possibility and playfulness. And the big-hearted part that’s open to feeling highs, lows, and everything in-between. And my mischievous, irreverent, inner imp (probably teenage) - to keep things fruity.
I believe your natural state is open, curious, joyful, innocent and playful. Even beneath decades of accumulated inner noise and distraction.
Not childish, maybe just child-like in spirit.
When these parts are welcomed in adulthood through the work I do, you become the purposeful, caring, creative explorer you always were. At least, that’s been my journey so far - expanding my range of being human.
What parts do you recognise in yourself? Which parts do you need more or less of?
Now I wonder - what’s your mountain, river and tribe?
How I got here
When I lead groups, we often do a Mihimihi greeting game. So let’s play…
My mountain is perfectionism
That's rule-abiding uptightness about doing what’s right, fair and good. This helped me survive a stereotypically bleak (albeit safe) northern childhood, and a fairly violent schooling. I coped by keeping my head down, acting sensible, by striving and achieving.
Usually to please anyone but myself.
Again, can you relate?
Doing what’s right included university, then a traditionally successful IT career in barren grey corporate wastelands from which I escaped in my late 20s. My 30s were a de-programming - finding ‘right’ on my own terms as a hippy-ish freelance copywriter and photographer.
For a while there I was rich in time and freedom (if not money). I travelled, wrote a book, grew businesses and vegetables, and fell in love. Until middle-age loomed - dissatisfied, disconnected and directionless.
My river is improvisation
This is the art of unscripted, unplanned comedy and drama through games and performance. This was a coming-home in my 40s - remembering how natural it felt to be spontaneous, kind, positive, creative and plain daft with others. I was new to improv yet somehow my soul knew the tongue.
At about the same time I retrained and qualified as a coach (ILM5, PII) at LBU's Leadership Centre. I found direction, support, and contribution in helping people grow, thrive and be their best. I learned how to lead, listen deeply, ask questions, and intuit what’s really going on.
Another remembering.
Along the way I tried marriage for a time, lost a parent to illness, and accumulated my share of mistakes, aches and self-sabotaging behaviours.
Plus, I gained a dog.
My tribe
Is people sparking meaningful change in the world, typically open-hearted business hippies, achievers, and practitioners. People on their own journeys inward and outward, unafraid of feeling big and having tricky conversations.
Authentic Relating brings me closer to them - the art of being human. It’s about connecting to yourself and others by expressing what’s true, in the moment. I learned this by accident, and alongside improv - I reckon it probably saved my life.
Where I'm going
I reckon improv, authentic relating and coaching form a golden Venn-diagram of play, connection and curiosity. They constitute my personal philosophy - like a manual on how to human well.
These days I blend their principles and practices, games and exercises, in my workshops, personal life and coaching. I’m exploring what happens when we lower our defences and reach other humans open to the same.
In 2024 I train to become a Certified Embodiment Coach, integrating how I lead heads, hearts and bodies in my coaching and facilitation. I’ll also undertake my Level 3 leadership training in Authentic Relating, to lead and facilitate transformation in groups and organisations - like the local improv and authentic relating communities I created in Leeds.
And my guiding mantra on this leg of the journey is follow your bliss - a nod to Joseph Campbell’s route through the essential pain and pleasure of knowing yourself deeply.
For now I live in Leeds, West Yorkshire with an adorable, hairy four-legged terrorist called Laurie.