I help people get curious, let go of judgement, and find more room to be fully human.
Hello. I’m Chris. I want a more playful life. An open-hearted, messy human experience of being alive in the here-and-now. Because I'm tired of trying really hard on my own to get things right all the time.
Chris Kenworthy
Embodiment coach | Facilitator | Improviser
How I got here
When I lead groups, we often play Mihimihi greetings. It's a metaphor game that gives context to who you are and what you're all about. 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, and striving to do things right.
Usually to please anyone but myself.
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.
What’s your mountain, river and tribe?
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 professional 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.
My tribe
Is people on their own journeys, both inward and outward. They're fellow travellers moving towards what brings them to life. People ready to relate truthfully, through play and open-heartedness.
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
These days I’m exploring how we relate, express, and play together authentically - particularly from the heart and body. I blend the principles and practices of improvisation and Authentic Relating not just professionally in my workshops and coaching, but personally in my everyday life and relationships.
As well as being a qualified ILM5 performance coach, I'm a Certified Embodiment Coach, which means I coach, lead and facilitate with particular interest in bodily state (mood, motivation, energy) and longer-term behavioural awareness (habits, unconscious patterns). I also undertook Level 3 leadership training in Authentic Relating, to explore relational and emotional dynamics in groups.
I put all this into practice regularly at the local improv and authentic relating communities I lead in Leeds, as well as in improv team-building workshops for progressive businesses.
And my guiding mantra on this leg of the journey is follow your bliss - a nod to Joseph Campbell’s wisdom on how to navigate the essential and inevitable pleasure/pain of knowing yourself, others, and what it is to live a full, good life.
For now I live in Leeds, West Yorkshire (UK).
meet me on My podcast
Listen to Beyond the Basement
Join Chris for unscripted reflections on the wild, tender and playful experience of being human. Each episode is like an intimate voice-note to you, with lively insight from the edge of discovery.
People say you’ll recognise yourself in these adventures and encounters. And hear clarity, perspective and truth - with deep appreciation for life’s messy magic as it’s really lived through your body.