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
Coach | Improviser | Facilitator
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 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 blend the principles and practices of improv and Authentic Relating in my workshops, personal life and coaching. I’m exploring how we relate, express, and play together authentically - particularly from the heart and body.
Recently I become a Certified Embodiment Coach, integrating how I lead heads, hearts and bodies with more awareness, in my coaching and facilitation. I also undertook 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 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).