On the 147th episode of What is a Good Life?, I’m delighted to welcome Karimu Samuels. Karimu is a movement expert whose journey from exhaustion to ease led him to discover the power of moving through life with flow. With years of studying body functionality and coaching athletes worldwide, he teaches holistic movement that unites body, mind, and emotion — guiding others toward balance and the joy of movement. He embodies the belief that through movement, we can master not only our bodies but also ourselves.
In this conversation, Karimu invites us to explore what happens when we stop striving and start listening — to our bodies, our intuition, and the quieter signals of life. From learning to move through the world with less control and more awareness, to discovering movement as a mirror for self-understanding, he shares how trust, honesty, and softness became the foundation of his work and his peace.
This episode invites you to slow down, listen deeply, and tune into what your body is trying to tell you.
The weekly clip from the podcast (1 min), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (57 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
2. My Weekly Reflection
“Whatever I’m sharing, whatever is my reality, doesn’t need to be your reality and you don’t need to like it. But it is important for me to express my reality because only if I express my reality will I be at peace.”
When Karimu said this, he named something fundamental to the peace I experience in life — and, I sense, to how we feel a much greater trust with life itself.
Reviewing transcripts from the 300+ interviews I’ve conducted, I’ve been trying to discern what really allows us to build trust — something beyond the kind that’s earned, and more like a field we share in any given moment.
For starters, we often make trust a binary thing — you either trust someone or you don’t. Simple.
I trust my wife and that we’ll spend a lifetime together. Yet when I sense she’s saying something to avoid rocking the boat, I don’t trust the words that are said.
While reliability, history, and credibility matter, they only tell part of the story. Trust, I sense, is far more nuanced than we think.
Over the course of these many interviews — and through the group conversations I host — certain themes have emerged.
Attention
I see attention as the primary currency of trust. Is a person presently noticing the other? Are they really paying attention? This attention not only helps someone feel seen, but trust deepens when that noticing helps make sense of a moment together. A continual presence gives someone the confidence that you are here, right now - available.
Paradox
While paradox can be uncomfortable, as Karimu’s words remind us, trust is deeply tied to our contact with reality. The world is full of paradox, and avoiding it won’t build trust. Whether it’s a reality or complexity we’d rather not admit, the closer we come to it, the greater the trust we feel with life. It may not make things easier — and we may still strive for resolution — but I’ve seen more trust in those who can be with paradox without needing to solve it.
Grief
I’ve written before about the link between inner and outer coherence and trust. The capacity to express grief — not just about the big deaths but the continual small losses of our lives — creates greater connection and coherence. It helps the other make sense of what they’re sensing in us.
I love it when my wife briefly mourns a phase in my daughter’s life that has passed. It’s not a big or long process, just a small mentioning or nodding to what was. It could be telling your partner of a potential win at work collapsing and sitting with it for a moment.
In-the-Moment Vulnerability
We’re often told vulnerability means sharing something deep — a defining moment, a personal confession. But I see it differently. The type of vulnerability that builds trust is an of-the-moment noticing.
In the Silent Conversations I host, I ask people to share their present experience. In one online session, a man shared that during the silence he became aware his son had come home. He said he was partly with the group, partly fearing someone might burst through the door.
No one will make a movie about the man waiting for his son to burst through the door. But we can all relate to those moments — when our attention was split, when we waited for something to happen that never did. It also reveals something important: that he cares about being responsive — to the group and to his son.
When we keep reporting from where we are, we say simple things that build coherence and trust. We begin to understand the small micro-cues we notice in one another — “Ah, he looks distracted, not because he’s uninterested, but because…”
Agency, Boundaries, and Interdependence
Across these interviews, I’ve noticed the power of self-authorship — naming boundaries and declaring what you need and want. This links to a functional sense of trust through role and ownership, but it also has an intimacy component: clear edges create deeper centres.
Not in the sense of fixed boundaries or rigid containers, but rather a momentary depth that becomes possible through the awareness of firmness around it — by knowing where the other clearly stands. Paradoxically boundaries can deepen connection.
Presence
I’ve been hearing more people speak about the effect of behaviour, environment, or another person on their nervous system. There’s a clear link between the quality of someone’s presence and the trust we feel with them — even if we can’t articulate it.
There’s a somatic safety in such presence — perhaps someone in whose company you could imagine letting out a deep sigh, with nothing needing to be said.
The layers of trust that I’m most curious about are those emerging in this very moment — whether with another person, with ourselves, or with life itself.
As with most things, I sense it’s more about subtraction than addition — stripping back the layers we place between reality and ourselves, between each other.
A bit like love, I find trust to be an energy that is always there, instantly and momentarily accessible — if we get out of its way.
Work with me
If you’d like to explore how I’m helping leadership teams reveal a deeper kind of trust — one that transforms culture, reduces burnout, strengthens retention, and makes organisations more adaptable — do get in touch.
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Full Episode - Coming Home Through Movement with Karimu Samuels - What is a Good Life? #147
4. This Week’s Questions
What is your body communicating to you lately?
Is there a part of reality you are struggling to accept right now?
About Me
I am a coach, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.
If you’re interested in exploring your own self-inquiry through one-on-one coaching, my 5-week group courses, or fostering greater trust, communication, and connection within your leadership teams, feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.