What is a Good Life? #164
The End Of All Seeking with Nicholas Janni
Hello and welcome to What is a Good Life? A project exploring the big questions around how we live, who we are and what actually matters.
This week, I’m reflecting on my conversation with Nicholas Janni, author of Leader as Healer and co-author of Leading in Chaos. We explore why rest has become a radical act, the difference between wellness and transformation, and what happens when we stop trying to get somewhere.
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Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
One of my favourite places to be is between my sleeping dog and sleeping toddler on a midday nap.
Watching diaphragms rise and fall. Inhales. Exhales.
Occasional movements of limbs and light snores from my dog. It is easy to get intoxicated.
On two separate occasions, after both their arrivals, my wife halted me in my tracks. I was waxing lyrical about them being in my life, specifically them.
A few months after we collected Alma from a shelter, I mentioned that I was so glad that the sequence of events unfolded as they did, so that we ended up with her.
To which my wife responded, “Do you think had we picked any other dog, you would not have ended up loving that dog too?”
Fair enough.
A few months after Ava was born, a similar exchange occurred. I told my wife I was so glad we’d waited — that otherwise we wouldn’t have had Ava. Again, she asked, ‘And do you think, if it had been another child, you wouldn’t have felt the same?’
Once again, fair enough.
These experiences came floating back to me when I was in conversation with Nicholas.
“The fundamental break we all experienced, most probably very early in life, was a break from the flow of love. In a way, the whole journey is a return to love. For that to occur, we have to face all the ways our heart got wounded. But as we do that, there is this field we enter together which feels like the one heart.” - Nicholas Janni
I interviewed Nicholas and last week’s guest, Dr Scilla Elworthy, on the same day.
It felt like a retreat. Simply brought about from sitting in my living room and having two open hearted conversations.
I went for a walk with my dog after the second interview and floated around the neighbourhood for thirty minutes. Smiling and greeting anyone I crossed paths with.
“And I come to experience more and more deeply, what it means to rest in the unified field, which is a field of real love” - Nicholas Janni
This morning my wife and I were about to get into a row, a few early snaps taken and shots fired. It was only thanks to her saying she wanted silence and me having to take the dog for a walk that stopped me unloading and saying things I regretted.
After stewing for the first few minutes of the walk, when we came together again it was rather easy to say, “I fiercely disagree with you and I fiercely love you.”
As missiles are fired and the number of conflicts exceeds my fingers and toes, it may seem delusional to speak of love.
I see it more as the very point of it.
To realise it expands far beyond our designated objects of love.
2. This Week’s Questions
What makes it hardest to feel love right now?
When did you last return to love after losing connection to it?
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Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - The End Of All Seeking with Nicholas Janni - What is a Good Life? #164
Listen to or watch the full conversation with Nicholas Janni below.
About Me
I am a writer, 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.