Maping Evolve Move Play with John Vervaeke: EMP Podcast 36

We believe that the practice of movement is more than learning neat tricks and improving our physical aesthetics.

While those things are great, what we are aimed at is a practice that goes beyond just the physical and improves as many aspects of our lives as possible.

Movement is essentially an expression of the self— the body-mind organism that we are. It is how we interact with and experience literally everything going on within and around us.

Our connections to the environment, to others, and to ourselves immediately affect the quality of our lives.

If you are constantly unhappy with your own actions, scared of the world around you, and being alienated by your peers, cultivating a sense of purpose can be incredibly difficult to do.

Building an ecology of practices that strengthen these relations gives us a better chance to create the life we want for ourselves.

We can find affordances in our environment that nurture us and give us opportunities for learning and growth.

We learn how to communicate and form bonds with people to expand our network of support. We begin to live according to our vision and, through continual work and incremental progress, gain a stronger sense of self respect and self trust.

Johns work is tightly woven around this idea of creating a sense of meaning, but one of the biggest criticisms of his work is that it can be abstract. Sure, we should live more meaningful lives, but what are the real world, physical actions that bring about that result?

John’s work has resonated deeply with us at EMP and we feel there is a way to make the ideas and principles concrete, and we’ve been working hard on mapping out how to put all of these concepts into actual practice.

The purpose of today's episode is not so much to interview John, but rather to present our map of practices to him for the sake of getting some dialogue and feedback on how congruent they are to his teachings.

We hope you enjoy this conversation and we’d be happy to hear what questions or comments you have.

Keep an eye out in the future for more interviews and conversations with John, and don’t forget to go check out his lecture series “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” on YouTube.

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