Wholeness takes courage
This past weekend, I had the privilege of helping to facilitate and co-organise a special event called Faith, Family, Future: A Weekend Hui. It was wholesome. Full-on. Heart-filling.
I worked with high-school students, co-led a session with parents and youth together and watched conversations spark in ways that don’t happen often enough. One young participant summed it up in a way that still makes me smile:
“I loved this very very much. My favourite session. Please more and more of this!”
That hunger for “more” tells me something: people, especially young people, are desperate for spaces where they can be whole. Spaces where faith, family and future aren’t separate compartments, but part of one honest conversation.
The soul we can’t ignore
Our international guest speaker reminded us of something I can’t shake. In order for psychology to be recognised as a science, it had to strip out any reference to the soul. Which is kind of ironic given that the prefix psych- is derived from the Greek word psychē which refers to "breath" and later acquired the meanings of "soul" or "spirit". This leaves modern day psychology with an incomplete picture of the self. The risk this poses to humanity is significant because the greatest frenemy we all face doesn’t live “out there” in the economy, in politics or even in our workplaces.
It lives inside us.
And if we ignore the soul - the part of us that wrestles, resists, hopes, yearns and connects us to the eternal - then no amount of external strategy will bring real wholeness.
Wholeness in my own life
As if to drive the lesson home, life handed me my own version of the challenge this week. My current work contract is ending. I’ve been job-hunting. At the same time, I’ve committed to a significant investment in my business; one that forces me to go all-in rather than hedge my bets or dabble.
On paper, those things can feel like separate boxes: career in one column, business in another, family in another, faith in yet another. But in reality, they’re all connected.
The job search tests my patience. The business investment tests my courage. My family commitments test my balance. And my faith tests whether I really trust the process.
It all comes back to one question: Am I willing to live whole?
Wholeness takes courage
Wholeness is not easy. It demands courage.
The courage to listen when it’s easier to shut down.
The courage to integrate, not fragment, our lives.
The courage to face our own “frenemy” within.
The courage to go all-in, even when uncertainty looms.
It’s the same courage I saw in those teenagers last weekend, daring to ask bold questions about life and leadership. And the same courage their parents showed, being willing to sit in a room together and have honest conversations across generations.
Final reflection
Wholeness isn’t about having everything figured out. It’s about choosing not to live sliced up.
Faith. Family. Future. Work. Business. Soul. They don’t have to compete. They can integrate, if we’re willing to be courageous enough to live it that way.
So, here are some questions for you (and me):
Where in my life am I living in compartments instead of wholeness?
Where am I hedging, when I could be going all-in?
What would it look like to lead with more courage: at home, at work and within myself?
Because when we live whole, we get more than just the sum of the parts - we fill our hearts.
