Category Archives: Loss

A Tribute to Jean Houston, the Midwife of Souls

Category:Collaboration,Community,Emotions,Exploration,Fear,Growth,Learning,Loss,Movements,Narratives,Opportunity,Passion,Potential,Transformation

Three months ago, Jean Houston’s body left this world, but her spirit will remain with us forever. She was an awesome human being who inspired so many people (including me) throughout her life. I am very grateful that she was a mentor and friend who played a significant role in deepening my passion for exploration.

She encouraged me to pursue my journey and wrote a tribute to my most recent book, The Journey Beyond Fear: “John Hagel has done it again! From the depths and breadth of his own experience, he gives us keys to a psychology that activates needed growth in self and society. This book is on the frontier of a conceptual evolution that brooks no whiney nay saying, but creates the ground for a dynamic transition into a Renaissance in thought and enterprise.” I am grateful that she also volunteered to serve on the Board of Advisors of my new Center for Growth because she was excited by its mission.

Exploring Jean Houston’s impact

There are so many dimensions of Jean’s impact. She was a pioneer of the human potential movement back in the 1960’s and pursued this with passion throughout the rest of her life. She wrote 30 books, including The Possible Human, and engaged with a vast array of people throughout her life, driven by her mission of helping all of us to become excited about pursuing far more of our potential. She had the passion of the explorer until the very end, when she engaged with her hospice workers to inspire them to pursue more of their potential.

At one level, her focus was on inspiring and helping individuals to look within and discover how much potential was waiting to be drawn out, so that they could have even more impact that would be meaningful to them and to those around them. In this context, she would encourage people to explore three different layers within all of us – mind, heart and soul. It definitely resonated with me, as you can see in my blog posts here and here. We need to move beyond mindset and understand the much deeper roles that our heartset and spiritset play in shaping our mindset.

Our spirit has infinite potential that is waiting to be discovered and drawn out. As Jean Houston wrote: “we all contain ‘so much more’ than we think we do.” It’s one of the reasons that Jean described herself as the “midwife of souls.” She would use powerful tools of imagination to help others achieve a much deeper understanding of themselves.

Although she never used the term herself, Jean exemplified the power of the passion of the explorer. She was excited about the opportunity to discover new ways to help people to dive deeper into themselves and see what they had never seen before – the spirit that was waiting to be drawn out and energize people to have even more impact that was meaningful to them. She had the passion of the explorer, and she believed we all have the potential and need to cultivate that passion.

Broadening our exploration

But Jean wasn’t just encouraging us to explore inward. She was passionate about the need for all of us to explore outward as well, so that we could see how deeply connected everything is, not just on earth, but in the universe. She just believed that we need to start by making ourselves better if we want to make the world better. If we understand the richness of the world around us, we will see the potential to have even more impact by connecting more deeply with others and with everything that surrounds us.

Building a movement

At another level, Jean was also excited about becoming a catalyst for a movement. She didn’t just want people to come up with new ideas and insights. She wanted all of us to come together to take action and have much greater impact in ways that would inspire others to join as well.

She assumed many roles throughout her long life, including serving as founder of The Foundation for Mind Research, Chancellor of Meridian University, an activist with the United Nations Development Program, and Chairman of the United Palace of Spiritual Arts in New York City. One of the things that she deeply understood is that successful movements need to be guided by an opportunity-based narrative that can inspire people to come together and take action, rather than focusing on all the threats that exist in the world.

Her inspiration, mentorship and passion were a key catalyst in motivating me to write my book, The Journey Beyond Fear, which focused on the role that emotions play in shaping our choices and actions. The three pillars of the journey beyond fear – narratives, passion and platforms – were very much aligned with how she viewed the world and the potential for change. I have launched the Center for Growth which offers programs based on my book and designed to support people in making the journey beyond fear.

Bottom line

Jean Houston’s body has passed away, but her energy lives on through the ideas, passion and inspiration that she spread throughout her life. She has been a catalyst for awakening so many of us. The best way to honor her is to cultivate the higher power within us and to take action and help motivate others to discover and pursue more of their potential.