Embodying the Wonder of Your Next Chapter (Wonder Dispatch 04.06.25)

When you need more than analysis or anxiety to move forward with authenticity

In this week’s Wonder Dispatch

This month, we’re sharing strategies, tools, and tips that equip you to hone your creative intelligence and wonder-tracking on behalf of your work, leadership, endeavors, and life. This week:

• Main message: embodying the wonder of a next chapter + a bonus poem

• What’s on Jeffrey’s and Team TW’s Radar (resources & what you might’ve missed)

• An invitation to work together

Onto this week’s main message.

The Unfolding of a New Chapter

Something’s stirring in a lot of people I work with. From what they tell me, it’s as if they’re experiencing spring personally - as if buds want to break their skin open, as if lily pads push to emerge from muddy bottoms within.

They don’t use those metaphors, but my sense is they feel something not-yet-articulated inside them that is coming up, and whatever it is it’s often connected to what they want to pursue next in work, leadership, creativity, and life.

A business owner, overwhelmed and stretched thin, wonders what’s next if she prioritizes her well-being.

An entrepreneur senses a change coming in his business model but isn’t sure what form it will take.

An executive, having spent years building expertise, finally feels ready to share her story in the world. But how?

You likely get these “hunches,” these hints, itches, hits. The question is, what do you do with them? How do nurture them? Especially when those hits seem tied to what you want to do with the next chapter of your business, leadership, creativity, or life.

How do you make space for what’s next when the way forward isn’t clear?

These periods are times for wonder.

Embodying the Wonder of Transition & Upleveling

When I work with people in transition or up-leveling, we work with both a map and a compass. While we unfold an emergent strategic road map, we also work with a compass that includes a set of practices that help them navigate uncertainty with creativity, experimentation, and agency.

At the heart of this process is creative intelligence, the compentencies to generate and act on novel, valuable, and meaningful ideas. Bruce Nussbaum refers to those who embody a group of people who have this capacity as “Indie Capitalists.” Indie Capitalists are people who are not interested in an old model of extraction and transaction but are instead more interested in designing models of relation and engagement.

To build capacity for creative intelligence requires embodiment. The mind doesn’t operate in isolation; it extends into movement, breath, and sensation. Research in embodied cognition, such as the work of cognitive scientist Lawrence Barsalou, suggests that our ability to think creatively is deeply intertwined with our physical experiences. When we engage the body deliberately, we open new pathways for insight.

Sensory Presence: Attuning to the Signals

One of the most powerful ways to cultivate embodied creative intelligence is through sensory awareness. Somatics (the study of the relationship between bodily experience and perception) has long informed my work, from Zen training to early yoga training immersions. Over time, I developed the Wonder Meditation Method, designed to heighten awareness and strengthen the connection between body and mind.

This practice begins with tuning into physical sensations. You need the feeling of breath moving, the weight of your body, the subtle hum of your surroundings. It extends to sensations of hearing, fostering inner openness, and sensations of internal seeing, sharpening the imagination. Eventually, it moves toward an awareness of thoughts as passing phenomena, rather than directives, and culminates in a still, momentary presence. That fleeting moment of wide-open, not-thinking is being in wonder.

Why does this matter? Because it builds meta-awareness. Meta-awareness is awareness of awareness. Meta-awareness allows you to notice the barely perceptible goldfish insights that drift at the edges of your consciousness. With practice, you learn to trust them.

Try this: If you’re tracking a hunch or tension about what’s next, try this: Write it down in a dedicated notebook. Call it your Tracking Wonder Notebook. Don’t analyze it. Simply describe it. What does it feel like in your body? What would you compare it to visually, physically, or metaphorically? This act alone can create space for new understanding.

Moving With the Idea

Emergent ideas create tension. That tension isn’t a problem; it’s energy. It’s why an idea can feel like something physically pressing inside you, waiting to bud.

The mistake we often make is trying to ignore that energy. We scroll through social media, distract ourselves with busy work, anything to avoid the discomfort. But a more skillful approach is to move with it.

Try this: The next time you sense an idea emerging, try this: Acknowledge the tension for what it is—the presence of something new wanting to take shape. Then, move not to force an answer, but to establish a relationship with the sensation.

Even pacing a room while holding an idea in mind can shift perspective. If you want to take it further, stand in front of a window. Plant your feet parallel, hip-width apart. Inhale slowly as you lift your arms overhead. Exhale as you lower them. Repeat four times.

Simple? Yes. But this practice entrains your nervous system to align intention, movement, and cognition. It helps you move beyond vague intuition into embodied agency.

Walking With Possibility

Wonder thrives in openness. When we are in transition, the impulse is often to narrow our focus. We unconsciously rush toward clarity to grasp for immediate answers. But what if the most generative approach was to expand our awareness instead?

This is why we at Tracking Wonder often guide people through a Possibility Wonder Walk. Studies in environmental psychology, such as those by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, suggest that time spent in open landscapes such as under a vast sky, near water, or in green spaces alters our cognitive state, fostering greater creativity and problem-solving ability.

If you’re navigating a new chapter, step outside. Walk not to arrive anywhere but to shift your state. As you walk, hold a question not for an answer, but as an invitation:

A year from now, who could I be elevating?

What could I be doing differently and better?

What could I be doing less of that drains me and more of that lights me up?

Let these questions hover. Don’t force conclusions. Instead, notice the symbols, signals, and visceral hunches that arise. Later, in your Tracking Wonder notebook, jot down what lingers.

Accompany these practices with a strategic road map, and you have a starting compass that guides you wholeheartedly with authenticity, agency, and wisdom. And if you seek a veteran guide to help you see the strategic big picture and you advance with spacious pacing, check out the invitation below.

The Way Forward

Transitions are rarely linear. But when you develop the capacity to move through them with creative intelligence, when you cultivate sensory presence, engage with tension, and walk with possibility, you create the conditions for meaningful shifts.

You don’t have to force clarity. Instead, you make space for wonder and insight.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for making space for wonder.

Your Turn to Wonder

»> What hunch, inkling, question, or idea is emerging in you?

»> What resonates here and what else would you like to share?

Hit “Reply” and let me know or Comment in the comment box.

For paid members: This week on The Wonder HUB, I’ll share more insights on creativity and creative intelligence or I might share a bonus Wonder Method Meditation recording for you to practice. Sound good?

---

Curiosities on Jeffrey’s Wonder Radar (and what you might’ve missed)

From Jeffrey

»> Move, Connect & Create to Reverse Burnout (Jeffrey | Psychology Today) - with over 10,000 views so far, this one strikes a chord

»> How to Overcome Overthinking to Spark Breakthrough Ideas (Jeffrey | Psychology Today)

»> How the Art & Science of Pausing Boosts Well-Being (Jeffrey | Psychology Today)

»> When Your Young Genius Comes to Work (The Wonder HUB | paid)

Recommendations

»> Reseeding Imaginations (Substack | Rowen White) - a refreshing learning space

»> HI Circles (Substack | Blair Glaser) - conversations driven toward action

Stimulation for Growth

»> Why Leaders Must Challenge Their Paradigms (HBR | Diane Belcher)

»> How GenZ is Evolving Leadership & Workplace Culture (Forbes)

»> High Five Your Demons (Dan Harris with Dick Shwartz on IFS and Buddhism)

---

An Invitation to Reclaim Possibility

Strategist for Thoughtful Growth
I have openings for private clients this season and quarter. We effect plans for business growth, more wonder in work and life, as well as reclaiming focus and priorities. If you're curious about having at last a dedicated idea partner and strategic advisor on your side, complete this form. You and I will be in touch soon.

Wonder Interventions@Work
Our in-person and remote talks & trainings change the way we connect at work. Complete our form here. I will reach out soon.

---

Bonus Poem on Being Tracked By Wonder

Can You Hear It?

by Paula Gordon Lepp

There are days when,
although I try to open myself
to wonder, wonder just
won’t be found. Or perhaps
it is more accurate to say
on those days I am simply
blind to what the world
has to offer
until I look down, and there,
beside the sidewalk,
are blades of grass completely
enrobed in ice, shimmering
in the glow of the setting sun,
and as they sway and move
into each other, if I listen,
really listen,
even they are singing
faint little bell-notes of joy.

---

Again: Your Turn to Wonder

»> What hunch, inkling, question, or idea is emerging in you?

»> What resonates here and what else would you like to share?

Hit “Reply” and let me know or Comment in the comment box.

I appreciate your showing up for the work and life that matter. We need you. I’ll see you next week for The Wonder Dispatch.

Thanks for running with me,

Jeffrey