About Me
Warren Hooley - Biography
Warren Hooley is originally from Penticton, British Columbia. Having mixed roots of Okanagan/Syilx , English and Ukrainian heritage, Warren has passionately facilitated over 2500 workshops over the past 13 years on topics like Compassionate Communication (NVC), A Values Approach to Decolonization and Healthy Masculinity.
Today, living in Vancouver B.C, Warren’s overall vision is to help create communities where every single person can thrive and live a sustainable fulfilling life. Warren likes to weave in engaging activities, fascinating diagrams and and practice time for skills that can create genuine change in people's lives.
A Snapshot of Warren's life
Chubby Baby Warren
Innocent Shy Kid
Too cool Teenager
My mother and father did the best they could. I had a healthy time in the womb and came out healthy. My parents split when I was 3 and although there is trauma I will likely need to work on for most of my life, I'm still grateful for what I've had to become in order to overcome it. Finding the courage to heal and work on these wounds over the years have been both my greatest challenge and greatest gift.
By 10 years old I was a shy and sensitive kid. I was a total goofball behind closed doors doing Jim Carey impressions for my biggest fan and cheerleader in life, my older sister. When I got to grade 8 though, this innocent and shy personality got tested.
Throughout high school was a journey of surviving an friend circle of boys who had no real healthy role models or guidance. Although we definitely had some genuine fun times and real comradery, it was more so filled with lots of roasting and bullying each other. I learned to disconnect from my own body and heart to survive this. With no real role models and an unhealthy social circle I found myself headed down a path of arrogance, addictions and escape.
By the time I graduated high school I couldn’t name a single body sensation, hadn’t cried in many years and had built up a myriad of limiting beliefs about myself and world around me. Unfortunately this was what I mainly got from my time in high school. I managed to climb the social ladder, but at the cost of losing who I really was. Disconnected from my body and heart, full of blind spots and twisted beliefs, I ran from the world. I became a hermit living on my native reserve in Penticton, BC trapped in a cycle of addiction and escape. No one had ever taught me a single skill about how to be with myself. To build a healthy relationship to my thoughts, feelings, body sensations etc. And so I turned to the only thing I knew to stay afloat....video games and marijuana lol. To some this might not sound so bad but believe me, when you over do these things, eat only junk food and never leave the house, its a cocktail for not doing anything that truly brings fulfillment in life. This was the most depressed I ever felt. I knew I was capable of incredible things, but fear of my own discomfort was winning the daily battles.
After years of attempts to break free from my own internal prison, I stumbled upon a personal development audio series called “beyond positive thinking”. It taught me two really important lessons. That my repeated thoughts are what sculpt my beliefs over time and that this in turn had created a set of limited beliefs about who I was. So after realizing this I decided to start visualizing who I wanted to be at least once a day. It was this process that initiated my journey into the world of myself and sparked my deepest desire…to grow. To become the best version of myself. Not what others told me I should be, but what my heart at its deepest level was calling for. After this initiation came a series of learning chapters in my life, each one uncovering who I really was and the life I wanted to build.
The first chapter was connecting to my Okanagan/Syilx roots. A journey I am still on and want to continue. This exploration helped me lift the shame and uncertainty of who I was and where I came from. I realized the beauty and brilliance of my Okanagan ancestry and I started to feel proud to be half indigenous. I feel deeply grateful for my experience going to the En’owkin center on my reserve, a cultural and creative arts school that really helped me spark my desire to learn my roots and strive for growth.
Next was my introduction to ‘Creative Facilitation’. A world where unlocking your creative confidence and facilitating magic was the name of the game. It was here I reclaimed my inner child and ability to express more authentically. I got to witness the power of community by participating and eventually leading summer youth camps and adult facilitation trainings. I faced a lot of my blind spots being in the position of a lead facilitator and got to learn from some truly incredible senior facilitators from the ‘PYE Global’ and ‘IndigenEYEZ’ communities. I will use this way of facilitating for the rest of my life and I'm truly grateful for finding it and those who were willing to teach me.
Then came the world of Compassionate Communication (NVC). It’s here I learned how to listen to my emotions and connect to what’s most important to me. I spent years and years learning how to hold safe and warm space for others and more importantly…myself. Working with Sarah Peyton a relational neuroscience and trauma healing expert, I embarked on the journey of healing my childhood wounds and building an emotional support network. A journey I’m learning to embrace and continue to deepen for the rest of my life. Learning how to leave the world of judgement that's all around us and choose a consciousness of empathy is one of the hardest things to unlearn and relearn. But its also the most worth it.
My latest main chapter in life was my dive into the idea of ‘decolonization’. I began looking at how the ‘consciousness of colonization’ has oppressed and continues to deeply affect every single person on the planet. From a values based lens that I learned from NVC, I’ve come to realize that we must band together and face the problems that we’ve inherited from the previous generations as a united front. To move away from increased polarity, into deeper connection and understanding. I believe this might be the greatest test humanity will ever face. To overcome judgement of self and other is a mountainous task. Yet I believe it’s paramount that we learn to both take full responsibility for our own healing and also contribute to changing systems for others to access healing as well.
Now after 13 of rigorous personal growth, leading over 2500 workshops having learned both some beautiful and really hard lessons along the way, I feel its time to take my purpose and contribution to the world to the next level of depth and meaning. I have chosen to walk the path of a facilitator, mentor and life-long student. To give myself to this work and offer my gifts to the world with respect, humility and love.