Spotlight: Longing by Christopher Sansone

Longmont resident Christopher Sansone, PhD, is a life and spiritual coach specializing in human development. A former Hoffman Quadrinity Process teacher, he has over 20 years of coaching experience. He has taken this experience and combined it with his own self-journey in his new book Longing: A Pilgrimage to Your Quiet Power Within, published by Mantra Books and distributed by Simon and Schuster. We sat down with Sansone to talk about the book.

Jamie Lammers: I’m curious about how this book came to be.
Christopher Sansone: It was during COVID when this sprang up. My dad had passed December 20th, 2019, and my mom would pass on May 5, 2020. Everything I did with the Hoffman Institute was in-person, but once COVID hit, boom, shelter in place. It was a time of grieving, and around that time, I had been in contact with a wonderful medium, Victoria Garcia. Victoria had told me she was getting signs that I was to write a book. She goes, “Don’t worry, it will come. You just have to be open.” Well, I didn’t. I just went right into, I’m gonna write it my way, do a bunch of research, dive into the higher levels of human consciousness. I got back to Victoria, and she said, “That’s not what this book is about.” I had to make sense of it and edit it in a form that others could understand, and that’s what I did for a long time. I interviewed five people about these terrific shocks that they had in their life, and I gelled it up into a book. There hasn’t been a day I’ve worked on it that felt like work. The only part that’s been like work is the publishing side of it, but bringing it to form, it’s been wonderful.

Jamie: It sounds like it’s been a revelatory experience for you as well.
Christopher: That’s been probably the greatest gift of this, the writing of it. I know it’s an overused word, but it has been transformative in that it gave me a new perspective on the purpose of my own life and being on my true path. It was an endeavor into something much deeper than I had anticipated. It was expansive, and my demeanor, my approach, has shifted as a result.

Jamie: What’s been great about getting feedback on it?
Christopher: During the process of writing the book, I had two professional editors and informal readers, friends, family. There was always curiosity about this notion I bring forth and describe as “longing” that we all have. It was like, “Oh, you put your finger on something. I never really considered it that way.” To a person, there’s been this intrigue of the reading itself – the words, the way that the words have come on the page – that adds to people’s interest. It carries as much meaning and experience as the reader allows, but there is certainly an indication to go a bit deeper than the normal thinking processes.

Jamie: Is there anything that you really hope people take away?
Christopher: Probably the most central line through it all is purpose – not in the sense of a new project, endeavor, career, or family, though those can be purposeful, but the reason for your existence. Why are we here? What are we doing? There’s lots of quick ways to answer that – I want to be a great parent, a great leader, contribute to my society, or break through norms and lead change – but there’s something even more resonant that’s universal with all of us, and that’s this sense of higher purpose. What am I doing to evolve who I am? That could sound rather lofty, and it is, but when we bring it down to the everyday experience, it’s “How am I being in this world?”

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