Department of Aliveness · Bureau no. 01

● Open · Ogden, Utah

● Open · Ogden, Utah

Est. 2024

Dr. Alex Lovell

Department of Aliveness

Start here

Substack

The Department

About Alex

Work with me

Contact

Dr. Alex Lovell

Department of Aliveness

Start here

Substack

The Department

About Alex

The Living Room

Small-group cohorts

The Utah Retreat

Work with me

Contact

Pick the one that feels most right
A publication, a 1:1 practice, and experiences for people who are done being projects, or beginning to suspect they’d like to be. Welcome to post-heroic living: a life you actually want to be in, with all its unfinished business and all the things you still want from it.

Pick the one that feels most right
A publication, a 1:1 practice, and experiences for people who are done being projects, or beginning to suspect they’d like to be. Welcome to post-heroic living: a life you actually want to be in, with all its unfinished business and all the things you still want from it.

  • Writing

  • ★

  • Practice

  • ◆

  • Experiences

  • ●

  • 1:1

  • ✦

  • Community

  • ◆

  • Aliveness

  • ✦

Ways in

From something to read
to somewhere to go.

From something
to read to
somewhere to go.

From something to read
to somewhere to go.

The writing is free, and there are several ways to take the conversation further. Spend an hour in the Living Room, work with me one to one, or join an experience with others exploring what it means to feel alive. Start with what draws you in.

The Substack

Free · Weekly

Read

Weekly essays on post-heroic living, questioning the rules we’ve inherited about healing, achievement, and what makes a life count. I write about the life that keeps happening while we’re busy trying to get ourselves right, where grief and something completely ridiculous can turn up in the same afternoon. There are short practices, too, because some of this deserves to happen away from the page.

No course at the end of it

Start reading →

The Substack

Free · Weekly

Read

Weekly essays on post-heroic living, questioning the rules we’ve inherited about healing, achievement, and what makes a life count. I write about the life that keeps happening while we’re busy trying to get ourselves right, where grief and something completely ridiculous can turn up in the same afternoon. There are short practices, too, because some of this deserves to happen away from the page.

No course at the end of it

Start reading →

The Living Room

One hour · $29 · monthly

Living is worth talking about.

Spend an hour in good company, talking about what it means to live after everything shifted, and while plenty is still shifting. Each month, I bring a theme and an opening question, then guide the conversation wherever we take it together. We meet on video, with twenty people at most. Come to speak or simply listen, to be welcomed and witnessed either way, and to make connections that can continue beyond the hour.

Next: Oct 17, Nov 14, Dec 19

See this month’s room →

The Living Room

One hour · $29 · monthly

Living is worth talking about.

Spend an hour in good company, talking about what it means to live after everything shifted, and while plenty is still shifting. Each month, I bring a theme and an opening question, then guide the conversation wherever we take it together. We meet on video, with twenty people at most. Come to speak or simply listen, to be welcomed and witnessed either way, and to make connections that can continue beyond the hour.

Next: Oct 17, Nov 14, Dec 19

See this month’s room →

The cohorts

Ten weeks · 8–10 people · $700–$950

Make room for more living.

Ten weeks with a small group, exploring aliveness, living with grief, or rediscovering play. I guide weekly conversations and offer experiences to try between sessions, with a private community to share what happens along the way. There’s time to get to know each other, follow something further, and discover what you want more room for in your life.

The Aliveness Cohort

· The life that’s here

The Grief Cohort

· Nothing to get over

The Play Cohort

· For no good reason

Join the waitlist for upcoming dates.

See the cohorts →

The cohorts

Ten weeks · 8–10 people · $700–$950

Make room for more living.

Ten weeks with a small group, exploring aliveness, living with grief, or rediscovering play. I guide weekly conversations and offer experiences to try between sessions, with a private community to share what happens along the way. There’s time to get to know each other, follow something further, and discover what you want more room for in your life.

The Aliveness Cohort

· The life that’s here

The Grief Cohort

· Nothing to get over

The Play Cohort

· For no good reason

Join the waitlist for upcoming dates.

See the cohorts →

One to one

Thirty minutes · $100 to start

Let’s find out what living looks like for you.

Bring what’s happening in your life, what you’re finding difficult, and what you want more of. Together, we’ll make room for what needs to be felt, notice what brings you alive, and try things you can take into everyday life. Our work can include conversation, breath, movement, or a walk through Ogden. Start with one session, then we’ll decide together what comes next.

In person in Ogden, or on video

Work with me →

One to one

Thirty minutes · $100 to start

Let’s find out what living looks like for you.

Bring what’s happening in your life, what you’re finding difficult, and what you want more of. Together, we’ll make room for what needs to be felt, notice what brings you alive, and try things you can take into everyday life. Our work can include conversation, breath, movement, or a walk through Ogden. Start with one session, then we’ll decide together what comes next.

In person in Ogden, or on video

Work with me →

The Utah Retreat

5–10 days · Utah · 2027

Come out here for a while.

Get enough distance from your everyday demands to hear what you want, what you miss, and what makes you feel alive. Join me and eight to ten people for five to ten days in Utah, exploring those discoveries through conversation, creative experiments, time in the landscape, and life together. There’s room to rest, be known, enjoy yourself, and try something you might not make space for at home. Come explore what living could look like, and what you want to take back into your everyday life.

Dates announced to the email list first

Explore the Utah retreat →

The Utah Retreat

5–10 days · Utah · 2027

Come out here for a while.

Get enough distance from your everyday demands to hear what you want, what you miss, and what makes you feel alive. Join me and eight to ten people for five to ten days in Utah, exploring those discoveries through conversation, creative experiments, time in the landscape, and life together. There’s room to rest, be known, enjoy yourself, and try something you might not make space for at home. Come explore what living could look like, and what you want to take back into your everyday life.

Dates announced to the email list first

Explore the Utah retreat →

Runs through all of it

There’s room to be known here, and to keep showing up for one another as life changes. Community starts with the people: readers who write back, conversations that carry on, familiar faces you’re glad to see again. It runs through everything we do. There’s nothing separate to join.

THE PERSON BEHIND IT

Hey, I’m Alex.

Hey, I’m Alex.

Dr. Alex Lovell · Ogden, Utah

Political psychologist by training, kundalini yoga therapist by practice, founder of the Department mostly by accident. I live in Ogden with Luis and two dogs, Helix and Poppy.

I study what makes people come alive, and I’ve spent a long time trying to figure that out in my own life. After things shifted in ways I didn’t choose, I did the work of trying to get better. Eventually, I started questioning how much of my life I was spending preparing to live it.

You were never a project.

That conviction became the Department. It’s where I write, create experiences, and work with people who are figuring out what it means to be alive after everything shifted, including while plenty is still shifting.

More about Alex →

Work with me →

PhD, political psychology · Yoga therapist, IAYT · Kundalini & breathwork lineages

★ Mission ★

To remind one person a day

To remind one person a day

that the life they’re living is already enough.

that the life they’re living is already enough.

Today, that person could be you.

Today, that person could be you.

Get the weekly emails →

THE MAILBOX

What readers send back.

What readers send back.

Notes from readers of the Department.

“I don’t know how you manage to put words together in such a magical way, but you do; it’s wonderful. And from you doing that, I am encouraged to let the words flow in the way they want to from me too. Hallelujah!”

Jane Duncan Rogers

Subscriber

ALIVENESSDEPT.COM

“I support your work because you are caring, smart and kind. Your insights are amazing. Thank you.”

Kathy Napoli

Subscriber

ALIVENESSDEPT.COM

“I love how you put the pieces of our puzzles together in fresh, challenging, and insightful ways.”

Linda Kaun

Subscriber

ALIVENESSDEPT.COM

“Your words stir something deep and sacred in my Spirit that I rarely find elsewhere. Any time I see you publish something I know it will speak to me.”

Nancy A.

Subscriber

ALIVENESSDEPT.COM

PEOPLE I’VE WORKED WITH

In their own words.

In their own words.

“Alex helped me navigate the changes I needed to make in order for me to actually move on. After three months, I was a completely new person. The journey was hard, but I wouldn’t have had a journey without Alex.”

“Alex helped me navigate the changes I needed to make in order for me to actually move on. After three months, I was a completely new person. The journey was hard, but I wouldn’t have had a journey without Alex.”

JJ H.

CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER

“Alex simply gave me the space and tools to learn what I already knew I needed. I just needed to hear it from myself — that was what I was missing. He surrounded me with care. He listened. And when I finally realized an important truth for me, he sat with me through it. I just felt safe to cry it out. And then I was ready to move forward.”

Jackie K.

CLIENT SUCCESS MANAGER

“I didn’t realize that I was burned out — not because of work, but because of everything I stopped doing for myself. I was so ashamed of living a life I didn’t want that I simply forgot to live. Now I am honestly the happiest I have been, even without my dream life. It’s because I chose myself again. I chose to live.”

LouAnn P.

CASHIER

“Before, I was impulsively jumping from one possible road to the next without any commitment and a lot of fear. With Alex I’ve found a greater ability to turn to myself for answers. The motivation and clarity I find actually stick, because the truths I arrive at are self-generated. He’s a catalyst for stable, consistent change.”

Galen T.

ATTORNEY

HOW 1:1 WORKS →

First session 30 minutes · $100 · one session at a time

PUBLISHED & RECOGNIZED

Top 3% of practitioners on Thumbtack and Bark.

Forbes

Forbes

FEATURED

Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review

PUBLISHED

Human Capital Institute

Human Capital Institute

PUBLISHED

Scholars Strategy Network

Scholars Strategy Network

MEMBER SCHOLAR

Academy of Business Research

Academy of Business Research

PUBLISHED

Int’l Association of Yoga Therapists

Int’l Association of Yoga Therapists

MEMBER PRACTITIONER

Department intake · Form 02-B

Join the department.

It’s free.

Join the department.

It’s free.

Get weekly writing about living a life you want to be in, without making yourself the next improvement project. Find questions, short practices, and things worth trying while life is still complicated, unfinished, and yours.

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● Weekly

● 2,000+ readers

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WHAT OTHER WRITERS AND PRACTITIONERS SAY

“He doesn’t push advice or pat answers — he offers perspective. His work feels like an exhale.”

Dr. Bronce Rice

THE WELLBEING EQUATION

“Alex brings both wisdom and clarity to the complex emotions we’re experiencing, articulating them in a way that makes us feel both seen and understood.”

Erin Miller

UNPOPULAR PARENT

“Honest, authentic, real and sometimes funny. Alex has a way of sharing insights in a unique way that is so needed right now.”

Beckett Johnson

QUANTUM NOMAD

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