Eli Walker

Eli Walker Belonging Expert, Keynote Speaker, Solo-Performance Artist, Founder/Author of Drunk Yoga® & Creator of The Uplift Center: School for Belonging

05/18/2026

My definition of belonging:

Knowing who you are, where you are, and choosing to be there such that you feel centered in your circumstances.

(What does belonging mean to you?) 🍃

05/16/2026

The fastest way to feel like you belong?

Get over yourself.

I know. Not the lovingly affirming, “you are enough exactly as you are” message you came to Instagram for.

But listen hear me out.
Most of the time we feel like we don’t belong, we’re not actually being excluded. We’re trapped inside our own heads, running threat assessments. Do they like me? Did that sound stupid? Why didn’t she text back? Am I too much? Am I not enough?

Belonging happens the moment you stop auditioning and start participating.

The art of getting over yourself looks like playfully self-surrendering in the name of accountability for your part in the collective.

And accountability, my friends, is the opposite of entitlement. Entitlement is the enemy of belonging.

05/14/2026

Icebreakers don’t have to be this stressful.

Lucky for you, I’ve got a for this.

Comment “icebreakers suck” and I’ll DM you my top 50 tried n’ true non-cheesy icebreakers for you to use at your next gathering-of-humans.

(Why yes these icebreakers WERE developed through 7 years of fun, how’d you know?)

We know that sitting all day is slowly killing us, so we buy standing desks and walk 10,000 steps. We know that processe...
05/11/2026

We know that sitting all day is slowly killing us, so we buy standing desks and walk 10,000 steps. We know that processed food hijacks our bodies, so we read labels and eat whole foods and learn the difference between omega-3s and omega-6s. We know that doomscrolling at midnight wrecks our sleep and mental health, so we do therapy and meditate and set screen time limits.

Clearly, we’ve gotten pretty good at working against the grain of modern convenience in service of our health. Meaning, we’ve learned to fight our own comfort.

But, one category of wellness that’s been eroding in our hyper-independent, digitally mediated, “I’ll just stay home and order in” culture: Social wellness.

Link in bio for full blog🍃

05/09/2026

The old social wellness structures no longer support our new beliefs about what it means to belong.

Old belief: conformity = belonging
New belief: authenticity and safety = belonging

It’s time we [playfully] rewrite our social wellness scripts for the modern world✌️

05/07/2026

Our understanding of what belonging means is all wrong.

It’s a feeling, a practice and a skill, but it’s not a destination.

We have to stop crossing our fingers and hoping to “find” belonging at a party, at work, or on a date, because belonging lives in the liminal space between you and another as pure potential, waiting for you to activate it. 🔥

My newest virtual talk, “Reset in Real Time: Social Wellness Hacks for a Healthier, Happier Workday,” is flying off the ...
05/04/2026

My newest virtual talk, “Reset in Real Time: Social Wellness Hacks for a Healthier, Happier Workday,” is flying off the [figurative] shelves this Mental Health Awareness Month, and I’ll tell ya why 👇

In one hour, I teach 7 practical, free n’ easy 90-second wellness hacks that your employees can leverage all day every day.

→ Each “hack” takes 90 seconds or less, designed for real-life, not-always-glamorous, at-your-desk situations.

→ It addresses stress at all 3 levels: in your body, in your transitions and in your relationships.

→ It comes with a PDF download so the toolkit lives on after the call ends.

→ It’s playful, science-backed (Stanford, Harvard, MBSR) + built for virtual delivery interaction to try out the hacks in real time.

→ It doesn’t add a single meeting to anyone’s calendar (except for...you know, the talk itself...but trust me it is WORTH it 😎).

→ And it sends people back to their day feeling like their best selves.

Companies are booking it for Mental Health Month, but it truly works in any month because let’s be real: every day human stress doesn’t discriminate.

If you’re a People/HR leader, founder, or an event planner looking for programming that educates and entertains (my talks are super funny I promise) without being redundant or surface-level, DM me to talk social-wellness-shop📞✌️

Last week I had 5 super fun minutes on stage at to make the case for building belonging through play. Here’s my hot tak...
04/20/2026

Last week I had 5 super fun minutes on stage at to make the case for building belonging through play.

Here’s my hot take(s) in a nutshell (for those of you who weren’t lucky enough to be in my audience of heads with cups on ‘em!):

→ Community is what we have. (It’s circumstantial, like a workplace.)
→ Engagement is the result we want.
→ Belonging is the vehicle that gets us there.
→ Play is the gas in the tank.

77% of employees are disengaged (we know this). And people are over trust falls, ping pong n’ in-office pizza parties. hashtag

3 science-y things for you that make the case of play clear👇

1. Play lowers cortisol and spikes oxytocin, the bonding hormone. It chemically signals to our brains that the people around us are “safe,” dissolving the professional masks that keep us isolated.

2. Play stimulates the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s headquarters for empathy and social navigation. It’s the social gym where we build the muscles to collaborate and understand each other.

3. Shared play creates collective effervescence, the synchronized emotional high of moving or laughing together. It’s what turns a group of individuals into a cohesive “we.”

In essence, play isn’t frivolous. It’s a biological necessity, and it’s the fastest way to build the camaraderie that belonging depends on.

The takeaway: Belonging isn’t found in a handbook. It’s facilitated in live moments of human connection when people leaders learn + choose to design small, ritualistic micro-moments of play into the architecture of daily interactions.

04/17/2026

Think of play as a “social lubricant” that bypasses awkward small talk and levels the playing field (pun intended) but elevating us to a different temporary reality. Here’s why it works so well for sparking belonging:

1. It breaks the “Social Script”
Most of our daily interactions are governed by rigid roles (boss, employee, stranger). Play gives us permission to be “unproductive” and messy. Authenticity is the baseline for belonging.

2. Low-Stakes Vulnerability
Belonging requires trust, and trust requires vulnerability. Play offers a “low-stakes” way to be vulnerable. Failing in a game or looking silly while trying something new creates a shared moment of humility that bonds people faster than a formal meeting ever could.

3. The Oxytocin Loop
From a biological standpoint, play (especially when it involves movement or laughter) triggers the release of oxytocin and endorphins. This literally syncs our nervous systems, and our brains are chemically flagging the people around us as “safe” and “part of the tribe.”

4. Shared Rituals and Lore
Every game or playful moment creates “micro-lore”…those “you had to be there” stories + inside jokes. Shared group history builds boundaries that say, “You are part of this story.”

04/10/2026

Belonging doesn’t happen by accident, and I think it’s one of the biggest and most harmful misunderstandings about social wellness.

Like empathy or joy, belonging is a skill we can (ahem, must) learn and practice.

When we integrate belonging practices into our work, lives and communities, safety, presence and purpose-fueled engagement follow. (No more questioning “Wait am I in the right place? At the right time? With the right people?)

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