It arises out of the very moment, most probably it has always been like that, only there was a block inside to access this energetic flow. Tonight there was a group of more than 20 females singing around a fireplace who invited some friends and me to join in, which we did and it was fun and joyful all together. At some point I wanted to leave, to withdraw ( a leftover of former imprints), not really staying, and while already some steps aside, the leader put some rose petals and some grains for all to offer to the fire and invited to sending out grateful thoughts and may be a wish to the universe. I returned, and while we all, one after another came to the fire to follow this beautiful ritual, they all sung a song, singing ” I am so grateful for my life, grateful for my being, I am so grateful for my heart, grateful for the love” . It was plain, deeply touching, joyful, and for me as well a kind of adventure arising from the very moment. There was this -for me freeing- simply returning to the fireplace and to the dear people over there and to simply join in. Having to admit that being playful is relatively new to me at a relatively old age, and, although this example is not really to be named playful, to me it feels that the origin of playfulness starts with reaching out and to say yes to what is right now, to the dear ones around, to the music life plays at the very moment and to this opportunity, to this very moment of life and love. I am deeply grateful.
I am the adult child of an alcoholic mother (ACOA). This question brings tears to my eyes, as one of the characteristics typical of us – and almost all abused children – is that we never learned to play. I didn’t play as a child, a young adult, a middle ager. Now, in my old age, as we say in NY, fuhgeddaboudit,
On and off over the years, ironically and ineffectively, I have “worked” and trying to learn to play. Not to say that I haven’t found pleasure and even joy in many things in life, just not play.
My rescue dog was abused as a pup. He has never played with a toy in his life, although he does enjoy romping with the other dogs and the dog run.
I admit to being somewhat envious of those of you who find joy in play Enjoy and be grateful!
I find playfulness daily when I’m with my son. He has a huge imagination and spends the majority of his life imagining that he’s a character from some sort of action/adventure movie and I have absolutely no choice but to join him in the pretend play. You have to be able to laugh at yourself when you spend the majority of the weekend playing the role of a cow with a southern accent who is saving the world from an alien invasion. Happy Friday!
The outdoors makes it much easier for me to find playfulness and spark my sense of adventure. Hiking, disc golf, snowboarding, travel. It’s so much easier for me to forget about my identity when I’m in nature. This question really makes me notice how much I’d love to bring more playfulness into my daily life, even if it doesn’t seem typical.
Friday’s also seem to inspire a bit more playfulness. Happy Friday! 🎉
Lately, I haven’t been getting enough
adventure and play. Feeling a bit ground
down by too much work. I realize that,
for me, it’s the remedy for this feeling of
overwhelm and frustration.
By getting outside and in nature, either
on foot or on my bike or playing music
or going for a swim or playing cornhole or
tossing the frisbee are just some of the ways
that I like to play.
Especially with teleworking the past 3 years, it’s been so easy to settle into a daily routine that doesn’t have playfulness and adventure on the schedule as a deliberate choice. The question asks where we find it–I can find it if I seek it, but I also have to actually plan for it to happen.
Riding my bike gives me the feeling of being a kid again, which is perhaps playfulness although I think of it more in terms of freedom, feeling strong, enjoying the sensation of moving my own body fast through space.
My husband and I go on dates, which are enjoyable but not necessarily playful. Recently we compiled a “fun list” of things that both of us would enjoy doing. When we did our 16 dates for 16 years of marriage we made sure to include some of these, which reminded us that we enjoy these activities and we don’t have to wait for our next anniversary to do them again. We went to a nearby lake and went swimming. He flew a kite at a park while I blew bubbles with a bubble wand, which conveniently gave him indicators of wind speed and direction (and I was the envy of all the kids in the park–“SHE has a BUBBLE WAND!”). We played Frisbee and found we were both actually still capable of throwing with decent accuracy. We went to a restaurant with a pool table and shot a few games of pool. We drove an hour to the ocean to spend the day on the beach, again with the kite (and better wind!). More play is good!
On the adventure front, he’s planning to participate in a very challenging multi-day bike race next spring in California riding from Sacramento to San Diego. I may make an adventure out of that by driving from town to town on my own, exploring and hanging out in coffee shops and antique stores, so I can be at the other end to pick him up with his bike when he finishes. I’m realizing that at age 60 I’ve never done a multi-day vacation by myself so this would be a new experience. I travel frequently for work but that always has its own schedule, people expecting me to be in a specific place at a specific time–not pure freedom to decide what I want to do next and no one else’s opinion to factor into my choices.
Good question to spark some thinking and also to start me looking for playfulness and adventure in the everydayness of life.
Today’s question reminds me of several journal entries from years past and also provides me with a mirror in which I can observe my “human doing” self. I was taught that I could not play until the work was done and the work is seldom done! I share with you an entry from my 2016 journal called “Play Dough.” It doesn’t really answer the question but is a wake up call for the fact that I still have so much trouble taking time to play! I’m very thankful for the question.
Morning Meds Sep 15 2016 Play Dough
My massage therapist made a comment yesterday as she lovingly worked to ease my knotted muscles that when we are in fight and flight, the parasympathetic nervous system, which can offer our body relief, does not have a chance. Our nervous system is in sympathetic mode and it is preparing the body to fight or flee. Play is far from our agenda. Life then becomes a battle. We are trying to run away from something or attempting to get to something, someplace we think we will feel safe. The operative word being: “think.”
This morning as I was writing by hand in my journal, I reminded myself that fight and flight is seldom about what is happening now unless you are located where real bombs are falling or some wild creature is chasing you.
I thought: While I’m tide up in knots, God wants to play. Do you remember a product called “play dough?” It was a lump of some chemically created clay that could be fashioned into all kinds of shapes. I decided that my mantra for today was I am “play dough” and God wants to play. Perhaps, life is really about being “play dough’ and the wisdom of God’s Isness can create a much more interesting and life-giving day than I can with my finite mind.
I attended a conference many years ago and one of the sessions was about God wanting to play. That has become a reality to me. This word “God,” which is so loaded that many reject it, is merely a term for togetherness. Trillions of cells have agreed to cooperate, to play, to form our bodies. How awesome is that?
Jill Bolte Taylor in her book, “My Stroke of Insight (pp68-69),”speaks of what happened to her awareness when the left hemisphere of her brain was shut down by a stroke. “I shifted from the “doing-conscious” with my left brain to the “being-consciousness” of my right brain…My entire self concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me. I understood at the most elemental level, I was fluid…My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others. Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea.”.
My sister often says, “We are not a body with a soul. We are a souls with bodies and play is definitely soul food.
Wow! I absolutely love this. I may pick up that book to see how she maintains that state of beingness of the right brain you’ve described. Meditation and prayer I would assume are the #1’s in maintaining the state of being-consciousness. Curious if you have anything else that keeps you in that space…
I love Eckhart Tolle! I’ve definitely listened to videos from Sounds True on YouTube. Very helpful advice! Me actually doing the practice is the real work though (something I often forget). Thank you for your comments Carol.
Mike, I discovered Jill Bolte Taylor on Youtube giving a TED talk. Highly recommend that TED presentation. Just thought of that this am and wanted to share.
I enjoy going to resale shops and explore what others have “discarded”. Years ago I would go to stores and put on different hats with a silly grin.
The question has sparked a sense to revive this in my life. Thank you!
I find playfullness with my dog and two cats. I talk to them constantly…so much so that my husband never knows if I am talking to him or the animals. I also love to kayak – but have not done much of that this year. We live land locked…no too much water around where we live…We always have to drive quite a way to kayak. But winter always takes us on an adventure with our motorhome and the animals. We travel to warmer states…kayak, and hike and take in new sites. However; every day can be an adventure with open eyes. I am Blessed to still be able to get around and do things.
These days, mostly at the beach, but we’ve been talking about getting back up to the mountains, so hopefully I can hike and chase some waterfalls again soon.
It seems to me to find something I need to be seeking it. I have experienced adventure. My life thus far has been one big adventure. Diverse as sheepherding a flock of 1000 ewes for 3 years in my early to mid-twenties, following the grass in the valley and the mountains in the summer. Gathering cows and calves in many different mountain locations in Colorado and northern New Mexico. Learning about horses and how to “gentle them”, pack them, shoe them. I prefer this term to “breaking them”. I have worked on a daffodil and iris flower farm in Northern California and worked at a fish cannery in that location too. Have learned to plant and harvest small grains, alfalfa and grass hay. Worked the potato harvest seven seasons. Picked fruit a couple of summers in my youth, following the crops. So many things that were an adventure to me, it developed into an agrarian lifestyle raising a fair share of the food we consume. Raising a family along the way to enhance the adventure.
As for playfulness my entire life has been play, a play. that has not yet experienced its final act. Namaste my friends.
Good Morning, Joseph, Ahhh! your life has been an advneture in a very good way–but full of very hard work!! But it seems that is what you have enjoyed. I love your term “to gentle” the horses instead of break them..I never liked that term. I rode for awhile when I was younger …would love to do that again!! You have many talents! A life spent out of doors…how wonderful.
May you continue to reap the fruits of your hard labor. Blessings to you, my friend and thank you for sharing your wonderful story.
Watching or playing with my grand-dogs. Watching the children at the beach. And sometimes the squirrels out back are hilarious in their chasing, playing, or doing acrobatics on the lighter branches of the younger trees/shrubs.
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Sailing, biking and hiking mainly. Also travel to new destinations for adventure.
Playing with and walking the dogs.
It arises out of the very moment, most probably it has always been like that, only there was a block inside to access this energetic flow. Tonight there was a group of more than 20 females singing around a fireplace who invited some friends and me to join in, which we did and it was fun and joyful all together. At some point I wanted to leave, to withdraw ( a leftover of former imprints), not really staying, and while already some steps aside, the leader put some rose petals and some grains for all to offer to the fire and invited to sending out grateful thoughts and may be a wish to the universe. I returned, and while we all, one after another came to the fire to follow this beautiful ritual, they all sung a song, singing ” I am so grateful for my life, grateful for my being, I am so grateful for my heart, grateful for the love” . It was plain, deeply touching, joyful, and for me as well a kind of adventure arising from the very moment. There was this -for me freeing- simply returning to the fireplace and to the dear people over there and to simply join in. Having to admit that being playful is relatively new to me at a relatively old age, and, although this example is not really to be named playful, to me it feels that the origin of playfulness starts with reaching out and to say yes to what is right now, to the dear ones around, to the music life plays at the very moment and to this opportunity, to this very moment of life and love. I am deeply grateful.
What a wonderful experience and meant to happen : )
I am the adult child of an alcoholic mother (ACOA). This question brings tears to my eyes, as one of the characteristics typical of us – and almost all abused children – is that we never learned to play. I didn’t play as a child, a young adult, a middle ager. Now, in my old age, as we say in NY, fuhgeddaboudit,
On and off over the years, ironically and ineffectively, I have “worked” and trying to learn to play. Not to say that I haven’t found pleasure and even joy in many things in life, just not play.
My rescue dog was abused as a pup. He has never played with a toy in his life, although he does enjoy romping with the other dogs and the dog run.
I admit to being somewhat envious of those of you who find joy in play Enjoy and be grateful!
I find playfulness daily when I’m with my son. He has a huge imagination and spends the majority of his life imagining that he’s a character from some sort of action/adventure movie and I have absolutely no choice but to join him in the pretend play. You have to be able to laugh at yourself when you spend the majority of the weekend playing the role of a cow with a southern accent who is saving the world from an alien invasion. Happy Friday!
Awe how cute!
The outdoors makes it much easier for me to find playfulness and spark my sense of adventure. Hiking, disc golf, snowboarding, travel. It’s so much easier for me to forget about my identity when I’m in nature. This question really makes me notice how much I’d love to bring more playfulness into my daily life, even if it doesn’t seem typical.
Friday’s also seem to inspire a bit more playfulness. Happy Friday! 🎉
Lately, I haven’t been getting enough
adventure and play. Feeling a bit ground
down by too much work. I realize that,
for me, it’s the remedy for this feeling of
overwhelm and frustration.
By getting outside and in nature, either
on foot or on my bike or playing music
or going for a swim or playing cornhole or
tossing the frisbee are just some of the ways
that I like to play.
Especially with teleworking the past 3 years, it’s been so easy to settle into a daily routine that doesn’t have playfulness and adventure on the schedule as a deliberate choice. The question asks where we find it–I can find it if I seek it, but I also have to actually plan for it to happen.
Riding my bike gives me the feeling of being a kid again, which is perhaps playfulness although I think of it more in terms of freedom, feeling strong, enjoying the sensation of moving my own body fast through space.
My husband and I go on dates, which are enjoyable but not necessarily playful. Recently we compiled a “fun list” of things that both of us would enjoy doing. When we did our 16 dates for 16 years of marriage we made sure to include some of these, which reminded us that we enjoy these activities and we don’t have to wait for our next anniversary to do them again. We went to a nearby lake and went swimming. He flew a kite at a park while I blew bubbles with a bubble wand, which conveniently gave him indicators of wind speed and direction (and I was the envy of all the kids in the park–“SHE has a BUBBLE WAND!”). We played Frisbee and found we were both actually still capable of throwing with decent accuracy. We went to a restaurant with a pool table and shot a few games of pool. We drove an hour to the ocean to spend the day on the beach, again with the kite (and better wind!). More play is good!
On the adventure front, he’s planning to participate in a very challenging multi-day bike race next spring in California riding from Sacramento to San Diego. I may make an adventure out of that by driving from town to town on my own, exploring and hanging out in coffee shops and antique stores, so I can be at the other end to pick him up with his bike when he finishes. I’m realizing that at age 60 I’ve never done a multi-day vacation by myself so this would be a new experience. I travel frequently for work but that always has its own schedule, people expecting me to be in a specific place at a specific time–not pure freedom to decide what I want to do next and no one else’s opinion to factor into my choices.
Good question to spark some thinking and also to start me looking for playfulness and adventure in the everydayness of life.
Today’s question reminds me of several journal entries from years past and also provides me with a mirror in which I can observe my “human doing” self. I was taught that I could not play until the work was done and the work is seldom done! I share with you an entry from my 2016 journal called “Play Dough.” It doesn’t really answer the question but is a wake up call for the fact that I still have so much trouble taking time to play! I’m very thankful for the question.
Morning Meds Sep 15 2016 Play Dough
My massage therapist made a comment yesterday as she lovingly worked to ease my knotted muscles that when we are in fight and flight, the parasympathetic nervous system, which can offer our body relief, does not have a chance. Our nervous system is in sympathetic mode and it is preparing the body to fight or flee. Play is far from our agenda. Life then becomes a battle. We are trying to run away from something or attempting to get to something, someplace we think we will feel safe. The operative word being: “think.”
This morning as I was writing by hand in my journal, I reminded myself that fight and flight is seldom about what is happening now unless you are located where real bombs are falling or some wild creature is chasing you.
I thought: While I’m tide up in knots, God wants to play. Do you remember a product called “play dough?” It was a lump of some chemically created clay that could be fashioned into all kinds of shapes. I decided that my mantra for today was I am “play dough” and God wants to play. Perhaps, life is really about being “play dough’ and the wisdom of God’s Isness can create a much more interesting and life-giving day than I can with my finite mind.
I attended a conference many years ago and one of the sessions was about God wanting to play. That has become a reality to me. This word “God,” which is so loaded that many reject it, is merely a term for togetherness. Trillions of cells have agreed to cooperate, to play, to form our bodies. How awesome is that?
Jill Bolte Taylor in her book, “My Stroke of Insight (pp68-69),”speaks of what happened to her awareness when the left hemisphere of her brain was shut down by a stroke. “I shifted from the “doing-conscious” with my left brain to the “being-consciousness” of my right brain…My entire self concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me. I understood at the most elemental level, I was fluid…My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others. Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow. I was no longer isolated and alone. My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea.”.
My sister often says, “We are not a body with a soul. We are a souls with bodies and play is definitely soul food.
Wow! I absolutely love this. I may pick up that book to see how she maintains that state of beingness of the right brain you’ve described. Meditation and prayer I would assume are the #1’s in maintaining the state of being-consciousness. Curious if you have anything else that keeps you in that space…
Mike, I have a Sounds True two CD teaching series called “Entering the Now” by Eckhart Tolle that I have found helpful.
I love Eckhart Tolle! I’ve definitely listened to videos from Sounds True on YouTube. Very helpful advice! Me actually doing the practice is the real work though (something I often forget). Thank you for your comments Carol.
Mike, I discovered Jill Bolte Taylor on Youtube giving a TED talk. Highly recommend that TED presentation. Just thought of that this am and wanted to share.
I enjoy going to resale shops and explore what others have “discarded”. Years ago I would go to stores and put on different hats with a silly grin.
The question has sparked a sense to revive this in my life. Thank you!
I find playfullness with my dog and two cats. I talk to them constantly…so much so that my husband never knows if I am talking to him or the animals. I also love to kayak – but have not done much of that this year. We live land locked…no too much water around where we live…We always have to drive quite a way to kayak. But winter always takes us on an adventure with our motorhome and the animals. We travel to warmer states…kayak, and hike and take in new sites. However; every day can be an adventure with open eyes. I am Blessed to still be able to get around and do things.
These days, mostly at the beach, but we’ve been talking about getting back up to the mountains, so hopefully I can hike and chase some waterfalls again soon.
It seems to me to find something I need to be seeking it. I have experienced adventure. My life thus far has been one big adventure. Diverse as sheepherding a flock of 1000 ewes for 3 years in my early to mid-twenties, following the grass in the valley and the mountains in the summer. Gathering cows and calves in many different mountain locations in Colorado and northern New Mexico. Learning about horses and how to “gentle them”, pack them, shoe them. I prefer this term to “breaking them”. I have worked on a daffodil and iris flower farm in Northern California and worked at a fish cannery in that location too. Have learned to plant and harvest small grains, alfalfa and grass hay. Worked the potato harvest seven seasons. Picked fruit a couple of summers in my youth, following the crops. So many things that were an adventure to me, it developed into an agrarian lifestyle raising a fair share of the food we consume. Raising a family along the way to enhance the adventure.
As for playfulness my entire life has been play, a play. that has not yet experienced its final act. Namaste my friends.
Joseph, your answer reminds me that how one defines “play” is very important. It can make such a world of difference. Thank you.
Good Morning, Joseph, Ahhh! your life has been an advneture in a very good way–but full of very hard work!! But it seems that is what you have enjoyed. I love your term “to gentle” the horses instead of break them..I never liked that term. I rode for awhile when I was younger …would love to do that again!! You have many talents! A life spent out of doors…how wonderful.
May you continue to reap the fruits of your hard labor. Blessings to you, my friend and thank you for sharing your wonderful story.
Two little dogs named Lily and Spike. There were our “niece and nephew.” I taught them to sing.
Watching or playing with my grand-dogs. Watching the children at the beach. And sometimes the squirrels out back are hilarious in their chasing, playing, or doing acrobatics on the lighter branches of the younger trees/shrubs.
At the beach.