Got Play?
Passion Love Action You! Playing with your own divinity, spirit, heart, and spreading it around you. YES! When I share with people that I'm a play activist, most people look perplexed. Totally cool, I get that. What thirty year old says "I LOVE TO PLAY" while doing kart-wheels endlessly? It's not common, yet it's getting there. Most of us are looking at our lives and sensing something shifting. Maybe we are noticing that we crave more quiet time, or we are watching kids and feeling the urge to just BE without the rules or requirements we have set upon ourselves. What are these rules? Who wrote them and why are we following them really? So, we can't color outside the lines anymore? Run around naked on the beach with a shovel to dig in the sand? Drool, mess up, speak out, say no, fall down and cry and then have it be over with. EXPRESS and then release. Stick our tongues out when something is boo- boo stinky. Say yes without hesitation or time limits. BE playful. The relationship we have to playing is very important to remaining true to ourselves. Play is the very essence of our spirit. We all want to explore, let loose, and not be "perfect" for at least one moment. What does play mean to you? Maybe play means to skip down the street. Wear glitter underneath your suit. Buy outrageous big flowers and place them all over your house. Walk down the game aisle at any store and give yourself permission to BE there and explore. Blow bubbles out of your car window. Paint rocks and decorate your driveway with hearts all over it with chalk. Say hello to a stranger and mean it. Call a friend for a play date. Have slumber parties. Watch your children, learn from them, and play with them, for they are play masters. Draw in the sand, climb mountains, sniff flowers, roll around in your grass, buy a slurpie, explore what it means to just giggle. (I love that word giggle. How can you not giggle when you say it?) Write giggle 50 times in your notebook and look at it when you wake up. Learn something new. Put stickers on your bills. Get in touch with sharing play with others, and make this number one on your "to play" list. In what ways can you invite someone else to play with you? I know that it is hard to find the "time." I get the time thing. As a planet we have created such limitations on our freedom. So much to do, so many places to be, and so many roles to sustain. All choices.Playing is a choice that can lighten the load. It can remind you that you are a magnificent being of love, instantaneously. About The Author Jenny Ward is the owner of PLAYWARD. PLAYWARDS mission is to celebrate the magnificence of being alive. Jenny is a licensed coach, speaker, author and PLAY ACTIVIST! www.playward.com jenny@playward.com
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It is now 5 years since I passed out of college and started working. I
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of pressure in the work we all do. This era is all about speed.
Everything around us moves at the speed of thought. And the wise
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time or else you'll loose the next big opportunity. All of us try to
search for the next big opportunity so that we are not left of out in
this race. We travel from place to place in search for that hidden
treasure, success, happiness or whatever one may like to call it.
I have closely interacted with hundreds of people in these years and
one of my favorites activity is studying people and human
behavior. In the beginning I used to get surprised (sometimes even
laugh) when I hear a new kid out of college and starting his life
say that he feels burnt out. But then if you look at it closely, the
kid is right. He is burnt out before he even starts because he is
always expected to perform beyond what his mind and body can take.
There is always this sense of urgency within all of us that usually
keeps us unhappy no matter what we achieve.
I too was in this rat race till my mother taught me the most important
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every moment of it. Sadly though I had lost my mother by then. I still
remember that day on 18th December 2002 when I was thinking about my
mother in the back of my mind but yet I stayed in the office as
we had this requirement to get the ISDN up in our office. I was scared
that if the leased lines goes down we'll not have an alternative. So I
sat with the providers and did not listen to my heart. As a result by
the time I went to see my mom it was too late. I wish I had followed my
heart instead. That is when I realized that the ISDN
connection had no real significance in my life and yet I gave it an
unwanted priority.
Here are some rules I live by now which I hope would help all of you.
They say that it is best to learn from others mistakes. 6 basic rules
that we must all follow to be happy -
Live in the present -
Most good books on better living talk about being in the present. You cannot
afford to think and live in the past. Neither can you think about the
future all the time. You do not know what would happen in the future.
You do not have control over it. This does not mean that we should not
plan. It just means that we do not need to over stress ourselves
thinking about what would happen in the future.
Let me explain with a simple example. You want to go for a
vacation. You need to plan and buy the tickets in time. But it does not
mean that when you are in the train or aircraft you start running
inside it. You'll not reach any faster than all the other passengers
who are traveling with you.
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upon
it. The food from Pizza Hut is fattening. This means that it would
remain the same, unless they do some major changes to the way pizzas
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Also another important point is that you must learn to visualize about
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the power of visualization. He used to say that if you going for a
competition tomorrow, the previous night one should visualize the
entire event. It goes like this - I
feel light and energetic. The weather is great for swimming. I am going
to get the best place. My start is perfect. I have a perfect dive in
the water. The water is not too hot neither is it too cool. It is just
right for me. My breathing is perfect and my strokes are perfect and
coordinated. I am the winner...
Simulate the same situation when you are facing a client or an ISO
auditor.
Another aspect I'll like to point out here is that some people get into
the urgency because they feel insecure about the future. They think "If
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lot of problems... " In the process they start taking insurance
policies
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There
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me. I'll show him who I am".... Like I said a little while ago.
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about it. Most of our epics is about teaching a lesson to the other
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When I do talk about ego, I feel it is necessary to talk about self esteem
too..
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and dignity. But we must not allow somebody else to treat us as a door
mat. If you do not
like what the other person did to you. Cut off the relation or
remove the expectations.
Take pride in who you are
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