In this episode, we speak about play again, this time in the form of bringing back the silly. Let’s not take ourselves so seriously, let’s invent some fun games, and let’s spend more time with people that help us laugh ??
Hello, welcome back, beautiful soul!
So good to be with you. Take a deep breath with me. Let’s land. Ah. Good. This is the second episode of the month of play. Last week we were talking about adventures, how to incorporate more in your life, every day, every week, every month, every quarter, every year. I hope you did your homework and chose an adventure just for the fun of it. This week we’re taking it a step further. This week we’re going to bring back the silly. There’s a number of things that you can interpret into that.
First one and maybe that’s the most important one of them all: Let’s take ourselves not too seriously. We’re going through this beautiful adventure of life. There’s so many things that happen every single day. This morning I spilled a giant cup of coffee. Luckily it was not very dark coffee, so it didn’t make that much of a mess, but I did have a bit to clean up. Instead of getting grumpy at myself or annoyed at myself I just had to laugh and be like ‘oh you clumsy little thing, let’s clean it up, it’s okay, it happens’. Whether it is something that was a mishap to us, whether it was something that we said that wasn’t so kind, to ourselves or to another person (if it was another person, yes, of course we get to apologize and make it right) and maybe we don’t have to be so hard on ourselves all the time. Maybe we can take ourselves a little less seriously. When I’m on a mission to accomplish something and I beat myself so hard to get it done, maybe – maybe – I can find a little bit more lightness in it. Maybe I can bring back some silly when I see that there are 979 emails in my account after I come back from vacation. Maybe I’ll just throw my hands up in the air and have a good laugh about how popular I am. Maybe we can just laugh for no reason, just find some silly giggles because we’re alive and because it feels good to laugh.
Yes, more giggles, more giggles is good. Bring back the silly for some of the mundane tasks: Maybe I can be silly about cleaning up, maybe I put a mop on my head and then do something with that – I don’t know, that just came out of nowhere. I have to try that one. It doesn’t really matter, whatever you can be silly with, just go for it, think back to when you were three or four or five years old. We didn’t use to worry about what other people thought. We were just playing, just playing, and that’s good.
That brings me to the second piece of just playing: i was at a burning man event last week called Boaterland. It’s a regional burning man event on the west coast of Sweden. It’s all out on boats and it was beautiful. I joined a lovely large sailboat, the Emely Raven, and I spent a few days with them. They had to come back early and so then I got to be on board of the Carmony, which was also wonderful, lovely crew. We just spent some time together, some really deep connection time, off technology, which always helps for just being very much in the present moment. And then creating lots of silliness, just because we could, just because we’re in a playful mood. On board of the Carmony one evening, we did a quest game. We prepared that in the afternoon, a map, Carwyn and Vee and Skye and Mats and Kalle. We drew this compass and they had already gathered a number of quests before I joined the crew. We drew up some paper scrolls, each with a quest on them, and then we made them look ancient by burning the rims and then rolling them up and tying them up. We created a spin-the-bottle on top of that compass. Depending on which direction, we would send you out on a quest, and we would whisper amongst ourselves ‘oh, she’s going to the west, the west, a west quest – oh the last ones that went on our west quest, what did they do?. Being playful with it, staying very much in character – to the point where that annoyed a couple of people that were visiting… It’s okay, it was just a game, and we had a lot of positive feedback on the playfulness. Captain Blackbeard instructed everybody. They rolled the fortune dice and they were sent out on the quest and then later on, when they had fulfilled their quest, they got to come back tell us about their mission and retrieve a reward for it.
One of the many, many ways of how we played last week. It was a lot of fun, just making up games, making up whatever we want, because we are the artists that get to create our own lives. And yes, every one of us is an individual artist, because every one of us has our perceived reality and sometimes those realities collide. So the person that got annoyed with me staying in character and wanting to stick to my role, they had their reality and their own art of wanting to connect with people right how they are and where they’re at (not within a game) – and that’s okay, too. We can respect both of that, the being in the game, and the not wanting to be in the game. Either one is perfectly fine. When we are really silly and make up this stuff, let’s not expect that everybody wants to join that particular way of silliness in that moment. That’s okay, too. Everybody gets to choose. We can still stay in our silly moment and say ‘okay, I go play with the next person, the person that may have fun doing this’. That was piece two: getting playful and inventing games, bringing back silly games, silly moments just as they arise.
And if all of that sounds really tough number three is: Think about who in your life inspires you to be silly. Who makes you laugh? Spend some more time with them. Whether that is your favorite comedian or a good friend. For me, one of my brothers makes me laugh so much. We get so silly together on the phone, and so he’s one of the people that I love to connect with for being silly dedicatedly. Also for many other reasons, and for being silly. And then there are a couple of friends who I just love to be silly with. We kind of get in the flow of things until we only giggle. It’s fabulous. And if none of these people are around right now, then your favorite comedian, a fun movie – all of that. Good laughter is a big boost for your immune system. Here’s the science piece: laughter is so good for your immune system. It gets everything going, your metabolism, and I’ll have to read up on the neurochemical details of why it’s good for your immune system. I do know for certain that there are studies proving that.
With that, dear ones, I wish you a beautiful, beautiful week. Recap: #1 don’t take yourself too seriously, #2 create some silly games, #3 hang out with people that make you laugh and enjoy the time with them.
Sending you so much love!
Come to my retreat!