Play. Oh how I have resisted this. Taken myself so seriously. The pain I’ve inflicted upon myself, telling myself it’s important to be right, vital not to appear silly, crucial to be well-poised and serious. Pain. Yes. I use that word. Because it’s been painful. The loss of face can hurt a lot, when the concept of face has been blown out of all proportions in my inner dialogue. When I’ve created a narrative around myself, that being playful, silly, happy and lighthearted is wrong. Bad. A sign of a weak character. Unworthy. And so on…
Guess what?
I have started to practice to play. To experiment with it. With me.
And it’s gotten to the point, where I am quite good at playing mentally. In my mind, with my thoughts. I’ve learned not to take my thoughts so seriously, not putting so much weight on them. But physically…. that’s harder for me. I’ve kept myself under such a tight regime, not allowing my body to express playfulness, silliness, happiness.
What if I let the little child within out? Allowing, no, more than that, inviting her to come out and play? When I do, I feel silly. Self-conscious, oh so self-conscious. Thinking everybody is looking at me, pointing fingers, laughing at how silly I am. Sometimes it helps knowing that everybody else has the same thoughts. Or at least, a huge majority does. But why should I let this stop me? How does that serve me?
What if, we all stopped taking ourselves so seriously? What if, we lived life, as if life is a playground instead? A place to play, experiment, have fun, be silly, laugh until we wet our pants, and expand as human beings?
First published on my blog on March 27th, 2016: https://helenaroth.com/doing-gentle-11-play/
Audio production: Søren Lassen Andreasen https://and.dk/
Photography: Anders Roos http://www.andersroos.nu/
Soundtrack: Olof Jennfors Ljudtjänst http://jennforsljud.se/