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# 2017-10-29 - Becoming Playful by Bernard De Koven
Heart
It might be too hard, asking too much. Telling your self to be
playful might be like telling your self to be happy. Granted, it'd be
great if you were happy. Or even just more playful. But if you don't
think you're either, telling your self to be happy or playful isn't
going to make it happen. In fact, it's likely to make you depressed,
frustrated, [and] angry at your self for being someone you just don't
want to be.
That's what worries me about this whole idea of telling your self to
be playful when you think you're not. I mean, who's telling whom? Is
the self that's telling you to change such an expert in playfulness
that it can change you? I don't think so. I think that particular
self is anything but playful. That's the very self that gets so
serious, so humorless, [and] so disparaging. And the self it's
talking to is probably the one that feels bad about itself, feels
that there's something wrong with it, something that needs to be,
heaven forfend, changed.
It's a good idea to be more playful. Just like it's a good idea to be
happier. But to get there, you need to stop telling your self to be
different.
Try this, instead. Try letting your self tell you. Ask it to let you
know when it's feeling happy or playful. In fact, I'd suggest an even
simpler question. Ask it to tell you when it's having fun.
Fun, like I say somewhere later on, is easy. Playful, happy, maybe
not so much. But fun? You can have fun watching television. OK, maybe
not like deep fun. But fun, nevertheless. You can have fun reading,
browsing, searching for something on the computer. You can have fun
eating. Chewing gum. Knitting. Taking a walk. Tasting. Feeling.
Smelling. Listening. Touching. You can have fun watching someone else
have fun.
After a while, after you've spent enough time listening to your self
talk about all the fun you're having, you can start asking your self
to tell you when you're feeling playful or even happy. It's easier
for your self now because you've been talking so much about the fun
you're having, and usually when you're having fun, that's what you're
feeling - happy, playful even. Maybe not deeply happy or profoundly
playful, but, you know, you're having fun, and, well, that's what
makes you happy, makes you want to play, makes you even want to get
other people and beings and things to play with you.
And then, see, you've become the playful person you always were, but
never thought you were enough, never noticed, never allowed your self
to believe in. And so your life starts feeling even more fun, and you
start feeling even happier, being even more playful. Just like that.
From: A Playful Path by Bernard De Koven
tags: book,non-fiction,self-help
# Tags
book
non-fiction
self-help
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