Katie and I are in Arizona now and we've been staying with some of our Warrior friends here...the Bomstas. I love them! They've got three kids and their house has a vague familiarity to it. It's brought back a lot of memories of my childhood coming home from school, snacking until dinner, watching TV or movies all day, playing outside, running to and from after school activities. Watching the kids play reminded me of how simple life is and how simple it can be to have a good time playing in the dirt. It's also reminded me of how easily we become complacent and bored and how easy it is to get into a routine.
It's weird to think about what I might have done had I not had organized sports or extra curricula rs my entire life. Would I have played outside more? Would I have spent more time in front of the TV? Did my extra curricular tire me out so much that I no longer wanted to go outside and play as I grew older? I'm sure I used the excuse "I just need to relax for a day" before! I don't care about when, but more about why play became more structured as we got older. Who was it that told us that mucking around in the dirt was only for little kids. Or did someone tell us that? Maybe as we grew older our attention spans for mindless play became less and our need for stimulation became greater. I don't know...I'm sure someone out there has got a theory or two!
There has certainly been a common trend throughout this trip though. Summing it up nicely in one word - PLAY. Secondary to that would be to give yourself permission to relax. Easier for Katie and I as we've chosen that for ourselves, or at least some people would view our road trip as sheer play (although that's so not the intention), but we need to be reminded to relax as well. Especially when we're busy running from place to place...not realizing how easy it can be to get burnt out. Aaron Huey posted a link for a video not long ago about play and how essential it is for our well being. Play before you do anything else! Why? Because then you're in an awesome mood and when you set the tone for the day in the energy of playing, the rest of the day will only follow in those footsteps. I think Patch Adams would be a good example of that...he never stopped playing. I don't see why life became so serious...any book I've ever read in the area of self-development has said that Play is an essential part of living and we all need to have more of it in our lives. It's about the balance!!!
You can teeter-totter all you want between play and 'serious business' :(, but how do you feel? It's like a roller coaster of ups and downs, elation and frustration. If there was a balance would that not just mean happiness all the time? Or at least a more stable sense of balance in which you contribute and receive with grace and flow?
It's interesting. I'm sitting outside writing this and in the backyard next door they are doing some sort of construction. There's lots of loud men and machinery. I consider my writing my work. Not in the sense that it's a job, but it's a passion of mine and I consider blogging a way to plant the seed and nurture it and love it until it becomes a giant tree that will in some form or another bring me abundance (opportunity, money, healing, etc). Now, most people wouldn't be able to 'work' in this environment because it's too loud, distracting, etc. I on the other hand just had an epiphany in this situation!! As I'm writing, I'm contributing and as they're doing their work, they are distracting me, but also making a contribution. Instead of forcing myself to continue I take a break and receive or just listen, breathe, be grateful. I receive the sounds, the smells, the gratitude that those people are making a difference for whomever's back yard they are digging up. And when I do that, take the time to be present and actually listen, smell, see I actually appreciate it rather than resent it. Listening to them now, talking and doing whatever they are doing (I think it's something with a pool), they've got a good leader. He's talking them through the process; a very good teacher I'd say! I can't see them because the fence is concrete between the homes, but I'm really curious now!!! These people have gone from a distraction to a source of curiousity...interesting. Now they really are a distraction because I've now become more interested in what they're doing than what I'm doing. I think that's ok. I feel like that's natural because there's always an opportunity to learn, whether it be about yourself or about others (which is really about yourself anyway). Maybe distractions are the Universe's subtle hints to have a little more balance. As long as you trust your intuition to know when to allow distractions and when to continue with your work, I feel that's exactly what it is. The Universe is perfect and wants balance for everyone, it's us and our thoughts, conditioning, what we think we 'should' do that creates the imbalances in our life.
Giving and receiving is just like talking and listening! Let's say you were having a conversation with a chatty person and you couldn't get a word in edgewise. You receive and listen so much that you can't take anymore (even though you may not realize this), so you create a distraction for yourself, whether intentionally or not. So that you can talk, get away and speak/give either to that person or someone else. You intuitively find a way to create the balance! The tricky thing is that your emotions prevent you from seeing that you are creating that balance. Or maybe they are indicators to remind us to find some balance. Hmm...I might just play with this for a little while and see what happens.
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