This month I am looking at how we can bring fun into our lives. Most of the time we categorize fun as something transient. We enjoy an activity or an outing and after that we tend to forget about it! The fun is over.
However, fun can also be something permanent and lasting. And that is the joy of the heart.
When I write about the joy of the heart, I am referring to a genuine feeling of optimism and excitement at being alive. After that, everything is an exploration. An adventure. An opportunity. A cycle of growth and realization after which we move to a new level and start there. We will fall hard at times and learn to pick ourselves up, of course. However, that sense of joy fills our essence and gives us strength.
We often find it, the trust in our heart and the exploration of our unknown possibilities, to feel a bit uncertain. And for some, like I have experienced, it can be fearful.
You can describe it to a child and he or she will be thrilled to meet new opportunity. You describe it someone who is past 10 years of age and its likely they have started to place condition upon it. Why is that?
It’s because as we grow older our sense of fun is affected by how others see us and how we then begin to see ourselves. We start to grow into a conditional human being whose sense of fun is affected by the energy of those around us. We start to feel small or feel we can grow taller and that is dependent more and more on our environment as well as how we want others to respect and love us. It’s not obvious. At least not while you are going through it. Then, how do you keep that sense of fun as you grow older?
I think the answer lies in how we communicate with ourselves. As we grow up, we buy into what others tell us. We forget our inner wisdom. And we place more value on the words of those around us. And we start repeating those same words to ourselves. Then at some point that becomes our reality and our limitation.
So how do we get out of it? I think the answer lies in how we talk to ourselves. Perhaps we can be more loving, encouraging and supportive of ourselves? And that takes courage, to break away from somebody else’s opinions and also to reevaluate our own so that we can create new ways of enhancing our sense of being and wellness. The “how” is not obvious when we first make the choice to change. Sometimes you need to read some books by people whose views you wish to explore or you sit in silence and listen to your inner voice, and usually it’s a bit of both. Introspection, the willingness to be true to yourself and inner decision definitely play a role in the process. It’s about really taking a close and honest look and asking, “Do I want to change how I see myself and the possibilities for me? Because if I do then I can.”
Time is not the limiting factor here. Willingness, patience, acceptance and self-care are the opportunities. Am I willing to see myself as being more than I see myself now? It requires patience and acceptance to throw away whatever I have taken to be concrete in my learning and start from where I am without reacting to people for speaking or reflecting the truth to me. It takes self-care to be open to seeing everything I am, warts and all, without any judgements I have learnt to place in the past. Then it is possible. It takes the essence of who we are and the joy in us to be more dear to us than what we have come to accept about ourselves thus far. It might not sound like fun. But once that box we have placed ourselves in is opened and dismantled, it can be very redeeming and fulfilling.
As a Mentor and BodyTalk practitioner, my aim is to work together with my clients to bring about energetic shifts in how they feel and how they see themselves. I use BodyTalk, hands-on-healing and mentoring techniques to guide them intuitively while holding their hand energetically until they are able to see the answers they need for themselves to feel balanced and more fulfilled in their sense of self or purpose.
Look at it. Because there is no time like now and it’s never too late to get started. Enjoy your adventure. It doesn’t take mountain climbing. Just a warmer and more light heart.