Play - finding joy, restoring your body & mind, and creating a carefree lifestyle
Play restores, revitalizes, and recharges Joy.
It is essential to being and feeling alive. Yet, we often forget to play or don't allow ourselves time to find it. In addition, as we get older, many people experience lives devoid of Play.
Even children in school or after are not given the opportunity for free Play: Time to let boredom allow our brain to recover, our mind to calm down, and our bodies to recharge so we can play without structure, rules, or competition.
How often have you heard the saying: "There's a time for work and play."
But think about it. When you are sufficiently rested, recovered, and restored, work can become Play.
Create, Cultivate, and Sustain Your Flourishing
Learning how to create, cultivate, and sustain conditions that support your flourishing means learning how to make better decisions - how you can be your best.
- What do you need to feel physically strong, focused, and have a playful - carefree attitude?
In the past 25 years, science has unlocked the methods and conditions to foster flourishing: flow/optimal experience - whenever needed- and create a lifestyle supporting your best self. As a result, you can achieve high hard goals without unnecessarily sacrificing your physical and mental health, and all your time and attention is a worthy pursuit and within reach.
We've been taught that "hustling" is the only way to make an impact. But not allowing ourselves to experience ourselves at our best, like an athlete perfectly trained, ready, rested, and prepared, is not the answer.
Benefits of Play
The benefits of Play (recovery) are a proven antidote to stress, pain, burnout, overwhelm, and addiction to short-term dopamine hits.
When striving for more, our addicted brains are flooded by the neurochemicals that create and support addiction - living in a loop of pain & pleasure. Living your life moment to moment vis a short-lived dopamine loop composed mostly of digitally moderated interactions 24/7 has been proven to alter our brains and limit our ability to experience satisfaction, Joy, and even happiness. The promise of productivity through technology tools keeps you seduced by the future or reminds you of your past mistakes.
Joy exists in the present.
Joy is there for us, patiently waiting for us to jump in.
To begin, accept that your neurobiology is one of the biggest challenges to bringing more Joy into your life. Our neurochemicals can and will overwhelm us and manipulate our decisions. This is why problems become endemic and exist far longer than is healthy or useful. Solutions outside the normal are never given much time or attention if they don't perpetuate our collective fears/weaknesses, prey on past failures, and consolidate power for leverage. Our neurobiology is easily manipulated by fear or any hollow metrics of success in human existence: fame, money, power, and sex.
To live creatively - unconstrained by our primitive neurobiology - takes consistent effort, practice, mistakes, and acceptance. You will never truly control your mind or free will - but by embracing Joy despite everything, you can overcome the limitations of your neurobiology enough to flourish.
The act of overcoming being present now and connected to yourself, your immediate feelings, your surroundings, and others with you - not distracted by fear, mistakes, or outside thoughts is a lifelong challenge that is best shared with others. You are not alone; in fact, you are a part of something much greater than your mind will ever understand.
All That Is, Ever Was, Or Will Be - Carl Sagan
It's your choice to live in a connected COSMOS or not: This is a binary decision - your red or blue pill.
Imagine waking up every day knowing you are never alone. Still, you are connected to everything and everyone - from the smallest cells in your body to the largest star systems in the universe - unconstrained by time, space, and distance - no longer manipulated so easily by your neurochemical companions of fear, regret...
Aware and conscious of life's beautiful, dangerous dance. You see the choreography of a fly and feel the oncoming clouds and rain. You revel in the good and the bad, knowing everything changes like the tide.
Play reminds us of our cosmic origins.
Play eliminates stress, unravels worries, and opens your mind to possibilities in the infinite game.
Moving with Joy floods your neurons; you feel connected to yourself and others and feel the sensations of venturing through the world unfettered by anything or anyone.
Your Joy is infectious and infinitely more powerful than you can imagine.
Bringing more Joy into your life will transform your relationships with everyone and the thing.
It all starts with a decision not to live in the past or think about the future.
To be in the present and Play.
Join me and others and discover how to use the science of human flourishing to architect a flourishing lifestyle to become the creative entrepreneur, leader, and CEO of your life.