Play is often relegated to the realm of children, or to silliness and ‘fooling around’ – or to theater ‘plays’. But the essence of play is a necessary component to living a healthy, balanced adult life, and since I know I’m a very serious person, and I take life very seriously, I have to convince my brain that I am in the mode of playfulness and playing, even though in the ‘real world’ context it looks like I am ‘working.’
If you know me, you know that I have had careers in different industries (theatre, commercial art, television production, corporate communications, dance, massage and fine art) and I still have diverse interests and run three businesses.
From the outside, this might look like a lot, and anyone may wonder why I have these seemingly unrelated interests, and how I manage to do them all. If you’re curious – this blog gives you some insight into how I reframe ‘work’ into ‘play’ so that I can do it all, with as much flow and ease as possible. (But be warned: I do not get it perfect and it’s a constant practice!)
When I think of my work as work I feel a huge contraction in my body – because it implies that I have to ‘get it right’ and I have to ‘do it well’, and I must always be operating at peak performance. This creates extreme tension in my neck, my back, and my stomach, which causes exhaustion and brain fog.
You see, I’m a ‘recovering perfectionist’, and ‘work’ for me is equated to perfection.
To help myself reframe my striving for perfection, I have found these concepts helpful:
In the real world, nothing is ‘perfect’, and everything is, in fact, also perfect – as it is.
“Perfection is a flawed concept” , and nothing is truly broken.
And, as one of my students in our InFlow Creative sessions said very wisely: ‘perfection is not interesting’. Wow. That hit home for me!
So, in my efforts to create more flow in my body – and more interest for my very busy and curious mind – I like to think of work as play. And by extension – to think of my whole life as a playground.
When I’m washing dishes, exercising or driving to an appointment, I can choose to tune in to the energy of play and use my imagination to ‘reframe’ the dreary action from something I “have to do” , to something I ‘want to do because it’s all a game, really!”
This is not to diminish the work I DO do though. It’s necessary and important work – for me, for my clients, for my family, for the world. I know I’m adding vibrations of goodness and creativity and love into our very fractured, fear-filled world. I trust that what I do brings more joy to everyone I reach – and I know, deep down in the fibre of my being, that it brings me real, big fat Joy, ease and flow too. I just have to keep leaning into these reminders when I feel the pressure of work building up.
Besides this, I have learnt from experience that when we force things, they are so much harder to ‘make happen’ . And it’s infinitely more difficult to try to make anything perfect in life.
What I know to be true, is that when we let go of trying to control things, our nervous system relaxes, our body softens, our energy becomes more receptive to the good things we need and want, and we can achieve what we want with more ease, grace and flow – and be grateful for the outcome – even if it turns out to be entirely different to what we expected.
The energy of striving is exhausting, as is the energy of ‘trying so hard”.
I do my best to take these words out of my vocabulary, and lean more into the idea of accepting where I am, and just seeing what my next step is in front of me, and leaning into the energy of trusting that everything will be okay.
That is what the ‘energy of play’ is all about. If you think back to being a child, playing in a sandbox, or with your dolls or trucks, or sticks at the river, can you tap into the feeling of being fully present and supremely delighted with what was going on in each moment of that ‘game’. You had no desire to reach an endpoint. or have a certain outcome to the game. You just followed the flow of your imagination from moment to moment.
And you were in love with yourself, your game, your imagination, your world…..until your mother called you inside to do your homework or something else ‘work’ related! Ugh!
Can you remember? What games delighted you as a child?
So back to why I do what I do, and live as I live.
It is in the action of playing that we come home to ourselves.
When I was young, I danced for competitions and performance (ballet, ballroom, latin), and while it was exciting, it was also demanding perfection from me. Later in my life, I discovered methods that taught me to dance from my body’s true expression, to dance ‘my body’s way’, not needing to get it right. It was the most freeing thing I ever experienced. And that led me to learning the form of massage that I give, and it also led me to discover intuitive painting, which freed me from my anxiety about making perfect art, and healed my relationship with my failed academic art experience I had in my early twenties. I was able to reframe everything I did with the energy of play – and that led me back to myself. I felt like I had come ‘home’.
All my experiences come together in my art practice now. My art (mostly paintings, and some videos) is definitely influenced by my massage knowledge. You’ll get a sense of abstracted forms relating to anatomy and physiology, as well as lyrical expressions of flow and movement in my artwork. You may also feel the connection to the ocean and the life that it supports. And hopefully, you’ll experience some connection to your own body when you look at my art.
My life is a symphony of different ‘games’ that all flow and connect with each other, because I am the one creating them. Giving someone a massage in a sacred space with beautiful music, is as creative and satisfying for me, as starting a new painting on a blank canvas. And talking with people about creativity and witnessing them discover deeper connection to themselves, is the same as observing the transformation towards expansion and ease in the physical bodies and emotional experiences of the wonderful people that I get to work with in my massage practice. When people come home to themselves, it makes the world a better place.
I’m wondering – if you are serious like me, do you get to ‘play’ enough in your life?
And if you’re a workaholic – like me – do you ever ‘reframe’ your work as ‘play’, so that you can find more real Joy in what you do? Otherwise, why are you doing it?
As life coach Martha Beck says “Play until it’s time to rest. Rest until it’s time to play. If it doesn’t feel like play or rest, don’t do it!”
I do my best to live by that – but believe me, it’s an ongoing practice.
That said, I love all the work I do.
Let me know if you work or if you play… or if you’re a recovering perfectionist.
With love,
Brenda
ps: Want to play- and release tension in your body? Book a Floor Treatment for Deep Rest – I call it the exhausted person’s yoga. It’s kinda like Thai massage, but a little more gentle and we play with breath and intention to release all your tension and move you into a state of flow. (You can also choose to do this on the table if getting to the floor is challenging for your body.)