Creativity

There is a party going on and you’re invited!

By Spiritdancer | 2010/07/19 15:35 Posted in Creativity, Heart, Inspiration, Joy, Living in the NOW, Purpose, heart speake | Comments (0)

Guest post by Tama Kieves

There’s a party going on and you’re invited. It’s called your inspired life. It’s called stepping out of grim “reality,” the old way of seeing things and the prison bars of habit and self-inflicted limitation. It’s called reconnecting with your secret strength, invincible love, optimal thinking, and sudden clarity. You’re invited.

Here’s how the invitation shows up. It comes as a whisper, a hope, and a longing. I wish I could just have some time to walk on the beach. I wish I could write and sell my novel. I wish I could do my own business in coaching. News flash: these aren’t just whispers. They are shuttle buses to your new life, leaving now. This is medicine. This is divine instruction. These are stock tips for the investment of your lifetime.

Why would you ignore your own genius? Oh, I know, because doing something you want to do can’t be right. But think again. If it feels good and exciting, it’s got power and energy, natural strength, and the ability to help you get past your fears and feel that “right feeling” that makes everything fall into place.

Tama is offering a retreat where you can learn to do this here.

By Tama Kieves of Awakening Artistry

We make very poor use of our talents

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/29 00:56 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Inspired Education | Comments (2)

In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 TedTalk, Sir Ken Robinson makes a plea for a true revolution in education. He talks about how we have to change the way we educate children from a mechanical process to an organic one. I love how he acknowledges that inspiration, doing what you love and following the heart and Spirit are the keys. I could say more but he does a better job so here you go…

Here is his first talk:

What is Inspiration? Part III

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/24 19:08 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Living in the NOW | Comments (9)

PLAY is the key to inspiration.

The key to inspiration is joy and the purest form of joy is pure play! We get so serious as adults that we forget how to really play anymore and then our creative spark dies.

To best illustrate the relationship between joy and play I want to relate a story to you that happen to me one Saturday afternoon when my family and I went to see a fireworks display in downtown Houston.

While we waited for the show to start on this grassy hill, the kids becoming impatient tore up the cardboard trash cans and started sliding down the grass hills on pieces of cardboard. I thought wow that looks like fun and started doing it with them! It was just too much fun! I felt just like a kid again falling down and rolling down and laughing as I fell.

After sliding down that hill with those kids life seemed so fresh and new and ever so clear!

There is a certain magic energy that was there in that place. I was so happy with the kids rolling and laughing and sliding down that hill as music played and stars shot overhead. It was a perfect moment. In that moment all was well and perfect in the world, all was happy and joyous. Heaven had come to Earth just for a few moments. This is the joy and happiness that we are all searching for and that is what life can be like every day if only we would allow it.

If you don’t understand what I am talking about, then take your kid (and if you don’t have a kid then take yourself or just grab some kids.) Go to a park with a hill and run down that hill and fall and roll and laugh. I guarantee that within 5 minutes you will feel alive and happy again. You may think it is just a fleeting thing, this feeling, but cherish this feeling for this feeling is life! This is the key to happiness. If you can feel this feeling, understand it, and internalize it, then you will know what I mean by true joy and happiness. Then understand that this feeling is normal and the feelings you have that aren’t like this are the abnormal ones. This feeling means you have awakened to your true being, if only but for just one moment. But having awakened to it, a door has now been opened that you can choose to walk through to a brighter and better world, a door that leads to none other than heaven on earth!

No matter how bad life is, no matter how bad the situation is, remember joy is just a play away. Again, if you think this is silly, if you don’t know what I mean, then just go to a hill…

And roll!

So the key to inspiration is play. With play you will find joy. And with joy inspiration will be just around the corner!

ART is the expression of Inspiration

Unfortunately, in our fear based culture there is only one profession that is allowed to work on pure inspiration and that is the artist. Everyone understands that an artist must be inspired to do good work, but we assume that in other professions this is not necessary.

Imagine a culture where everyone worked from inspiration. For one, it would be a totally different type of culture, unlike anything we have ever seen. But the one area that is similar is art. Imagine a culture of art where every profession is an art and is performed by an artist. I don’t just mean graphic art, but inspired-from-the-heart art. From medicine to engineering to… everything! Surely many professions as we now know them would disappear. Basically all the dull boring ones that nobody would want to do would disappear. Many of these functions that society performs would reappear in different forms, inspired forms versus fear-based forms. What a world it would be! It would be a world of art. Bread would be baked because the baker was inspired to bake it, food would be cooked like the best gourmet food, and even a simple sandwich would be a work of art. It would be a very colorful and vibrant society. But this can only happen in an environment free of fear and full of inspiration, in other words, a world full of color, light and love… In other words, a world full of God.

What would an inspired world look like?

Well for one there is no force, no one would be forced to do anything. In an environment of pure inspiration you could not use fear to intimidate anyone into doing anything. No one would ‘have to’ do anything. And everyone would ‘want to’ do everything. Unfortunately our culture has been a ‘have to’ culture but right below the surface is a beautiful ‘want to’ culture just waiting to burst out. We only need to set it free!

What is Inspiration? Part II

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/22 15:44 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Joy, Living in the NOW | Comments (4)

What Does Inspiration Feel Like?

What does God feel like? What does the flow of pure creative energy feel like? How can you identify and know inspiration when it strikes?

Why Dorothy, you feel it all the time you just haven’t been paying attention!

First you get a feeling, a feeling of potential. Usually you have a feeling that you just have to do something. You just have to write this song, cook this recipe, quit your job, start a business, call this person, try this color, go down that road, listen to that CD. You get the idea.

Inspiration is an inner intuition, a feeling that must be expressed. The trick is not to deny that feeling. Too many times I walked past the door of inspiration, I mean, right on past it! The door of inspiration sometimes is very small, very easy to write off, especially in a dead serious society, such as ours. Too many times we mistake our inspiration as goofing off or frivolous exploration, not realizing that it is this very playful exploration that will lead us to where we need to be. We are too busy listening to our heads instead of our hearts.

When inspiration really starts to flow. Usually it flows so fast that you can’t keep up. You will feel pulled or compelled to do several things at once. You will feel excited and energized, an ‘I can’t wait to..” feeling will come over you.

When this happens it is best to write down your initial inspirations. You may find yourself scribbling wildly as I am writing this very paragraph. Soon you will feel compelled to act and act you will.

Joy is the door to inspiration

Joy is truly the door to inspiration. Unfortunately, in our society Joy is frowned upon as frivolous and not serious enough to warrant our attention. But inspiration cannot happen outside of a state of Joy. Therefore joy and inspirations are inseparable.

Joy really is the key. By joy I mean that fun, alive, totally free feeling where we feel protected and like a child again. That feeling of falling down in the snow and laughing your heart out as you roll down a hill.

Whenever we can experience true joy, our hearts open up and the love and light of God can begin to move though us unimpeded. When we are experiencing joy we are in the best condition to be inspired.

You are at one with God when you feel and express true Joy. Joy is love energy being expressed. When you are expressing love in a truly selfless, unconditional way you will feel joy. Joy is the feeling of giving or receiving love. Think about all the times you felt truly joyous. Not just excited, but truly joyous. Imagine spinning a child around and around as they giggle and laugh expressing a truly joyous moment with you. This is the kind of joy I am talking about.

What is Inspiration? Part I

By Spiritdancer | 2010/05/22 02:38 Posted in Creativity, Inspiration, Joy, Living in the NOW | Comments (6)

Inspiration, the door to a more meaningful and abundant life

Inspiration is a door to a much more meaningful, fulfilling and abundant life. No matter what your status or education or situation, inspiration is a door that all of us can go through to a larger world full of hope and possibility. The thing is most people have no clue about this. They see glimpses of it when they have an impulsive inspired feeling or idea but they usually quickly dismiss the feeling as nothing more than just a passing fancy. They let what I call the ‘inner critic’ talk them out of it. The sad part is, that by not following this inspirational energy they have cut themselves off from the very thing that could get them out of their problems and to the life they really want. I see this happening all the time, I do it too but now when I recognize inspiration I have a reverence for it and I have learned to ignore the ‘inner critic.’ It is such a simple thing actually. What many people don’t understand is that this energy is everything. If they really knew what being touched by this energy meant they would jump up and down and thank God because to be touched by this energy is a true gift from Heaven. Step one is to understand that when you feel inspired it is so much more that just a good feeling, it is basically God coming over and saying ‘Hey want to play? But even if you understand this intellectually the real key is to know what it feels like because it is the feeling recognition of this energy that is most important. See, when you are inspired it’s an energy flow. This is again, not just a good feeling your body happens to be having that day. This energy is God’s creative energy, which is basically love energy. This conscious energy is creative and has intelligence. This is why when you feel inspired you feel pregnant, like you ‘just have to get it out.’ You also have a feeling that you can’t get it out fast enough and the reason this is, is because you are a channel for this energy, it is not coming from you but through you. All you really have to do is get out of the way. Since this is love energy you will feel joyous when you let this energy flow through you. This is why you feel so good expressing it. It’s similar to the way that a light bulb lights up as electricity passes through it. Inspirational energy is all ‘want to’ there is nothing you ‘should do’ or ‘have to do’ with this energy. All we ‘have to’ do is let it flow.

When inspirational energy is flowing you do not want to stop, everything in you wants to let it flow. Time stops as you enter the moment. You feel pulled by some invisible force. And you are being pulled, guided towards a higher destiny. The thing is that the smallest and simplest situation can be the catalyst for inspiring you. It is important that when you are inspired you go with it. Many times we judge the form of the inspiration not realizing that it will evolve into higher and higher forms. We let the inner critic talk us into closing off the flow.

For example, you might, while driving have a feeling to stop in a particular store, or to cook a certain dish or to pick up a pencil and start to draw something. One day you might get the urge to build something or make something, you don’t know why, you just feel like it. Well, that’s inspiration. But what usually happens? The inner critic steps in and says, all kinds of negative things like:

‘What are you thinking, you don’t have time for that.’ or

“You can’t cook’ or

‘You can’t afford to spend money making such and such.’ or

‘What makes you think you can do such and such.’

You get the idea. The trick is to ignore that voice and do whatever you feel inspired to do anyway. Follow the energy and let it flow and go along for the ride. Of course that will require faith and trust and for you to let-go of expectations but don’t worry it will be a wonderful adventure that will take you to exactly where you need to be.

But what is inspiration exactly?

To be inspired means to trust your instincts and to move into that space that is interesting, fun and alive! In other words inspiration is a state of pure joy! Inspiration is God’s creative energy moving though you, God using you, God playing you as the most beautiful and unique musical instrument that you are. The goal is to let go and let God make beautiful music with you and the best way for that to happen is for you not to block his energy as it flows through you. When you feel stifled, that is fear, which is an energy block. When you feel joy, then God’s creative energy can flow fully and freely towards its purpose and destiny!

Too many people in our world walk around thinking of life as this miserable joyless thing that must be tolerated and put up with. They are so far from the truth! The truth is no matter what our situation, God wants us to live truly happy and joyous lives. And this is the best thing we can leave our children in life because life is what joy is.

Inspirational energy is like electricity flowing though wires. It is not the electrons in the wires but the flow of the electrons that causes things to move and light up. So it is too with the inspirational energy of God moving though us, causing us to be powerful creative instruments in the world. When you get that energy flowing, everything else will fall into place. The more you allow this energy to flow the more joy you feel in life! And the more joy you feel in life, the more this energy can flow! Well that sounds easy, yes, but there is one problem – FEAR! Beware of fear, for fear is the true enemy! Fear blocks your connection to God and his creative energy! Love and fear are the two dynamic primal forces in the universe. God is love and love is God and inspiration is actually a higher form of love being expressed, from God to you and through you to the world! When you live your purpose by expressing inspiration to the world, you are creating in the fullest sense of the word and when you create in this way, you are an artist in the fullest sense of the word! None of this would be possible without God. For some this may come as a shock. But believe me, it is true. God, or whatever you want to call him – a Higher Power, the Universe, the Super Conscious – is the magic ingredient in our lives, and without him, true inspiration would not be possible.

Homeless artist paints his way around Seattle

By Spiritdancer | 2010/03/11 01:29 Posted in Creativity, Dream Warriors, Inspiration, Inspiring Films, Living in the NOW, Money, Painters, The Economics of Love, Videos | Comments (2)

I want to introduce you to an artist in Seattle called Henry Ward. What makes him unique and an inspiration to us all and a true Dream Warrior is his commitment to his work, his art and the expression of it to help others. He was so committed in fact or moved or called, that he was willing to live in his car and work for free. He has painted over 60 murals around Seattle and is just now starting to become recognized in the city as a major influence. But I love the fact that he just gives, he does not seem consumed by what he is getting out of the deal. He seems so moved to paint no matter what. The thing about him is he listens, he listens to that voice within that says paint that wall! If we could all, including myself, listen, hear and act on that voice, what would our lives become? How many people would we touch? Who knows. Henry, is a master teacher in listening. I know he thinks he is an artist but his example shows us what it means to listen. Usually our over-thinking ego/heads talk us out of whatever inspiration just hit. Anyway, he has inspired me to listen more and I hope by doing so I can enter a world as magical as his. See the videos below for more about his paintings and murals in Seattle.

His website is: http://ryanhenryward.com

Henry Murals from Adam Bale on Vimeo.

How to start a blog

By Spiritdancer | 2010/02/07 07:23 Posted in Blogging, Creativity, Inspiration, Money, The Economics of Love, Writing | Comments (2)

All about Blogs
If you have something to share that is information based, now you have no excuse. The Internet is the sharing highway because it really facilitates sharing in ways that mankind has never had before. And if you are wondering why sharing is so important please check out “The Economics of Love.” Whatever your gift is: be it writing, or film-making, music, cooking, teaching, painting, photography, if it is information based, than the Internet is for you. Gone are the days when the gatekeepers; the publishers, TV networks, movie studios, agents etc., controlled what you were allowed to share. Now the Internet is the information aggregator and we can bypass the gatekeepers. Don’t let desire for fame or fortune stop you from sharing your stuff, also don’t worry about copycat’s as your work is still protected under the creative common license, a legal way for you to protect your work and share it freely at the same time. The bottom line is that the more you share the better off you will be. Plus your gifts were given to you to share with others. If you have a book, don’t let it languish on your computer or God forbid your notebook, waiting for a gatekeeper, i.e. publisher, to tell you that it’s worth sharing. Share it now! You can and there are several new and not so new tools on the Internet to facilitate that. The first and greatest of these tools is the blog.

Now, many of you have probably heard about blogs and that is great. Well the thing is, blogging is now going to a whole new level. No matter who you are or what you are working on I beseech you to start a blog today. Just get started. No matter what you just said as an excuse not to start please just do it anyway, just start. There is a lot of power in starting. You can always delete it or never share it, but at least you will have started. Now you can start sharing your stuff. Even if your gift is not information based. Say you are working on the something very solid, like the latest electric green car that will revolutionize the world and eliminate global warming. Well you can at least share your journey and experiences! So start a blog.

What is a blog? A blog is nothing more than an online journal. You write entries in it that are dated just like you would in a paper journal. But that is where the similarities end, because now with the power of the Internet you can share these journals with the world. People can subscribe to your blog as if it was your own private magazine. You can even have ads on your blog and make money. You can then spread the word or promote your blog though bookmarking sites. OK that’s a lot of stuff so I will cover each one in detail.

Create Your Blog
First the blog itself. There are several blogging services out there, check out the top ten blog sites to find the one that’s best for you. But I recommend wordpress.org because from what I’ve read it’s the best and it’s the one that I use for this blog. For a video tutorial on how to get started I recommend a site called BecomeABlogger.com If you want an easy way to start with out a lot of technical hassle just go to wordpress.com and you can have a blog setup in a matter of minutes, it’s easy. If all of this is still too overwhelming for you you can sign up with a service called Site Build It and for $30 a month they will take you step by step to a successful blog. Most of their blogs are at the top one percent of Google searches. They are an excellent choice if you are a non-technical but still want a successful blog, click here for some examples. Ok, now to the next step. Let’s say you have created your blog. I would say as a rule, from now on, you should put all of your writing on a blog. As soon as you create a blog, it instantly gets indexed into the search engines and in a few days anyone in the world could do a search and your blog entry might come up. Now that’s cool! Instant sharing.

Share Your Blog
Ok, the next step is that you want to make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog. Now this is a slightly hard subject to understand but hang with me, it’s really not so bad. Basically there are these things called feeds and what they do is allow people to subscribe to your blog. when they do this, if you make a new entry, they (your subscribers or readers) will be automatically alerted and shown your new entry. This is what I did with my Plan G book. For someone to subscribe they need what is called a feed reader. A “feed reader” is a piece of software that lets people subscribe to different web pages etc. and see the updates. Sound confusing? Well no worries, you already use readers and probably don’t even know it. Yahoo, Google, msn and everyone else and their mother have included feed readers in their personal versions. I use iGoogle but yahoo has my yahoo and msn has my msn. For instance, on my iGoogle page, any blog I subscribe to is summarized there. For instance, I am subscribed to a Vancouver blog about Vancouver BC. Whenever the author of that blog makes a new entry the title of that entry shows up on my iGoogle page. This way I don’t have to go and check the Vancouver blog everyday to see if they have made a new entry. Feeds can also email you the latest post from your favorite blogs.

Setting up a feed
Ok, this all sound every cool, but how to do it? Is it complicated to make it so people can subscribe to your blog? No it’s not. Why, because there is a new service that Google also just bought called Feed Burner. Via feed burner you can easily make it so people can subscribe to your blog via email and or their feed reader. Just go to feedburner.com and enter the address of your blog and just follow the instructions. They take you though the process step by step and teach you all about the whole feed system in the process. Since feed burner and blogger.com are both part of Google. You can add subscription services to your blog at the touch of a button. It’s all integrated together and it makes doing this very powerful thing as easy as pie. To watch a video tutorial on feeds go here.

Making money with your blog!
Once you’ve added subscription services to your blog, you can learn how to make money with it by checking out Yaro Starak’s site entrepreneurs-journey.com. Yaro makes a lot of money blogging and he’s a really nice guy. I could go into detail but he’s already done it so just check out his site for info on making money with your blog. But to sum it up, you can make money with advertising, an online store, affiliate marketing, referral links or just take donations. Also check out propblogger.com which has all kinds of cool tips on how to make money with your blog too.

Promoting your blog
Ok, we are almost done. Now you have a blog, you have added subscription services so people can subscribe to your blog and you have added a way to make money from your blog. Now there is just one more thing and that is how to promote your blog so people can find out about it. One way to help people find your blog is to sign up for what are called book marking sites.

Bookmarking sites
Ok, book marking sites are easy to understand. Someone got the idea that it would be cool if everyone could share their favorite sites or book marks and so bookmarking sites were born. So your blog needs to be one of those sites that people bookmark. The way you start this process is to sign up for the top ten bookmarking sites. (there are tons of them but we want to focus on the most popular) One of the most popular is digg.com there is also stumbleupon.com. Sign up and then make your blog your first entry, write a rave review, give it five stars etc. and what this does is get you in their site database. I have heard that all it takes is 2 votes to get a site to start to rise up the popularity ladder. If you do this on all the bookmarking sites your blog will start having hits immediately. With hits you will get subscribers. There is a service called OnlyWire.com that will automatically post all of your blog entries to the top 30 bookmaking sites for you.

Successful examples
Some great examples of blogs: one of the most popular blogs out there, as in top 100, is Zenhabits.net, study it to see what a good blog can be. Also check out Stacy Parks of Film Specific, she is a film sales agent. Every day I get an entry from her about film distribution. She might be at a festival or conference and she will drop in telling us all about what she has learned that day and how it can help us. Her entries are not formal at all but after a while you start to feel that you are a part of her journey. If I ever did have a film to distribute, who do you think I would call? Also check out independent foreign news correspondent Michael J Trotten of michaeltotten.com. Michael is a freelance journalist who lives entirely from the donations and ad revenue from his blog.

So that’s it. Please let me know how your doing. Blogging is a great way to start sharing your gifts. The more we share our gifts with each other, the better the world will be.

PLAY-fuLiving

By Spiritdancer | 2010/02/04 04:27 Posted in Creativity, Discovery, Joy | Comments (4)

by Jenny Ward

I was sitting on the beach the other day when I saw a girl with her mom digging in the sand in front of me. They were giggling as they dug their purple shovels into the sand. The girl seemed to be about 5, and was full of life and joy. There was no right way to dig and she didn’t care how messy she got. Moments later, the girl starts skipping towards me. “You are pretty” she says innocently. I began to cry, not out of sadness, but because I felt loved and appreciated. In two seconds I remembered the simplicity of this PLAYGROUND called LIFE.

When do we lose this? At what age do we feel as if we need to stop telling others they are pretty? Smart? Awesome? Loved…you name it. Why do we mute ourselves into becoming adults? When we choose to PLAY in this game of life, we are choosing to be in the moment of NOW. Dig deeper into the sand and understand that the castles we build are created by the beliefs we hold.

Watching children play is watching masters at work. They get it. For years, I lived off my belief that LIFE was meant to BE HARD. I got the degrees, won the awards, got married, had the perfect home and still something was missing. Becoming an adult has many requirements: responsibility, success, marriage, stability and security. I checked each box off every day, yet found myself feeling heavy and lost. Years of dieting to be perfect, working to be successful and auditioning to be famous led me to a great place.

NOWHERE. At the age of 28, I stopped, looked at the sandcastles I had built, and asked WHO SAID LIFE IS MEANT TO BE LIKE THIS? From that moment on, everything changed.

I believe our world is on autopilot most of the time. In order to choose your own path, one must believe in the possibility of MAGIC, PASSION, PLAY and LOVE. Play is all about believing. Believing that life is meant to be enjoyed, not survived, embraced not memorized, loved not loathed. Being a visionary takes believing in the infinite possibilities of the answer to WHAT IF? Watch a kid make a sand castle, or paint a picture and notice their willingness to create without rules, design without limitations, and build without expectations. Choosing to add playtime into our lives is a key ingredient to creating a life of your own. A life designed for and by you, and magnificently lived.

I began to look at the beliefs I had about myself slowly and with compassion. ” I am not enough” came thru loud and clear for me. This not enough syndrome led me further away from play, love, creativity and honor. I spent most of my life trying to please, be something I was told I had to be, not playing within my own heart.

Life begins to shift when you decide to live for yourself. As a kid, I was taught that selfishness is wrong, that it’s not “right” to think of yourself first. Being a visionary involves looking within first, getting to know your own dreams and joy’s and taking steps to create that. I have re-defined selfish, and I triple dog dare you to do the same. Life begins on the edge of your comfort zone. It begins when you look at yourself with loving eyes and make choices that are for your highest play-full good. Giving yourself time to play, breathe, love, explore and share is essential to creating a life that is YOURS, not someone else’s.

Deep down inside, we are all craving to color outside the lines, or “mess” up without labeling ourselves failures. Perfectionism bruises the soul. Play allows your heart and soul to come out and dance. When I work with clients, I encourage them to erase “SHOULD, RIGHT, RESPONSIBLE and PERFECT” from their dictionaries called our minds. These words have very powerful intentions that have been passed down from generation to generation.

“You should be this, you should do this, you better do that”, all over our society, placing tons of ideals and expectations on our plates. One step at a time, we continue to search for the answers, buy the self-help books, take the classes, get the better job, climb up the corporate ladders and try to attain …..what? Being “successful” is a matter of whose guidelines? Why isn’t it successful to take time out every day and honor yourself with PLAY?

I was tired of being told that I need to grow up and be responsible. Instead of “going with it” I chose to step outside that box and create a new way of being responsible. Instead of struggling I wanted to celebrate. Instead of being “the best” I chose to be happy. Life became a playground, offering new slides to climb up and new jungle gyms to easefully explore. PLAY became a way of life, not something on my “to do” list. In our world I notice that most adults are waiting until they are 65 in order to play. I don’t want to wait.

What is play? Remember when we were kids how important playtime was? Everyday I was outside, playing tag or building forts. I was using my mind, body and spirit every moment I could without labeling it or fitting it into my schedule. We played with all the kids on the block, not just “some” people. Race, religion, age or gender didn’t really matter. What DID matter was what game to play next and how many games of kickball we could play before dinnertime. Simple pleasures. I wonder why those simple pleasures become less and less important with each birthday we have. I believe that each year we blow out the candles we should celebrate getting younger! Dance around and declare how we will spend the next play-full year of our lives. How old are you begins to be, wow…how young you are! Many people ask me how “old” I am. When I share that I am thirty, I always hear, “Wow, you look so much younger!” I FEEL younger on the inside. I believe what we FEEL on the inside radiates on the outside. A PLAY-er radiates youth, spontaneity, curiosity and blissfulness. Do you ever just meet someone and they affect you? Last week I met a girl who was fifteen who blew me away. She giggled and hugged with her heart. I didn’t have to be any particular way to hang out with her. It was simple and free, no requirements, rules, ideals or expectations. What a feeling. Her presence inspired me to be more of a play activist. To take the gift she offered by her presence and carry it with me and share with all others I meet.

It is my intention to start a play revolution. To bring back play into all or lives. Te celebrate the magnificence of being alive. To hug, share, nurture ourselves and those around us, without fear. Most of us are looking at our lives and sensing something shifting. Maybe we are noticing that we crave more quiet time, or we are watching kids and feeling the urge to just BE without the rules or requirements we have set upon ourselves.

How can we add more play into our lives? We can begin to incorporate play into our family, partnerships, workplace and personal time. Here are some play-licious ideas.

*PLAY as a team with your family:

Teamwork is very playful. Have play meetings where you share and come up with a play dates. Start at home. Bring fun and creativity into your every day life. Being a “grown up” doesn’t mean the fun ends. Learn from your children the purest and simplest way of being. Explore without limits and know that life is your greatest playful teacher. Create a playfull dish for dinner. Eat dinner with your fingers. Add sprinkles to the main course. Make ice cream sundaes for each other. Tell each member on your family team one thing you love about them. Create a play-full vacation without leaving your house/yard.

*Partner/Spouse Playshop:

What playful things can you do together? Skip down the street. Play tag. Create a new way of doing “Twister.” Hug every other minute. Color huge hearts together.

Count the stars.

Make a picnic and go somewhere new. Hold hands. Steal kisses wherever you go. Go on a play-full adventure. Wear something out of the box for you, and go out in public. Pretend its Halloween for a week. Applaud your partner for just being them! Serenade each other.

Put smiley faces on everything. Write I love you everywhere in the house.

What other ways can you and your partner/spouse be playmates?

*PLAY-full Personal Ideas to Explore:

1. How do you honor yourself daily?

2. Write a letter to someone you love in crayons. Send it.

3. Every day, write one thing you love about yourself (don’t think and don’t edit)

4. Find a picture of you at the age of 5. Hang it up where you can see it everyday.

5. Start visualizing that in which you have always wanted to be/experience. What are the feelings? STAY in those feelings…be in them. What other voices come up for you? Write that inner dialogue down. Notice what words you choose. Bring that sheet of paper in with all the “critics” on it. We will have a ceremony to let go and recreate NEW words for you.

6. Say this every morning and every night: ” I am playful and fun!”

7. Take yourself on a vacation. (At least twice a week, 10-20 minutes) Outside of your normal routine. Go somewhere you have never gone. Take a new route to a familiar destination. Get out of the comfort zone. Go to the beach and draw in the sand without making it “perfect”. If you can, do kart-wheels, or make angels in the sand. Let go of that voice that is saying, “people will be watching”… by letting your soul out to play, it INSPIRES others!

8. Begin to notice who you surround yourself with. With love and compassion, be aware of energy you are receiving. Is it encouraging? Make a list of beings that encourage and support you unconditionally. Be honest with yourself.

Play with life, not against. Life is about going with the flow, exploring and being an adventurer. Life offers many experiences to play with. It’s all on how we choose to perceive them. It can be an adventure or we can just go with the motions, without seeing the PLAYFULLNESS life truly is about. When you meet a stranger, talk to an old friend, walk down the street, buy your coffee, all of this can be playful. You can smile openly at a stranger, you can tell your friend how much you appreciate them with your giggle. You can walk down the street and skip on every fourth step. You can put whipped cream on top of you grande coffee.

Life is what we want it to be. Be a play-full liver.

Create your sandcastle with the intention to be playfull, and pass it on.

I triple dog dare you!

Got PLAY?

1. Roll around in the grass, and don’t brush the grass off.
2. Drive/walk a different way to work, or wherever you usually go.
3. Wear glitter underneath your work clothes.
4. Wear a bright orange tie.
5. Smell a flower fully, and thank it for its beauty.
6. Smile at stranger.
7. Go thru the children’s aisle in any store and imagine what toy you’d love to play with.
8. Buy that toy.
9. Do kart-wheels.
10. Say yes when you would say no.
11. Say no when you would say yes.
12. Stand in front of the mirror and say ” I am king/queen of the universe!”
13. Call a friend and invite them over for play time.
14. Climb up the slide at a playground.
15. Turn the volume of your thoughts down.
16. Turn the volume of your heart up.
17. Stop. Breathe. Giggle. Look around you.
18. Remember that its never too late to be what you always wanted to be.
19. Take yourself out for a play date.
20. Laugh at yourself as much as possible.
21. Remember you are a child of god, you are loved.
22. Put stickers on your bills.
23. Learn something new, without judging if its right or wrong.
24. Erase good or bad from your dictionary.
25. Re-define responsible for yourself.
26. Selfish means- self -fishing for love and honor of me.
27. Eat whipped cream right out of the can-right in mouth.
28. Hug your family, friends and yourself with playful abandon.
29. Paint rocks and line your driveway.
30. Order the happy meal instead of the super size.
31. Drink with straws.
32. Receive with a playful heart.
33. Give with a playful heart.
34. Send someone a bucket of crayons for no reason.
35. Know that you are magnificent, AS is.
36. There is nothing you have to DO.
37. Write a letter to someone who needs to play more, and tell them you want to be there!
38. Buy stickers.
39. Make a picnic and go to your bedroom for a playful intimate picnic.
40. Play with your hair, your friends hair, your partners hair.
41. Be a super hero for a day.
42. Stop. Jump up and down and yell.
43. Find time to laugh at your self.
44. Remind a stranger of how awesome they are with your eyes.
45. Mow the lawn outside the lines.
46. Watch children.
47. Be messy.
48. Name each star for your self.
49. Put marshmallows in everything you make for one day.
50. Hang poster board in your kitchen : write one thing you love about life on it in crayons everyday.
51. Invite your roommate/family/partner to participate in writing on the board in crayon.
52. Be aware of perfectionism ,and with love, recreate a new way of looking at perfect.
53. Be confidently playfull.
54. Celebrate your body…dance naked…take sea salt showers.
55. Finger paint your to do list.
56. Erase SHOULD from your dictionary.
57. Watch lady bugs.
58. Watch a football game, and during commercial blast music and dance.
59. Order a banana split with an extra cherry.
60. Ask your children if they enjoy what they are up to- all ages apply.
61. Throw a temper tantrum if you don’t get your way…(c’mon its fun.)
62. Finish this sentence I AM…
63. Finish this sentence “roses are red….”
64. Make pictures with your food.
65. Eat your meal with your hands without a napkin.
66. Pile all those you love in one bed and snuggle watching a playful movie.
Be you. Be love. Choose Play.

By Jenny Ward

Jenny Ward lives in California, USA.

She is a “Play Activist” and the author of two books, “101 Ways to Play”…a guide to bringing joy into your life, and “Who Said So?”…creating life outside the box.

She also offers workshops and courses.

You can conatct Jenny at jenny@playward.com

Dream Warrior

Creativity

There is a party going on and you’re invited!

We make very poor use of our talents