by Jacqueline McFadden
Recently I got a lovely card from a colleague who wanted to tell me how much she had enjoyed the year working together. In the same card, she also wrote: “Don’t be afraid to have fun”. What did she mean? I asked myself. Was I not fun to be around? Was I so serious? When I stopped being defensive, I saw clearly that yes, I was rather serious – actually very serious! For the last two years life had become even more so, (due to health reasons). I then started to realise most of my life had been serious – with having many responsibilities from a young age.
Being a single parent with two children is hard, and can feel like a serious job, especially when trying to be both mother and father to your children. But that was then, and those responsibilities are long gone. My children have their own lives now; yet, I cannot seem to shake this seriousness that hangs around me and follows like a dark shadow.
Why is that, I asked?
The truth is, I have forgotten how to play, how to have fun – how to play with others and enjoy life. It feels to me a very long time ago that I knew how to do this… how to have fun. I recollect my childhood and I cannot remember having fun, being silly, playing, playing with others and laughing. That said, every child knows how to play – but I lost that somewhere along the way when I shut down as a child.
What to do? Should I see if there are any courses or workshops on how to have fun? This makes me laugh, considering it is a natural thing for children to play and have fun. On pondering further I see that there have been times when I have had fun recently – albeit only a handful. How can I change this? How do I play with life, how do I remember and reconnect to the magic of life? How do I make playfulness ‘my way’ on a daily basis is my question.
The answer comes: feel and re-connect to the part of me I had lost…
I blanked out most of my childhood, not wanting to feel what was really going on in my family.
This fills me with such sadness that I cannot hold back my tears. The sadness of feeling that my environment did not support me to be me – to be all of the real me.
As soon as I blanked or shut down my ‘child’hood/part I lost the playfulness and fun and joy I naturally held as a child and slowly over the years, seriousness crept in.
After the sadness came some resistance to letting go of the old, the familiar and the shadow, which I have hidden behind. For if I ‘let go’ I might be seen, and I’m not sure if I will be safe. It all feels a little scary, after years living in the shadow, yet something from inside pulls me to walk out of the shadow and walk in my own light and joy.
The expansion I feel from this pull or call supports me to see that it is safe for me to reconnect to that part that I blanked out – my childhood, and the fun, the laughter, the playfulness that I now wish to express.
In this expansion I see how simple my life has become, which makes me feel joyful and light. Simplicity has removed the dark shadow of seriousness that I walked around in for a very long time.
Keeping life simple, and living a simple life each day, staying humble, and sharing from my heart, sharing all of me and not holding back is how I can play with life, is how I can feel the magic of life all around me, and is how I make playfulness ‘my way’ every single day.
It is time to be seen. It is Time To Play and have some fun.
Deeply Inspired by the teachings of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon
The Truth about Serge Benhayon 
It was good to read this blog again, as life can take hold and make things often serious. And in that I forget the light heartedness and playfulness that’s still within. That connection is all that is needed to bring that joy to our life.
We are made to feel unsafe, it is kind of like a trick to make us believe this all the time, purposefully there to not be in that simplicity and joy. So that we do not reflect this to another.
So it makes no difference of our ages, colour, creed, religion (and the list could be endless), fun, joy and playfulness can be had at any time of our lives. It never left us, it is us that chose to separate from it…
Jacqueline I love the simplicity of this blog, and agree whole heartily that as children we had fun. If we look at children any where around the world, whether in the rich or whether in the slums, there is laughter and fun to be seen and be heard.
As adults we lose it, and it is still all there and it is a matter of tapping into this. What would life be like if we allowed this? Yes we still would have to go to work, and all the other things we do that creates life, yet with joy and playfulness, things wouldn’t be so intense. In this way of living, we reflect this to others, then work, life, and play be our everyday living.
Yes I recall the memory as I child growing up in the UK. We used to play a lot outside and anything would be seen as playfulness. I always find when we hear a toddler giggling, it makes us giggle too – its infectious. So lighten up, there is fun and playfulness around us, if we are willing to see it past the supposedly dark cloud that is upon us…
Many years ago, in an evening college course for technical writing, there was a late teenage girl that exploded on me and showered me with disdain for not taking my course work and education serious. We each had to read out loud our outline of the steps we were going to do for research and name the source. I required information from three different contractors that would have to travel to have this meeting. All was fine till I read the last step that was, party with the contractors, source American Express. Time to play is an essential part of us that sometimes is forgotten, but is never lost.
It is true, fun needs to be incorporated in our work environment too without losing the purpose of work. Our family is work, especially if we spend so much time if we work full time, so why not have some social gatherings or celebrations of birthdays and many other events?
Fun allows us to be of service more…
I know I can relate to having become serious, it seems all too common in many people today, ‘The truth is, I have forgotten how to play, how to have fun – how to play with others and enjoy life.’ Bringing fun into our lives is always a great choice.
Adding to your simple approach to life Jacqueline, we could add the KISSSSS principle, by Keeping Initiating Simplicity So we are Supporting Staying-humbly-Soul-full.
When I am feeling like I have taken care of myself and have ‘been with myself’ in the sense of feeling things and then acting on what I have been feeling, then there is naturally a light way of being that comes with a sense of ease and joy. It is then not an effort to have fun, it just happens spontaneously.
Sometimes I can feel too tired or weighed down by things to want to play, but that is the best symptom to hone in and allow myself to stop, recharge my batteries and then realise that it is not about carrying the world on my shoulders, and that it is truly time to stop and have some fun!
I’ve also found that the fun, playfulness and lightness returns when I am connected to my essence, it is naturally there, unless I get caught up in something happening outside of me and leave myself. Having the support of the Universal Medicine therapies has really assisted this also, as it’s been necessary to heal the many hurts and traumas to make way for the playfulness to be there again.
I love how a simple comment on a card can be a trigger to such profound healing. Well done for getting over your defensiveness, and allowing yourself deeper honesty, Jacqueline. That feels very loving.
I found being in psychotherapy for years killed all playfulness I became very serious and dull. Looking back I can see that psychotherapy turned me into a functional person, I could function in life but the joy, spontaneity and playfulness were missing.
I can so relate to what you have shared here, “after years living in the shadow, yet something from inside pulls me to walk out of the shadow and walk in my own light and joy.’. That shadow I hid in became so familiar and so safe, and it definitely felt a little scary stepping out of it. But I am so very delighted that I made the choice to do so as living in the light is so much easier than existing in the shadows.
When we heal and let go of our hurts we free ourselves to live the joy of who we are as is our innate way of being.
Love love love this blog Jacqueline. It inspires me so much to bring my light and fun in the middle of a day that started to become serious and dark. Playing with life includes stay humble and real and yes…some sadness is coming up but feels beautiful supporting myself in just being me.
I agree with simplicity there is a lightness and a joy. Complication and drama makes everything serious.
Way too serious Aimee, beautifully put.
Seriousness is way of controlling life. It limits any other possible where to now to one. It is a safe zone.
It is so true Eduardo control kills the joy. When we are focused on outcomes to deliver us something we need, we get serious as we are hoping things will go the way we expect or need them to.
This feels to me very beautiful
“It all feels a little scary, after years living in the shadow, yet something from inside pulls me to walk out of the shadow and walk in my own light and joy.”
It feels as though something is taking you by the hand a asking you to walk away from the shadows as you have been there long enough, put on your sunnies it’s time to play.
We are too wise to not be playful. One marker that is very clear to me is how I see small children behave, most of the time they move so simple and bring such joy with their presence along. Hence, we can all observe that no matter our age, our playfulness remains even if we haven’t been used to using it lately.
I so know how to play, so why do I allow life to become so serious. Who and I trying to prove what to with that stern demeanour and the set face. Where is that sparkle?
Every moment that i become serious I notice that there is like a pressure in my head, i feel heavyness in my head.
Then I know it is time to focus on my breath and feeling the connection within my heart.
“Simplicity has removed the dark shadow of seriousness that I walked around in for a very long time” – I can so relate to this. The more I can see how illusionary this so called reality of ours is, the more I am able take things non-personal and life becomes simpler and I can reconnect and appreciate the innate sense of joy I have been pushing back in favour or seriousness for a very long time.
The world needs more playfulness and lightness as often people become too overwhelmed and serious about things, we all need to be reminded of this simplicity and joy as it is foundational for all our relationships and in understanding life.
The world definitely needs more playfulness and fun, we all need more playfulness and simplicity in our lives.
It’s impossible for me to read this blog without smiling. Life can be challenging but it does not need to be serious. Making life serious is a choice.
Yes lets see if there are any courses or workshops on how to have fun! It sounds ridiculous but actually is very much needed in our society nowadays where playfulness, lightness about life and true fun are rarely seen anymore.
I can see how trying to be perfect and never make mistakes in a way that is controlling life to avoid getting hurt has lead to a lot of seriousness in my life. For how can we be joyful and light when we are trying to do something that is actually impossible in the first place?
Trying to be perfect, to never make mistakes is a way of controlling life as you say, and definitely contributes to us being serious and saying no to fun and spontaneity.
Humbleness fosters both equality and simplicity which are vital qualities to nourish our relationships.
Time to evolve.
What has been key for me lately has been acceptance – accepting where I am at which supports me to surrender and read what life has presented. Reading is also key, which supports me to know what is required and what if any adjustments I have to make. This is a great combination to not get weighed down with seriousness and give my power away to any person or situation, because the truth is everything I need I already have within – love. When we bring love into the equation there is instantly lightness.
Playfull blog, sharing that seriousness is actually often misused and at cost of being playful and light about things in life. That is so simple. Seriousness is at matter and at times urgently needed and by expression same welcomed as playfulness (equally important), but often used to make things heavy and superior, whilst actually that is the opposite of where it is meant for. Hence, when there is no play there is no true way. For God is love and we are made of him — playfully so, how can we in this plane of life not see the silliness of our creation and descend our waywardness by being playfully serious?
Having fun brings a lightness to how you feel in yourself and how others relate to you.
Play is something as an adult that we do far too little of probably as we have taken on the mantel of the serious, responsibility-laden adult who is always doing ‘something’ important. We have come to consider that play is for kids. But weren’t we all kids once? I am sure that inside each of us there is a fun loving kid just waiting to burst out of his/her serious bubble and to go have some fun-filled play-time; and that ought to be at least once a day!
Recognize what you are sharing Jacqueline. I too lost the connection to my playfulness when I was young, but the good thing is that it is not lost but just needs some unravelling, as it is always there to connect back to.
From what you have written I am beginning to see that complication and seriousness might just go hand in hand as complication tends to weigh our lives down leaving no space for us to enjoy the simple things that life offers us daily but plenty of reasons to be serious. We spend so much time wading our way through this very sticky way of living that there is little energy left to have a laugh, be silly and generally enjoy the simple things in life – just like we did so naturally and so joyfully as a child.
Remembering to have fun, that sounds ironic but it is something that we need reminding of from time to time. I have always been known for being fun and outgoing but having children certainly can change you, if you let it and not necessarily for the better. You can begin to feel so much pressure, that you just get wound up too tight. My serious streak can just come through at times like a knee jerk reaction. I love that this blog is asking me to lighten up, life’s too short to have a stick up your bum, figuratively speaking of course.
I know what you mean Sarah, about seriousness coming in when you have kids. I had my fair share of being serious before I had kids but I do remember once they were born my seriousness definitely stepped up a notch. Remember going to be playful and then a belief coming through that you can’t be like that. Yet I can see now that children remind us so simply how to just be and that the last thing they need is a parent to think they need to be anything else. I feel over the years I’ve mistaken being serious as being firm.
I loved what you have shared Jane, today is my husbands birthday, we are going out together to play with each other in nature, reading your article I realise I often get bogged down with becoming serious where life has a heaviness to it forgetting how to keep life simple, be in the moment and enjoy what life has on offer.
Super cute play date Jill and so simple.
Blanking out what we felt and experienced as a child, teen, young adult, adult… it’s a pattern that can continue. Learning how to be OK with all we feel is a definite part of the process of re-learning to love life, ourselves and everyone, all in equal measure
Learning to be OK with all we feel has huge benefits in that when we feel what life presents us with we are able to read it and by reading the situation we know exactly what is required and what our next steps are. When we read life we no longer give our power away.
Learning to be okay with all that we feel, this feels like a core teaching for us all. That it’s okay to feel the world, to feel how out of kilter it is. If we observe this and don’t get caught up in the emotional energy that is swirling around and through us all the time but keep steady and still we can see through miasma and it has less to no effect on us. Now I understand the teaching of being a fish in the sea and not getting wet.
Naturally we are playful we are unique and expressive beings.. Just we have not been brought up, most of us, to extend and even grow that naturalness – only to form a certain way of being once we grow older as a child.. To be polite and live based on what is accepted by society and living up to a certain standard given. Whilst actually all that we need to grow from is from the playfulness we already have inside.
Thanks Jacqueline.. I love how this was brought to you by a simple message from a colleague. I too have spent most of my life being incredibly serious, and busying myself with ‘problems’ that I thought I needed to fix. It turns out that these were just problems I was distracting myself with so as not to have to just be me.. which is a whole lot simpler and more fun.
Yeah, I too have to remember sometimes, that life is but a game. It’s safe to play and have fun. It can be easy to get sucked into the vortex of serious life…but it’s not even real.
When we are serious life becomes dull and completely unnatural. No matter our circumstance we can learn to be light about it, this is something I am developing within myself…
Thank you Jacqueline, I have read this before but today you have got me pondering on the seriousness I still feel, and when I also may have shut down to my own playfulness? Thank you for the inspiration to look more deeply into this. Playfulness is such a natural part of me and when the cloud of seriousness descends it’s like it blanks out my light.
There is this natural joy and playfulness in us all until we take on responsibilities without truly feeling the power we have and our ability to stay with ourselves no matter what is going on in our lives. Or, I wonder, is it me taking on these responsibilities and make my life serious to avoid feeling my power and thus my natural joy and playfulness. Anyway, when I stay connected with my body and feel my inner strength there is no heaviness of having too much responsibility as I ‘walk in my own light and love’.
It is a great question and I am with what you came to to be more playful and have fun in and with life — “Keeping life simple, and living a simple life each day, staying humble, and sharing from my heart, sharing all of me and not holding back is how I can play with life, is how I can feel the magic of life all around me, and is how I make playfulness ‘my way’ every single day.”
I can relate with having blanked out my childhood, and so blanked out the naturally playful and joyful part along with that, ‘As soon as I blanked or shut down my ‘child’hood/part I lost the playfulness and fun and joy I naturally held as a child and slowly over the years, seriousness crept in.’ How lovely to embrace your playful and joyful side.
I too can put my hand up for having become too serious, even though I can feel I am naturally playful, ‘The truth is, I have forgotten how to play, how to have fun – how to play with others and enjoy life. It feels to me a very long time ago that I knew how to do this… how to have fun.’ This is a pattern for me to let go of, and start to embrace more fun into life.
When we take life on, we can become very serious and forget how to just be playful and fun, life can still be serious however there is always space to be playful and joyful, which makes life enjoyable no matter what we may be facing.
“Simplicity has removed the dark shadow of seriousness that I walked around in for a very long time “. I love these words, and I can say that I walked in the same heavy way for a very long time. It is amazing how when we live in complication that we often end up burying who we naturally are, becoming serious, losing our joy and not knowing how to play anymore. How beautiful that you have released the complication, embraced the simplicity and revealed the little girl who simply wants to play.
Oh yes Ingrid, that little girl is so ready to play….
I can relate to taking life a bit too seriously at times. It can bog me down, but I realise when I allow this to happen its because I have become too heady and am trying to figure it all out fix everything the way I want it to be. I like your declaration at the end, – ‘It is time to be seen. It is Time To Play and have some fun.’
Time to read this blog again as I am not feeling the magic….having allowed the shadow of other things to cloud and take over and not keeping things simple….Not a time to self-bash or put down, but certainly a stop moment to reassess, take stock, prioritise, breathe gently, deeply appreciate how light and spacious I feel in my body and give space for all that is already there on my path to unfold graciously, (letting go of feeling impatient!) And a great reminder for me today, to keep life simple, super simple, smile and keep saying Yes to life, and Yes to all my Soul has prepared for me to continue evolving and deepening all my relationships especially the one with myself.
I love this update Jacqueline. I feel it is so important to stop regularly and reassess. Giving ourselves space to feel is key as is appreciation.
Thank-you Debra. I am living those keys to the best of my ability!
When we shutdown to protect ourselves from hurt it is a big learning to come to the understanding that we are in fact shutting down and shutting out the love and the joy. Re-connecting to the love and joy especially the ‘playful’ in us asks that we absolutely open to everything and just hold ourselves in love – the rest will unfold .
Play is synonymous with simplicity and surrender and once we live these in our life ‘Magic’ happens.
I often feel such joy bubbling up inside but have held it back if others around me were not feeling so joyfu. But what I am discovering more and more is that the joy cannot be contained any longer and when it is shared its amazing the affect it has on others around you too. Showing our natural joy and playfulness is infectious and allows the space for others to share in that too. When we are serious we are in protection and only sharing a very small glimpse of the real power and inspiration that is bottled up inside every one of us. So let’s play and allow our bodies natural joy and wonder be shared.
Being playful in life brings a simplicity and lightness that offers the space for others to feel they are equally this too.
‘Keeping life simple, and living a simple life each day, staying humble, and sharing from my heart, sharing all of me and not holding back is how I can play with life, is how I can feel the magic of life all around me, and is how I make playfulness ‘my way’ every single day.’ Gorgeous Jacqueline, and I agree if we keep life simple there is space for playfulness and it is such a joy to share the love we feel inside with people we meet everywhere.
Jacqueline I appreciated the connection you made between the loss of playfulness and the loss of being connected to who you truly are. It’s easy to remedy things like seriousness by identifying them and making changes, but true healing is simply in that reconnection to our essence.
I had a bit of a shock about 3 years ago at work where I was being playful with one of my team and he thought I was being serious! That was an uncomfortable and exposing experience which showed me that I had abandoned my natural playfulness and joy somewhere along the way, thinking that they didn’t fit in my positions of responsibility both in work and out. What a load of rubbish that is! The more we let ourselves express from those qualities we carry naturally within us, the lighter and more playful we become, and the responsibility we once felt as a burden becomes a joyful expression of who we are naturally so.
Playfulness is underrated and even judged in the world as not professional and naive, but I would ask those who question the naturalness of playfulness–when was the last time you cracked yourself up? And have you experienced this on a daily basis? If yes, it is impossible to under rate or criticise the absolute treasure of what is playfulness–even better, it’s always there within us.
This phrase spoke volumes to me: “Keeping life simple, and living a simple life each day, staying humble, and sharing from my heart, sharing all of me and not holding back is how I can play with life.”
After a long held belief that playful corresponds with childlike and lack of responsibilities, and being a responsible adult corresponds to being serious, I am aware more than ever that when I am fully walking in the power of the light that I am, oddly enough as well as the immense love and power that I feel, I am also very open to being playful.
Beautiful Golnaz. When we let of those old ingrained beliefs that we took on, so much space opens up within which allows us to be open, playful and joyful and not afraid to shine.
That feeling of not being safe if we let ourselves be who we are is so familiar, and so sad at the same time. What have we accepted as a form of conditioning and why would we have accepted that along the way?
I know you Jacqueline, and I see that you have definitely closed off living seriously. You are bundle of joy, lovely to be with. A shining example to me to do and live the same. Connecting back to my childhood, feeling the hurts and emptiness which was there, and now live the full of me and expand.
When we connect deeply with our bodies we cannot but feel the joy in our movements and how this creates a ripple effect that magnifies like the ocean where we can let go and be playful and at ease as it is our natural way of being.
Yes.. joy is absolutely something that comes from within and is amplified and cemented through our movements.
I do know that too Jacqueline, that life has become serious and full of sorrows, so completely different from when I was a child. Then I lived just day after day and enjoyed every day as much as the other without allowing the seriousness of life that was out there to come into my life. So why can I not live like that as an adult, why do I have to succumb to that seriousness that is all around in schools, our work and society in general? To me it is because I do not want to feel different to all the other people and allowed myself to step into it, the seriousness of the ‘real’ life. But what if this is not true at all, and that how we lived a a child is actually our natural state of being? I am now returning to living that how I was as a child and I can say that this is very possible and although not commonly done by the many, I feel now very comfortable with.
“I blanked out most of my childhood, not wanting to feel what was really going on in my family.” And the interesting part you are sharing here is that we not only blank out that what feels hurtful to us but also everything else, the joy, the playfulness, the ease in which we are with ourselves and others as children.
Spot on Esther. In blanking out most of my childhood, yes I lost connection with everything else too, with my natural ability to be light and playful, and my natural ability to connect with others, and so I felt awkward in my body, disconnected and unable to relate or connect with others.
I love this- I find the same within myself- that I need to not take life so seriously at times and let go and have fun and enjoy myself.
The joy of our being-ness is something that is in fact natural, as this simple way of being is the way we were as a child. Eyes bright and hearts full of wonder, we brought our joy and playfulness to the world and all we interacted with. The beautiful thing, as you highlighted, is that this way of being is still who we all are within, it remains unchanged. It is only ourselves that have chosen to leave our natural way of being to instead seek another way in the world outside of ourselves which measures, compares and holding us to expectations which will never meet us in the true light of who we are within. And in truth, as we can see and have experienced, there is no fun, joy or playfulness in that.
Great to read once again, as I also had adopted the serious life. But less and less, and your article inspired me to start connecting to that lost childhood part as well, because I know playfulness is my essence.
Gorgeous Jaqueline, a beautiful reminder that nothing is ever but only ever waiting for our light to shine on it again.
This reminded me how I knew as a young child that not laughing with others would keep me distant from others and used it to show how angry I was as a kind of retaliation – but it was always me who ended up feeling even more hurt.
So many of us fall into the trap of believing that living life responsibly is a serious matter. However, if we take the time to stop and truly look at the beauty of nature that surrounds us we can see and appreciate that it is a natural playground calling us to come and play.
It is sad that the world encourages us, almost molding us to shut down to the child within, when it is sometimes through that, that the true expression of the innocence and yet magnificence of our essence lies.
This is beautiful alive and very inspiring thank you. “Keeping life simple, and living a simple life each day, staying humble, and sharing from my heart, sharing all of me and not holding back is how I can play with life, is how I can feel the magic of life all around me, and is how I make playfulness ‘my way’ every single day.”So true and magical to read and know.
It is so true that we naturally know how to play as children and this is not something that we lose as we get older. It’s like we put it in a cupboard and forget its there. It is so lovely to meet an adult who hasn’t forgotten how to be playful. Having just one playful person in a group can change the whole room, bring lightness even to ‘serious’ situations and allow other people to remember what is patiently waiting in their cupboard to be let out.
So true Fiona, it is gorgeous to meet an adult who hasn’t forgotten to be playful…. it is lovely to be around this playful energy and is infectious and always lifts me if I have gotten a little tad serious, as that old habit likes to creep in when it can!
Yes Fiona, adults who can be playful are gorgeous and a joy to be around with. That is playful in an adult way and not acting childish, which is just a role. The playfulness has to come naturally from our essence, and it can, because that is what we are: playful!
How gorgeous that your colleague recognised the untapped playfulness in you and the blanket of seriousness that lay over it. We sometimes need these little nudges to shift a long way of thinking and behaving that does not fit with who we are.
I finished reading with a big smile on my face thank you Jacqueline. I recognize this seriousness in my own life also as a hurt I did not want to let go of in order of that resistance I had to stay narrow and serious.. Whilst , like you share, once we let go we will feel that inner child, and play again.. As actually there is nothing serious about usz
Thank you Jacqueline for the reminder that life need not be serious and that actually when we bring playfulness into our lives the issues seem to have their feet taken out from underneath them. Issues can’t sustain themselves when we are light, they can only hang around if we choose to be weighted down by them.
Exactly Leigh, in the past I always allowed myself to make the issue bigger than me, which was always so overwhelming adding more stress to the already stressful situation….These days I am more present in my body, and hold the awareness that whatever life presents, I am more than enough to deal with it.
As adults we can become weighed down by our commitments i.e job, family, home life etc that we lose sight of how truly beautiful it is to live from our bodies connection and the flow in our movements. Re-connecting to our bodies and how we move brings lightness and playfulness and that is simply divine.
Jacqueline what you have shared is really beautiful and also so exposing: “Simplicity has removed the dark shadow of seriousness that I walked around in for a very long time.” It is a bit weird that most adults always love it so complicated . . .
Playfulness cuts through even the most heaviest of energies. Being playful brings a lightness of living and a feeling of joy and expansiveness.
Gorgeously said Christopher. The joy of simply being who we are brings light to every situation.
Time to play and have fun, what a gorgeous reminder to enjoy the lightness of play. I have found of late that I have somewhat forgotten to express this lightness, fun and joy choosing instead to focus on the serious, heavy aspects of life. What I am reminded of here is that I have a choice; thank you Jacqueline.
‘Should I see if there are any courses or workshops on how to have fun?’ I laughed out loud when I read this Jacqueline as this would probably have been my response also. I can relate to being very serious about life and feeling it was all a slog. This is slowly changing and I am lightening up about life. There is a lot of fun to be had.
“Keeping life simple, and living a simple life each day, staying humble, and sharing from my heart, sharing all of me and not holding back is how I can play with life, is how I can feel the magic of life all around me, and is how I make playfulness ‘my way’ every single day.” Beautiful Jacqueline. i too know i can get too serious -, because of complicating my life. Keeping things simple frees everything up.
Enjoying life and what each day brings is only possible for me when I am being loving with myself. If I’m abusive of my body with food, or too much work, there is no space for fun or joy. So it is a package that takes a dedication to myself.
Fun was not something allowed in my childhood. As children in my family as soon as we started to have fun we were told to settle down before someone gets hurt. The more I develop a deep connection with my true self I have let go of the ideal and belief I had created that it is not ok to have fun and how different this made me feel to others. Letting go of this very isolating feeling I can feel just how I am naturally very loving and playful.
I can feel my seriousness at times and know that this is not the true me but the very protected me. When I am connected to myself fully I feel and live the joy. This is something i am working on!!
Thank you for unravelling the seriousness it is so easy to get caught up in. Life is serious in the way of the many responsibilities we have but serious does not mean that we cannot enjoy life and be lighthearted.
I can feel very well how joy is in simplicity and seriousness is in complexity, when we choose one we automatically recieve the other. It is deeply connected, and it is our choice to see the joy and simplicity over the complexity, that only we create through being serious about life and forget the joy that is there inside.
Taking ourselves too seriously can have a very dulling effect. A prescription for rekindling the the fun of childhood is to allow children to teach you how to have fun and play again.
‘It all feels a little scary, after years living in the shadow, yet something from inside pulls me to walk out of the shadow and walk in my own light and joy.’ The shadow brings heaviness of taken on responsibility in a way that is not true, it brings a seriousness and we start to believe that life is hard. Now and then I can feel this heaviness creeping in, still a very familiar feeling in my body but I know this is absolutely not who I am so I now have a choice to let go of the shadow and choose the light in me that is there always.
I am naturally very playful but reading your blog this morning Jacqueline had me realise that lately I have become rather serious. This has occurred because I have taken on responsibilities that are not my own simply because of a false understanding I have had from a young age about responsibility. It need not be a heavy mantle across ones shoulders but can be approached and embraced lightly too, and with more than a little play mixed in. Timely reading for me thank you.
Beautiful to discover you again Jacqueline what a joyful sharing and so important in a world of more and more seriousness and the loss of true joy from within. Playfulness from keeping life simple allows a connection to the real us the playfulness and magical way we all know and are underneath.
Holding onto pictures of how we need to be or how life should be, keep us living with constant tension, angst and seriousness in our bodies as we are constantly trying to be something that we are not. Letting go of this allows us to connect to the simplicity of life and move with more ease and joy in our bodies as we are able to surrender and trust that innate wisdom we all know so well deep within us.
I do know that too Jacqueline, that life feels that serious now compared to when I was a child. So I was naturally playful when I entered this world, but something along the way made me become more serious and less playful over time. Interesting though is to look at what seriousness is actually about. To me seriousness is based on fear of doing the ‘right’ thing in order to fulfil the needs of someone else or an organisation. I have to fit in to a system we collectively have created and call society in which we live together, but somewhere we have lost something as I can feel that playfulness could be the answer to make a huge change in the way we live together. Allowing everybody to live there life in their own expression and to appreciate that diversity in expression instead of trying to squeeze everybody into the same shape of ‘seriousness’ that life actually is not at all, would allow and bring back playfulness into our lives again.
Reading your comment Nico on the foundations of seriousness makes a lot of sense. I can see how much I used to try to fit in and be accepted by other people (as in school) and morphed myself like a chameleon to do so, which brought me to a place where I was very disconnected with my true self and felt disconnected from what I am really about.
Hi Michael, yes that is what we call is happening to us in life but actually when we are honest we have to admit that we did it consciously, that morphing into what is outside of us, into what we are not, perhaps because we want to feel safe and recognised in the group we want to belong to but in fact is not of our making.
Restoring playfulness in my life is a key element i am working on – playfully. It is not something that needs to be redeveloped but somethings that was and is always there. It is just like I have put on many many coats that cover it. Time to undo myself from all these unnecessary layers. It takes effort but the main thing I have to remember is not to make it a chore but do it playfully.
This is a blog that woke me up as well. I have a lot seriousness in myself as well. The seriousness that also crept in after a childhood which I blanked out as well. The seriousness of a life long project of getting it right, be happy and to be at ease with life. But where did all the playfulness go to? I now see that I turned making myself happy, getting my life back on track as a very serious chore! Wake up call. Thanks Jacqueline love these calls.
I was fed a big fat lie in that being responsible meant being serious. Those two things are not correlated.
I can relate to being too serious for most of my adult life and at times found others annoying for being playful, but one thing this blog has shown me is that we start to see playfulness as an inconvenience because it is asking us to lighten up and to take off the load we are carrying, and that it is healthy to return and re-discover that playfulness we once had as a child has a place even as an adult.
This blog is a beautiful reminder for me what really counts in life and that in spite or actually because of all the terrible things that are going on in the world it is so important to stay light and playful and in my heart as this is the ‘stuff’ that will bring true change.
“As soon as I blanked or shut down my ‘child’hood/part I lost the playfulness and fun and joy I naturally held as a child and slowly over the years, seriousness crept in.”
An interesting observation Jacqueline! When we blank out a part of us a lot is lost and we often make that compromise that we loose something so precious just so we do not have to deal with the unpleasant stuff. However as you share it is so worth it to clear things out of the way and access this joy and lightness again that we knew as children.