The Importance of Play

The Importance of Play

by | Sep 26, 2019 | Personal Growth, Well-being

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” – George Bernard Shaw

Whenever I change my environment, I always return home to a revelation about my life. Now that I’ve readjusted to being in New York after visiting with friends in Mykonos (Greece), I realize that I’ve had another epiphany.

We don’t prioritize playtime.

While away, I had time to have fun in the sand with several of my besties. It didn’t matter that the Aegean winds of up to 35 mph seriously messed with our patience, hair and clothing. 

With absolutely no structure to our days, my playmates and I gave in to the untamable winds and walked, did cartwheels, and danced on the beach. Playing felt fantastic – we giggled like children!

Play is a creative act. It releases endorphins, the body’s natural “happy” chemicals responsible for making us feel joy. 

My social time in Manhattan is often made up of commitments that involve structure – things like meeting friends for meals, drinks, movies, concerts, and lectures. Due to everyone’s career and family responsibilities, there is very little unstructured playtime. 

When I was in grade school, my neighborhood pals – Steven, Frank, and Joe – and I would meet each morning during summer break. The first thing we did was determine what game we would play that day. 

After a group consensus, we would begin a game of hide-and-seek, spies, or Batman. Using our imaginations, we played out these games for many hours. And we giggled – a lot. 

Our capitalistic society values productivity. Unlike childhood play, which is respected, adult play is generally perceived as unproductive unless it is competitive. Therefore, adult play tends to be dismissed. 

You can’t place a value on joy. 

That’s all from me today. I take my revelations seriously. I’m heading out to meet a friend in one of the best playgrounds in the world. 😉

To book a private session with me in order to uncover the optimal way to integrate play into your lifestyle, please go to ContactMe! on the right sidebar or below (depending on device).

How Grateful Are You?

How Grateful Are You?

by | Aug 29, 2019 | Health Coach, Wellness

“Gratitude is the Abracadabra of the universe.”
-Adironda, Marilyn Harper

It was crowded on the Canal Street subway platform. I was waiting to take the Q train home after having dinner with a friend. It’s not unusual to find musicians performing in New York City’s subway system. But on this evening, I was greeted by a magician. 

The magician performed his magic act in silence, except for an occasional “Abracadabra!” This invocation seemed to create magic. Seemingly out of nowhere, white, pink, and red roses appeared in the palm of his hand.

Watching his performance reminded me that I had been sensing magic, meaning unexpected positive happenings, in my life. While on the ride uptown, amidst the shuffling of people, announcements, and annoying tone alerting riders of the closing doors, I wondered what our “Abracadabra!” is. What creates magic for us?

I had recently been feeling deeply grateful for the opportunity to build my coaching business. Being creative and helping others thrive makes me feel complete. The answer hit me:

Feeling gratitude and no need for anything to be different is your “Abracadabra!”. 

In other words, gratitude produces the good vibes that generate abundance. Hence, the ability to manifest welcome happenings in your life is all about how grateful you feel. This revelation is a pretty big deal.

Our conditioning (see March blog post, “Who Am I?”) leads us to chase after how things should be rather than appreciate what is. 

I’m as guilty of this lack of presence as any of my clients. It’s a behavior that I’ve consciously worked on and have made some progress with. In my July blog post (see “A Life You Don’t Need To Escape”), I wrote about my experience creating a life I am so present with that I don’t feel the need to break away. 

The month of August leaves me feeling profoundly grateful for my family, health, friends, clients, life experiences, and opportunities for growth. That’s not to say that a disappointment or two hasn’t come up. When they occurred, I retreated to the beach for the afternoon. Inhaling the sea spray led me to the realization that there are lessons inherent in every situation. By the end of the day, being in nature helped me to understand what they were.

I moved towards even deeper gratitude.

Afterward, unexpected clients, publishers, friends, and even invitations to savor these final days of summer by the sea appeared.

One of those offers was irresistible. I’ll be away for the next few weeks, disconnected from electromagnetic devices, feet up, taking in a good book, the salt air, and feeling grateful.

Thank you to the magician and every person who has touched my life during the magical moments of the past year.

Abracadabra! 😉

Since ancient times, September has been viewed as the beginning of the spiritual new year by several different cultures. A sense of new beginnings is palpable. To book a private session with me in order to explore what gratitude can begin to manifest for you this fall, please go to Contact Me! on the right sidebar or below (depending on device).

A Life You Don’t Need To Escape

A Life You Don’t Need To Escape

by | Jul 31, 2019 | Corporate Wellness, Integrative Life Coach, Purpose

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin

“Where are you traveling to this summer?” 

There was nothing unusual about my friend Michael’s question. All who know me are well aware of my passion for global travel. When I was in college, a semester studying in France ignited my lifelong wanderlust. Ever since then, I planned getaways whenever I could: at first, I traveled in Europe, but then to North Africa, the Middle East and most recently to South America.

During the decades when I was working as a private banker, I anxiously waited for these escapes from my routine life so that I could have an adventure. Each year, I had my travel plans nailed down well in advance. 

Michael’s question startled me. Suddenly, I realized that it was already June, and I hadn’t even thought about a trip. I’d been so engaged in my life that the idea of a vacation didn’t even cross my mind! This had never happened before. 

It was yet another example of what I’ve come to think of as my “delayering.” By this, I mean the process of stripping away the patterns of my life ever since I resigned from my banking position a little over a year ago. 

It has been a year of dramatic change and sometimes difficult uncertainty. My days have been occupied with meeting new people, helping clients, giving presentations about my work, researching, writing, and learning the many new skills required to start my own business. I have been deeply engaged.

Because I control my own schedule, I have the freedom to sit outside and relish an espresso on a beautiful day, or squeeze in a midday yoga class, or stay up way too late when I want. All of this contributes to making my new career feel like more of a dream than work.

So in that moment, it hit me:

I’m living a life I don’t feel any need to take a vacation from.

Wow! Whenever I (rarely) heard someone say this in the past, I never would have believed it. And yet, for me, it is true. At least in my first year, I can say that I have created a life I don’t need to escape. 

When I was in it, I thought I loved my former life. I didn’t realize how much better things could get until I deconditioned myself. 

Finding A Moment To Pause

Somehow, I changed. My body began to cringe when someone at the office greeted me with “TGIF!” or reminded me that it was “Hump Day.” 

Was I going to spend the remainder of my adult life counting the days until I could escape on an exotic vacation that might last a few weeks out of the entire year? 

Ditto when well-intentioned people recommended that I “treat myself” to retail therapy, spas, alcohol, sweets, and various other perceived pamperings as coping mechanisms for a stressful life. Yes, these indulgences can add pleasure to life. But they are often being used to either escape from or numb it. Wouldn’t it make more sense to align my lifestyle with my long-term objectives for well-being?

Having already lost two friends to cancer, I realized that I didn’t want to wait until “later” to enjoy daily life.

Deconditioning Yourself

As a first-born child of two refugees, stepping away from a prestigious six-figure position and eventually deciding to launch my own coaching business required a great deal of soul searching. I had to honestly look at my past accomplishments, assess my unactualized potential, break through my conditioning for safety, defer my immediate desires, sacrifice for a future vision, let go of structures and people that I love, disappoint clients, live without a concrete plan for the first time in my adult life, and no longer use my busy life as a justification to procrastinate.

Whew…that was a lot!

By allowing for the unknown, I was able to ultimately remove myself from being one of the eternally busy and to no longer ignore my intuition, limit myself by my fears, or walk through life surviving by looking forward to my vacations.

It’s one thing to enjoy your vacations, and it’s an entirely different thing to feel like you need a vacation in order to feel alive. We should strive to make our lives the ones we want to be living every day.

This isn’t easy to do. But I have done it. I love every day and don’t count the days until Friday. When someone sends a “TGIF” or reminds me that “Wednesday is Hump Day,” I recognize that they are playing out their conditioning while I now enjoy Monday as much as the weekend.

I learned that it’s far better to choose the life that feels good because it is richer than the life that looks good. And that we tend to be too “fixed” in how we approach our lives: what feels good is subject to change over time.

Three Elements of a Life You Don’t Need To Escape

Based on my experience, being fully engaged and present in life requires three primary elements:

1. A sense of purpose and meaning that causes you to wake up inspired each morning. Feeling that your life is meaningful is proven to be a key ingredient towards feeling fulfilled.

2. The ability to do some things that you love to do. Using your character strengths, the positive qualities that come naturally to you, is demonstrated to provide you with a greater sense of well-being

3. Enough challenges to keep you stimulated, yet comfortable enough so that you are not constantly stressed out.

In order to identify what a life you don’t need a vacation from would look like for you, you will need to determine what you need to feel fulfilled and what your values, or ideals, are. Your work will need to express those objectives. Because our intentions can sometimes be tough to define, many of my clients come to me to gain insight in this area. After our work together, they can identify what makes them happy and go on to make empowered choices that will help them create the life they want.

And so what about that vacation?

My traveling days aren’t over, but for now I’m enjoying the experience of being a tourist in my daily life. It both reenergizes me and makes me feel alive.

I wish the same for you. 😉

To book a private session with me in order to explore the three elements of a life you won’t need to escape, please go to Contact Me! on right sidebar or below (depending on device).