Author: VibrantLivingLife

Have you ever wondered why it feels so difficult sometimes to find joy and playfulness in your life?

I certainly have.

We live in a culture that overvalues our left brain, the rational mind and relegates the emotions to something to leave outside the workplace, something to be controlled and suppressed.

This is also the culture of Hard work, pushing through, survival mode.

As I’m writing I can feel the hard work, pushing through energy activated in me. I’m feeling that this is such a serious topic that I should think a bit more about how to formulate myself, my ideas. That excess of seriousness turns to constriction and my creativity wanes. 

And as I am in the experiment of letting my creative writing find it’s expression and flow, I also remind myself that this post is about play and wouldn’t be as potent if I didn’t invite myself to be in just that energy of play.

You may be objecting “who has the time to play, really?” I certainly know that voice in myself. And the same voice continues saying “that’s not what will make a business go round”. Though I want to challenge this and invite us to look at it more closely.

We don’t need to be in a tug of war between right and left brain. They have both their place. And it is ok to let go of control and let the fingers do their thing on the keyboard. Yes I must admit that this doesn’t feel structured anymore. But how can I invite more play in my writing if I try to figure out en plan and thoroughly weight each word.

So what if play IS what will allow you to be SUSTAINABLE in your business? What if this is an essential energy to invite in our life?

But isn’t play useless and isn’t it selfish to take time for just yourself when there is so much to do and other’s needing you? 

I want to you ask: “What is play?”

I will not here look at the definition in the dictionary though I feel really tempted to and drawn to do that. I might do that a bit later.

But first I want to turn inward and tune into how play feels in my body, in my being.

When I tune into the energy of play, I feel a smile, an amusement. I decide the rules, follow my joy, I feel curious about how it will turn out, I am open to try things differently and I’m less attached to the outcome than to the good feeling along the way. 

Play says “what if I do so?” “Can I use this? I have never tried that before”… 

The energy of play feels light, alive, receptive without taking everything on. It’s an open door to creativity, no expectations, just exploring.

Olivia

And to find more joy and fulfillment in life, refocusing more on enjoying the process itself rather than achieve a specific outcome is a key ingredient.

When I focus too much on the outcome even playing boardgames looses its qualities of lightness and joy and when winning is all that matters there is a stress, a pressure that comes in to win, prove that I am smarter, stronger. Not so fun anymore.

I’ve been there a lot. And it really struck me when I observed how bad my son was feeling as he didn’t win a game when he was younger (5 to 10y old). I could feel how he took it very personally, making it mean something about his value, abilities rather than something to be taken lightly for the sake of enjoying our time together. 

I came to realize that actually the only reason I played games with my kids or my family was as a way to have a good time together. So nowadays when I’m playing with my son now 15y old and when the game consistently doesn’t really work out and one of us cannot place its pieces, we look at each other with a mischievous glint in the eyes and I say “of course we can push these pieces this way to put this one in here”.

In mutual consent we twist the rules to make the game more fun and we no longer care about who finished first to put it’s own pieces into place but make a sport to try to achieve together to place all the pieces available. So much more fun and a feeling of complicity, playing in our own terms.

Let’s come back now to the definition of play as stated in the dictionary:

Play: verb
engage in activity for enjoyment and recreation rather than a serious or practical purpose.”the children were playing by a pool”

“Rather than a serious or practical purpose” That’s exactly where it usually becomes tricky for me to prioritize and allow myself to play more – and it’s still a work in progress! 😉 Can you relate?

Because in my upbringing, the culture I’ve grown into and still am in some ways today is SERIOUS and values PRACTICAL PURPOSE.

And one of my shadow expression according to Genekeys is SERIOUSNESS and for me being seen as frivolous has felt threatening. Much less so today and still, I can feel that first reaction where I try to justify why I do what I do, showing how useful and serious it is so that no one can accuse me to be frivolous, not serious.

Being seen as less than serious, as frivolous or lazy has felt threatening because of the fear of not being accepted and loved by others who are living according the hard work paradigm. This made it very tricky for me to feel good despite the life style I had started to create for me as I had left my corporate job and built up my skills and my business, adapting the schedule of the days to my needs rather to conform to external standards about when to work, eat, replenish. 

It also played out on my journey of expansion of my artist side – from constriction to a discovery of a multifaceted expression – more about that in a coming post.

So all these rules for fitting in have been like boxes that no longer serves me and it has been a long journey of deconstruction and finding a new dance between structure and flow. A dance to be reinvented day after day 😊

Can you see how accessing more of the energy of play – enjoying the process, daring to try out new way, inviting more lightness will make a difference in your business or work? Leave a comment!

Let’s explore more of that together! Book your Vision Review Call here!

How do you relate to your desires?

Do you believe that what you deep down desire is possible for you to experience? Or do you more often than not, suppress what you want, as you look at the situation, circumstances, people involved and deem that it’s not possible anyway?

I know too well that feeling and though I know I have grown and expanded a lot in the past few years, I have seen myself in the past weeks repeated times feeling that what I actually desire is too much asked from these persons, in these particular circumstances.

A couple of these occurrences happened as I was in a week training retreat where in one occasion when we were invited to step into the group to ask for something we’d like, I sat there not really feeling what I would ask when another woman shared her wish. And when asked which of the two persons she had asked she would choose, she said as it was: she didn’t want to choose but have this moment with both. As I witnessed her, I could feel how she was modeling for me the possibility and the goodness of desiring and asking for as much as she actually did. Her wish could have been mine and I felt how I wouldn’t have dared to do it, ashamed of wanting so much attention.

And here I saw it demonstrated that there was actually no shame and that her wish was well received.
Life is coming back and showing me, that the most rewarding way is to vulnerably ask for what you want. And that by doing so, you go from 100% certainty to not receive to a chance to do so.

Can you relate to that? Have you ever felt you are wanting too much?
My mother used to say to me as I grew up “You want so much, Olivia”. And this voice translated as an internal judge making a point to prevent me from experiencing the pain of hearing someone’s rejection of my desire.

This strategy served me well as a child. Today it just prevents me from receiving and thriving.
The Universe is serving me with repeated occasions to ask, step out of my comfort zone, give myself a chance to get what I want, instead of denying myself what I want.

Although it is a frustrating place to be when the awareness has risen enough to get aware just shortly after an opportunity to ask for what I want, it is also a great step. And with my growing frustration, grows my motivation and my courage to make new decisions.

When beginning 2020 I discovered the channellings of Abraham Hicks- it struck me that I never looked at life from the lens that what I desire is valid if for nothing else than to set me into motion to discover the deeper layer and that it’s the moving to close the gap that is delightful more than a final goal. Because there will be always more.

The journey of trusting that “my preferences matter” takes time and is a muscle to grow and exercise and it continues over time, from one area of life to another, of realizing that if it’s true here, it is also there.
It a healing journey where our wounded inner child needs our parenting to tell her “I know you are scared, that you have been hurt but I got you”.

Do you trust the goodness of your desires?
What can you do to take a risk to receive?
What are the costs of staying small and safe?

Our journey is a succession of commitment cycles

As I made the leap to quit my engineering job for creating a life more Life giving, I was studying natural farming and permaculture, supported by my partner without knowing how I would create that place I had begun to visualize where people would come to reconnect with themselves, nature and a deeper sense of meaning.

The vision deepened during a 9-month-course in “Inner Leadership for Outer Change” from my mentor Debbie Warrener from England. It became more clearly about creating a new Earth, in a co-living conscious community. As I explored that vision, I could really feel in my all being how it would feel to live that way and soon I made my first steps to join a building community.

I backed off from that group, somewhat bruised and determined to find more tools to navigate group dynamics, create supportive communities and gather my tribe.

At this point I left my 24-year relationship, started my coaching journey and begun creating my own business to support others to step into the call of their soul.

From being my main drive, the community dream glided in the background, emerging regularly in the foreground time and again.

About a month ago, I felt called to check out the details of a 3-month-long conscious community experiment. This launched a tremendous amount of internal movement. First reconnecting to the Soul calling, then all kinds of fears inherent to initiating big changes.

WHAT first!

In my process to decide if I wanted to apply to live for 3 month in another European country, I heard myself say “not in my current financial situation”. 

That woke me up. This wasn’t an answer to “Do I want to do that?” This was answering : “Do I know HOW to get there?” And if there is something that I know and integrate more and more is that this is NEVER the first question to ask yourself.

When you set out a vision, or make a significant decision at any step of your journey, what matters first is to answer WHAT do you want. Really connect to the YES or no for the what in itself.

The HOW will then unfold once you are committed.

As soon as I asked myself the question, “If the finance was taken care of, would I want to do that?” My answers became clear. I am a YES for moving in that direction. Then a wave of emotion came through and I connected to the wounds after my first attempt to join a community. My fears of not being able to handle what happens in a group. My fears of not having the inner resources to meet other people and stay true to me. And then recognizing that these fears don’t justify stopping living. That it is the vulnerable journey of love and connection. That’s my journey. The warrior of Love. 

Then inspiration directly flowed with ideas for helping my finances to support my soul’s goal. 

Ensued shaking waves of healing.

Have you also experience a lot of turbulences lately and old woundings coming up to the surface? For me it has been intense and still going on, so I’m grateful to take a few days off during Easter to integrate, nurture and recharge!

How are You answering your soul’s calling?

Share in the comments!

• Law of more Life
• Self-Love
• What you focus on grows

“The more you are, the more you can become, and the more you can become, the more you can yet be.” 

― Neale Donald Walsch, The Complete Conversations with God

Highs and lows. Do you ever feel you’ll never really reach the mark? That the deeds of one day don’t seem to prevent you to fall again? 

How can we look at these steps back and forth? 

About a month ago, I just had such an experience. I had just begun to get back in a flow of enjoying meeting people around where I live after many weeks of isolation. Even though Sweden has never been in full lockdown as many other parts of the world, there has been restrictions and I chose to stay more home in response to all that was going on.

So when I got invited by someone I met a couple of years ago for a diner, it felt really joyful to socialize more. We had diner and later in the evening the tone shifted from the trivial conversation to sexual advances.

Rather than obeying the cautious convention to deflect the advances, I stayed wondering what degree of intimacy I actually wanted with this person. At some point I felt a freeze – thoughts of what I wanted to express, more and more pressing inside my head that I couldn’t voice- while feeling contradictory feelings. I then remembered that I can step back physically and from a bit more distance, feel myself more and express what is going on for me. 

So I stepped back, and could communicate again. A positive step towards how I want to connect to others: In my sovereignty and ability to speak my truth.

The exchange continued and I experienced with delight moments of unconventional exploration of what is really true to me in the moment, exercising to share in the moment my observations and what I was open for or not. The delight was in the awareness that I was meeting this person from a sovereign place where my own yesses and no’s were guiding me rather than the conditioning and societal rules and norms. I was completely out of charted territory and it felt really good.

As the evening when further, I needed to interrupt the interaction and went home. I knew he got surprised by the abrupt ending, but I chose to follow my intuition and body wisdom.

At home, as I looked back at the unfolding of the evening, I felt the wonder and awe of these moments of daring to step outside the lines and connect to my truth and desires and communicate that vulnerably, authentically in the moment. These steps were so welcome!

Later next day, the person came back to me wanting to hear some explanation on what happened. I first felt my joy of these for me amazing steps, but soon felt insecure to share this unconventional truth on how I enjoyed coming to my clarity the way I did. I felt the freeze come back, the scared part of me arising when my truth feels potentially dissonant with the other person’s feelings. As he left before I managed to find my ground and courage to share, this felt like a huge hurtful setback.

Gone was my joy, my pride. I just felt how hard I had fallen “again”.

A conversation with my coach cued me back to consider the victory, the steps, moments of sovereignty and authentic relating rather than focusing on the downfall later.

It took me one more week and a conversation with a friend to see the parallel of that story and what she described as her habit of beating herself to not know better yet though she was also aware that she was in a learning process.

At this moment it was so obvious: of course the steps that the toddler is taking are what deserves our celebration and attention – whether it’s one, two, or three before he falls again  or more. The baby is taking the steps, managing them for the first time, progressing, getting up again and again until some day he masters going on his own two feet.

It wouldn’t occur to me to shout or scorn to a baby and tell her “See you fell again! You’re really worthless. You should know better by now”

From that moment I could clearly see that it was exactly the same for that incident – magnificent steps in relationship mastery to rejoice in – rather than taking score on the next misstep.

Celebrate each step – see the beauty – acknowledge the progress, remembering that mastery comes with repetition, implying many missteps along the road, none of them diminishing the value and validity of all the steps taken. And that you will never be done. There will always be new degrees of mastery in your life, new layers ready to unfold.

“I haven’t failed — I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

– Thomas Edison

So let go of beating yourself up and recognize the beauty and awe of you in your journey, always evolving, never done. Feed your soul by noticing where you are now, what you never before had been able to do. Feel the evolution, the territories you wouldn’t have been able to travel, a month, a year, a decade ago.

Embrace the Law of More Life, teaching us that there will always be more to become. You have already become so much, learned, evolved. And there are always new mountain tops to be conquered, discovered, enjoyed and savored.

How are you relating to you success and failures?
Where to do you give your attention, your energy? 

What would be available if you celebrated your steps?

In these times fear is high and amplified. Many of our fears are disconnected from an actual danger and are the result of the speculation of the mind trying to hold us safe and results instead in keeping us paralyze or going for actions that don’t serve the highest good of all.

“Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.”

Marianne Williamson

How can we handle fear and get to clarity? Here are my reflections on that.

Fear is a call to focused attention and action.
When you feel fear and cannot point to what it relates, the feeling is calling for the question “What action should be taken?”
It’s a call to be in the present moment. It gives you the energy and focus needed to handle change. It asks you to pause and notice. When allowing yourself to be in that inquiry, clear answers will come.

“What is needed, rather than running away or controlling or suppressing or any other resistance, is understanding fear; that means, watch it, learn about it, come directly into contact with it. We are to learn about fear, not how to escape from it.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti

As I named it in the video, you might want to try out a meditation to take you back to the present moment and relax as no immediate danger is threatening you, so that you can come back to the parasympathetic nervous system that allows you to see and take care of the whole and allows your higher cognitive faculties to be available to you. When we are and stay in a state of fear, these are blocked and you act from the most primitive part of the brain.

16 min meditation “Panic and anxiety relief” by Andrea Watcher
(Insight Timer)

You can also try out these other techniques to come back to your body and be with your fear with the fear melters from Gay Hendricks.
Read my post on them here: “Melting fears into flow”

How does it lands for you? Share your your reflections
And if you found this information relevant, share with whoever you feel could benefit from that.

Spread the love ❤️!

Further reading: “The Language of Emotion” by Karla McLaren