Through BonneFire I have developed a monthly P-R-P:
Pulse Check – Reflection – Practice.
July’s Inspiring Guidance & Teaching for members is
“Inviting playfulness in our lives and chilling out as leaders”
Enjoy a sample below.
Join BonneFire today to gain access to the full text of July’s Inspiring Guidance & Teaching!
Inviting playfulness in our lives and chilling out as leaders
“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
What’s in it for you to be playful and chill out as a leader?
I am a very focused woman, and I love to play and to be playful in all that I do and discover new ways to have fun and to meet new people with whom I can have fun. Through my work, I have fun empowering and challenging others.
When you have fun, you love life and you don’t take yourself too seriously. You know that it is not worth it to get grouchy and irritated. You have a better attitude towards yourself and others. When you have fun, you experience loving, appreciating and being in a good mood. How can you be mean to anyone?
You have greater focus as a result of really enjoying what you do. You don’t attempt to force anything, and you go with the flow. You have a greater ability to exceed expectations and to be more creative. You are more positive and optimistic. You enjoy connecting with others, discovering others and learning from others. You are able to be spontaneous and more open.
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I recently met a 28-year-old woman who smiled at me after my husband and I thanked her for having attended to us at a restaurant surrounded by beautiful mountains and lush green landscapes. I told her that she had a beautiful, sincere, contagious smile. She thanked me and said: “How can I not have this smile working and hiking in this beautiful environment? I feel playful at work because the beauty that surrounds me makes me laugh! It is incredible to laugh and amazing to giggle because you can’t believe how beautiful nature is in this world.”
My husband and I smiled. The three of us looked at each other, our eyes were really smiling with appreciation for what surrounded us, and we all laughed in awe of the beauty that we all observed. We were more than ready to play in nature, my favorite kingdom!
Playfulness is so important in our lives, as it fuels joy from the heart, creativity, social connectedness, appreciation and empathy for one another. It makes us feel alive!
Are you allowing yourself to play? Yes– I do ask if you allow yourself to play, as so many people I have exchanged with over the years have told me that they don’t play, don’t know how to or haven’t played in a long time. And, it has nothing to do with age, as we can allow ourselves to be playful at any age.
When I lead groups with emerging leaders, they too often admit that they have not been playful, free-spirited, in many years. It is not uncommon with the fast pace of our lives, our responsibilities and obligations, long commutes and intense workdays to actually forget how to be playful and to prioritize allocating time to play. I am not being insensitive to the challenges that we must navigate, the personal and/or health crises that we must address in our lives, as I am well aware that life is not a straight path. However, we owe it to ourselves to have cherished, playful moments as often as we can.
Being playful doesn’t require a lot. It is how we invite appreciation and the savoring of small pleasures that life offers to us. Playfulness is also about loving, flirting with our partner, teasing each other, lauding together, being a little mischievous, discovering how joy lifts our spirit and how our body expresses joy through expressive eyes.
Can you experience having fun being alive, uplifted by seeing and hearing what is readily there for you?
“It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.” – Dr. Seuss
I invite you to stop for a moment and pause.
What does being playful mean to you?
Do you know how to enjoy yourself? Do you know how to have fun?
If yes: what do you fully enjoy with playfulness, and how do you have fun?
If no: why don’t you know how to enjoy yourself and/or how to have fun?
Do you actually welcome enjoying yourself and/or having fun?
“We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, more deeply engrossed in anything, than when we are at PLAY.” – Charles Schaefer
It is healthy to remember childlike whole-heartedness.
Look at a child and notice how s/he is engrossed in anything, as s/he is discovering life in the moment, and that very moment to her/him is PLAY.
Do you remember, what is was like to be deeply engrossed at play when you were younger?
Welcoming playfulness in your life is being at ease being yourself, not taking yourself too seriously and allowing yourself to express yourself without judgment and without trying to perform or outperform.
“From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.” – Dr. Seuss
Being playful is not necessarily costly, and it doesn’t have to require anything. You simply need to keep your eyes open to see the possibilities that are available all around you to be playful.
When I was a teenager, I loved fashion, and I really enjoyed wearing many different styles. My mother offered me a seamstress course so that I could learn to sew, affording me to be able to wear many different clothes. She taught me to knit so that I could create the variety of sweaters that I fantasized about wearing. I had so much fun dreaming of the patterns that I could create and the colors that I could mix, and I got totally immersed in the process of creating my own wardrobe. It became something that I could share with my best girlfriend and for us to have a lot of fun doing and experimenting together. Not only that, but our fun exponentially grew as we decided to combine our fun of sewing with cooking great feasts whenever we would sew and/or knit together. As a result, our connectedness was incredible with each other and with our mothers and her siblings, and our sharing spearheaded laughter for everyone around us. Everybody had fun!
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Will you follow your heart to be more playful and to allow yourself to have fun, or will your life wane without playfulness?
As you reflect about your life, what can (and should) you change or invite more of to experience more playfulness and fun in your life?
Gain access to the full text of July’s Inspiring Guidance & Teaching by joining BonneFire today!
BonneFire is a community dedicated to fostering healthy individuals and healthy organizations. BonneFire is about living our lives loving what we do, being authentic to who we are, to our own unique blueprint. It is about being in harmony with ourselves and caring to be in harmony with others and realizing our individual and collective potential in all sectors of our lives.
BonneFire is in support of being true to ourselves, showing up authentically in roles that we commit to and inviting individuals to be introspective, self-aware, mindful, intentional and purposeful. Together we lead with dignity in alignment on values, governance and strategic priorities, conscious of the impact we can make for future generations. We are in service to each other and all stakeholders.
