A Key To Happiness That We All Knew As Kids

Being an adult can kind of suck, right? All this responsibility crap: I have bills to pay, work to do, and chores around the house. And don't get me started on stress? Not only is there the daily stuff but then I worry about this and am exhausted by that.

Adding to my chaos is my three-year-old son Tobias. Yes, thank you for your sympathy. However, the more I watch my son, the more I realize that he has something really valuable to teach me. He has some real wisdom even as a young child. We all have such wisdom as kids. In youth, we knew something that we often forget as adults... the power of play.

When my son wakes up, one of the first things he says is, "come play with me." COME PLAY WITH ME. That's how he starts each and every day! That's how he manages the sadness of when I have to go to work. That's how he manages the chaos of not knowing a lot about what's happening around him. That's how he manages the things that scare him. Come play with me.

Pretty powerful words if you ask me. Think about how you feel when you play? Think about how you hold struggle or challenges? Think about where you heart, mind, and soul are when you are playing? Exactly. It changes the color of the day. It brings a lightness that is so readily available in children that seems to be harder to find as adults.

It often doesn't even matter to Tobias what play we do, just that we play. We can read books. We can build blocks. We can fly airplanes around the room. I've come to discover that "come play with me" is really more about a state of being than a specific event. It's about us being together. Enjoying ourselves and each other. Exploring the world. Trying on different roles and experiences. Not getting too attached to any one thing. It's really at its heart about connecting to a certain way of feeling about oneself and the world around us.

So my challenge to you is to bring play back into your life. Bring play to those chores. Bring play to your work. Bring play to therapy. You will be a happier human being for you will reconnect to a vital and deeply wired state of your soul... ask any child.

So come play with me. I currently have space available on Mondays and Thursdays in San Francisco and Wednesdays in El Cerrito.

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