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"You're not happy, you need to do this. No, not that. Try this. Better be worried about your work. It is all on your shoulders whether you succeed. Where is your next client gonna come from? Is your relationship going well? Try harder. Do more. You're freaking out. Stop freaking out. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah."
If you are like me, your mind doesn't shut up. Most days, my mind has big plans. Focus on this, be worried about that, and on it goes. "What a beautiful sunny day. We're so lucky to live in California. Don't worry, you are destined to be a therapist and clients will come. You are surrounded by good friends and family. The world will help you and you are not alone in facing your struggles. (the sound of a violins playing)" Guess who that is? My heart has so much more peace and trust. Even writing that, I feel better. Big difference, right? And yet for me, someone designed this human experience to continue to pull me to my head (BTW I want a word with them at some point... I'd like to give them a piece of my mind- pun intended). It is so much darker in my head. There is such a drastic change in how I feel about my life when I live there. And so I have learned (and am learning) to do a daily practice of bringing myself back to my heart. My heart knows that short of starving and being homeless, there is a lot going right in my life. My heart knows how to truly live in the moment and not get lost in the fears of what might be lost or what has yet to come. My heart knows how not to think about my life but to feel and live it. When I tap into my heart, I can truly and deeply feel warmth, connection, and faith. I rarely want to punch my heart in the mouth. And so I offer this insight from my life to you as I imagine we probably share some similarities. For me, taking a run in the sunshine and stopping at the ocean helps me reconnect to my heart. And reconnecting to my heart changes everything. What's your practice?
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 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. |
AuthorJosh Stern is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #96003 located in the Bay Area Archives
November 2019
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