Responsibilities at home. Demands at work. Bills. COVID. Dinner decisions.
There are infinite reasons to be stressed and high-strung.
Or, we could lighten the heck up.
Per usual, I’m talking to myself here. I have an infallible way of making everything serious. I doubt I’m alone.
This was first brought to my attention when I took my daughter, who couldn’t have been more than a year old at the time, to a music class in town.
As the parents in the room sat and swayed with our babies, I was struck by the teacher, who was singing and gesticulating with next-level passion and gusto. The babies were all focused on other things, like their moms or their feet, but that didn’t stop this instructor from going all out. She was highly animated, dramatically howling at the moon and shamelessly flapping her arms, in what was essentially a party of one.
Weird, I thought.
This went on for a bit, before a brief intermission where the instructor shared how having kids taught her to be playful again. She described how “play muscles” tend to atrophy in adults and how regaining access to this part of ourselves can be a way to connect with our children and generally experience more joy.
She read my mind and totally called me out.
Push come to shove, I wasn’t at that class to play. I was there to facilitate my daughter’s growth and development — serious stuff. I could have been having more fun, but I ditched my play muscles a long time ago. Now I have stuff to do.
What a stinky way to live.
I’m grateful to that teacher for showing me a blind spot, and I’m trying to turn the ship around.
It makes sense that lightening up — via playfulness, laughter and generally not making everything so serious — is an antidote to stress and such a better way to live, but it’s easy to lose sight of this. It’s easy to get bogged down and overwhelmed, and at least in my case, forget that loosening up is even an option.
So, I’m working on it. I’m looking for ways to laugh and play.
For one thing, I’ve been blasting “Everything is AWESOME!!!” by The Lonely Island. If you’re not familiar, the song is every bit as fantastic and ridiculous as the title suggests. I dance with the kids (with enthusiasm that rivals that music teacher) and stumble through the rapid lyrics. It’s over the top — excellent play.
I’m also switching up my entertainment. I guess it’s no surprise that I tend to gravitate toward intense TV (“Homeland” and “The Man in the High Castle” are my faves), but right now, I’m looking for funny. I loved “The Good Place” and “Workin’ Moms,” and I’m sampling other shows to see how much they make me lol, too.
What kinds of things might work for you?
Stress expert Loretta LaRoche, whose motto is “Life is short, wear your party pants,” recommends smiling a lot and putting on a red clown nose whenever you start to complain. What a fabulous illustration of how most of the things we consider to be big, bad deals — aren’t.
In the end, I don’t think life is supposed to be painless and easy, but it also doesn’t have to be so gosh darn hard.
So, I invite you to join me with this work on play. Let’s commit to putting on our party pants each and every day until we eventually become loads of fun, au naturel.