Happy Sunday!
And welcome to today's edition of 'Conscious living with Purnima'. Today's post is Part 1 of the 4 Part series on ‘Finding the lost art of living’. I am having a lot of fun writing these posts & I hope you enjoy reading them :-)
“Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think.”
- Socrates
First, I want to share with you a recent incident that opened my eyes to how my adult brain was becoming an expert at practicing seriousness and losing sight of 'fun & play'. My daughter and I go to keyboard classes together. On one particular day the teacher was late, so we were practicing on our own. I noticed that my daughter wasn't playing from the book & from what I could make out was mucking around playing random notes making what I considered ‘Noise’. It was triggering me as I felt she should be practicing the musical piece she learnt in the previous class.
And then Sir came. Keya, my 10-year-old daughter casually mentioned to him that she could play all the major scales with her eyes closed. She demonstrated it to us. Sir was happy & I was dumbstruck.
That day I learnt not just about the importance of allowing children free play but also about brain conditioning. Her brain knew how to have fun & learn something cool while my brain was a specialist at sucking fun even out of a hobby.
That moment, I knew something had to change else life would soon become a drudgery.
Retraining our Brains for 'fun & play':
The field of Neuroscience tells us that our brains are remarkably plastic - meaning it remains adaptable throughout our life and we really can rewire it in our favor. Wouldn't it be nice if we could rewire it to catch unnecessary seriousness and replace it with lightening up, joy & humor?
I find that how we approach 'having fun' is somewhat akin to how we approach 'relaxation'. We think we can relax only after finishing all of our day's work or when we are on a vacation. The idea of having fun while doing something important or integrating relaxation into a hectic day is an idea that is alien to most of us. But think about it, do any of us have a guaranteed tomorrow? Morbid thought I know, but in order to lighten up we need to have the ephemerality of life at the back of our minds.
Do not misconstrue my statement to mean you should give up on all serious work & squander your time in the name of fun. That's not what I mean. What I mean is we should find a way to always remember the preciousness of our life and no matter what we are engaged in, stay open to finding joy.
Today, I want you to reflect on your own approach to life and answer a few questions:
1. When was the last time you really enjoyed doing an activity? What was your frame of mind during the activity?
2. Can you come up with a practice/ system/ framework/ reminder that trains your brain to find 'fun & play' in everyday life?
Do spend some time on answering those questions. It will be worth it.
I will see you next week with Part 2 of the Series - ‘Finding pockets of silence in everyday life’. Until then take good care of yourself and pay attention to your life as it unfolds 💞
PS: For this Newsletter ‘Conscious living with Purnima’, I write on topics that have an overarching theme of ‘Conscious living’ so we can live with greater awareness, open our hearts and be good humans - an intention that's close to my heart.
The other topic close to my heart is the need to approach our health in a holistic way by caring for our body, mind, & spirit. I do one post every Saturday on topics related to health, fitness, nutrition and behavior change that are evidence-based. If you would like to check them out, then Subscribe to my ‘Holistic Wellness with Purnima’ Newsletter right here.
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Good post