How to Enjoy Life More

Do you remember being a kid?

Or perhaps you now have children of your own?

It is a joy to watch them be totally immersed in play. Children can be playing alone, playing with friends, playing with toys or being outside in nature and whatever they’re doing they are present in the moment and often exuding pure enjoyment.

As children we’re more connected to our true nature, which is our natural state of happiness.

A couple months ago I was on an airplane with my four-year-old and as we were taking off she yelled out excitedly to the entire plane, “I can see the whole Earth from up here!”.

Do you ever wonder at what age do we lose that sense of child-like wonder?

At around 3 years old our brains develop the capacity to be in high-beta, meaning we have the ability to think thoughts at a fast pace.

And at around 9-12 years old, our brains develop the Default Mode Network area of the brain which leads the mind to wander whenever our attention is not engaged. This leads to the creation of a self-narrative, which is a story we tell ourselves about who we think we are. Along with this ability comes a lot of negative self-talk in the teenage years.

The result?

The capacity to create a self-narrative, hear negative self-talk, and the inevitable experience of adversity, leads us to build “inner walls”.

These “inner walls” are built in response to challenging situations, to protect ourselves, or to become who we think the world wants us to be.

However those inner walls tend to cover up our true nature of happiness.

Take a moment and think back to who you were before 9 years old.

Who were you before the world got its hands on you? Before you felt like you needed to become a responsible adult?

Here’s the good news:

You can still access that natural state of happiness even into adulthood.

Mindfulness is a wonderful tool that helps us see through those inner walls and tune back into our natural state of happiness. And I’ll be sharing more about that in the weeks to come. But in this post I want to talk about the importance of play.

As a child I used to love to run. I ran short-distance and long-distance races and I also loved cross-country racing through the forest trails. I stopped running around 13 years old because it didn’t seem fun anymore. I picked running up again during the Covid-19 lockdown. It was my way of getting outside and relieving stress while everything was shut down. When I started running again, it reminded me of the sense of freedom I used to feel as a kid when I would run.

Granted, as an adult, it wasn’t easy to pick it up again – I started out with 10- or 15-minute increments, and I would be huffing and puffing. But now here I am two years later still running, and enjoying it, as it feels like I get to play and be a kid again while also relieving stress and getting exercise.

What is something you used to love doing as a kid for play?

Did you used to:

·???????Paint or colour?

·???????Play team sports?

·???????Run?

·???????Build sand castles?

·???????Jump on a trampoline?

·???????Ride a bicycle?

·???????Sing or dance?

·???????Spend time being creative?

What type of play could you pick back up as a grown adult just for fun?

If you want to enjoy your life more in the day-to-day, pick one ‘play’ activity that you used to love as a kid and commit to doing it once this week. If it’s a form of exercise and you haven’t done it for a while, start slow.

If you have younger children at home, invite them to join you in play.

During your experiment this week while trying out one ‘play’ activity, give yourself a break from thinking about work or any other responsibilities you have at the moment. Allow yourself to be totally immersed in the activity, even if it’s just for 10 or 15 minutes.

Notice how it feels to re-connect to your child-like self. If it feels good, commit to doing it again the next week.

It’s ok to take a break from being a responsible adult from time to time.

And if you want to bring in more happiness into your life, I would argue it’s a necessity.

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Tracey Gazel is a Neuroscience-Mindfulness Executive Coach, #1 Best-Selling Author, Keynote Speaker and Meditation Teacher. She specializes in helping others live with less stress and more calm by de-mystifying the brain and its complex processes so that feeling calm and grounded every day becomes your new normal. She is the founder of Rising Higher Consulting Inc., a coaching agency that helps high achievers who are wanting to accomplish the same amount of work with less stress, enhance their decision-making with clarity of mind, feel calmer on a regular basis, and simply enjoy their life more.

If you’re interested in learning more about how you can work with Tracey, you can contact her by email at [email protected]