When was the last time you held the mic for someone while they stabbed you with a Play-Doh dagger?
Been a while?
It’s incredible to me how even sitting alone in a room, a picture can take you back to a moment in time and rouse hilarious laughter. This image does that for me. If you weren’t with us that night, this picture makes no sense. But if you were there, it’s pretty hilarious. We’d split up in groups and each group had to work together to tell a made up ending to a story – using only clay.
Clearly Barbara’s group went with Play-Doh violence for the win.
The bigger picture here, is that it has been a wholelotta years since most of the ladies in that room have touched clay. For most of us, entire decades have passed since we’ve sat down at a table with friends to create a story out of clay. No one is really to blame. It’s just that as we’re growing up, while our minds are maturing, the social conditioning of our behavior is “maturing” right along with them. Believe me, as a mama to two wild-hearted boys, I’m mostly grateful.
But when “adult” for so long that we forget how to play, that’s a big problem.
We’re not meant to get more serious, anxious and stressed out with age. We’re supposed to be hitting our stride. Our wisdom should bring us more freedom to color outside the lines, not more boxes and conformity to the norm.
This comes up a lot when I talk with women a few decades ahead of me.
Many of them are no longer concerned with what anyone else thinks. They’ve lived long enough to not waste time trying to be mature and well-behaved. They’d rather live and enjoy life on their terms as women who’ve graduated from the school of “social conditioning” and throw their diploma’s to the wind.
I just happen to think we should get there sooner.
We don’t have to wait another decade or two. I’m waving the white flag sister. Forget the rules.
We get to choose.
You don’t have to carry that stress around like a stack of bricks on your back. You don’t have to stay angry about something done to you in the past. Pick up some Play-Doh and let it go.
Determine to invite play, fun and laughter back into your life.
It’s not that life can no longer be fun. It’s that we’ve stopped having play dates. We’ve forgotten how to play.
Remember that little girl you once were, who so fearlessly played and laughed with her friends? She’s still there. She’s inside of you.
Invite her out to play.
Open your hands and your heart. Let go of the worries and the stress holding you down today. Call an old friend and start with a “remember when” story. Text a new friend and schedule a play date.
Have a little fun.
Life is too short to follow all the “rules”.
to more love,
Crystal
P.S. This is quite obviously the goal for the evening tonight at Laughter Yoga Girls Night Out. It’s not too late to join us.
