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10 minute
Guided Meditation
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A vital ingredient in celebrating life is playfulness.
I'm a work-a holic and find it hard to take time off. I'm so grateful I
decided to have some playtime recently and took the ferry to Lanai to go
to the beach. I was rewarded by the experience of a lifetime. I was in
the water with a huge pod of playful dolphins singing in my ears and
entertaining me with their playful leaps and spins. I cried tears of joy
and amazement as they connected with me and shared their lust for life.
The dolphins weren't holding back, thinking about how to love or live:
they were purely embracing the magical moment. We are spontaneous and
alive like this as babies, loving fearlessly what life brings. Somewhere
along the way we lose this sparkle and spirit, forgetting the value of
play.
To love fearlessly what life brings, consciously looking for the
presence of love in any situation, leads one into a deeper experience of
living. This is being a warrior for love. This love is held in place
regardless of how the mind wants to separate, classify, and judge what
is happening.
There are many ways we hide from love. We may hold to past hurt and not
forgive and let go. We may drown our feelings in drugs or alcohol,
overworking, sex, TV. We lose ourselves in our egos of destruction,
rather than identifying with our spirits of expansion and lightness.
The contrast between embracing life and love, and invoking numbness and
destruction, was acutely present for me this morning. First, as I pushed
my one year-old grandson in his stroller, I watched with delight as he
bounced and swayed to some internal magical music. He grinned widely at
me and there was a twinkle of complete love and joy in his eyes. He was
celebrating being alive just like the dolphins do.
Later I was on the phone with a close relative. He told me he had just
spent the night in jail because of a DUI. He was already drunk on this
beautiful new morning. As he spoke words of self-pity and victimhood, I
couldn't feel any life essence from him. How did he lose his pure
childlike love of life?
Surely, forgetting to be playful even in the worst of times can lead to
depression, addictions, and many other states of dysfunction. Isolation
may set in and one may get more and more disconnected from life. Regular
doses of play and levity can heal the heart and bring a bounce back in
ones step.
Fourteen years ago, after my marriage of 16 years with four children
ended, I was devastated and did many things to numb the pain. However,
something that greatly accelerated my heart healing was being a
kindergarten teacher, hugging the children every morning, playing games
with them at recess. I gradually relearned to appreciate the pleasure of
each moment and release my pain, rebuilding my life with happiness and
play as its foundation.
We may all lose our way in life's difficult situations, but if we take a
moment to remember what we came into the world knowing, that life is
brimming with love and joy, we can return to that state of peace. We can
let go and play in boundless celebration.
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