Lila: a Sanskrit word that loosely translates to “divine play”
I recently attended a wedding in Italy (more on that in a moment) and upon revealing my age (42 - gasp!) I was immediately flooded with “tell me your secrets” questions about skin, diet, routine, etc. I paused, inwardly giggled as I considered how my diet is super inconsistent and my skin routine rather basic, and then gave them my best answer: “I make a point to incorporate joy, play, and wonderment into my every day life.”
I mean sure, I probably do a lot of things that are “better-than-average” but also skin and diet and such a personal experience and I would never dole out advice over a fabulous Italian dinner. And ok, sure! I will include some general tips below - I’m not one to gate keep the magic (science) of Ayurveda.
(Sidenote: if you have done a real Italian-style dinner, you are aware that dinner begins after 9pm, includes quite a few courses, and ends with espresso - which is ANTI-Ayurveda af)
Tbh…42 has been my most favorite age yet. Maybe it’s because I’ve been primed to believe that 42 is the answer to life, the Universe, everything…
(If you understand this reference, we are most definitely friends!)
Or maybe it’s simply the accumulation of many small steps, the culmination of making it through a rather sh*t year with my heart still open, or the shedding of f*cks that I believe to be the most beautiful gift of aging.
Or maybe I’m simply practicing presence, and loving this moment for exactly what it is.
And truly, my practices of choosing joy, play and wonderment have been the corkscrew slide that gleefully glides me through the -ish and the -ick.
Storytime:
About 9 years ago I did something I had NEVER done before. I took a trip by myself to somewhere I had never been (truly, a new begining). I was still working as a scientist and went to California to attend a Yoga teacher training that included words like neuroscience and shadow work in the description. A few friends/family pitched in with supportive funding, and many folks encouraged me to attend. I spent 1 week at historic Esalen Institute in the Big Sur region, and made some beautiful connections. Fast forward to March 2021: I’m celebrating my birthday with a few friends/family at a local food hall, and I hear someone yell my name and quickly find myself embraced with a friend from that week who’s partner’s family lives in the area. Fast forward to January 2024: I’m walking to their house for tacos. Fast forward to June 2024: I’m traveling solo to attend their 3-day wedding event in Rome, Italy amongst 200 guests from all over the world!
First, that’s probably the shortest story I’ve ever told, like ever.
Second, obviously there’s A LOT left out.
I share it to emphasize:
the magic of saying YES
the ripple effect
one small step = a BIG deal
Back to this joy, play and wonderment thread:
First, I’m not offering these as tools to bypass both our personal and collective experiences, more so ways through. Plainly spoken, shit’s fucked. And we have a choice of how we want to show up, or sure, if we even want to show up.
Throwback to Developmental Psychology 2002-ish….I remember our professor talking about play as being one of the fastest ways to learn things in children. Flash forward to more than a few years later…current neuroscience research has focused on more specific effects, not just in children, but all mammals!! When we play, our brains get activated in ways that create changes to our neural networks in our frontal cortex. Think of our brains just like muscles: more density = more connections = faster processing = more efficient. When we increase the tissues (more specifically the gray matter where all the action happens), we increase our neural connections. Our frontal cortex is the home of our emotional regulation and problem-solving; so more matter here can definitely be super useful. Our brains communicate via neurochemicals: little packets of information that are passed from brain cell to brain cell via open space between them. These chemicals are responsible for communication and regulation and work at lightning speed throughout our body. Play can influence the types of neurochemicals released and has been found to increase the release of oxytocin (which helps regulate emotions and supports social skills) and dopamine (impacts memory, motivation, attention and mood).
I truly believe in the power of every day magic, but it comes from going through some really dark times. I discovered the power of play when I found myself pacing anxiously in my apartment with my thoughts running their own internal laps, and decided to take my pacing feet outside. I found myself in the local park and oh look! a swing set!! Within a few minutes, I was laughing and giggling. So I went back every day, sometimes a few times a day. And on days of “bad” weather I would take time to imagine myself swinging and reconnecting to that joyous feeling. From this space, I allowed myself to dream, to create, and to imagine what's possible next.
Since my first trip to California, I’ve had the great privilege to repeat my solo travel experiences, to widen my net to include multiple countries (and continents), to lead retreats to some of my favorite places, and even swing on swingsets in the most beautiful settings. And sure, I fully recognize that the life I’ve created isn’t available to all. I also am intimately familiar with the many trials of travels, including the inevitable “post travel dip” which still surprises me when it hits 1-2 week upon returning home.
So how do we (re)connect to the magic without having to leaving home?
We MUST make time for ourselves. Quoting one of my favorite movies “Fern Gully” “magic is all around us, my dear, you just have to look around and see it for yourself.”
(Admittedly, this quote may not actually be from FernGully but more of a mash up of FernGully, Wizard of Oz, and Pocahontas, but it lives in my head in the voice of Magi. Google was no help as similar words have been uttered in numerous movies, books, and poems. Regardless of the voice, it tracks as solid advice.)
Whenever I take a moment to pause there’s an opportunity to reconnect to the flow of the Universe. A bigger breath, a feeling of the wind moving through me, the subtle noticing of the bee buzzing in the tree ahead, or watching the neighborhood squirrels being up to their squirrel business. The PAUSE is KEY! Without the pause, I tend to get stuck in auto-pilot and may miss what’s just in front of me, and I may forget my place in the intricate web of life.
For me, the trick has been aligning myself better to the natural rhyms of the day . This 180° happened for me while being deep in my grief and consistently putting myself to bed during the heavy evening hours. Go to bed at 8pm enough and oh look! 5am just kinda happens. The dark morning hours have become my pause, my magic hour, my moment of clarity before the day begins. My mornings often include some sitting (either at my inside altar or outside under my currently blossoming porch tree), some moving (either a walk outside or some wiggles on my yoga mat), and some sort of check in (journaling usually, but something I color).
Lately, my prompts have been:
What am I grateful for?
What am I proud of myself for?
What do I desire (or what am I creating)?
Pause + check in = opportunity for choice!
Do I “like” what I notice?
Yes? Keep going!!
No? What can you (I) do to shift?
My list of shifts looks like this:
Dance party
Swinging on a swing set
Neighborhood walk
Shower + Singing
Repeat as often as needed!!!
Dress for the part/life/role that you are creating. I’ve written about “Dopamine Dressing” before and it remains as one of my favorite tools to influence my mood/day. The wedding invitation said “Italian summer formal”, and google says that looks long dresses often with large florals, and my interpretation looks like rainbow sparkle mermaid dress. When I packed for this trip, I chose clothes that made me feel happy, radiant and alive - and I did it ALL in ONE personal (under the seat) item.
Quoting Deion Sanders, “If you look good, you feel good. If you feel good, you play well. If you play well, they pay well.”
While I’m still waiting on that pay well part, I most certainly PLAY well when dressed in my favorite color (rainbow) and bonus points for sparkle. Skipping and dancing through the streets of Rome with a new pack of extended friends has definitely cemented itself fully into my core memories.
When I wear bright, colorful, and fun clothes, it helps me stay in a playful state. I never know when the sun may hit the sequin in a rainbow flash or when the wind will twirl my skirt or when my look may inspire others.
Spiral out, keep going. Not just my one of my favorite song lyrics from one of my favorite bands (Tool) but truly a whole way of living. For many years, I bypassed the moments of spiral by metaphorically stuffing the -ish in a pretty lil jar and placing in a nice lil shelf to never be explored again. Welp…life came through like a rowdy toddler and knocked down ALL my shelves and sent all that -ish into my immediate atmosphere and demanded to be dealt with.
So wait, isn’t the point of all these words to talk about play and joy…why are we now talking about the -ish?
Quoting another one of my favorites (for real this time) “Inside Out”:
Crying Helps Me Slow Down And Obsess Over The Weight Of Life’s Problems
Oh wait! not that one, this one:
There is no joy without sadness
Although, I do love a good cry - the reframe around the necessity of sadness gets me in my feelings every time. So often, I have placed the "positive" emotions on a pedestal only to be offended by the inevitable side sweep of the ebb. The ability to feel such great joy, connection and magic is often divinely intertwined with a depth of despair.
No mud, no lotus; no darkness, no stars; no rain, no rainbow.
And now, my favorite Ayurveda-inspired youth-giving beauty tools that probably work for us all, but remember you are unique and some variations may be necessary:
If you wouldn’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin. Skin care has come a longgggg way since I first started to fall down this rabbit hole, and there are many options that are more local and less chemical-ly. A longer story is warranted but the short version is that I spent about 12 months with an extremely itchy skin condition that severely impacted my well-being. I called out of work numerous times simply due to the fact that I couldn’t put on proper clothes to come into the office without wanting to claw my skin off. I followed every thread, tried every at home remedy, and went on a tour of doctor’s offices around town. Turns out, I’m allergic to a few major chemicals. Finding recipes for skincare online made me feel like quite the alchemist (and collector of random herbs/powders/mason jars. The common thread being easy to digest ingredients. Fun fact: your skin is our largest organ!! So frfr what we put on it matters!
My favorite skin mask = honey + turmeric (be careful as it WILL stain)
great for inflammation, redness, and addition of antioxidants
Oil = life. An Ayurvedic wisdom says “pay the oil man today, or the doctor tomorrow.” So yes, using oil to cook helps with digestion, which efficiently digesting the food we consume is equally as important as consuming it (quinoa and corn, I'm talking to you), AND it’s also ah-mazing for the skin. Oiling my skin BEFORE the shower has been life changing, and here’s my protocol (I use Coconut oil like Frank’s hot sauce…put that sh*t on everything and I have jars both in the bathroom and my kitchen). Warming the oil helps it get to the deeper layers of our skin, and even helps lubricate our joints potentially alleviating some of those pops/creaks. Reminder: vata season (fall/winter) is coming, so start your winter prep early so your aren’t playing catch up.
Don’t eat past 9pm(ish) and be in bed by 10pm(ish). There’s no fear of turning into a gremlin so emphasis on the -ish. According to Ayurveda, our energies work in 2 complete cycles throughout the day with 10-2 being ruled by fire. The first window (10am - 2pm) is best used to be productive, consume the food, and otherwise Git-Er-Done. Our second cycle 10pm -2am is what my teacher Mary Thompson calls “liver time” and is best utilized in-house as a cleansing/reseting of the internal organs. You may have experienced a 2nd wind around 10pm, and it can be tempting to use this energetic rush to be productive. I have lovingly nicknamed this rush as “fool’s gold” as it’s pretty and shiny and rather effective in the moment, but it will quickly tarnish over night and often leaves a (green) ring (of exhaustion). I share this 1000% from my own experience - I used to do my “best” work at this time and then not understand why I was relatively “useless” for the next week. Break the fast, mindfully, with warm (or room temp) water followed by easy to digest food. And then sure, coffee! Protip: add some fat (ghee, coco oil, MCT's) to reduce the acidity and potentially make your belly happier
And always remember the 80/20 rule: do the things you know that are best for yourself 80% of the time, and eff it (mindfully) the other 20%
It’s recommended that we spend 60 minutes daily engaged in play. Now maybe you are like me and when you read that you feel your head start to swim with daily math and wonder how TF am I supposed to fit one more hour of recommendations into my day??
One more Disney quote:
“For every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun and SNAP the job’s a game.”
~ Mary Poppins
The trick is to incorporate PLAY into our every day tasks, expectations, and responsibilities!
Grocery shopping? Give that cart a push and hop on for a lil glide down the aisles - add in a wheeee for bonus points!
Morning walk? Add a lil skip (or if you are feeling brave go FULL ON FROLICK) or a lil twirl to give the neighbors something to talk about over brekkie.
In traffic? Blast your favorite playlist and give other drivers a show.
Desk job? Take the scenic route to the bathroom (for me it included a walk around the building) - add in a frolick for extra points!
Remember that thing you liked to do as a kid? Bring it back!! Whether it’s coloring, tree climbing, cloud watching, bracelet making, flashlight tag, cannonballs, four-leaf clover hunting….DO IT!!!
Again, these tools were never meant to bypass our current situations - both personal and collective - more so as a way through. So call your representatives, vote for folks in alignment with your values, donate your energy and resources to people and causes that are moving the world in the direction of love and justice, and remember that you often have have choice in how/if you respond/react.
With all the things that we can choose to be, why NOT choose to be joyful?!
For more PLAY-inspiration - check out The National Institute for Play
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