What if you can play and get paid?
I had a conversation with my amazing friend and playmate, Natalie Ross of Earth Speak, formerly Dream Freedom Beauty.
I was talking about how HEAVY transformation work can be.
Sometimes, it’s like slogging through thick mud. So much resistance. It can be slow, laborious and exhausting.
Yes, it’s rewarding to finally get out of the muck and into the clean air and sunshine.
But my habit has been to put my head down and push through it without acknowledging that it’s sometimes taxing.
“I bounce back quickly. It’s not a big deal,” I tell myself.
Natalie, on the other hand, has devoted herself to a life of divine ease. She creates it and even expects it. Not in an entitled way, but with the relaxed certainty of that’s the way it is.
“I’m having so much fun playing!” she said. “I just want to get paid enough so I can play all the time.”
And it hit me.
I get to do the easy stuff.
I get to create a business that’s easy and fun.
I can choose that and let go of anything and everything that feels heavy.
Now, this isn’t rocket science. Logically, of course I can choose to do whatever I like.
But something inside me was still trotting along the old “do what’s in front of you” and “fill the roles that need filling” path.
I can PLAY and get PAID.
Another revelation came today in a session the luminous coach, Mariaestela.
I’ve been experimenting with some new games and processes for transformation. (Soul Storytelling for Transformation sessions, for example.)
These sessions draw on everything I’ve learned and typically combine NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), Quantum Linguistics, therapeutic techniques such as Internal Family Systems and Family Constellations, along with hypnotic languaging and guided visualizations.
(Sounds super cool, right? It is.)
Because I’ve “never done this before” — a statement that’s technically true of every single session I’ve ever had, by the way — I tell myself that I’m “just playing” and offer it for free to test it out.
I see that “just playing” in this sense is my way of hiding.
“I’m just a little girl playing a game of transformation over here. Don’t mind me! Nothing to see, folks.”
“I’m not actually a powerful alchemist of joy and effortless transformation or anything. Feel free to ignore me. I’m just playing.”
While play is absolutely essential to everything I’m inspired to create, I’ve been using it to trick myself into playing small. (As if playing could only be small.)
It’s time to admit this to myself and to you:
I’m playing the game of Changing the World.
Not because I have to. Not because it’s an obligation. Not because it’s my destiny.
Just because it’s FUN.
(That’s what play is, by the way. Doing something for the experience of it without attachment to results.)
And I’m damn good at playing incredible, impossible things into existence with my friends and clients.
When you tell a story with me, you’re not just telling a story. You’re changing your life…if you’re willing to choose it.
I have a new mantra.
“I play and get paid.”
Say it with me, if you dare.
“I play and get paid.”
My work is play. It’s easy and fun, and I get to do it however it inspires me.
It’s time for me to quit downplaying what I do by saying that it’s “just” play or an experiment.
Every ounce of my considerable gifts, talent, and energy go into that play and it is transformation in its raw form.
When I ponder getting paid to PLAY, it fills my heart with joy.
This is what I was born to do.
And, I dare say, what you were born to do, too.
What game would you like to play?
***
Watch the rivers, how they run and play.
See the trees, how they dance and sing in the breeze.
Even the rocks are worn and etched by the game of time.
The Universe plays through every molecule down to the tiniest space of space of space of between atoms.
You are made to play.
All you do is play.
You have forgotten in your world-weary heaviness how to lift your head and scream the energy that creates worlds.
Yet still you play.
Even now you play.
You play the game of Life is Suffering.
You play the game of Everything Happens to Me.
You play the game of I’ll Have Revenge At Last.
Can you feel how you love this play?
You cannot escape it.
You were born of play.
The game you play is up to you.
P.S. I’m looking for story playmates! If you’re interested in using the power of story to transform your life, contact me for more details.
