THE ALCHEMY OF LIVING PLAYFULLY

Date Published: December 3, 2018

Things work out differently than we imagine; better said ‘play out’ differently! Even though most of my offerings are in English, my first Tedx talk was last year in Argentina in Spanish. It’s been thirteen months since then and this week I decided to transcribe it to English.

Here you go. Your turn : D

La Alquimia de Vivir Jugando – The Alchemy of Living Playfully

Some time ago, when my son Sebastian was 2 or 3 years old, holding on to the edge of his crib he called out “I woke up again! I woke up again”, with so much joy and awe for life!

So different to the many mornings I have woken up frustrated, lost, or with a broken heart.

You might understand; we are privileged, we’re here listening to these Tedx talks, our lives are not in danger, we have food to eat and curious minds, we can share with other people.

Having so much, how is it possible for me to wake up unhappy?

What does that leave for my kids and the future generations? What can we teach them?

I am here to share with you the alchemy of living playfully. Awaken Flow. What if there was a guide? Something easy, which respected my personality and my beliefs, that could incorporate everything I learn in a spontaneous and easy way to live and share with joy?

The World needs this!

What has life offered me as guidance? …because I’ve always been a good student! Copy my parents and society, follow: my religion, different spiritual groups, and lineages, the path of modern day success. Or make my own path, and I did all of that!

Every Sunday, I went to church until I was 18 years old. I studied economics like my dad, I have an MBA from the University of Chicago where my dad did his PhD, I married my first boyfriend like my parents, and when I had kids, I stopped working like my mom had, and I moved following my husband like she also did.

Therefore, it’s not surprising that the moment we moved to a house where we planned to live until the kids were 18, that my head started spinning and spinning and spinning. So before life really challenged me, I made a decision.

I couldn’t grow in that marriage, so I took my own path. What happened was that I began to explore, travel, study, a shamanic diet in the Amazon, Kumba Mela in India, silence retreats, courses, workshops, books, endlessly studying.

Was I happier now?

No. I still had distractions and dramas. I had two decades of an eating disorder that made me feel broken and undeserving of love. I dreaded the thought of speaking in public, even to a group. I really preferred to die. At home I didn’t have peace. My kids would come back from their dad’s place changed and difficult. I felt that I didn’t belong anywhere with all my travels, studies, exploration of self, trying understand what I am. I didn’t fit in anywhere! I had invested almost all my money and had liquidity issues. So I moved on several occasions to my parents empty apartment to rent out mine.

No only that. I also felt guilty that everything that I had studied, I wasn’t consistently implementing. For one year, I held space for weekly gatherings (Menafesting Community) where I brought healers and teachers to share, yet I realized that we weren’t implementing the teachings.

So then, I decided to create a group for implementation.

In that desire to be of service and help others, the magic happened. Many times when I want to give, I receive. It was magnificent to see it unfold. What I am going to share with you today is in gratitude to all those people who have gone through challenges in their lives and they have become teachers. I learned from many many people and I want to honor them and incorporate into my life what they teach. I wish for all their struggles not to be in vain.

I am curious, how many of you graduated from… kindergarten? Super. So we all know how to play, we’ve just forgotten. If we understand how practical and efficient it is in our life to play, we will do it more often.

I want to start with a formula. We are here in this NOW. We know that there is a happier, more authentic NOW, and between these there is a GAP. So how can we close that gap?

After all that exploration and studying, I was inspired to summarize it into three symbols:

=, +, –

The equal sign points to the law of attraction (with a twist). If I want to be there (in the more authentic now), I have to vibrate now in that same frequency. I will give you the typical example of the car: If I am called to have a red car, maybe it won’t bring me the joy that I expected because I won’t enjoy leaving it at the valet or my friends won’t fit in the back. Think of what qualities are behind the vision. The red car can represent expansion, youthfulness, adventure. So I can already choose to feel these qualities now.

The plus sign points at what I can do today, in this moment, to get closer to that vision. I have to take steps because we are in a physical dimension. I can’t just sit on the couch feeling that I am already successful. I have to find myself on the path.

The negative sign points at observation. What did I do today that took me further away from my happier now? Don’t judge it. Every experience is an opportunity to improve habits. If my objective is to wake up in the morning feeling ‘energized and clear-minded’ and a friend invites me to eat pizza and drink beer, next time I can be ready to choose a better habit. I can meet my friend to ride a bike, play tennis or something more aligned with my intention.

Thanks to wanting to share more with others, I kept learning.

That part is how I do my discipline. Everyday I make time, at any moment, to ask myself how I want to feel (=), what actions can I take (+) and what better habits (-) can I incorporate.

And then there is Flow, which requires discipline. What happens? I am human. Very human actually. I feel strong emotions: at times I am very upset, others I am sad.

So we can CREATE with these emotions (instead of fear them). What do I do when I am sad? Many times I sleep. Other times I call my friends and ask for help. Or I write a poem (which ended up becoming a book I published: The Alchemy of Words). Here is where we are doing our alchemy!

If I am angry, I can go exercise, or maybe write a manifesto for change and transformation and I wait until I am calm to share it.

This is how the playing appears with the formula.

We have the Now. The Happier now.

I attain balance with my discipline by addressing the =, + and -.

Then I can flow with the emotions.

I love to visualize the game as a hexagon because it’s the shape within the beehive. What the bees are doing is working to get the nectar. The nectar of life. At the top, is the objective of all of this which is to unwrap our gifts.

At the base is SELF-LOVE. Recently, I realized for the first time in my life that I was asking for my life to be magnificent. Have you asked for that? I ask for this life to be magnificent!

I am my own hero. I am not waiting to be invited, for others to understand me, to be accepted. Today I chose to live. Even when I have fears, I will not allow anything to stop me from living from my heart and passion.

The second side of the hexagon is the BODY. What is our relationship to our body? We want to be strong, flexible, confident, and be able to use it as our vehicle. We don’t want to punish it. It’s best to have a healthy relationship with it.

Third side is RELATIONSHIPS: How are we relating with people? What I realized is that it is fundamental to have an inner circle of people who support me, who believe in me (and I do that for them!). With others outside that circle, I can respect that some teach me things I am inspired by, and others show me what I don’t want, yet I know how to establish boundaries and have healthy No’s in my life because I stand by my truth.

The 4th element is that of INNER VISION, and I have dedicated myself to this. Sometimes I ask kids I’m teaching, “who showers?”. All of them respond “yes!” When I ask who cleans up inside… What?

There are many thoughts, emotions, energies that play against us. Many times, even when we are trying our best, we end up in the same place or even backtracking. It is important to pay attention to our inner reality and be sovereign. To be sovereign in our bodies we need to be present and know what’s going on to live an aligned life.

The element of PASSION allows us to evaluate the overall flow state in our life. If I am riding a bike, skating or playing the guitar, that can establish a point of reference for other areas in my life. In truth we can Be in that fullness and enjoyment in life.

When we take all the elements: I love myself, I have a healthy body, I have a good relationship with people, I know my inner world, I am passionate with my activities, then I can offer a more aligned life and UNWRAP MY GIFTS (6th element).

The ‘YES card’! If there is something that can help me, I say yes to it. As a society we are disconnected: I say Yes to connect more with nature, to connect more to the truth of what I am. If it’s there, it will help me. If it’s not, there’s nothing to loose. I choose to be supported in my life.

As each one of us is happier and living from our gifts, we can share and motivate each other, and from this space help the World, which really needs it at these times!

Under this Full moon, I declare that I want to, that I can, and that I AM unraveling and sharing the gifts I bring to the World.

I invite you to place your hands over your heart, and for these seeds of the gifts you bring, to keep growing every day, feeling now, taking action, and choosing more aligned habits.

So if you feel this is true for you, I invite you to create your tribe and play!