“No one can play a game alone.  One cannot be human by oneself.”
- James P. Carse, Finite and Infinite Games

Amen.

Connection is Martha Beck’s 9^th menu item on The Joy Diet.  This chapter, no matter how many times I read it, is the one that moves me the most.

Real soul-deep connection with others is frightening, yet counter-intuitively the most effective way to remain secure.

On the down side, allowing love to flow unconditionally will guarantee that you will be hurt.  But, as Martha points out, “as long as you never react by cutting off your willingness to love, you will always – always – emerge from these situations with more capacity for joy than you took into them.”

Due to the downside, I was afraid of this type of connection for a long, long time.  My belief (even though I didn’t consciously realize it) was that food was the “safe” friend and a connection to better feelings.

What a lie.

For a fleeting second, I would feel better by eating the chocolate hidden in the sock drawer.  Then I would berate myself for succumbing to unhealthy habits.  I was no more a friend to myself than the food was.

Then I went on The Joy Diet. I began to sit still with myself, listen to the truth about how I felt and take risks to get what I really wanted.

ALL of that meant building a real connection with myself first.  Connecting over and over…  move forward, second guess, trust in the connection with my soul, laugh, move forward…

And in that cycle, I got it.

The magic happens when you connect with your inner peace AND with others at the same time.

Unconditional love lives in this place.  It’s where you are fully present, inwardly truthful about what you want and then take the risk to openly communicate about it in your relationships.

I had a client e-mail me today with a gorgeous, sweet example of how you can’t help but be totally in love with someone else when you’re fully present with your own soul.

…this morning, as annoyed as I was that my daughter woke up super early and totally killed my alone time, I stayed present with the joy of having someone so incredibly happy to see me and snuggle with me every day.    Laughter and joy indeed.

There’s an old saying about connection that goes something like this… “There’s a ripple effect in all that we do. What you do touches me. What I do touches you.”

If there’s going to be a ripple effect… by golly, I want to feel it.  In the center of the ripple can be the calm, the connection to everyone else.  The rings can spread the energy you and I bring to the table.

The energy doesn’t always have to be generated from life changing movement and cliff jumping risks.  It can be as sweet and peaceful as a snuggle with a child when she’s taken the unknown risk of interrupting your best laid plans.

Love that.

Play is the place where, if you’re doing it right, you stop taking life so damn seriously. 

It is also essential to maintaining your sanity and losing weight. 

I forgot this minor detail for about twenty years.  Menu item #7 in Martha Beck’s The Joy Diet* reminded me that I could think of 99% of my daily routine as play.  So I changed my thinking.

You can too. 

If you engage in play, or lighten your thoughts, your mind become less heavy.  Do this consistently and your body will lighten too.  Life becomes more about the happy and less about the struggle.

So…
How do you increase your play when you have to work every waking hour?

Here are three of the steps from The Joy Diet:

First, define your real career. 
Not what you do in the cubicle.  What you do in life.  Ask yourself these questions:

• “When your life is over, how do you want the world to be different – in large ways or small – because you have lived?”
• “What experiences must you have to feel you’ve lived a completely satisfying life?”

Make a list.  The things on that list are what make up your REAL career.  Only these activities.  Everything else is stuff you do to prepare for it, ignore it, sabotage or support it.

Second, surrender to the idea that life is a game.
Just because there’s a paycheck attached doesn’t mean it can’t be play. Almost everything (outside of death and taxes) can be like playing a game if you reframe your thoughts around it.   Think about it…

• Your REAL Career – the game of meaning
• Work – the game of strategy
• Marriage – the game of love
• Parenting – the game of learning, diapers and teenage drama

Step back and think of the strategy you use to navigate the games you play each day.  When played with integrity and laughter, the games in your world can be less stressful and more joyful.  Even in that cubicle.

Third, ask whether the games you are playing serve you.
If you are not having fun or it’s distracting you from your real life’s work, consider switching games.  If it’s your teammates ruining the fun, switch to another team.   It’s not play if you don’t love the ones you’re with.

And… I added one more point since I like to play infinite games.

Fourth, are you playing for the sake of winning or for the joy of the game?
Either is fine and both can be fun.  Yet, how often have you found that playing to win creates a lot of stress and only fleeting joy?  I’m after something more sustainable.  

I’m on a quest for infinite games and players. 
The idea came from James P. Carse’s “Finite and Infinite Games.”  Here are the phrases that struck me:

• “A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play.”
• “Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.”
• “Surprise causes finite play to end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue.”
• “The finite play for life is serious; the infinite play of life is joyous.”
• “The joyfulness of infinite play, its laughter, lies in learning to start something we cannot finish.”

That laughter of infinite play is menu item #8.  Meet you back here next week for some unending fun.

In the meantime…

Are you a player?

*  This is the 8th post in a blog series based on Martha Beck’s The Joy Diet.  Previous posts discussed:
Doing Nothing, Truth, Desire, Creativity, Risk and Treats.  The next post will be on Laughter.  My favorite!