"A man will be imprisoned in a room with a door that's unlocked and opens inwards as long as it does not occur to him to pull rather than push."
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
As a Transformative Coach, I find it curious that as my clients begin to see the truth of where their experience of life comes from... (The Inside-Out); they often get really confused about what to do with their lives. However, upon further reflection, in a culture that is built on the pursuit of happiness(as it clearly states in the United States Constitution), it makes sense to be a bit confused when you discover that happiness and well-being are your true nature!
Upon seeing this truth, some questions come to mind: Why would you do things you don't want to do when you know you can have a beautiful experience of life right now? Why would you suffer and sacrifice your way to success when you know that your well-being is your natural state? What do I do with my life when I know that, "there" is not better than "here"; simply different?
These questions begin to point to a completely new paradigm that is, for the first time, based on the truth of the human experience. The truth being that our entire experience of life is being created moment by moment, through the thoughts flowing in and out of our heads. As my mentor Michael Neill says, we are in the midst of an Inside-Out Revolution.
This is the great unknown we are dealing with here; and it's worth spending some time exploring it. Don't be too quick to fill in the blanks of these questions with your habitual thinking. I encourage you to let them be filled in by the infinite intelligence behind life. But just for fun, let's explore one of them together.
As my clients begin to see the truth that we live in a thought created experience, they inevitably begin to ask me a version of the question, 'If having "better" circumstances and more external success can't make me happy , then what do I do with my life?"
The best answer I've come up with so far, is... why not just play to play?!
We've been conditioned to believe that winning at the game of life is really important, and inexorably linked to our happiness and well-being. But as you come to see the illusory nature of this idea, then playing to play seems to be a much more viable and enjoyable option.
Remember when you were younger, there was always at least one child who was obsessed with winning. They usually took to things like cheating, dirty play, and poor sportsmanship. When they won, they gloated and taunted, and then wanted to play again, so they could feel good about themselves some more. When they lost it was an earth shattering affair because they had associated their identity with the outcome. They almost certainly stopped having fun, and overtime, nobody wanted to play with them.
Now, consider most young children, before they have been taught the arbitrary and subjective ideas of winning and losing. They play for the sheer joy of playing. Their imagination and creativity run wild. The games they play evolve and unfold as they play them. They step boldly into the unknown, somehow knowing that answer to the question "what next?" will always come to them as they forge boldly ahead. They don't care about winning because somewhere deep down they know that winning doesn't really exist outside of their own mind.
If you watch these children, you will also notice that they play full out! They often play harder and with more freedom and clarity than anybody who is even slightly concerned with a particular outcome.
We were born to play, and create, and live in the divine unfolding of life. It is our very nature. Yet somehow we've been taught to either play it safe and move very cautiously through life. Or we play to win, 100% attached to outcomes, completely forgetting that we arbitrarily made up the rules and marked the finish line ourselves. We forgot that we are the very thing we have been searching for all this time.
As we begin to remember what was forgotten, most of the goals, and achievements, and outcomes you've been striving for simply lose their appeal. We stop playing to win because we know that "winning" is just a different outcome, not a better one.
Ironically, as we begin to play to play, and outcomes mean less and less, the creativity, freedom, and joy that we play with leads to winning more of the time. You may have also noticed that when you play well with others, winning the game of success is much easier.
In an inside-out world, you can't build a wonderful life out of a bunch of miserable moments and a handful of goals reached. A wonderful life is the result of a lot of individual moments of beauty, love, connection, joy, and wonder! Fortunately,those moments are the essence of who you are. When you see that, all that's left to do... is play.
Love and Light,
Tyler
P.S. If you are interested in working with me one on one, call my office(503-389-3778) or email me(coachtylerthurman@gmail.com) for a complimentary coaching consultation.
