Lightening up is not as easy as our desire would like it to be. It takes practice to shift our self-perceptions and welcome in and let out playful, expansive energy.
The transformative work I have done to see and share my truth have all lead me back to this one key: I need to ALTER my EGO. By embracing my humanity through awakening my playful spirit, I have loosened and lightened up, and observed my mask of seriousness mostly dissolve.
Our Ego is fabulous fodder from which can grow self-observation, self- amusement and eventually the courage to shine light and appreciation on our authenticity. Within the chaos that can be created from its limiting perception, we are urged to quest for greater understanding of our truth. We need the Ego for awareness and as something we push through to reveal more of who we are, allowing magic to happen and transformation to occur.
By altering our Ego, we begin to understand the fine line between letting our story go and embracing it. We honor our past rather than push against it, and welcome in the power of both creative imagination and the experience of our curious, spontaneous, playful selves, without the heaviness of needing to justify ourselves.
Spiritually speaking, dualistic thinking has long since plagued the sensibilities of humankind. To move within a world of joy, ease and grace, we must courageously trust the concept of oneness, not only of all peoples, and of all living energy, but of our spiritual inheritance with the One Infinite Intelligence back of all life, the very God of our understanding. In this way of living, by listening and following Divine guidance sourced within, we can relax and become loving responders, reflectors and witnesses to the journeys of the many within the One, rather than reactors, blamers and critics.
As I remarked earlier, loosening up, lightening up is true spiritual work, a practice indeed which will unearth its exact opposite. Whenever we grasp tightly onto our identity, we are affirming our intention to remain safe and defend the way we choose to manage our lives through being on autopilot. We convince ourselves that we are just fine, that life is just fine and all we really need is to become truly grateful for what we have. But what happens in this model, to being grateful for who we are being? Our EGO knows and propagates our fear; fear of being vulnerable, rejected, perhaps even seen for all our perceived shortcomings; fears like looking silly or stupid or losing control. These types of fear create our mask of seriousness, sabotaging our authentic joy, our capacity for creative thinking, and the sharing of our compassionate hearts. This same EGO knows that our Souls are meant to evolve in expression and therefore experience on this spiritual quest of our coming home to oneness with the true Nature of Being. If the Soul had its way, we would be evoking the presence of our childlike spirit through curiosity, wonder and spontaneity, more of the time than not!
And just a note here, our childlike spirit doesn’t circumvent any of our feelings or our emotional expressions, but does hold the power and magical sense that comes with radical acceptance of all that is.
“There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is nor how valuable nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open.
“Not only are you a bad judge of your own work, it is not your job to judge your own work. It is not your place to compare it to others. It is not your responsibility to figure out how valuable it is or how useful it can be. It is not your job to tell yourself “NO!” Instead, your responsibility is to create. Your job is to share what you have to offer from where you are right now.” – Martha Graham
As we must express to experience, awakening to the natural instincts, insatiable curiosity and innate connection to the mystery in our childlike spirit, helps us to authentically navigate living IN the world, with much less effort and stress…and WAY MORE FUN! Our childlike spirit gives us permission to accept ourselves, to play, loosen and lighten up and bridge the experience of our humanity and our divinity as being two things.
There has never been a time of greater need for each person to remember that underneath all the hats we wear and behind all our diverse looks, styles, personalities and mask consciousness, is a resounding opportunity to live more gently in the ‘flow’ and ‘mystery’ of this thing called Life.
Here is a “Loosen up, Lighten up” Affirmation you may find useful:
I have fun rediscovering my curious, innocent, & spontaneous childlike spirit. I am open to the freedom of my authentic nature and expression.
In honor of our shared journey,
