But I believe that if we played more, with ourselves and with others, there wouldn’t be so much need for the self-help industry.  The answer is simple.  Achieving it has become complicated.

Children “make-believe.” Isn’t that the same as what “grown-ups” try to do with affirmations and “living as if”? The difference is that when we are children, it’s not make-believe, we know it’s all possible because no one has told us it isn’t.  WE BELIEVE.  And isn’t that the key to affirmations and manifestation tools?

We are kings and queens and princes and princesses in foreign lands.  We join the circus.  We become unicorns.  We make silly faces at each other and talk in made up languages,   We laugh when we fart and when we burp.  We make up and sing silly songs.   We are unselfconscious and so real, so authentic.  We jump on the bed and play dress up.  We eat the raindrops and the mud.

And we laugh and we laugh and we laugh

Laughter is one of the most potent heart openers.  When we play, we administer medicine to our souls, and our lives heal in the places we need it most.

My mother was a kindergarten teacher for 30 years. Because she was surrounded by little children all the time, she retained that silly, playful, lightheartedness. There were times after I had become an adult where I thought she was being too silly. But that  was social conformity penetrating my mind.    I now  realize what a gift it was to her to be surrounded by five-year-olds for 30 years.

As a mother, I remember those early days with my own daughter. She’s 21 now and as I watch her in her struggle to find the belief in herself that she had as a child, I realize the damage that our society and even our schools, which are “mental institutions,” have done to diminish her access to this part of herself. I know that many of you who are parents can relate to this.

So go and find some children, they’re all around us. Smile at them, make faces at them as you drive, Let them help you tear down the walls and doors of your internal prisons. Let the love that they radiate permeate your being until you find your own inner child smiling and tugging at your leg for a playdate.

And then play with yourself.  Find other playmates and make playdates.  Support each other in silliness.

Here’s one of my playmates, my dear friend Christina Afentoulis, being silly with me in a public place at a “grown up” event.  Yes, people will frown at you and give you dirty looks.  BUT WHO CARES??? Just play.