Don't forget to play!

This morning I took a yoga class with a great message, "Don't forget to play!"

Remember when you were a kid? Playing was a huge part of your life. It could be dancing, sports, daydreaming, creating, or anything. And when you played, you did not worry about how it looked or if what you were doing was accurate, it was all about how it felt. You laughed, you fell, you ran, you jumped for joy. It was wonderful.

The yoga instructor told us to play in this class. Take modifications that we want to do. Pop into a few handstand kicks, go to the wall and get upside down, stay in tree pose, or just take a child's pose as needed. She said, "Just play and do what feels good!"

When was the last time you allowed yourself to just play? We allow the guardrails of life to stay up. We spend time living, and thinking, inside of the box of adulthood. I remember the episode of Friends where Phoebe was running like she did as a kid. She was flailing her arms and running all over the place. It looked ridiculous, but to her, it felt amazing. Phoebe wasn't worried about what people thought about how she ran, so only cared about how it made her feel.

Let's do more of that. Let's not worry about how we look, let's live in the moment and make it feel great. When I first started my yoga practice, I was so worried about people seeing me do poses wrong or doing modifications because I was a beginner (I know, that is absurd.) Honestly, this thinking got in the way of me understanding what the poses should feel like. Once I was able to let go and not worried about how I looked, I loved my yoga practice so much more. I was able to play and to make it all about how my body felt. 

Don't ever forget this in your yoga practice. Be less concerned about how it looks and focus on how it feels. Just get out there and play!