Top o’ the Mornin’ to Ya!
TLDR: Discover why guilt-free play isn’t optional for Kingdom Family Leaders, and how play with guilt sabotages your success AND you can’t love your neighbors higher than you love yourself.
What?
Happy New Year. I’ve got a nice trickling snow out here at three degrees. We had kids over with kid friends and our adult married kids, just had a nice celebration. When’s the last time you got out and played? I spent a big chunk of time last night just playing Minecraft with my two boys. I got done and it was so neat because it was completely guilt free play.
So many times I play and there’s that little tinge of guilt, that little self judgment, that little warning about “Hey, your wife never plays” and “Hey, you don’t deserve to play.” My first career as a ski racing coach, my job was play. I skied every day. I worked out, and that was work and play. I got paid to work out. I got paid to do all this stuff, and I always played. So that contributes to my play challenges. Plus my parents are very intense about work hard, work hard, work hard. So I’ve taken on that nature myself.
A question I’ve asked in mastermind and Bible study over the last few years is “How do you play?” I race sailboats for play. I go to a board game night for play, meet people, get out and play with them. And there’s different levels of guilt that shows up.
As the first pillar of the Kingdom Family Leader, we need to bless ourselves. If we aren’t in a position to have guilt free play, we’re sabotaging ourself. We’re sabotaging our success. We’re sabotaging where we can be at because “Love your neighbors as yourself.” The healtiest level we can love our “neighbors” at is the level we love ourselves at.
What’s the guilt free part? What’s the guilt part? The guilt part is something that’s unresolved, something that’s in conflict, something that’s not out on the table, whether it’s unconscious and conscious, or whether it’s between your spouse, or between your friends, or some historic event in your life that’s causing you to not have guilt free playtime.
We need to celebrate. We need to play. We need to relax. Even as we look at kids finances, we got the spend (or play) the save and the give jars.
Why?
I share this because Kingdom Family Leaders work hard and feel guilty every time they play. There’s that tinge of guilt, that self judgment, that warning “You don’t deserve to play.” We sabotage ourselves by playing with guilt instead of guilt-free.
The first pillar is bless ourselves. If we aren’t in position to have guilt free play, we’re sabotaging our success. “Love your neighbors as yourself” – if I can’t love myself up to a certain level, I can’t love my neighbors up to that level.
Lesson
Guilt-free play isn’t optional. Its a health requirement. If you aren’t in position to have guilt free play, you’re sabotaging yourself and everyone around you.
“Love your neighbors as yourself.” How I love myself is my ceiling for healthy loving neighbors.
Play with guilt is play sabotaged. So many times I play and there’s that tinge of guilt, that self judgment, that warning “Your wife never plays” or “You don’t deserve to play.” That guilt comes from something unresolved, something in conflict, something not out on the table – whether unconscious and conscious conflict, or between spouse, or between friends, or historic event causing you to not have guilt free playtime.
We need to celebrate. We need to play. We need to relax. Even kids finances – we got to spend the play jar, not just the give jar.
The guilt part is something unresolved. Get it out on the table. Resolve the conflict between unconscious and conscious, between you and spouse, between you and friends. Resolve the historic event so you can have guilt free play.
Apply
This week, identify one area where you play with guilt – that tinge of self judgment, that warning “You don’t deserve this.” Ask: what’s unresolved? What’s the conflict not out on the table? Is it unconscious vs conscious? Between you and spouse? A historic event? Get it out. Resolve it. Then play guilt-free.
You be blessed!
