Author Guest Post with Elliott Robertson [Tour]

Say Yes to Life provides you with seven keys to unconditional, abundant living. Each key opens a doorway to experiencing life as a gift.

Welcome to the July 30th stop on the blog tour for Say Yes to Life by Elliott Robertson with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, author guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

Playfulness: A Key to Happiness

About a year after completing Say Yes to Life: Seven Keys to Living Full Out from Within, I realized there is an important 8^th key that could be added. This key is so huge, however, that it might end out becoming a book. The title could be Playfulness: The Eighth Key to Living Full Out from Within.

That’s right, the spirit of play. Playfulness is discounted in our world these days. It’s relegated to childhood, something to be grown out of. But at what cost!

If Leonardo de Vinci hadn’t been playful, would he have invented the helicopter? If Copernicus hadn’t been playful, would he have been able to formulate a new model of the universe the Sun at the center instead of the Earth?

Without the spirit of playfulness, we are stuck with the world as we believe it to be. We all become nay-sayers who say There will never be a flying machine or Everyone knows the Sun goes around the Earth—it’s as plain as day.

Playfulness and creativity go hand in hand. They fortify one another. When one is playful, one is open to imagining what one has not yet encountered. “What if the world is like such and such?” becomes alive and captivating. The need to be right about the way things are loses its grip and making a mistake or perceiving incorrectly loses its sting.

When playfulness is leading the way, we can be Superman one moment, Wonder Woman the next—and simply by changing our capes.

When playfulness is the soup in which we live, we are more likely to come up with solutions to the problems we encounter from one day to the next.

Imagine you are expecting a friend over for dinner. You planned the meal before you went shopping the day before and bought everything you needed: salmon, red potatoes mushrooms, avocados and grapefruit. You had just discovered that avocados and grapefruit pair nicely and make for a nice simple salad and you wanted to share this discovery with your new friend.

You’re in the kitchen and everything is just about ready, so you start on the salad only to discover that the avocados may have looked nice on the outside but are rotten. And your friend is due to arrive in 15 minutes, not enough time to run to the store.

If you aren’t buoyed by the spirit of play and the humor it brings with it, the perfectionist might take over. And when the perfectionist takes over, it’s easy to get tunnel vision, to see only the details that have gone wrong, to decide that the meal is ruined (yes, sometimes perfectionism slides into unchecked drama).

But the Goddess of Playfulness has no interest in things being perfect. She likes to say, “So what? Does it really matter? I was really hoping to serve this thing or that, but maybe I can see what else is in the fridge?” She sometimes adds to her soliloquy, “Who will remember in 100 years?”

With the spirit of play leading the way, you aren’t overpowered as you are when perfectionist is at the helm. While perfectionism is quick to eclipse from your sight everything except for the problem or the failure, play opens the door to other places, thoughts and possibilities that can be explored.

Perhaps you’ll decide to call your friend and ask her to pick up 2 or 3 avocados on her way over. When she arrives, you can pour some wine and enjoy the first few minutes of your dinner party in the kitchen—nothing wrong with asking her to watch you add the avocado to the grapefruit and toss them in the salad bowl.

As a coach, I believe in focusing on cultivating new habits in a container—in one area of your life. Improvising playfully in the kitchen a few times a week can help the spirit of playfulness become more animated within you. If you keep it up for a few weeks when preparing dinners, the spirit of playfulness could start showing up in other areas, surprising you in new contexts and different places.

When we are challenged, we need playfulness more than ever because we need to see a vast array of possibilities before us—we don’t need tunnel vision. And it seems to me that we are challenged these days, collectively and as individuals.

I’m not making any promises, but I think it might be fun to write a book about the power of playfulness.

About the Book

Say Yes to Life
7 Keys to Living Full Out From Within
by Elliott Robertson

Published 25 November 2019
Tellwell Talent

Genre: Non-Fiction, Self-Help
Page Count: 134
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Say Yes to Life provides you with seven keys to unconditional, abundant living. Each key opens a doorway to experiencing life as a gift.

This book will guide you to the depths of your heart where you long to celebrate life with a wholehearted “Yes!”

You will be led to a place of greater authenticity.
You will be encouraged to take joy in who you are.
Only willingness is needed to embrace yourself with gladness.
With your true Self in the driver’s seat and the ego in the back seat, life takes on a new vibrancy.

Now you are present to yourself, to your companions, and the cosmos. The mountaintop appears and beckons you into the fullness that has always been awaiting you.

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Excerpt

Take a moment now, dear one, to be with your inner child. Tell this little one, “You are entirely unique.” Let this little one know you treasure this uniqueness. Say, “The way Love flows through you is individual. God’s love flows through no one else in quite the same way as through your soul.”

Give your full attention to the child you used to be. This child lives within you until the end. Tell this one, “I treasure you because you are. And one of the things I love especially about you, little one, is your uniqueness. How I love you, especially you.”

After you have spoken this, aloud or silently, listen simply, without agenda or expectation. Instead of a certain expectation for this listening time, bring expectancy, an openness and presence, a sweet anticipation of this chance to hear what the inner child would share.

Listen to whatever might come forward. Perhaps your inner child will respond to what you’ve said. Perhaps some guidance from on high will stream to you, or maybe you will share a moment of silence with this one within you.

About the Author

Elliott Robertson is a Happiness Coach. He holds an MA in Psychology and has been certified as a Happy for No Reason workshop facilitator. His articles have appeared in several magazines, including Science of Mind and Miracles Magazine.

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Giveaway Alert!

Elliott Robertson will be awarding a $15 Amazon or Barnes & Noble gift card to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.