Over the last few weeks I’ve been working a lot on my new website, LifeGloss, which is kind of like “Daily Candy” for the soul. I am super excited about it, and love seeing the community of women on the site grow each day…all dreamers, inspired girls! And, we are strong, filled with hope, but not without (sometimes) wanting to pull our hair out. We are real women, each with our own story, each with something to learn and something to teach.

So, one of the categories on the site is “Play”. You know I am a total goofball, and love being silly. Sometimes I just break into random song and dance as if life were a musical, singing to my husband to pass the ketchup. Yes, poor man.

It was pretty interesting, though. We sent out a message to our LifeGloss community in our newsletter, on our social networks, and in HARO, of course,  asking “how you play”. We received tons of fantastic responses. But one theme kept coming up, playing with kids. As moms, aunts, sisters, daughters with children or without- we tend to think of the word “play” as something we do with a child.

I can relate! I play with my LuLu and the Little Man all the time. But there’s something transformational when we as adult women keep a child-like spirit even when we aren’t playing with the kids.  One response we received struck a “happy chord” with us. It came from Kara L.C Jones:

“I give myself permission to play. Period.”

Wow – how powerful! And so we asked Kara what she does for “play”, and her response had us smiling ear-to-ear yet again:

“My favorite playing is to give myself permission to eat my lunch outside, taking a bottle of soap bubbles with me to blow bubbles till my heart’s content!  I also love keeping a piece of sidewalk chalk in my bag, so I can draw public art wherever I am, even waiting for the bus!  Mostly it is giving myself permission to be patient in this impatient world. There is rush, rush, but I am moved to sit in the park and stare at the wind blowing the leaves to the ground. I give myself permission to just stop rushing and sit staring instead. Period. Everything can wait.”

And, it gets better! By Kara creating permission slips for herself, she created, a whole book and workshop for herself and others to keep up a practice of permission! She says:

“It’s been incredibly fun — and more inspiration to keep playing — to meet up with like-minded others.”

Kara L.C. Jones is Coach & heARTist at MotherHenna.com.

Kara’s Book: 1,000 Permissions Granted: a collection of creative permission slips

For More Information:
Kara’s Play Book can be found HERE
Kara’s Workshop can be found HERE