Day 69 - The Playfulness Hack

Day 69 - The Playfulness Hack

This one is life changing when you realize it for yourself

I have noticed my wife Jessica and I our relationship has changed already from applying this

So I'll write this in the context of your relationship with your significant other, but it can be extrapolated out to any relationship

Last week on Friday night we were on the Self-Perfected Hangout. On the calls I have a responsibility to help share and connect with people as I'm one of the co-founders of the group.

Also though - its at the end of the day, my kids want to see me. Every time I go in the kitchen my son Xander wants to be picked up.

So I'll be on the zoom call, super focused, then I walk in to get water or some food and then he's crying and wants me to pick him up.

So I noticed in that moment I pick him up, I'm distracted, I can't really support him in that moment. So I walk up to Jessica and said 'you gotta take him'

I said it in a tone that was direct, it was also from a point of 'you do it, I'm not gonna 'deal with this' right now' that kind of vibe

And she was in the middle of unloading the dishwasher, so she didn't reply right away.

I was impatient so I said again - 'Hey Jess I need you to confirm that you can take him I'm on the call'... and after what to ME felt like forever, and to Jess was the next moment, she said yeah sure I can take him

I noticed a reaction in me, this whole character of 'You gotta reply faster to me! Can't you see i'm doing something important? He is our son, I can't nurture him right now, you should listen to me' That was the whole 'inner backchat' character lol

And later, Jessica and I discussed it, where from her perspective she was thinking 'yeah I heard you, I just had to put the dishes away, but also that tone you used was not fun at all it was like you just wanted to pass him off to me, so I wasn't fully thrilled to just drop what I was doing - that I know is also important.'

So in that moment we both decided that there is a WAYYYYYY better way to do this. Shout out Jess she came up with it

She said 'well what if you in that moment you need to pass him off.... what if you said something like Hey sexy mama, I have this handsome boy that needs some care and attention, incoming!! and then playfully pass him over to me? 

That way its fun for her, our son Xander will think its awesome, and for ME as the man, its a chance for me to be flexible instead of so stern and thinking 'I need to just get this over with so I can do my more 'important' stuff' lol

So we implemented it right away

And the results have been wonderful

The first time it was a similar situation, and within myself I was about to just hand him off and then I remember - oh yeah make it playful and I said something like 'I have a handsome boy here who needs a beautiful mom to hold him! Here he is' and I said it in a playful voice, it was awesome. Jess literally said 'wowwww!!! yes come here!'

She said 'its like you put a spell on me and I couldn't escape' 

Now of course we're playing... but this is the power of words and expression

So we named it the Playfulness Hack

And we notice other times in our day where there's something either mundane, or something that is more 'serious' like we must talk about planning how we clean up our property to prepare for winter

And in these moments we sometimes have memories accumulated, like last year we left out some of our garden supplies/rakes/shovels and they got ruined over winter. And so its this 'point' of contention where we had neglected our responsibilities in the past, judged ourselves over it, and then now its a point of where we can break through the 'time loop' and not do the same thing again.

So Jess brings this up to me, and there's a little bit of contention in it, she wants to convey that its serious - which I agree with. But for me, at 10 pm at night after I've had a 'long day' and I am almost asleep, my 'mind' defaults to - Jess lets just talk about it later when we can do something about it.

Those little moments - where its important, it matters to come to a solution, and there's an energetic charge to it, and there's 2 differing view points... this is a tinder-box that in any other relationship can explode into a fight

But in that moment, because Jess and I have done so much work on ourselves, and we're united in agreement/principle, it was a fun moment where we both caught it, we started laughing. We are like 'ok wow look at us getting all serious about the fact our shovels were buried under the leaves and it started to snow. 

Yes its still an important matter... but the playfulness hack is what actually will get us to resolve it.. not just being all 'serious' about it because it drains the fun, it turns it into an activity thats not life giving, and we just treat it like necessary responsibility drudgery.

So the playfulness hack is this = in the moment where you want to be serious and get a point across to your partner, be flexible in your expression, say it in a new way, have fun with it. Still get the point across - but in this way it actually lands and inspires action, and it becomes a fun 'level up' in your relationship that opens up entirely new dynamics.

Test it out today