GAME = FUN
GAME = EASE
GAME = LOW STAKES
GAME = A WONDERFUL WAY TO LEARN & PRACTICE SOMETHING NEW
GAME = GETTING OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY
GAME = NOT TAKING IT TOO SERIOUSLY
GAME = Since this is no big deal, I’m going to see how well I can do, have fun doing it, and not worry about results. (Aka, detachment from outcomes already in place.)

I’m going to tell you here about a game I made up to play with clients that has served us all very well.

Think of it as a manifestation game. Or think of it as a way to play with everyday magic. Or simply see it as an opportunity to feel more alive and generate more easy fun as you move through each new day.

You may know I’m a proponent of grand experiments. This is a small one! It costs next to nothing (a simple intention & some awareness) and can yield high results. Kind of like buying a scratch-off lottery ticket and winning the jackpot—except it’s more fun than scraping gray gummy stuff off a card with the edge of a quarter.

The button game allows you to gather bits of data every day that confirm your relationship with a responsive Universe—you’re in dialogue with Source energy and not the only one talking. Maybe you already cultivate and love being in a dance with consciousness. Or perhaps you want to increase your ongoing awareness of your connection to your Inner Being and ALL THAT IS (along with the delicious fun & sense of belonging that goes with that). If you have any interest whatsoever in knowing & harnessing your power to create your reality or living in conscious contact with all that is alive and sparkles, I highly encourage you to run this gentle experiment.

Image of castle in the mist from Tim Rebkavets on Unsplash.

The basis of the button game is an intriguing quote from Abraham-Hicks: It’s as easy to manifest a castle as a button.

Maybe you beg to differ. Buttons are a dime a dozen. You may be wearing several right now. So you have little or no resistance to buttons—no aversion, outrage, annoyance, or even much of an opinion! You’re not worried about not having enough buttons or being unworthy of buttons. You’re not concerned about anyone seeing you as an entitled jerk or a fraud if you have too many or insufficient buttons. You don’t think you need more resources than you have access to in order to fill up on all the buttons you could want. They’re just buttons!

Conversely, you might have all kinds of resistance to castles. Just reverse everything above, and there it is: lots of reasons to keep castles way out of reach from the realm of possibility you typically reside in.

So how do you play the button game?

If you’re curious about this idea that it could be as easy to manifest a castle as a button, then at least show yourself that you’re a rock star at manifesting buttons. Establish with a playful daily practice—a GAME— that you can manifest a button just because you’re carrying that intention and constantly seeing it fulfilled. You’ll find your solid footing on the button end of the scale and, from there, you can scooch all the way to castles.

Note that you’re not GENERATING buttons. You’re inviting life to send buttons your way, then your job is to notice that life is doing just that. Look, there’s a button! Damn, another button! Add to your job description to appreciate the button, admire the button, enjoy the button, and more than all of that, appreciate that you’ve set up a game to play with the Universe (the Force, Source energy, God, whatever you like) AND IT HAS JOINED YOU IN IT.

Which can equally happen if you play a castle game. If you go for the things you want in life (the job, the relationship, the creative expression) and you actually believe that your intention plus noticing how life is playing with you can bring it on. …

But start with buttons.

Image of person buttoning up a nicely crumpled linen golden shirt from Hrant Khachatryan on Unsplash.

​​To play the button game, declare a low-stakes (button-sized) thing you’d like to see every day that you have no resistance to and ultimately no need for. You’re going to manifest this thing daily just because you’re intending and inviting that. It will in no way affect your life, never mind your well-being, if you turn out to be a total loser at this game. (You won’t, though.) Clients I’ve played this game with (especially in my manifestation groups) have declared these sorts of things as buttons:

• turtles, horses, frogs, butterflies—any creature that delights
• something specific about a creature (yellow birds, birds doing the unexpected,
  catheadbutts—that’s one word, tells me the creator of that button)
• gold and golden things
• feathers
• heart-shaped things
• numbers (particular numbers, palindromic numbers, repeating numbers in a lineup—as when the clock says 11:11)
• things that feels warm & fuzzy, or cute & funny, or …
• other people reaching out first or initiating things
• things symbolic of growth or increases or expansion
• playful exchanges with others (not just human beings)

Note that button-sized is quite a subjective concept. If you have a big story about feeling disconnected and no one else ever reaching out to you first, then setting other people reaching out first or initiating things as your button won’t work at all. It’s got too much charge. Go for something easy that will rev up no resistance FOR YOU.

When you’ve got buttons down, you can go for something bigger on your way to castles. Perhaps you’re already up for a heftier project. Find your just-right level of engagement, and tweak it if it’s not feeling fun and easy. This game works best when it activates your joy, delight, awe, wonder …
​
A word about forms (and more of what the button game can teach you)
Let your daily button surprise you. It can take many forms, and some may be so unexpected, you could miss them altogether. Some buttons already obviously leave room for unspecified form—for example, heart-shaped things could come as flowers, leaves, rocks, puddles, clouds; jewelry, dots on I’s, a mark on a dog’s fur; a dollop of mashed potatoes, a pile of laundry on the floor.

But any button can come to you in various forms and venues. Here are just a few:

• you see it when you’re out in the physical world
• it shows up on a screen (whether you’re already engaged or your gaze just lands on a relevant image in passing)
• it’s featured in a magazine, a podcast, a stand-up comedian’s bit
• you overhear others talking about it
• it comes to your door
• someone delivers it in an anecdote (which they think has nothing to do with you!)
• it wafts in on some song lyrics

My client whose button was yellow birds had it delivered one day in audio form when someone else had the TV on. Their focus on their own task was interrupted by a classic cartoon voice—Tweetie Bird musing out loud about spotting a cat. (Does everyone know what color Tweetie Bird is?)

When I was playing with unexpected bird sightings, I had so much fun with that. The red cardinal poking in and out of a bush in different spots. The sparrow in the coffee shop’s outdoor space taking a sip of water from the edge of the dog dish provided. The hawk suddenly twisting at the tree line as if deciding on the fly to perch here now (with a brilliant flash of sun on its fiery tail feathers).

I recently launched a new round with TWEAKS as my button—that is, representations of little adjustments needed (as opposed to major revamps). I hadn’t thought of my new button once on day one, until my last client told me they were bringing a topic that just needed a tweak. I got a fun little jolt and felt a little secret smile form inside me. (I love that aspect of the button game.)

In every realm of life, the Universe can always bring in what you want in any number of forms. Super-specific instructions about your desires are not needed (and indeed, could get in the way of forms coming in that you haven’t yet dreamed up—certainly not that specifically)! The button game will give you a visceral knowing of this truth as you engage with it daily, and better, feel surprised and delighted by the plenitude and sheer brilliance of the forms your intention takes when manifest.

As in all of life, you don’t need, in the button game, to determine the how. You don’t need to figure out, declare, or orchestrate the specifics of what comes to you. Staying with the general essence of what you want and knowing that it’s on the way is the bulk of what’s needed. Watch for it, and fully enjoy and appreciate it when you notice it’s here.

Trust your own capacity to recognize what you’re after, and maybe find a time daily to remember and savor your button—or look for it retroactively if you missed it in the moment. What you playfully train yourself to do in the button game, you can do with everything you want in life. And that could even be castles!

Love & blessings, Jaya

Did you notice this post has an audio version? See button just under the title.

The day I sent this post out in an email, I meant to get it out earlier but I got busy googling Can you freeze red lentil soup? and then best lesbian dating apps for Kansas City, then I looked again to make sure I hadn’t missed any of the free NYT daily puzzles.

Just kidding. I HAVE, however, been thinking about how distractions have innocent motives*. Your little or grand time-wasting side trips carry messages & invitations for your greater well-being—if only they can elbow past your self-accusations of lazy distractible unfocused procrastinating or whatever you choose to call it to make yourself feel bad.

(*Thank you to brilliant coach Jude Spacks for giving me this phrase and concept of the innocent motive.)

Ever notice that feeling bad about your behavior (thus yourself) is possibly the LEAST likely way to move away from what you’re not loving? It’s certainly not the easiest, quickest, or kindest way out!

So, wanna drop the judgments with me for a moment and explore what wants to come through that could actually feel good to you? That could in fact usher you right into the next bigger-better version of yourself?

DISCLAIMER: Please don’t misread me and think I’m saying you should never play games or run curious online searches or binge-watch a good show. I’m not saying that at all. I’m addressing the surplus of that—and how you know it’s too much is not related to a concept or number of minutes. Just this: It feels like too much TO YOU. It feels BAD.

See what hits you in this list of possible invitations seeking to come in when you reach for the stuff that zaps your time and messes with your ideas of productivity. Which messages might be for you? Or what else do they bring in as fresh ideas for what you’re really after?

Your (loving, entirely UNscolding) guidance system may be saying:

• Are you sure you’ve been playing enough, honey? Schedule in some fun time more consciously. Stuff that’s REALLY fun, please. Run & play with dogs & children. Ambush a cat who will ambush you back. Dance, laugh, take a field trip somewhere new.
  
• Hey, you’re really seeking to alleviate some discomfort here. Move away from your [desk, cubby, work station] more often. Take more small breaks. GO OUTSIDE, even to step out and breathe a bit with your senses activated. Move the body and get energy flowing all through you. Give your eyes the rest and treat of looking up into trees, skies, light.
  
• The thing you’re avoiding you actually want to do. There are some [fears, worries, not-sure-how’s] in the way. Come along. Let’s step into the shallow end at your point of least resistance and take one simple step with ease. See how that goes. Watch for the possibility of momentum building.
  
• You’re not CLEARLY making certain choices in your life to create & experience more of what’s actually important to you—what you truly want. Where are you abdicating to what others want from or expect of you? Choose what you actually want to be/do/have in order to fully be you (then maybe you won’t choose this piddly-distraction stuff you don’t actually want to give hours to).

It could be so many things! More below for you to see what’s yours or jogs your thinking toward the more precise issue/s for you.​

  

• There’s something you’re [sad, mad, confused, disturbed] about and you’d actually feel better sitting with that a minute. What if you just sat and breathed it without trying to figure it out? Just feel it in the body and give it a kind, compassionate gaze. Pause to breathe in and around it. Don’t go to the head, leave solutioning alone, and instead offer what feels bad a few conscious moments to see what may arise.
  
• ACTUALLY, dear one, you’re too obsessed with productivity, and your inner rebel wants to push against that. Consider your natural fluctuations of energy. What if you went with the flow more & consciously chose the nonproductive sometimes? Let it be okay to have ebb & flow. Your experiment with this could show you increased productivity overall! (I dare you to run the experiment!)
  
• The more you don’t let yourself be as big as you could be, my love, the more you reach for things that diminish you, that trivialize the fullness of all that you are, and that fill your time with the superfluous & insubstantial.
  
• Sweetheart, you’re working too hard, pure & simple. Work easier. Spend more time relaxing & aligning, even in small spurts and transitional moments, so that the quality of your work (your offering to the world!) is imbued with ease, flow, a satisfied sense of well-being.
  
• Do less, and opt in fully to what you do choose to do. Don’t allow yourself to be divided.

Hey, I recently did a group EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, or tapping) session that felt like an inspired journey of connecting to and honoring the guidance system that’s unique to each of us. Check it out if drawn! Your guidance system can support you to get out of anything you don’t actually feel good about doing RIGHT NOW and point you to what would truly meet your needs, fulfill your desires, and move you along toward your visions and intentions!

Love & blessings, Jaya

Hey, y’all, you know I always have a lot to say. Note that just having the concept in place that you might want to HABITUATE TO FEELING GOOD, or make that your new normal, is something already. Read as much as you’d like below if you want more to chew on, and at any point please make judicious use of bold print and bullet points and such.

When you wonder what the problem is, part of the problem is that you’ve habituated to problems and to problem-solving as a way of being.

What’s still wrong with you is that you’re wondering what’s still wrong with you, and you’ve habituated to thinking that way and keeping that in view.

Why it’s so hard or scary or uncomfortable or unsustainable [or whatever] to feel good is that you’ve spent a lot of time feeling bad … and it became your habit. It’s habitual. It’s normal.

Except it’s not. YOUR NATURAL STATE IS TO FEEL GOOD.

To be clear and in the name of not lying to ourselves or being sloppy in how we speak about what’s what: It’s actually not hard to feel good.

Or scary. Feeling good actually feels like not-fear.

Or uncomfortable. Feeling good actually can bring in a whole lot of comfort, the good kind (the overindulgent kind ends up feeling bad!).

And you can actually get back to feeling good, even pretty quickly, anytime you notice you’re not there. (The quicker you shift back toward feeling good, bee-tee-dubs, the less momentum you’ll accrue toward feeling bad.)

So in fact, you get to feel good, you know what it feels like, you know how to get there, and it’s not that hard or scary or uncomfortable or unsustainable [or whatever].

It’s just not the habitual state, or hasn’t been [fill it in: lately, since XYZ, my whole life, most of my life, a chunk of my life …].

If you actually DO let yourself feel good pretty often at this point in your life, then let’s BRING IT TO NOW. Sometimes, you can simply say, I don’t feel good right now. Which is your invitation to swiftly course-correct toward what does feel good! Which could mean getting off the topic that feels bad, or moving to a topic that holds very little resistance for you, or just heading toward what would most make you feel good right now within the actual working parameters of this moment. Now, you feel-good folks are dismissed (though you don’t have to go).

If you’re someone who hasn’t yet habituated to feeling good, read on.

To establish a new habit of feeling good, you need to hang out there. Treat it as normal. Let it be normal. Make it normal through repetition.

Let’s get away from, I deserve to feel good. I want to get away from it not because it’s not true, but because it goes without saying. Yeah, you deserve it, but quit tripping yourself up with merit-based thinking. Can you feel good not because you deserve it (of course you do) but because …

• you like to feel good
• it feels good to feel good
• everything you’re after (intentions, goals, visions, whatever you’re aiming toward) is ultimately something you think will make you feel good, feel better
• when you feel good you’re more connected, aligned, at ease
• when you feel good you’re more generous, tolerant, kind
• feeling good seems closely connected with love
• feeling good means you’re not working too hard or expending more effort at anything than what’s actually needed
• feeling good means you feel your connection to guidance, Source, higher self [name it what you like] and it all feels easier & like less figuring and plotting & scheming and puzzling and problem-solving and trying hard and struggling and and and …
• when you’re loving yourself and being your authentic self, you feel good
• when you’re aligned with your own values, you feel good
• when you’re applying what you want to live in ways that aren’t punitive or based in judgment or shame, you feel good in the application

As you know, I could go on. So could you. Find more reasons you can feel good beyond any deserving. Seriously, list them, or say them out loud. Or both.

Let’s go to classic objections to feeling good.

When’s the other shoe going to drop?
Well, if you stop wanting life to be all good, then you don’t have to think it’s bad or something’s gone wrong when something not to your liking is happening. Then when something’s happening that feels bad or challenging or god-awful hard, you don’t have to call it the other shoe dropping. You can just call it life. You might stop sorting life into good-bad bins and willingly meet what comes your way. Here it is, I’m willing.

You can willingly meet the hard stuff while prioritizing feeling good. Notice that this doesn’t involve avoiding or preventing feeling bad. It involves feeling good now. Choosing into feeling good. And moving away from what feels bad more quickly and more often.

What if I actually have to stay with what feels bad?
Um, like when something unwanted is still here? Or your kid is sick and you’re doing not-fun or scary things to deal with that? Or you’re up with someone at 3 a.m. even though theoretically you’d really love to sleep, but you’ve actually opted in to accompany them through some kind of moment right now for good reasons?

Again, c’est la vie, my friend. And note the you’ve actually opted in part in that last sentence. There’s really no have to here. It feels good to be in choice, to find your agency, to fully opt in to something that doesn’t feel so great right now but, in the larger scheme of things, makes sense, and is part of a human life. It also makes sense to walk yourself gently through this, here and now.

When something feels bad, walking yourself through it well, being your own best ally, actually using the tools you’ve got while you’re in it—that all feels good.

And as you walk yourself through, you can feel as good as you have access to feeling in any given now-moment. You can walk yourself through reaching for those tools of yours that you know will help you feel better as you go. Soothing breath. Grounding in the moment. Using body-mind practices & practicing other excellent self-care when you can. Staying out of the mind predicting bad outcomes or casting this hard moment into some forever future. Taking breaks as needed & as able. Getting support. Noticing all that supports you. …

What if I’m spiritual bypassing when I go for feeling good?
Oh, quit it.

I kind of want to write just that. But okay, fine, I’ll say a bit more for those of you who torment yourselves with this one.

If you ask yourself that, ever, it probably means you don’t want or intend to spiritual bypass. So you already value that and your internal compass is already calibrated to that. You’re probably not in great danger of spiritual bypassing, and you’ll probably catch it if you are without making it a preoccupation. (Also, don’t judge it when you find yourself spiritual bypassing. Celebrating catching yourself and correct it.)

Those who do a lot of spiritual bypassing typically have that as a blind spot, so they don’t give the topic that much thought.

Those who DON’T spiritual bypass don’t get there by constantly worrying about whether they’re spiritual bypassing or not. They’re just meeting what arises, paying attention to what feels off, letting in the next thing that will bring them to greater alignment. Spiritual bypassing isn’t a focus, but living in integrity and being responsible for their work and following their guidance—and other such thing—are very much examples of what their chosen focus might be.

If you fear spiritual bypassing, you can do any number of things: check it out for yourself when you wonder about that. Is that what’s happening right now? Or you can ask your guidance system to show you if you are—bring it fully into view; declare that you’re willing to see it. Or you can risk spiritual bypassing to experiment with something else (like feeling good), and come back to the spiritual-bypassing fear if/when it arises.

In brief: don’t focus on that and just check it out every once in a while. Spiritual bypassing is not likely to be the thing that ruins your good intentions around feeling good.

You may have other objections to feeling good.
Here are 3 things you can do with those:

1. Take them to inquiry. Question whether they’re fully reality-based, or just old stuff (some of which may have some basis in reality or experience, but that doesn’t make the whole objection to feeling good valid).
2. Put them aside for a while and run your feel-good-more-often experiment. Do that in the now-moment the objection comes up.
3. Notice where your particular objection comes from and work to reparent yourself; teach yourself and practice what you want to believe now. (Example, you were taught, Be polite at all costs, so you still do all kinds of feeling bad in the name of being polite.)

Ready to feel good more often? Would you like to consider feeling good NORMAL? Would you like to pause when things feel bad and tune in to what might feel better? The latter would allow you to practice more self-awareness and more conscious movement toward what you want.

To be clear: you do want to feel good. Right?

If yes, please keep that in view and choose into it. Keep going until it’s normal. Keep meeting your own objections until they’re not preventing your joy.

Love & blessings, Jaya

(hey, hit the 2 sets of bullet points for the short version!)

In my book Scooch! I wrote about my experiment with the idea that it might be a friendly Universe. Starting so broadly (the whole Universe!) naturally took me to smaller-scale experiments in life about … anything.
 
So why experiments and what constitutes grand?
 
I’m pretty enamored of the idea that all of life and aspect of life is or can be an experiment. Looks to me like it’s closer to the truth (how much do we really know for sure?) and everything loosens up a bit and feels better if you know (admit?) you’re experimenting.
 
Since I’m no scientist, I think of experiments as playful and fun, not serious and scary. As a life coach, I encounter people’s fears and the self-generated pressure that we human beings typically put on others or on circumstances until we realize we’re in charge of whether we opt in for pressure or not. I’m in favor of setting things up and cultivating mindsets for maximum spaciousness and ease. Hence, experiments!
 
Here are some ways to think of experiments:

• Pressure’s off: you don’t know and you don’t need to know. (Beginner’s mind!)
• You just get to try stuff and course-correct as you go.
• You can’t get it wrong, so there’s nothing to judge. (You can certainly notice and work with judgments that arise.)
• You get out of habitual, stale stuff that’s your norm and try new things that could work better or take you to surprising places.
• No foregone conclusions: anything can happen, so you get out of outcomes and show up for the journey.
• With no expectations, you don’t set yourself up for disappointment; you can use any that does come up (use ANYTHING that comes up) to redirect the experiment!
• Best attendant mindsets include curiosity, awe, wonder; a playful sense of exploration.
• Presence is your best ally: show up, senses engaged to take in and respond to new information as it comes in.

Why a grand experiment? I do like to say, If you’re going to bother experimenting at all, make it a grand experiment.
 
The following could make a simple, humble experiment very grand indeed:

• Stay with it. Do something different for a while, because rushing back to what you already know and do is typical, not grand.
• Believe in and intend inspiration, epiphanies, new directions—transformation.
• Do the unexpected. Do what you think you can’t. Do what you’ve been saying you want to do.
• Open to surprises—and meet your responses to them so you don’t shut beautiful doors that are opening to you.
• Look again at first reactions and interpretations. Do some inquiry. Reframe.
• Follow your guidance system where you haven’t before, in minute and large things, responding to what tugs at you or flashes in. (Don’t talk back to the guidance! Do question your thoughts and fears if you notice back-talk.)
• Don’t teach yourself the wrong lessons. Don’t just quit when something doesn’t feel good or doesn’t go as you wanted it to go. Drop the language of “It’s not working.” It works now and now and now, as you try one more thing, get more present, pay attention. (Presence!)

 
(Need some support with questioning thoughts or reframing?)
(Need help choosing or holding your focus?)
(Need help following a path of least resistance and/or choosing ease and forcing nothing?)
(Need help reeling it all in when you’re discouraged or distressed?)
 
Have fun with your grand experiments.
Love & blessings, Jaya
 
P.S. Hey, would you like to approach dating as a grand experiment? I've got some audio and written resources to support you in that.