It’s Spring! I am excited to focus on new ways to be social. I have been telling clients and friends that the theme of my year is to highlight the we in wellness. Since our culture worships the individual, and what’s going on “internally”, we often miss the critical importance of how we are living our lives with others, what we are creating together, and how our wellness can’t exist without us.
What does any of this have to do with playing ball? Everything, in my case. One fabulously powerful way to build our relationships as well as our mental and physical health is to participate in activities we do not usually engage in or try.
So my best friend and I, two middle aged women, do not play basketball, do not know how to play basketball and have no reason to play the game. It follows then that we decided to dedicate ourselves to playing basketball together. Actually, I think it would be called throwing hoops, I’m really not sure. Oh, and did I mention that we play ball very publicly, at the gym where everyone can see and watch?
While the ‘real players' and other onlookers at the gym watch with a sort of surprised-confused-appalled-admiration as we mostly miss the net and laugh away, we are learning new skills and a new way to be playmates. Doing what we do not know how to do, what we have no business doing, can be tremendously fun and growthful, as well as humiliating.
I have grandiose hopes that in several months of middle aged ladies playing basketball badly, more people at the gym will be trying on new ways to exercise and play together; a new member will walk into the fancy gym to see a bunch of adults funnily flailing and failing and teaching each other new skills as we work out our bodies together.
I invite you to try something you are not good at, in public, with a playmate, and let me know how it goes!
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