We Don’t Stop Playing Because We Get Old, We Get Old Because We Stop Playing
When was the last time you allowed yourself to play? In this episode, I dive into the benefits of play, how as adults we take life too seriously and we have these societal “norms” we all follow, that indicate we shouldn’t play like we did when we were kids….but why not? It’s good for the health of our body, mind, and spirit, which is a win-win-win. As I dive into the theme of “PLAY” this month, this is the first episode on this topic and I have 2 amazing guests lined up as well, to talk about how we can incorporate play into our lives, but also play into our work and make it way more fun!!! Enjoy these shorter, playful episodes!
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Melissa has been featured at a number of Health & Wellness Summits, such as the Health, Wealth & Wisdom Summit, The Power To Profit Summit, The Feel Fan-freaking-tas-tic Summit, the Aim Higher Summit, and many more! She has also guested on over 60 different podcasts teaching people about the importance of prioritizing our health and how to get get started.
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Transcript
Imagine getting up every day full of energy is
Melissa Deally:if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be? Like? What
Melissa Deally:would that be worth to you? What is your health worth to you?
Melissa Deally:Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without
Melissa Deally:it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are
Melissa Deally:taking it for granted. until something goes wrong. No one
Melissa Deally:wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic
Melissa Deally:illness. And yet, we've never been taught how to be proactive
Melissa Deally:in our health through our school system, or public health. As a
Melissa Deally:registered health coach and integrative health practitioner,
Melissa Deally:I believe it is time this information is made available to
Melissa Deally:everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and
Melissa Deally:the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the
Melissa Deally:comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your
Melissa Deally:health for today and all your tomorrow's don't wait for your
Melissa Deally:wake up call.
Melissa Deally:Welcome back to the don't wait for your wake up call podcast.
Melissa Deally:My name is Melissa dealey and I am the host of the show. And we
Melissa Deally:are starting a whole new theme this month. And that theme is
Melissa Deally:play playfulness, the power of play. I love this quote from
Melissa Deally:George Bernard Shaw, we don't stop playing because we get old,
Melissa Deally:we get old because we stop playing. Think about that for a
Melissa Deally:minute. When did you last simply play.
Melissa Deally:I also want to introduce you to your unconscious mind, which is
Melissa Deally:it has the mind of a toddler it loves to play it talks to you in
Melissa Deally:signs and symbols, little puzzles for you to figure out.
Melissa Deally:It loves it when you get playful too. And this is when we open up
Melissa Deally:to downloads and messages and guidance, et cetera, et cetera.
Melissa Deally:And I recently had that experience myself. I recently
Melissa Deally:did a very intensive training course in NLP to become an NLP
Melissa Deally:coach, as well as in timeline therapy and hypnotherapy. And we
Melissa Deally:were most definitely working with the unconscious mind
Melissa Deally:throughout this process, which is incredibly powerful. And one
Melissa Deally:of my aha was for the week really was to stop trying to
Melissa Deally:make things hard, right. My messaging as a child had been
Melissa Deally:that if you want to be successful, you have to work
Melissa Deally:hard. And so I was working to release that limiting belief and
Melissa Deally:surrender in the, into the process, the process that it can
Melissa Deally:be easy, it gets to be easy. We don't have to overcomplicate
Melissa Deally:things. And on one of the days we had a break. And I it was a
Melissa Deally:beautiful sunny day outside and I decided to go out for a walk.
Melissa Deally:And I walked up the hill behind my house and I had my phone with
Melissa Deally:me and I was decided to listen to some music. And I just turned
Melissa Deally:to a playlist, my energy shifting playlist. And I decided
Melissa Deally:to just like randomly hit play and let it start on whatever
Melissa Deally:song it wanted to start on because I know I love all the
Melissa Deally:music on this playlist. And the song shut up and dance came on.
Melissa Deally:Well, that just gets me moving. Most you know, upbeat music gets
Melissa Deally:me moving, I really can't help but move when I hear this music
Melissa Deally:and I was all alone on the valley trail. I was crossing a
Melissa Deally:bridge over a waterfall. And I just started dancing and
Melissa Deally:twirling to the music because it was just giving me such joy on
Melissa Deally:this beautiful blue bird sunny day. And just, you know, this
Melissa Deally:course was super intense. It was a fabulous course. But it was
Melissa Deally:like 1012 hour days. And here I was outside because most of the
Melissa Deally:rest of the weekend it rained and I didn't even get a chance
Melissa Deally:to go outside. So I'm now twirling and dancing down the
Melissa Deally:valley trail just in the moment loving the music, surrendering
Melissa Deally:to that idea of play and some of the conversations we've had
Melissa Deally:through the week. And I started skipping and thinking I'm going
Melissa Deally:to bring out that little six and seven year old girl in me when
Melissa Deally:was the last time I skipped? Probably not since my kids were
Melissa Deally:about that age and I was holding their hand skipping. And I kind
Melissa Deally:of opened my eyes for a minute and I saw there was a single
Melissa Deally:person, you know, a fellow walking up the trail the other
Melissa Deally:way towards me and you know, my conscious mind went oh, what
Melissa Deally:will he think of you? Maybe you should stop and behave like an
Melissa Deally:adult. And then the other side of me was like, No, I'm loving
Melissa Deally:this. I'm feeling the joy. I'm in my body. I'm in the moment.
Melissa Deally:And maybe just maybe he'll see my joy. Maybe that'll bring a
Melissa Deally:smile to his face. Maybe that will bring him some pleasure. Or
Melissa Deally:maybe he'll think I'm a crazy person. But I have no control
Melissa Deally:over what someone else thinks of me. So I just decided I was
Melissa Deally:going to keep on playing. So I skipped I twirled I danced, I
Melissa Deally:really lived in the moment and enjoy that playlist. And as I
Melissa Deally:continued on this adventure, I did, eventually at some point,
Melissa Deally:start walking and just I was going up and down hills, etc. So
Melissa Deally:I had got a little bit of a workout in there and then
Melissa Deally:started walking, but walking at a pretty rapid pace, and still
Melissa Deally:kind of moving my arms to the music and really enjoying the
Melissa Deally:music. And on my way back, I knew the last song in the
Melissa Deally:playlist, because it was a song that had I had recently added
Melissa Deally:that week actually called Rise up. And after that song finished
Melissa Deally:playing, I just thought the playlist would stop. But no
Melissa Deally:music continued playing. And I really liked the next song. And
Melissa Deally:I had no idea what it was. And so I thought that I'd take a
Melissa Deally:look, see what this song is. And the name of the song was
Melissa Deally:surrender. And in that moment, I just felt overwhelming emotion,
Melissa Deally:because it was that message that when I let myself out to play, I
Melissa Deally:was getting a message back that yes, I needed to surrender. And
Melissa Deally:that was a really powerful message to me. And I continued
Melissa Deally:on my way home. And the next song came on. And again, it was
Melissa Deally:a really lovely song. And I had no idea what it was. And I
Melissa Deally:looked at the name of the song. And this time it said, Got you,
Melissa Deally:as in, got your back your support it.
Melissa Deally:And it just made me think of the instructor of my course the
Melissa Deally:universe. And you know that the direction for me to surrender,
Melissa Deally:but in surrendering, I am supported. So again, a lot of
Melissa Deally:emotion welled up inside me and sheer joy and pleasure and the
Melissa Deally:awareness of what can happen when we let ourselves out to
Melissa Deally:play. So that was a really powerful experience for me. And
Melissa Deally:it directed me into surrendering into the process of a mentorship
Melissa Deally:program beyond the end of my course. So that I didn't have to
Melissa Deally:figure out from scratch how to, you know, integrate all of my
Melissa Deally:new training around the mental and emotional bodies in addition
Melissa Deally:to what I do with the physical body, and to actually have the
Melissa Deally:instructor of the course who's a naturopathic doctor, guide me in
Melissa Deally:doing that, because she's already done it. And so
Melissa Deally:surrender into that guidance. And the quickest way is to
Melissa Deally:follow someone who's already done it and avoid their
Melissa Deally:pitfalls, because you can learn from them. So that was my very
Melissa Deally:recent experience of playing and laughing and getting those very
Melissa Deally:strong messages. If you're enjoying my content, and someone
Melissa Deally:that wants to step into being proactive in your health and
Melissa Deally:learning more, I would love to invite you to join my membership
Melissa Deally:community. There's a link in the show notes for only 1999 a
Melissa Deally:month, you get access to all of my content, and there's a lot as
Melissa Deally:well as weekly calls that you can come and get your health
Melissa Deally:questions answered. It's truly priceless. I'd love to see you
Melissa Deally:join the community, check out the link in the show notes. So
Melissa Deally:when we play, we laugh. And you've heard me say before the
Melissa Deally:healing benefits of laughter, one minute of laughter boosts
Melissa Deally:your immune system for 24 hours. Whereas one minute of stress,
Melissa Deally:fear, anger, weakens it for four hours, and stop and think for a
Melissa Deally:moment if you're in a school at recess time or lunchtime. All
Melissa Deally:the kids are out playing in the playground. What do you hear?
Melissa Deally:What is the sound that comes to you? It's the sound of laughter
Melissa Deally:right? It's the sound of pure joy those kids are having
Melissa Deally:because they're playing they're moving their bodies. They're
Melissa Deally:running around, they're having an amazing time.
Melissa Deally:And there is such a powerful connection between the mind and
Melissa Deally:the body and play is literally nature's therapy and it's
Melissa Deally:medicine for the whole body. But as adults, we often get too
Melissa Deally:serious. And we get stuck at our desks worrying about finances,
Melissa Deally:life, getting it all done your presentation next week, your
Melissa Deally:holiday to visit family next month. Just stop and imagine
Melissa Deally:being a child again, your six or seven year old self, close your
Melissa Deally:eyes, as long as you're not driving. And think back to that
Melissa Deally:time, think back to how excited you were to go outside at recess
Melissa Deally:and run around. You probably didn't even care if it was
Melissa Deally:raining. You were with your friends playing you're in the
Melissa Deally:moment, you didn't have a care in the world other than the
Melissa Deally:sheer joy of being able to run, Skip, slide, hop, jump, climb
Melissa Deally:seesaw hanging upside down on the monkey bars. Do you remember
Melissa Deally:that. And remember how that felt the excitement to be free of the
Melissa Deally:classroom, the sheer joy of moving through the wind and air
Melissa Deally:in some way, feeling the wind on your face blowing in your hair.
Melissa Deally:Where did that person go? That person grew up and per societal
Melissa Deally:norms, stop skipping, jumping, hanging upside down. And then in
Melissa Deally:middle school, it was no longer cool. But we still played
Melissa Deally:organized sports through school and our community. And that
Melissa Deally:continued through high school. So we were still having fun
Melissa Deally:moving our bodies and then came University. Maybe some people
Melissa Deally:played sports at the university level or the intramural level.
Melissa Deally:And then came the real world, a job. Life got busy with our 40
Melissa Deally:hour plus work week socializing, maybe there was a community
Melissa Deally:sport you played once or twice a week, then you get married and
Melissa Deally:have a family. And there's no longer time for that either. And
Melissa Deally:if we don't protect our play time, we find that it's suddenly
Melissa Deally:gone. Because we're looking after everybody else first. Do
Melissa Deally:you relate to that? As adults that takes real conscious choice
Melissa Deally:and planning to build in play time into many of our lives? We
Melissa Deally:commit to going to the gym to do a workout. But does that even
Melissa Deally:sound fun? No, it
Melissa Deally:has the word work in it. So for most people, that doesn't sound
Melissa Deally:like fun at all. Maybe for some people they love their gym
Melissa Deally:workouts. And if that's you, kudos to you. That's awesome.
Melissa Deally:But for the bulk of the population that isn't moving.
Melissa Deally:The word workout doesn't inspire them to go to the gym, right? I
Melissa Deally:totally get it. But with the best of intentions, we start,
Melissa Deally:maybe it's our New Year's resolution that we make in
Melissa Deally:January because everybody else is doing it. We know we should.
Melissa Deally:But it doesn't last. Doesn't the world, the word play sounds so
Melissa Deally:much more fun than the word workout. Just feel the
Melissa Deally:difference in your body of the word play versus workout. And
Melissa Deally:yet it doesn't seem to be accepted for adults to play.
Melissa Deally:Yes, we can play a game or play a sport. But it always has to be
Melissa Deally:organized. What if we could just walk outside our house and play
Melissa Deally:just like we did as children. Moving your body has so many
Melissa Deally:benefits. And it's not just for weight loss. The data is
Melissa Deally:extensive, and it's shown that moving your body improves your
Melissa Deally:mood is boosting your memory is reducing stress and anxiety.
Melissa Deally:It's staving off a host of preventable diseases from heart
Melissa Deally:disease type two diabetes, obesity and some types of
Melissa Deally:cancer. These are the same chronic illnesses that I'm often
Melissa Deally:talking about in relation to toxins and reducing your toxic
Melissa Deally:load. But exercise is also important. You've heard me talk
Melissa Deally:about detoxing, as I've said also nutrition sleep. I've
Melissa Deally:covered off on all of these topics. But getting into this
Melissa Deally:topic of exercise movement play is something new. And that's why
Melissa Deally:I wanted to focus this month episodes on this topic. And
Melissa Deally:here's something I've always loved watching is dogs. They all
Melissa Deally:know that word walk to the point where many pet owners have to
Melissa Deally:spell it out or come up with another word entirely because as
Melissa Deally:soon as their dog hears that word, they start to go nuts.
Melissa Deally:They're jumping up and down their tails wagging. They're
Melissa Deally:trying to get their leash. They are excited because they know
Melissa Deally:they get to go outside and walk and run and play. And it they
Melissa Deally:don't care what the weather is. They are just so excited to get
Melissa Deally:out and move their bodies.
Melissa Deally:And I've often wondered, why can't we humans be like that be
Melissa Deally:like those dogs. They love so much. And yet, for us humans,
Melissa Deally:we've largely become a sedentary societies. And often we don't
Melissa Deally:get in enough movement because we think we don't have time.
Melissa Deally:We're already busy, right? Raising our family, and we've
Melissa Deally:got to get kids to school and get to work and drive kids do
Melissa Deally:their sports events, etc, etc, and get the groceries done and
Melissa Deally:make dinner and well, there's just not enough time in the day.
Melissa Deally:But if we break it down into small increments, you can find
Melissa Deally:time in your day, I promise you. So what can you do to ensure you
Melissa Deally:play every day? First off, choose something you love that
Melissa Deally:is simply fun, not work, make it so it's easy to do without
Melissa Deally:needing big plans to make it happen. So you want to have good
Melissa Deally:ease of access? What ideas can you come up with? Honestly,
Melissa Deally:think back when to when you were that six or seven year old
Melissa Deally:child? What did you love to do then? Was it skipping rope? Was
Melissa Deally:it just skipping? Was it hula hooping? These are all things
Melissa Deally:that you can do in your backyard. You don't have to go
Melissa Deally:anywhere. They don't cost any money. Well, okay, you can go to
Melissa Deally:the dollar store and buy a skipping rope. It's probably $2.
Melissa Deally:Right? Hula Hoops, same thing. So this is your homework for the
Melissa Deally:week. And I really would love for you to tune back in next
Melissa Deally:week as well to learn from Play expert, Janet Olmstead, who has
Melissa Deally:written the play book. And within that she offers 150 ideas
Melissa Deally:to start playing. And the 150 also refers to the number of
Melissa Deally:minutes you should be engaged in moving in a week, 150 minutes in
Melissa Deally:a week. So that's not much, it's just over 20 minutes a day at a
Melissa Deally:minimum, right? You can break that down into 210 minutes, or
Melissa Deally:four or five minutes of doing something that moves you. During
Melissa Deally:our caveman days, the men were working, walking 15 to 18
Melissa Deally:kilometers per day hunting. And now we've been we've become so
Melissa Deally:sedentary sitting at a computer all day long. We barely walk
Melissa Deally:that far at all. So what are some of the things that you can
Melissa Deally:do in five minute increments, like I said, you know, hula
Melissa Deally:hoops, skipping rope, you're just running up and down the
Melissa Deally:stairs in your house. Going over, if you've got a park
Melissa Deally:nearby you like I'm fortunate to have, you could go over and, you
Melissa Deally:know, climb up and slide down and climb up and slide down or
Melissa Deally:get on the swing and pump your legs. And these are all things
Melissa Deally:that we can absolutely do. But we also need to be shifting our
Melissa Deally:mindset around it and saying, I want to have fun. It's okay for
Melissa Deally:me to have fun. It's okay for me to, you know, be joyous and to
Melissa Deally:move. And it's okay for adults to still play, as opposed to
Melissa Deally:thinking that playgrounds are just for kids, and that you
Melissa Deally:can't join in and have fun, too. So, as I said,
Melissa Deally:that's your home for your week. Next week, I have Janet Olmstead
Melissa Deally:here. And then the week after I will be talking about all the
Melissa Deally:ways that I love to play because perhaps that will inspire you.
Melissa Deally:And the week after that, I'm going to have Deb King on from
Melissa Deally:the wisdom playground. And we're going to be talking about having
Melissa Deally:bringing play into the workplace as well, because we can
Melissa Deally:absolutely do that. And before we end, I would just like to
Melissa Deally:share a testimonial with you. This is something new that I'll
Melissa Deally:be doing my business coach suggested and and it's a great
Melissa Deally:idea because you're listening to my podcast. But if you don't
Melissa Deally:really know what I do or how I help people, then you're not
Melissa Deally:able to share my work with others and help your loved ones.
Melissa Deally:And so as an integrative health practitioner and registered
Melissa Deally:health coach, I help two people get to the root cause of their
Melissa Deally:health issue. And once we understand that, where the body
Melissa Deally:is out of balance, we can support the body and coming back
Melissa Deally:into balance, we can remove what the body no longer needs in
Melissa Deally:terms of toxicities or excesses, et cetera. And when the body is
Melissa Deally:imbalanced, it will heal itself. So the testimonial that I would
Melissa Deally:like to share today is a very recent one from somebody that
Melissa Deally:I've only been working with since January of 2022. She has
Melissa Deally:had chronic fatigue syndrome for over 40 years and really, really
Melissa Deally:struggled with this and gone to many, many medical doctors
Melissa Deally:looking for answers and nothing has ever really worked. And when
Melissa Deally:she was referred to me by a mutual friend, I suggested we
Melissa Deally:run some lab tests to see where the imbalances are in her body.
Melissa Deally:And the one that I was particularly interested in
Melissa Deally:having her run was one that shows the mineral deficiencies
Melissa Deally:and metal toxicities because I suspected that there was
Melissa Deally:probably some metal toxicities going on here. And she decided
Melissa Deally:to run all her labs to get a baseline, which was a brilliant
Melissa Deally:idea. And once we saw the results in her labs, we knew
Melissa Deally:exactly what was going on. She had very high cadmium, very high
Melissa Deally:nickel, very high copper in her labs. And she needed to do a
Melissa Deally:heavy metal detox in order to get these toxins out of her
Melissa Deally:body. She also had a little bit of bacterial overgrowth, and she
Melissa Deally:had her mitochondria were showing that they were
Melissa Deally:dysfunctioning and needed support, right and our
Melissa Deally:mitochondria are our energy powerhouses. So no surprise that
Melissa Deally:for somebody with chronic fatigue syndrome, there were her
Melissa Deally:mitochondria are struggling. And so we were able to start a heavy
Melissa Deally:metal detox, we were able to support her mitochondria with
Melissa Deally:some good supplements. And within two weeks of starting her
Melissa Deally:protocol, I got this beautiful email from her, thanking me for
Melissa Deally:giving her 40 years of her life back because she had just been
Melissa Deally:able to spend the last five days sewing a beautiful, no new quilt
Melissa Deally:for her and her husband's bed as well as for pillowcases. And
Melissa Deally:she'd worked nine and 10 hour days on it, and had the energy
Melissa Deally:to do that. And she said, I haven't had the energy to do
Melissa Deally:that. In 40 years, I've needed naps to get through my days. And
Melissa Deally:she said that she was sleeping again, because we were
Melissa Deally:addressing her diurnal rhythm and her cortisol levels. And
Melissa Deally:that was helping her get to sleep at a normal time and get a
Melissa Deally:solid eight to nine hours of sleep per night. So I love
Melissa Deally:getting testimonials like this, because it's just so fulfilling
Melissa Deally:to me to be able to help someone in such a profound way. And it's
Melissa Deally:really not that hard to do when we run the labs and we can see
Melissa Deally:exactly what is going on inside the body and where the body is
Melissa Deally:out of balance. So if you know anyone that is struggling with
Melissa Deally:chronic fatigue syndrome, or any kind of chronic illness that
Melissa Deally:they're looking for answers for, feel free to send them to my
Melissa Deally:website, they can go ahead and book a complimentary call so
Melissa Deally:they can meet me I can understand what their health
Melissa Deally:goals are and if I'm the right person to be helping them. So
Melissa Deally:thank you again for tuning in to the don't wait for your wake up
Melissa Deally:call podcast. Have a wonderful week ahead. And I look forward
Melissa Deally:to having you join us next week. To further the discussion on
Melissa Deally:Craig.
Melissa Deally:Thank you for investing this time with me on the don't wait
Melissa Deally:for your wake up call Podcast. I'm so glad you joined in. If
Melissa Deally:you can take two minutes to share this episode with someone
Melissa Deally:you think can benefit and have a positive impact on their life.
Melissa Deally:That would be wonderful. Please leave a review by going to your
Melissa Deally:favorite podcast listening app. And let me know what you enjoy
Melissa Deally:or would like to hear more of it will support me in my effort to
Melissa Deally:bring the possibility of natural healing to a wider audience and
Melissa Deally:help disrupt the sick care system we have today and make
Melissa Deally:human health a global priority. Health is your true wealth.