The Importance of Relaxation And Play For The Soul

Whatever I ate on Thanksgiving night has caused me to be stuck in bed for the past 4 days with the most severe and intensely excruciating stomach ache of my entire life. It was pretty crippling to say the least. The pain got so bad that I couldn't help but squeeze my sheets as tight as possible and let out an outcry of agony. Within those 4 days I spent a majority of my time either in bed by myself or getting up to go to the bathroom. Not really my idea of a dream vacation to be honest. But something that I was not expecting to find amongst all the discomfort was a period of rest, the relaxation part only came on the 3rd day after the stomach ache had subsided. For so long I had been treating rest as something that my body would do on its own if given a certain amount of time. But after battling exhaustion for much of my adult life I realized that was not the case, however I never found a steady solution to this constant problem. Until now. When your body exerts a certain amount of energy each given day, to which we will refer to as E for now, we assume that we will need an equal or greater amount of time resting the body, to which we will refer to as R. Energy or E can be considered negative since it is energy spent or exerted (something we don't have) and Rest or R can be considered positive since its energy that will recharge our batteries so to speak (something we constantly need). Well when you have equal amounts of R & E, then your body can sustain itself for a longer period of time. But the truth is most people only get an accumulated 8 hours of sleep on average, some even less. So what are you doing for those 16 hours your awake? You are using energy, sometimes energy your body doesn't have. Many of us go to work for 8 hours a day which would be equivalent to the amount of sleep one would get on a daily basis (you hope) but we tend to forget that being awake is being at work too. Every action, every movement, every thought requires energy just as does that of work. So if on average we spend 8 hours sleeping (not always good deep sleep either which is the best) and 16 hours awake then I don't have to tell you that we are exerting energy for twice as long as we are replenishing it. And I'm not just talking about resting because to some that means watching tv, which although you are not exerting as much energy as you would if you were moving, your body isn't reenergizing itself like it would if it were asleep. Nothing can really substantiate true sleep. Relaxing is more of an in between period in which the body wishes to sleep and it can lead to exhaustion if not used properly, for example to much stimuli.

Sleep is very important to the body but play is very important to the soul. What is meant by this is that we can all have equal amounts of sleep and exertion but without play we are depriving the soul of its needs and wants. If we did not sleep enough on a regular basis our bodies would get weak, pail, pasty, cranky, sick, unhappy, lethargic, slow, disoriented and a whole long list of destructive traits. That is our body telling us that we need more sleep, and just as our body states its needs and wants to stay alive and healthy so does our soul. There are countless incidents when I have mistaken my souls needs as my bodies needs and supplemented sleep for play. Although my body probably could have used the sleep regardless it was still yearning for something else but I couldn't put my finger on it. Just as the body begins to fail from lack of sleep so does the soul from lack of play. Ones soul can be described as dull or boaring without this essential piece of life, but sometimes it's just a shear lack of happiness. The soul is the bodies emotional center, with it we would be emotionless and without fulfillment our happiness would cease to exist. Now what is meant by fulfillment is not the same for everyone nor is it what we always think it is. We sometimes search for fulfillment in others or from instant self gratification. This could take a me a whole nother week to try and explain play from fulfillment but I will just leave it up to the reader to decided what is what to them. I will say that sometimes fulfillment comes in the form of play and sometimes play comes in the form of fulfillment. However they are not always the same. Confusing huh. To play is to be completely free and unhinged to any beliefs or constraining factors of ones life and just enjoy ones life as it is, whole heartedly with no reason whatsoever, just being alive and able to enjoy life's beauties. This is what feeds the soul, unconditional love and happiness. To many this is fulfillment, but I separate the two because ones fulfillments may not always be geared to there souls prosperity. Which is not a bad thing. We as humans need fulfillment from many different areas. We search for it at our jobs, in our lovers and in our lives. But it should not be mixed up with the souls fulfillment which is a completely different type of fulfillment altogether. Less of a goal or objective but more of a way of life. In order to constantly maintain our soul and thus who we are as humans we need to cherish the soul as well as the body and listen to what it is telling us. Denying them is only denying ourselves. If we are to be at harmony with ourselves and truly know thy self then we must hone in on exactly what it is that they are both telling us. Sometimes it's to pursue a more inspiring and challenging job or relationship. But whatever it is we must always come back to that child like play which brought so much joy and happiness to us when we were young. There's no reason why we can't have that now, no matter what age we are. Just free uncaring fun, no restraints and no bars. I hope this will become a reminder to all reading that we are more then just vessels on this planet meant to live and then die. There is so much love here that we would be silly to ignore it and not bask in its beautiful pleasures. So take sometime to rest and enjoy your life, and if theres nothing that you can enjoy then your not playing enough. And what better way to capture that in a picture then the great Buddha laughing with his hands in the air?