Funarexia, or Fun Deprivation Syndrome (FDS), represents the loss of your ability to sustain or nourish your appetite for pleasure or play.  When you focus entirely on work, responsibilities and shoulds, when you postpone play until you have more time, money, energy or justifications, you are being funarexic, and the missing fun takes its toll on your soul.

           _________________________
          FUNAREXIA
          _________________________

When I was a child, I loved playing in the water.  I loved to float on my back, without moving my arms or legs. I loved to stand on my head underwater with only my wiggly toes sticking out. I loved submerging myself and seeing how long I could hold my breath. I loved going down under as far as I could, and then looking up at the sun from the bottom of the pool. As I got older, I loved learning the different swimming strokes, the Australian crawl, the breast stroke, the sidestroke, the backstroke, the butterfly. I became a junior lifeguard, and although I never saved anyone, I think I could've. Later, I tried scuba diving and water skiing, and I had a blast.

I grew up, circumstances changed (too busy, no nearby pool), my body changed (my joints freeze up in cold water) and I stopped swimming.

Jump ahead several decades:

A few weeks ago, I discovered that the small city where I've lived for 16 years not only has an outdoor public pool, but they keep it nice and warm.

So I've started swimming again for the first time in a long time, and I'm having a ball. I swim and I play nonstop for about 40 minutes, and feel pretty much like a child again.  What fun.

But, here are a few of the responses I got, when I told people about my swimming adventure:

• Response #1:
  "You should bring cards to the pool and use the time to network."
  
  
• Response #2:
  "For the optimum benefit, you should make sure to swim every other day, not more."
  
  
• Response #3:
  "Be careful. Take it slow. Don't hurt yourself."

What the bleep?  It seems as if my friends are trying to turn my swimming adventure into opportunities to work (on my business, and on my body) and into opportunities to worry about getting hurt.

         ________________________

        Where'd the FUN go?
         ________________________

In a society that overvalues production and results, FUN is a 4-letter word.   We feel as if gotta be grown-ups, and that play (as in swimming just for the fun of it) should be left behind, in the past.

The unfortunate effect of profound funaphobia is a loss of mojotivity and mojomentum.  We feel pushed and prodded to work harder, but we also feel resistant, unergized and full of excuses. Life is something that we are dragging around behind us, instead of something that is propelling us forward, juicing us up.

Here are some clues:

• You won't do something unless it's ...
• 1. good for you
  2. good for someone else
  3. slenderizing
  4. for a good cause
  5. a have-to
  6. financially profitable
  7. overdue
• You can't remember the last time you did anything "just because."
  
  
• You have a room, or a closet, or a box filled with art supplies, or hiking gear, or fishing equipment, or dance shoes ... and you can't remember when you last used the stuff.
  
  
• You don't remember what lights you up.
  
  
• You think that work and play are antonymic.

       ___________________________

        Mend Your Mojotivity:

Here are some steps that you can take to begin to change your funarexic ways:

• Make a list of things you did as a kid, as a teenager, or as a younger adult just for fun.
  
  Add to that list things that seem like fun, but that you postpone doing because you don't have the time, the permission, the money or the skill.
  
  Go ahead and make it a nice looooong list.
• 
  
• Pick one thing from that list -- something you'd especially like to either do again, or try for the first time.
  
  
• Now, without editing yourself, write down all the objections that come to mind -- all those reasons why you just can't possibly do that today, or in the near future.
  
  
• And then, one by one, using your favorite releasing techniques, begin to release those objections.
  
  
  __________________________________       
  

Here's a simple releasing technique you can use to tame your funarexic ways right now:

1. Write down the objection to your fun idea.
   
   

   Mojotivity clue:
   
   Notice how some of those objections sound parental or judgmental or shame inducing.

2. What emotions do you feel in response to this objection? Frustrated, sad, angry, hurt, helpless?
3. What sensations do you feel it in your body? Knots in stomach? Tight throat? Headache?
4. Instead of blocking the unpleasant thoughts, feelings, sensations, see if you can amplify them, make them bigger.  Feel them more. If this were a dream, how would it play out?
   
   

   Mojotivity clue:
   
   To really get in touch with this "dream"
   you might want to draw a picture of it.

5. Now what do you feel or sense?
6. Ask yourself "What percent of this objection am I willing to drop right now?"
7. Then drop that percent of the objection.
8. Ask yourself how you feel now.
9. If you haven't released the whole objection yet, repeat 5, 6, 7.
10. Do the same for each objection.
    
    

    Mojotivity clue:
    
    When you drop an objection, use your favorite sensing system to make the dropping as vividly real as possible:

    • picture yourself pouring the objection out of a pitcher
      
      
    • hear yourself flushing the objections down the toilet
      
      
    • feel yourself tossing stones symbolizing each objection off a bridge and into a river.
      

Let me know how it goes.

___________________________________

To set up a time
to brainstorm about
how you can begin
to overcome
your FUNAREXIA,
click here.

_____________________

"Joan's work is like having an eraser that simply removes problems.

Once you work on a problem you can easily forget that it was a problem, because it's completely gone!"

Cathy Hedgecock,
journalist