Selfmarriage – The proposal

One of the comments on my previous post on the idea of selfmarriage and the reactions I got from friends and family after coming out with this idea, was: Congratulations on your engagement! I replied back: “Thanks, but I’m not engaged yet, because I haven’t proposed to myself officially.” So I thought that would be a good next step: the proposal.

I went for a walk (as I often do from my home) and at a very nice and quiet place with trees and a little stream of water I popped the question, after puzzling a little with the wordings; “Do you want to marry me?” or “Do I want to marry me?”

The answer was not a happy and wholehearted YES! It didn’t feel 100% right at that moment. When would you ask someone to marry you and wish to spend the rest of your lives together? I guess a strong feeling of love for this person and trust that you will grow together and excitement about the adventure. From the asking point of perspective I like myself, but unconditionally loving myself feels a bridge too far. From the receiving point of perspective,  I felt pressured and fear came in. Apparently I don’t trust myself completely on this. Also the question came in: Who’s marrying whom? So who’s asking?

I decided to be ok for now with an arranged marriage status, because there is definately a part of me that is really excited about this journey and what it will bring.

Lots of Love,

Annemarie

 

Moving this blog to another wordpress site

This blog and new posts have been moved to this wordpress site.

Hope to see you there!

With playful greetings,
Annemarie Steen

Playfulness in Healthcare – An experiment

“What does – Woesh, Boing, Pow- have to do with life?”,

was a question I posed after facilitating a Playful warming-up Energizer to a group of ex-patients and their relatives of a private clinic for addictions, burnout, depression and anxieties (www.u-center.nl).

“Everything!” was the answer of a guy in the group. We aim for a woesh, when receiving and passing on information. Sometimes we feel we want to say STOP and Boing the situation. Or we feel that we are Boingt by others who want to stop us or disagree with us. At other times we just want to get rid of something fast and Pow it away, as far as possible. Or maybe we see others far away watching us play and we want to connect to them by powing them. Another guy answered; “Well, for me it’s just FUN, and that’s good for me”.

I was amazed with the reflective skills of this group, a skill they must have learned on their tough journey and from the professional help they got while in treatment. For me delivering a Playfulness Workshop to this group was very new and I felt honored to be part of it. I’m very much looking forward to delivering two more open workshops for U-Center and trust the Power of Play to do good.

http://www.u-center.nl/workshops/serious-about-playfulness (workshop description in Dutch)

With Playful Greetings,

Annemarie Steen

My favorite quotes…

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” (Heraclitus)

Laughter is contagious

What happens when a stranger starts laughing…
Watch this experiment at a tramstop in the Netherlands. Why not choose to be the one spreading laughter. Even a simple smile makes others feel better.

I wish for…

…a year full of playfulness, learning, meaning and making inspiring new connections.

 

With playful greetings,

Annemarie Steen

My favorite quotes

Everything will be okay in the end. If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

How do I start blogging?

Yesterday I signed up for wordpress and started a blog. That’s the easy part! Now I’m wondering what to do with it. Questions come up; Do I have something to say that other people will like to read? Will I be able to post on a regular basis? Will I get bored and stop after the first enthusiasm is gone? How do I get followers/readers? Will this help my business or is it more of a timeconsuming hobby? Bottomline: Is blogging for me?

So, I googled some posts on what it takes to become a succesful blogger.

Passion. First thing I found out is that to be a succesful blogger, you have to be passionate about something, so you don’t get bored writing about it. So this takes some soulsearching to find out where my true passion is coming from. I have many interests, and I’m easily enthusiastic about new things. But a passion comes from deep within. When does time stop for me? When am I engaged in doing things I absolutely love doing? What things would I keep doing, even when I don’t get paid for doing them? Or what would I do, if I had all the money in the world? The answer for me, it’s about learning and creating ideas and experiences to engage other people in learning and growing. I’m a learner by doing. Like starting a blog before thinking about what the content should be…:-)

Like writing, write regurlarly and be able to write clearly. Well, I keep diaries my whole life. I used to love to write traveldiaries, and I sometimes practise automatic writing, so this is a yes. I could motivate myself on the regular part with an audacious goal. Like post one learning experience each day, because a day without learning is a day without paying attention.

Find your niche. I’m not sure about this one. Time has to tell if my personal learning stories are of value to readers. I like to create awareness that learning can be done anywhere, anytime. As long as you put your learningmind to work and make meaning out of experiences you have. And a learningmind is something that I have, and I’m sure a lot of other people have too. I hope my blog will become interactive with readers that will share their learning experiences with me, to inspire others to look at life’s mysterious ways as a learninggame. Maybe I should rename the blog from “the learning mind” to “life is a learninggame” or “play the learninggame”. What do you think?

Work actively on growing your audience. Have to learn this one.

Well, I will give it a go and see what happens. Every new thing is a learningopportunity…

With enthusiasm,

Annemarie Steen

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog. I’m not 100% sure why I started this blogadventure today, but I’m sure it will be a nice journey. I love to learn. And I like any new endeavors that enable me to learn more about me, about others and the world we live in. I’m curious by nature. Another thing I cannot stop myself from doing, is to transform experiences into learningopportunities, not only for myself, but for others too. I will share mine with you in this blog, and hopefully you will do too.