260: Play as Self-Care w/ Rukshana Triem

* Rough Transcript *

Ep. 260

Aurora: Hello! So I’m a little late getting stuff out as I navigate end of school year burnout, but it does mean I get to share our wonderful from talk last weekend with Rukshana Triem! You can find the full group discussion in the Embracing Intensity Membership!

I just wrapped up the newest additions to the Neurodivergent Planner Club including a variety of printable habit trackers and some lovely spring flower planner stickers.  I’ll be getting those added to the platform shortly. Be sure you’re on my mailing list to get updates!

I also printed out my first draft of a printed planner to test run! If you’d like to try out the first edition at printing and shipping cost for feedback, let me know and I can plan for my next order!

Welcome

So welcome everyone. I’m so thrilled to have Rukshana back. She is a personal friend of mine and always inspirational every time I’ve ever heard her speak, so I’m so thrilled you, she agreed to be here with us again today and she has a new book coming out called Never Leave the Playground. And one of the themes I always try to have each year and my guest speakers is at least one call around play because I think it’s very, very important.

So, I’m so glad to have you here, Rukshana. And Rukshana is a personal friend of mine as well as, we Connect online as well. And so I’m thrilled to have her and hear more about her work around. Play. Welcome Rukshana! 

Rukshana: Thank you so much, Aurora, for having me. I am, I was just talking to you about the last time we had this discussion about play and how important it is to our life that feeds us.

So yeah, I’m up here in Oregon City, just 20 minutes from Portland and Pacific Northwest. And um, play is such a big thing for me because of where I came from. So I was a former refugee. I spent time, you know, so much time, you know, working on my trauma. I feel like some of those triggers are still coming in as we grow.

Finding balance with play

Rukshana: And to find balance with play just kind of helps me to feel grounded to, to be on this planet and to be able to serve and to be able to do what I came here to. So play has been coming to my life as, you know, as my kids grew up, moved the house and I’m like, what do I do now? I can do, I can add play, I can do things that I’ve always wanted to do instead of raising children and trying to work three jobs and all of that stuff.

So play has come into being curious, learning to be curious and just kind of writing and discovering my writing and exploring what comes in, what I enjoy, and diving deeper into that. 

Aurora: Awesome. I know a lot, most of the people here probably haven’t heard your previous talk where you shared a little bit more about kind of what brought you here today.

So I’d love to hear a little bit more about just your childhood experience with play and nature and kind of what brought you to this topic and what made it so close to your heart. 

Growing Up

Rukshana: Absolutely. So Aurora, like I said, I grew up, a quarter of my life in, in Africa.

So dealing with time in the refugee camp. So I lived in Mozambique, that’s where I’m from. And then due to the World War, we moved into Malawi and then lived in a little village in a hut carrying water. And then after that, my family decided to go into another country because it’s a very common story when, when people move from their country, they kind of hop along different countries to find which countries they, you know, works for them and they feel comfortable.

And that’s how we ended up in the refugee camp. And you know, that’s where my experience of living of life, what came from. So living in the refugee camp, what I remember is that oldest of five children is waiting for food in line, not knowing where I’m gonna make it to the beginning of the line. And food is, you know, it’s survival.

We need food to live, we need food to survive. So I remember like always being tense and stressful and feeling the heat of the sun peeling my skin and me pushing and shoving, trying to make it to the beginning of the line so I can have, you know, a bowl of food so I can take it to the tent site and feed my family.

The Great Outdoors

Rukshana: But, most of that time, you know, when I was in Africa, I spent time outside even though it was hot and humid and rainy. And you know, when the mosquitoes come in, you know, I, I realized that is when I was the happiest. I felt free instead of filling in confinement of the tent where there’s many, many families living in the tent.

So that’s where. You know, play comes to be. So when my kids grew up, you know, you know, I got really sick. I gained so much weight, I was on on different kinds of medication. You know, when you take one medication, then you take to take the other medication to settle the other medication to help side effects the other medication.

Then I was taking all these kinds of pills of anxiety and under depression and I got to a point I gained so much weight. I was almost, you know, 210 lbs. And the doctor said, you know you have to take care of your life. Figure out what works for you and, and figure out what exercise you can take and what kind of lifestyle that you want.

So that’s when I decided to join a walking community. And the walking community led into like, you know, when you invite people to walk with you, and then people start asking about the community because you’re walking in groups. And then that community led into hiking and I realized just walking, the pounds were dropping and then also the pounds were dropping also, the medication prescription was dropping, and then my anxiety level was also dropping and I felt so much at peace and so much healthier.

Challenging Your Body & Mind

Rukshana: And it would be just a walking to the park or walking at Forest Park, which is kind of like an area like 30 acres of, you know, forest in the city. Simple things like working myself to it, starting with two miles and working on three miles, walking eight miles. Just challenging my body and challenging my mind as I went on.

And, and that led into amazing things because it helped me build confidence and it helped me lose 80 pounds and it also helped me build that community. The community got bigger and bigger and it became like a Pacific Northwest Women’s Hiking Group. And we opened like four chapters here in Oregon.

So we have a band chapter, we have a Portland Vancouver chapter, we have, you know, south Oregon chapter. So we have all these chapters. The purpose of the group is to go out in nature, to find balance, to build relationships. Because when we go out in nature, what happens is our body feels relaxed. We get more oxygen to our brain, and we feel grounded.

And even if you’re walking on your foot or you are walking in water, or you are going quick crossing, you know, just feeling the sense of water going down the creek, that helps us. And it was just looking up, you know, how often do we always look up in the sky or look at the trees up in the sky or look at the stars up in the sky?

Bringing More Joy

Rukshana: So what I realized, doing all those things made me so happy and joyful, and I wanted more. I’m like, how can I do more of this? Because it helped me become of a less of an angry person and more, less of an uptight person, an intense person. Like I was always so upset and so angry at the world, and it just helped me balance.

And I realized balancing of that community, taking women in the outdoor hiking and taking on new trips, challenging ourself to new things. It not only helped me, it helped all those women who were, you know, their spouse passed away, their children moved out of the house. Like they all had their stories.

And we all could relate when we are in nature, because when we are all sharing our stories, our hearts kind of open up one way in nature because we don’t have these agendas and titles. It separated us. We are all human beings, doing the common good and trying to live our life and trying to just go day by day.

And we didn’t have our titles that all happened on a hiking trip or on a nature trip, or on an adventure trip, all in nature. So I’m like, you know, when I kept doing that, it just kept growing and growing and growing and just kind of that’s what led into writing this book. I said, how can I talk about people play

Playfulness

Rukshana: So, you know, for me, play always a connection between nature being outside and being playful because I am more playful. Like I could be out there, you know, walking and hiking and then a song comes up in my head. I’m like boogying with it. I’m like trying to play that song in my head and I’m trying to dance.

I’m like, what song are you dancing to? And it makes me feel good because I’m so relaxed. They’re like, the trees are not there to judge me. The river’s not there to judge me. And the people who are there, they’re just having fun with it. They kind of feel like, okay, I’m feeling the music. I’m feeling the music.

So it really has created this sense of community and health and peace. So, never leave the playground has been that concept of adding play. So what play means to you, into your life.

Aurora: Awesome. And is there anything specific that you’ve found really helpful when you’re feeling like overwhelmed and you feel like getting out for like a long hike or a long walk or something like that is too much in the moment. Are there any small practices that have helped you to connect with that playful side?

Connecting with Play

Rukshana: Absolutely. So what, you know, like I don’t have a lot of time now because of the projects I’m involved in. So just going in my backyard and looking up at, you know, I live, I have this beautiful forest in or park and just looking out at the leaves and I can sense my anxiety dropping, I can sense, you know, my brain relaxing.

I’m able to sense this sense of peace and I decided to get a dog last year. So you wanna get, you wanna get happy. So I am committed to take this dog for a walk every day. So I am enjoying my neighborhood, I’m enjoying talking to the people with other dogs. So simple things like that I’ve been able to enjoy.

And it’s not, it doesn’t take a lot of time for planning to be out on a hike, on an adventure, taking other people is just being out there filling the ground, stepping on the ground, and I’m like, I’m connected. I am part of this earth. I am part of this planet. I am part of this creation of this energy flow when I’m out there.

I feel that, you know, I’m not just human. I am part of this planet that I’m making a difference. So every step, every breath I’m taking, I’m contributing on into the planet. I’m also contributing to the people around me, the energy flows around me. So, it’s not just an adventure, it’s just being outside, looking at the trees or looking, I mean, right now in the Pacific Northwest, we have the cherry blossom, our changing colors, and that is just, I can just sit there and stare and mesmerize.

The little moments

Rukshana: So our neighbor has this beautiful tree in her backyard. And it was a beautiful day yesterday, and I literally sat there for 45 minutes, just mesmerized at looking at this tree. And what happened through that is my neighbor came out, she’s like, what are you staring at? I’m like, Hey, your beautiful tree.

You know? And then that, you know, that opened up a conversation. So we’re able to open up a conversation about her family. I got to know a little bit what’s going on with her husband and all those things. So, you know, just being, I’m so used to doing and just being sitting still and enjoying the pleasant of what nature’s given me.

It’s like this TV color of spectacular color mesmerizing coming into my life. And I’m just enjoying watching this beautiful vision of television with, you know, bright colors that my eyes is giving in front of, you know, nature.

Aurora: Awesome. And I’m curious for your book, if you could share a little bit more about the main themes, like maybe kind of the main topics that you cover and like the main themes around play. 

Rukshana: Yeah, so one of the things in the book I share is about self-love, you know, and coming from a place of loving the things that we love to do.

Do what you love

Rukshana: You know, we live in a space, we live in a world, we’re constantly being judged on social media, the books that we write or the blogs that, you know the blogs that we write and people, you know, everybody has something to say and it’s okay to agree and disagree, but there’s a judgment. But I talk about self-love is coming from doing what we love, despite what the world says, despite what anyone doesn’t agree and disagree or self-love, is to show up into the world, share experiences, and then. And then take those experiences and share it with the world, share it with our neighbor, share it with our community, share it in a blog.

So also self-love. I talk about using our stories from our past as our healing journey, writing them down. Now if you’re not a writer, like record them. So I talk a lot about that. And then also I talk about in self love is to. The willing to desire, like how many of us want something, but with it, we can’t have it.

But you know, when we desire, we give ourself permission to put it out there and share it with our friends and share it with our family. And sharing a blog, you don’t know whether that’s going to lead into what’s going to open up with. And then the desire is because we deserve it. You know, is telling the universe or God, whatever creation that you believe is that I am here on this planet and I desire this and I, I deserve this as well.

Motivated by Self-Love

Rukshana: Feeling that that comes from the self-love. And, and I share that with the self-love because of, you know, working from my past, you know, in the traumatic experience and being very ill and being mentally not, you know, not, not healthy. And coming to this place in my life, I’m like, you know what I deserve, deserve.

Peace. So peace comes from self-love. Oh, I deserve to write a book. So, writing a book comes from self-love, sharing my experiences with the world. I deserve abundance or you know, money. I deserve nice things. I deserve a nice car. I deserve to go on that vacation. So, and then it comes from self-love because you love yourself, that you don’t think what anybody thinks about you out there, creating things that you want for yourself, and also sharing the experiences with the world.

So self-love is a huge one. I can open up so many doors to many things and. What has happened in my journey of also self-love is I have been able to, kind of like you, Aurora, I’ve been able to create a platform for people to share their stories of vulnerability because that is such a tough one.

The Power of Vulnerability

Rukshana: Vulnerability is huge and so painful. But when we’re able to share vulnerability, and that has happened to me when I was able to share my story about my traumas and you know, and. The journey that I went through, it gave me peace. It gave me that sense of journey of that. Now I deserve this because I’ve worked myself at, and I’m able to create this community called the, you know, the confidence Speakers catalyst, where people share the vulnerable story, like a TED Talk style for 20 minutes.

Like they go deep, like deep stuff they’ve never talked about, you know, on a blog they’ve never talked about on a book or a podcast. Like they go deep and when they get off the stage, you know, they go on and do amazing things because we know those stories from the past. Those deep stories holding us back.

And that is self-love for me to be able to be so raw and vulnerable and to share, I’m like, this is what happened to me and this is what I’m gonna take with it, and this is what I learned from it and coming from here, this is what I’m going to create. And when they get off that stage, I get to see them create amazing things.

The Power of Self-Love

Rukshana: And that is powerful and that’s self-love, to be able to share those deep stuff. And so, and some of these conversations that they come on stage and share, they’re very painful. Like you can see on stage of people crying. They can feel their pain, their tears, but it’s also the healing that’s going through that process of them telling them, so I’ve created this community, this space for them to step up and share their journey.

Aurora: Awesome. Before we open up for comments, is there anything else you’d like to add?

Pleasure, fun and excitement

Rukshana: Is there anything that I’d like to add? Yeah, so play, it’s really what I feel like. What makes you joyful, what adds pleasure and fun and excitement. And so I, I like that you gave the game because I have a friend who does game night on Thursday night, everybody brings a board game, you know, and that’s one of the things that culture, I had to learn how to play games because I didn’t know how.

So it was really fun to be in that moment and to be that space and to laugh and to joke and that creates a lot of, you know, ease and fun and growth. And it builds the relationship closer to our friends. So, yeah. Play can be what brings you joy? What does it mean to you that you can add more into your life?

It doesn’t have to mean like in the outdoors or kayaking or adventures. So anything that you call play and giving yourself permission like that five year old to be out there. If you just wanna go outside or being on the swing or take that book at the park and that can be play to you as well. 

The Power of Connection

Aurora: Awesome. Yeah. And the connection thing, that is an important thing.

When I talk about energy balance in my my course part four, the workbook energy balance when I looked at different models of energy balance, they all had like the same four, like physical, mental, emotional, social, 

 One had spiritual and one had what they called parasocial, which is like your connection to others. Not just the social, but like your connection. And so what I saw the theme was connection, right? So spiritual connection, connection with others, connection to the world around us, connection to, you know, our environment.

 So that’s why I use the word connection for that area because I think that’s the common theme. Whether it’s spiritual, whether it’s connection with others, it’s, it’s our connection to ourself. And so I think that connection word is really important. 

Rukshana: Yeah, with that connection I think that that brought me back to the community when, you know, when I started the community, everybody wanted to belong because they, you know, their spouse passed away so their identity was changing.

So they’re not part of their spouse or their children moved away and, you know, that changed again. Or they moved away to a new city. Like everyone wanted to be part of something they wanted to belong. And when we created that space of community, of women just walking and everybody belonged because everybody felt, and then relationships started creating, people started having their own families, like especially people who moved from other states like that was their family.

The Importance of Community

Rukshana: So they were doing things in the community, but they’re also doing things outside with the people that they met and then that, you know, that led into their family, their chosen families, because they didn’t have family in the states. So that became their family and that created more fun and, you know, and flow.

I, I love that because, you know, when we create a space for people to come with an intention that, you know, it can be a walk, but it can be more than a walk, but also that brings me back to us and I just wanna share this one story and I, I passed the mic on, is my husband had been sick for two years and he’s been in the house for two years.

And I was trying to figure out how can I, you know, take him outside because after a while you’re in a hospital, the world becomes a fearful place to get out. So, you know, last summer what I did is we said, you know what, I’m gonna go, I’m gonna go kayaking and I’m gonna try to see if I can put him in the kayak and just, he can hang onto the water with the kayak and he could sit in the kayak.

Small Steps

Rukshana: So it took about, probably about five series before he actually got into the kayak. So the first time was like driving to the lake and we just parked the car and he is like, I do not have the energy to get in a kayak. And now that’s ok. We. Did people watching, being outside and being outside of our environment, it helps us kind of clear, you know, also him to be creative and start dreaming, envisioning, and seeing other people doing other things because this is part of life.

We have to move on. Yes, we’re sick, but we need to kind of push ourself a little bit. And then the next time we went in, we took the kayaks out. He didn’t go in the kayak, then I load the kayaks back in and then the next time we took the kayaks in, I put in the water. He didn’t go in, it didn’t take until.

Sixth time that I finally was able to put the kayaks out, he was able to walk to the kayak and suck in the kayak and he didn’t do anything. He just sat in the kayak and I realized the importance of the water flow, the energy for him to be outside of his environment, being so sick and being in the water, how helpful it helped him clear and dream and says, life needs to go on.

The Power of Encouragement

Rukshana: We need to come doing things even though you don’t wanna do it, it’s okay. You can do, we can be part of that. And that would encourage him. And then the seventh time when he went, he finally didn’t get to kayak, but he sat in a kayak while we all, you know, while I went kayaking back and forth to the lake and I came and check on him and he just sat and enjoyed the flow of the water, him being in there.

So again, it goes on that sometimes we kind of have to push ourself despite discomfort and we have to have that supportive people who love us and care and willing to push us to do. So it’s really, really important to find what play is and the balance of the flow and that feeling sense of comfortable and security and also love.

I just wanted to share that one. I thought that was really cool. So, but yeah, my husband is getting better and stronger and he’s doing little walks and here and there. 

Aurora: That’s awesome. No, that is actually, that’s a really fantastic example because I think, I mean, and your husband was so lucky to have you there to help push him because I know if we’re on our own for that, it can be really difficult.

The Danger of All or Nothing Thinking

Aurora: But one of the things I, I’ve seen as kind of a general theme of those in our community is that tendency for all or nothing thinking, right? Like we know, like we wanna be riding out in that kayak. And so the idea of just like driving being an achievement, like just getting there. And sitting there being an achievement.

Just baby steps. I think when we let ourselves, even whether it’s someone pushing us to do it or whether we’re doing it ourselves when we let ourselves take baby steps and be okay with not where our end goal is, but what gets us just a tiny bit closer each time. I think that’s a really important concept because especially for those of us with chronic health issues, we maybe can’t do the things that we want to do.

And we have to work our way up to it. And if we have this extreme idea of, well, like how stupid is that, just driving and sitting somewhere? Like, that’s not, but it is. And your example is a perfect one because just like getting there, just being there can be that next step towards what our end goal is.

So I, I really appreciate that story, especially as someone with chronic health issues myself. Thank you for sharing. 

Rethinking Play

Aurora: And also to rethink what we think of as play because it doesn’t have to be, you know, something childish, it doesn’t have or that we would’ve done as a child. Doesn’t have to be a game or it doesn’t have to be a certain type of play. Anything that brings us joy. So if we can connect with those things and take baby steps towards it, that’s, I think, can be helpful.

Rukshana: Yeah. So I was gonna say that you know, as having parents who grew up in Africa, like the academics was so important because the education part is huge. So they always wanted us to, you know, get our degrees or even PhDs, which none of my siblings ever did that.

But, that was their sense of accomplishment of play is my child holding that kind of degree? Or a master’s or a PhD, whatever. But what I realized is even though they had that vision for their children to have that sense of direction because they never had it, they wanted that. But what that that led into my life for my children is, I’m not going to do what my parents wanted because that was their dreams.

It wasn’t my dream. So in my dream, as I started creating more fun and play in my life, it also shifted the concept to my children, my young adult children, that what they wanna do with their life, like, you know, for them play is traveling to a new country, experiencing foods and flavors and stuff. So they will work really, really hard and then they’ll save up their money and I said, okay, so that’s play for them. 

What is Play for You?

Rukshana: And it’s nice to see how they have incorporated. Very smart, brilliant children, you know, multi-talented and how they’ve add play into things like, you know, rollers, skating or, you know, going to the beach and just people watching at the beach when my son lives in, in Santa Barbara right now and play for him is going to the beach and people watch at the beach and seeing behaviors and personality because that feeds him.

So it’s really fun to see what play for each individual means. Where my daughter, play for her is playing games, like to be at a dinner table, having food and conversation, and then going hours and hour playing cards that just feeds. So it’s beautiful to see the generation that I came from, the generation I created, and seeing my next generation, what they’re going to create based on their views and their values and the good stuff.

So this is really, I love this conversation that just made me kind of mindful, being aware of, you know, where I came from, where I’m going, and also, You know, what I’ve implanted in my kids. 

Aurora: Yeah, totally. And I love that that point about like how everybody thinks of different things as play. And I, what’s interesting is even within a certain activity, people can find different aspects of it, playful. So like yesterday when we went to this show, we ended up sitting next to a performer who was in town for the night before. And so, she was, we got chatting with her. And so of course, because as a performer, That’s what she found fun performing and appreciating the performance from a level of someone who does this personally.

Same Activity, Different Joy

Aurora: And I found like the costumes were amazing. They like the thought that has to go into these costumes was really detailed, and like the colors and the like, just little details that most people wouldn’t even necessarily think of. That’s what I found playful. And then my spouse was really not as into the performance part as just watching the audience.

And that was playful. That’s the people watching thing is what made me think about that. So, so even within the same activity, we can each find different aspects of it playful. So I think that’s kind of cool. 

Well, I feel like we’ve had a lot of like great thoughts come up here around play what other people find play, challenges around that, how we kind of overcome some of those challenges looking at those baby steps towards where we wanna go.

I feel like we covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. 

Rukshana do you have any closing thoughts? 

Closing Thoughts

Rukshana: I do, and I, I just wanted to share with this that I know rarely do we look at our life as playful or do we even explore the area, what play is and add into our life. So I really hope that this conversation kind of ignites that play.

What play is, whether it’s dancing or, you know, playing games or picking up the phone and call, or just sitting down and drinking a glass of water and looking at the sky. So whatever you think of, I would like to encourage all of you to include, play into your life as a habit, as a ritual, because that really feeds our heart and just kind of more expand.

And then share some of that moments with the ones that we love and ask them what, you know, what do you consider play? And ask them, be curious to know and understand it and listen from nonjudgmental place and kind of be curious what their play is and go along with it. And hopefully it expands that conversations like we had today.

This is really awesome. So we can continue more. Building the culture of play as a healthy thing for our mental health, for inner peace for also giving up permission to the people that we love in our community and the country. Hopefully in the world that play is necessary for our soul. 

Diving Deeper into Play

Aurora: Awesome. And if you guys wanna dive deeper into the play topic, like I said, every year I’ve had at least one theme around play.

And there’s a couple of speakers who have platforms all about play that have shared Gary Ware is one, and Jeff, you’ll find them in there. And they both have platforms where they talk like that’s what they do full-time.

Their whole platform is about play. And they’re just awesome, awesome humans as well. I got to meet them in Portland at the World Domination Summit, which was a fun conference thing that lasted about 10 years. So anyway, so there’s lots of places we can dig deeper into play and there’s podcast episodes related to those as well.

And the discussions are in the membership area, so. Awesome. Thank you so much Rukshana for sharing. 

This was great. I’m really glad to have you back and yeah, look forward to sharing with others!

Rukshana: Thank you, Aurora. And I really am so grateful to be here and hopefully we can schedule some time for play. What means play to you? 

Aurora: Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. I definitely, and this summer I definitely wanna get out more, so. 

Rukshana: Okay. 

Aurora: Very cool.