Hey there. Welcome to Intentional Living with Tanya Hale. This is episode number 354, "Figuring Out Fun." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:21 

Alright. Hello there, my friends. Welcome to the podcast. So glad to have you here. And I am glad to be here as well. The day I'm recording this, I just hit 200,000 listens on my podcast, which is a big deal for me. I've been doing this for just over six years and it's taken some time to get there, but I'm really super proud of the work that I put out. And thank you for listening and helping me feel like I'm making a difference in the world because I really feel that I am. 

00:54 

A couple of things I want to chat about before we jump in today. First of all, Talk with Tanya will be tomorrow at two o'clock Eastern, 12 o'clock Mountain. If you want to join me for that, you can go to tanyahale.com, go to the "group coaching" tab. There's a place you can click on and you will get an email that has the information for the Zoom link. And we'd love to have you there. We've been having about four or five people show up every week and we just talk about whatever people bring up. We've done some one-on-one coaching. We've talked about topics more in depth, answered questions about particular situations. It's just been really, really great. And it's something that I love a lot. So if that is of interest to you, make sure you get signed up for that. 

01:42 

And the other thing I wanted to just remind you of is I have started in the show notes where wherever you listen to your podcast, if the topic is interesting to you and you want to learn more about it or listen to other podcasts, I have started including some of my other podcasts that have to do with the same topic. So you can dig a little bit deeper into the topic if that interests you. 

02:06 

Alright. Today, let's jump in. We are talking about figuring out fun. So in December, Sione was speaking at a conference in Hawaii, and darn it, if I didn't have to go with him. Okay. Well, I mean, obviously I didn't have to go, but seriously, why wouldn't I go? Right? It was so great. While we were there, Sione did some scuba diving. That's one of the things that he really finds fun and enjoys doing. And I'm not really into scuba diving, right? Something about breathing through a tube underwater that freaks me out. But he really loves it. And he got to do some diving while we were there. And one day he got back from a dive, and I was down by the pool next to the beach reading a book and feeling really happy and content. And he asked me a question about what I wanted to do for fun. And I was actually a little stumped. And my brain has really been chewing on the idea for the last three months. 

03:02 

So I love sitting by the pool in the warm weather, reading a book. That's something that's enjoyable to me. I love doing my business things, preparing and recording podcasts, and coaching. I find it so fulfilling. And I adore snuggling up next to Sione and watching a movie together. There are a lot of things that I enjoy, things that help me feel content and fulfilled. But "fun" was a word that I hadn't considered for a long time. And considering I'm a yellow personality and motivated by fun, something seemed off. And I think that's why my mind kept chewing and chewing on this idea of fun. What did I do for fun? 

03:42 

So when I was younger, I did a lot of things that I considered fun. I played high school sports. We planned silly dates. We went to amusement parks. We would dress up for spirit days at school. And then you become a parent of young kids. And although I wouldn't change that for anything, life gets busy and overwhelming and your own fun gets put on the back burner, at least for many, many women that I know. Men are usually a little bit better at owning that they want to do fun things. But for women, we don't so much. We love our children desperately. And to be honest, we really did enjoy going to  their soccer games. And we found a lot of fulfillment in supporting them. As they explored the world and did their thing, and oftentimes as women, we found ourselves in the supporting role most, if not all of the time. And we lost our sense of ourselves. We stopped doing things that we enjoyed and found fun because we were so busy with caring for others in our homes and our jobs that we forgot about ourselves. And we often felt guilty spending money on us when others in the family had wants and needs that required that money. And we forgot to keep having fun, to keep doing things that we really enjoy. So though we might have been content and felt. purposeful and needed, we often weren't having much fun. 

05:03 

So when Sione asked me what I wanted to do for fun, I stammered a bit and I felt a little bit stuck. And I asked myself, well, what did I do for fun? Content and purposeful, fulfilled and needed, are great and important. But so is fun. And although I had pockets of fun, I wasn't intentionally and consistently engaging in anything that I would list as fun. 

05:30 

So Brene Brown in her Gifts of Imperfection book talks about 13 guideposts for wholehearted living. And when I read this book in 2016, I remember her chapter on cultivating play and rest and feeling a little bit disconnected with the idea of play. At the time I had been divorced almost a year, I was working full time, still had two children living at home, was dabbling in my first life coach certification, and I was just feeling pretty, pretty overwhelmed and busy most of the time. I wasn't making time for regular fun, but I also hadn't for a lot of years. Now, it's not to say that I didn't have moments or experiences that were fun. My sisters and I were pretty regular going on a girls cruise every two years and with all the dancing and laughing and dressing up and playing games, we definitely had fun. And I hadn't lost my ability to have fun. I also was in a weekly volleyball group for a lot of years, and every Wednesday night we would get together for probably five or six years during those years when I lived in Utah and we would play volleyball, and that was always really fun. So I hadn't lost my ability. I just, at that time of my divorce, I really wasn't prioritizing fun very much, and that was something that Brene Brown taught me, that it's important to make fun a part of your regular life. And I thought about it for a bit back in 2016 and then mostly forgot about it until last year when Sione asked me what I wanted to do for fun. 

07:06 

So before I tell you what I've implemented, I want to talk a bit more about why fun is so important. We're going to talk about it in the context of our relationships and in the context of ourselves individually. So John Gottman, who is a relationship researcher and someone whose work I refer to often, talks about how important a fun and playful dynamic in our relationships is. Not only does fun and playfulness strengthen connection intimacy, it also creates more fondness and admiration. So beyond just a fun experience, being playful in your relationship is vital if we want to be connected. Gottman says that playful interactions like sharing a laugh, engaging in silly inside jokes or surprise date nights can reignite the spark and foster emotional intimacy. Having fun together and engaging in playfulness is something that can tend to get lost in our long-term relationships as we get harrowed down with the heavy responsibilities of raising a family. 

08:07 

And when our kids were young, we didn't have money for babysitters, so we just made the most of staying home. At least that's how my previous spouse and I did a lot of of our parenting. There was always something to clean, always something to fix, always something to make, always, I mean the gist is always something, right? We had fun with our kids. We enjoyed jumping on the trampoline with them or playing games with them, but it was harder to disengage with the kids and focus solely on having fun as companions, as you know, with our spouse. 

08:42 

But now that we're in If you've been floundering here in middle age, it's time to fill figure out the fun and playfulness in your relationship and also with yourself. I think that the playfulness is a piece of my relationship with Sione that makes such a huge difference between this relationship and my previous one. 

09:08 

So Gottman's research shows that playfulness breaks down barriers between couples and helps them to connect with a deeper emotional level. He also says that a lighter heart and a playful approach can help couples navigate challenges with more ease. I think of how many years my previous spouse and I were taking life just so seriously. We were hyper uptight about doing the gospel church thing to the letter so we wouldn't miss out on any of the promised blessings. Or maybe more clearly I should say that I was hyper uptight. I think he was probably a lot more reasonable than I was in this arena. But because of this intensity I remember not being able to relax into playfulness when it was just the two of us. We didn't really enjoy our alone time together and sexually our lack of play was pretty detrimental to that arena of our lives. Powered by Notta.ai

10:03 

So nowadays Sione and I have a lot of playfulness around inside jokes and we have a lot of sexual banter. And my kids are the unhappy recipients of having to listen to it. Some of their eye rolls and gag reflexes would win awards. But it's also something that builds camaraderie between Sione and I and that also lets my kids know that all is good in the Hale Hathaway household. And I love that we are getting to model for them healthy relationships. I love that they get to see us enjoying each other and loving spending time together and having fun together. 

10:47 

Gottman also says that playfulness is great at rekindling romance as it helps couples rediscover the excitement and the fun that they shared in the early stages of their relationship. Most of us got out of the house a lot more before we got married to our spouse. We spent a lot of time doing things, going and experiencing new things. We were always doing something new and fun and then we get out of the habit pretty soon after we get married because we oftentimes don't have money and we just end up staying home and watching TV because that's an easy transition into bedroom sexy time, right? So if you're stuck in not having fun and being playful with your spouse, Gottman gives us four ideas. These are all Gottman approved. 

11:35 

So he says, number one, try new hobbies together. Basically engaging in shared activities creates new memories that we can bond over and even laugh over and struggle over together. And this type of interaction strengthens our bonds. 

11:50 

The second thing he suggests, actually plan date nights. Give yourself something to look forward to. I always love when Sione and I plan in advance to go out to dinner or have friends over or go out to do something specific. It's nice to do it last minute, but a big part of the fun for me is the anticipation. It also feels like we are prioritizing our relationship, which feels really great for us. 

12:16 

The third thing Gottman suggests is to be playful in everyday interactions, meaning look for ways to add an element of surprise and fun to the mundane. Now I'm a kitchen dancer. If we're cooking dinner and if music is on, it's a guarantee that at some point I'll be pulling Sione into some type of awkward dance in the kitchen. Very often it's a fun, teasing, get him worked up sort of dance. And that just makes it all the more fun for both of us. And we've also found that suggestive comments also bring laughter into our conversation. 

12:52 

So Jennifer Finlayson Fife talks about how sex is an adult form of play. That was the game changer thought for me. Previous to Sione, I was pretty uptight about what I thought was appropriate and not appropriate sexually and realized that I was created for sexuality and that it is a very appropriate way for us to connect has allowed me to relax into more playful sexual interactions. And it's not all about the sexual aspects. Doing small things to surprise and engage the other person and have more fun together is just such an important part. The other day after I finished writing this, I remember that we had a kite downstairs that we had not used. And so I just went down and grabbed Sione and I'm like, "Hey, you got a half an hour?" And he said, "yeah." And I grabbed him and we went out. and it was a super windy day and we flew the kite for half an hour, which was just kind of a fun engaging something to do that was different than our normal. So it doesn't have to be big things, just something small and fun. 

14:02 

So the fourth thing that Gottman suggests is touching more often and touching often. Physical touch is such an important part of connecting and playful touch is a great way to create fun. If Sione is in bed before me, I will often make crawling over him to get to my side of the bed a fun way to touch and tease and connect. Now, could I just walk around to my side? Absolutely. But what is the fun in that? A 30-second crawl over where I get stuck in various positions is a great way for us to just laugh together and enjoy being together. I heard a quote the other day on a podcast, and I don't know who said it, but this is it and I loved it. It says, "my husband and I make love every night, and sometimes we have sex." Working to make our bedtime a loving and engaging and fun place doesn't mean we're going to have sex, but it does create connection and intimacy. Just these small little nuggets of time where we can create something fun and more engaging. 

15:11 

Okay, so those are Gottman's recommendations for couples. Now, let's talk about you specifically. What about your own fun? What do you do for you that is fun? Because let's face it, things that you find fun are not always fun for your spouse, and it's  important that you engage in things that are fun for you. Just like Sione loving to scuba dive, so he goes on his own when we are in a place where he can do that. So here's the process I've been through the last several months since I was asked about fun. I have been wanting to start playing pickleball for a couple of years. I played tennis when I was in high school, and I took a class or two in college, and I really love playing tennis, but it's hard to find middle-aged women who play tennis at a level higher than just dinking around and lobbing it back and forth. So I didn't play for years. And about five or six years ago, I finally connected with some women, and we would play, and I loved it. It was so much fun. 

16:10 

So that was back when I lived in Utah, and we had stopped playing by the time I moved out here because, you know, health issues at our age and that kind of stuff, and so I didn't even bring a tennis racket out to Indiana with me because I knew Sione didn't play, and I didn't know who else played, and anyway. So I haven't played for a long time. So when pickleball, a couple years ago, we had talked about it, and so we bought some cheap pickleball paddles a few years ago, and we'd been to play a few times, but we hadn't done anything consistent. But we ended up taking the paddles to American Samoa with us this year, and we found a place that we could play a few times a week. 

16:45 

And since Sione's work schedule is so much less there, we started playing and got to start understanding the game better and I fell in love. It is so much fun for me to do something that requires some skill, something that I can get better at and something that is competitive. So when we got back to Indiana, I immediately contacted a friend who plays pickleball and made plans that first week to go with her because I knew that if I didn't jump right on it, I would put it off and put it off and put it off and then I wouldn't do it. 

17:15 

So I let Sione know when we were coming back to Indiana, I said, "listen, I'm going to become a serious pickleball player." Now serious doesn't mean that I'm going to be super good, but it means that I'm going to invest time in it. It's something that I'm going to do for me. And guess what? He likes it also. So we both got ourselves some serious pickleball paddles. And for our anniversary present this last month, we got a membership to a pickleball club that is here. And I've been going two to three times every week. And I have to say I am having so much fun. So pickleball is unique in that it really creates a sense of community and because anybody can show up by themselves or as two people and join in the games that are going on because of the rules of how how you play the courts and stuff. And in just the two weeks I've been playing here in Indiana I already have lots of new names and numbers of people in my phone who I can contact to play. And since my schedule is a little more fluid than Sione's, I go a few times during the week without him and we've gone each week together. In fact, we have a date night with another couple tonight to play pickleball, and a few nights next week actually as well. It has become something that I do by myself for fun, and also something that Sione and I do together for fun. 

18:31 

Now, how do I know it's fun? Because isn't that the question we sometimes have? I think when I was younger I did things that I thought were supposed to be fun like crafty things and guess what? I'm just not a crafter. I know some of y'all are amazing at crafts and you love it and it is super fun for you. But it's kind of stressful for me. I don't enjoy the crafty things. So one thing about middle age that I love so much is the increased clarity about who I am and what I enjoy and the freedom to say no to things that I don't like to do. 

19:05 

So here are some ways that I know that pickleball is fun for me. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't wait until the next time I get to go play. I have a smile on my face the whole time. I'm playing and even when I make a bad shot, which is pretty often, I'm smiling and I lose track of time while I'm doing it. So there's a guy whose name I can't pronounce who wrote a book called Flow. So here's my best attempt at his name Csikszentmihalyi. C s i k s z e n t m i h a l y i. Hey, anyway, he wrote this book called Flow, which is a super simple name for a complicated name. So he talks about how our best work is done when we are in a state of flow. And he defines flow as a state of intense focus and enjoyment, where individuals are fully to fit into this place of flow. 

20:21 

For me, if I am living by that definition, then I'm having fun, right? So he says that our most meaningful life is one where we learn to spend time in flow, that we're just happier there. So for me, I get fully immersed in pickleball. I lose track of time. I'm not thinking about other things going on in my life. OK, I also feel energized, even though I'm expending energy and I get hot and sweaty. And by the time I'm done, I'm like, "oh, I'm so tired." I feel that I create more energy internally than I  expand because I'm having so much fun and it feels productive. I'm developing a skill set and confidence around that skill. I'm making new friends and I'm building connection and community. Pickleball is fun for me and really stepping into doing something fun on a regular basis has been so fulfilling to me. 

21:13 

So I did a podcast some time ago called Overflow, I'll put that in the show notes, where I talked about the concept of living in such a way that what we engage in creates more energy than it expends and that in living our lives this way, our bucket never gets empty, but rather gets to a state of overflow. And then all of the love and service we choose to provide for others can come from this place of overflow rather than coming from the bucket needed to sustain our own mental and emotional health. So doing something that you consider fun that puts you in flow creates an overflow. It generates more energy than it expends. Sometimes this is referred to in our calendars as white space. We need to put white space in our calendar time that is blocked off just for us to do what we want to do. 

22:03 

And my encouragement today is to find things to put in there that are fun, not just taking a nap or whatever, like find things that are fun. So going back to Brené Brown, she states that play is an is essential, is as essential to our health and functioning as rest is. It's doing something because we want to and not because we have to. We take the responsibility out of it. So though I absolutely love coaching and podcasting and find so much satisfaction and fulfillment in doing this, it doesn't really qualify as play because of the responsibility piece. Brene quotes a man named Dr. Stewart Brown who wrote a book called Play, how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul. And I haven't read this book, but Brene shares some concepts and quotes for it that are great. And she really used this a lot in this section of the book that she wrote. 

23:00 

But Stewart Brown says that we are biologically programmed to need play and that the opposite of play is not work. The opposite of play is depression. Isn't that fascinating? Like we need play to keep us emotionally stable. So Brene talks about how her research showed that play was an important part of wholehearted living. If we want to feel complete within ourselves, it's important that we figure out how to incorporate fun and play into our lives. 

23:35 

So here's some questions I have for you. What are you doing just for you that is fun? Hopefully you were doing more than I was, okay? Next question, what do you do that energizes you? Next, what are you doing that you lose track of time doing? Next question, what are you doing that feels productive and meaningful? So if you don't know the answer to these questions, I want you to start by thinking back on your life to things that you did that were fun and times that you were wholly enjoying yourself. Can you bring those same activities back? Or like me, can you bring back a form of those activities like pickleball instead of tennis, okay? 

24:25 

If you have a partner, here's some questions. What are you doing with them that is fun? What do the two of you do that energizes you, that feels productive and meaningful and that you lose track of time doing? How can you add more play into your engagement with your partner? And how can you enjoy being with them more? I will put those questions in the show notes as well so you can find them there. So I just, as I've thought about fun, I've noticed that there are things that I do in my life that are fun and that I enjoy. And I wanna just share some of those with you just to give you an idea of how this works for me. 

25:10 

So I love to read fiction, mostly cutesy romance kind of books, easy read books. And I spent years not reading them because it took time away from my family and I felt guilty doing something for me, right? And I would also get judge-y about wanting to read romance. Like there's a lot of chatter in my head about how, oh, this isn't real literature, this doesn't really count as books. And you know what? I've just decided I don't care. Like it may not be very sophisticated, but I like it. And now I'm embracing the fact that I love a story that doesn't get too detailed and involved and I love a cute nice lovely romance story that helps me keep my own life focused on romance and that it's just an enjoyable way for me to spend a few hours reading a story and jumping into another person's life. So I'm reading more books. 

26:07 

I have fun playing games with people that I love, like my kids and my husband. I don't enjoy involved strategy games because I like to play games to connect with others not to outstrategize them. And I know that that's different. Some people really have fun with the huge strategy games. This is where we have to really figure out what we like. So for me a good mix of strategy and luck is really fun for me. If a game is all luck, it's super annoying because you just don't have any control. But if it's all strategy, it's exhausting for me, too much brain power, because I want to finish playing a game, feeling energized and more connected with the people around me, not tired and overthought, right? 

26:50 

So another thing that I love to do is traveling. I love different cultures. I love trying different foods, seeing the different ways that people live, and seeing the beauty of our world in different places all over. And I love that Sione loves to travel as well. So that's something that we do that we enjoy together. And I love while in American Samoa, we will go on hikes. And also when we go to the beach, we sometimes have to hike 10 or 15 minutes through the jungle to get to the beach, where we will take our camping chairs and we'll just hang out for the afternoon, reading, chatting, connecting, listening to the water, jumping in the water, just fun, right? 

27:28 

I also love connecting with people and having conversations about coaching. It is fun and energizing for me. And that's one of the reasons that I am loving the Talk with Tanya sessions that I do, because I get to connect with previous clients who show up. I get to meet with new people who appreciate my content and who show up. And we get to have some tough and some insightful discussions. And I get to do another activity that I really enjoy, which is coaching. So the Talk with Tanya things, those to me are fun. I really, really do enjoy them. So the coaching may not qualify as play because there's responsibility there. For me, it does qualify as fun because I do get into my space of flow when I'm coaching. 

28:12 

So those are just some of the things that I've identified as fun for me, as well as pick a ball and things that I am working to more intentionally incorporate into my life. So what has been going on in your brain while we've been having this discussion? Maybe you don't know what's fun for you. Maybe you're like I was where you were like, whoa, fine. Like, I don't know, what do I do for fun? And it's not that I didn't do anything for fun. I have started reading books more in the last few years and I play games with my kids, but not on a regular, weekly, consistent basis, right? But I want to encourage you to start figuring out what you do for fun and to intentionally and consistently add it to your life. You will feel more complete, more whole, more satisfied, and more connected with yourself. And you will move into that space of overflow. 

29:07 

And one great thing about middle age and becoming an empty nester, more time to play and have fun. That's a great part about growing up, right? So find something you can do this week to have fun and make sure it's fun for you, not just fun for the people you're with. Okay, have a great week, my friends, and I will see you next time. Bye. 

29:29 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya!