We often deploy them when our insecurities surface or we feel awkward in a social setting. “This weather, crazy” “Boys will be boys” “Just another day at the office” “How’s your day going?” — “Good” I find them similar to agreements. Something we hold onto, we keep in our back pocket. Often, they give us the comfort to allow and permission to avoid. What agreements are we shaking hands with? “I’m too much” “It will never get better” “‘Nobody can help me” Scripts and agreements often follow pain, hurt, and betrayal. Scripts and agreements help us keep going. They can also stall us, and hold us back from experiencing a richer and more fulfilling life. It’s not easy to always have the capacity to engage in the spontaneity and wonder in life. To live unscripted invites curiosity, play, and risk. Cathy Malchiodi PhD, call this having the space for the "Unscripted Moment" and that if we find ourselves lacking in this area, there may be an opportunity to revisit past traumas that have robbed us. As she puts it, we can “rediscover and rekindle the playful spirit within”. How do we do this? The biased therapist in me says, go do some EMDR or somatic based therapy. But, most people don’t go to therapy, so… when you’re able, engage in play and spontaneous activity when you are and feel safe. If you feel safe at home with a trusted person do something random that you usually wouldn’t. At your next outing with a safe group of people, follow a playful persons lead. Lasting adaptive changes in the brain occur when we re-enter/re-experience the uncomfortable spaces with a safe partner/partners in the therapy office or out to eat with friends. The way to is through. “What is needed are experiences not only help us cope with traumatic stress, but also begin to replace the uncomfortable sensations of hyperactivation and allow us to feel and sense the world in pleasurable and joyful ways. This is a transformation felt in the body as empowerment, mastery, and enlivenment when encountering distress and disruptive events” - Cathy Malchiodi PhD