Day 7 of interesting ways to use the InterPlay Inspiration Deck.

It’s a wrap! I  am officially  finished my week of giving you interesting ways to use the InterPlay Inspiration Deck for your personal home use.

BUT

AND

If you don’t have a deck,  you won’t be able to practice, and then you won’t be able to change your life.

OK

that was a bit strong, but you get the point…time to invest in yourself and your practice.

Here is one incentive: FREE SHIPPING! click here and then when you are ready to pay use the coupon code ABD3334 and away you go!

(pssst…this code will work for the jewelry on the site too!)

(double psssst….this code is only good until dec. 1st.)

Thank you so much for walking the path with me and giving me the inspiration to keep changing my life!

To read testimonials from people using the deck, click here.

Become a fan of the deck on Facebook here.

Follow me on Twitter here.

OR send smoke signals….

Any and all ways of connecting are welcomed!

Day 6 of interesting ways to use the InterPlay Inspiration Deck.

We have a saying in InterPlay…Change your practice, Change your life or is it Change your life, Change your practice?

I think the meaning is the same. If you wish to change your life then you must change your practice because if you do not the practices that are not working will continue to not work and your life will not change. This is not rocket science, right?

The real question is: Why is it so hard to change your practice? Experts have written many books on this subject; google it and you will find many videos, articles, etc., or just read what my friend Practice has to offer you. (She is one of the principles of InterPlay brought to life in the InterPlay Inspiration Deck.)

When Practice gets a hold of you, watch out! She is a goddess and knows what is best for you. Practice believes in self-improvement through the power of daily affirmations and repetition. Every morning for six months, she bought a beautiful amber colored mat to her friend’s house to do Pilates because the friend wanted more strength and flexibility. Practice is committed and dedicated. She knows that to change your life, you just need to change your practice. And she is willing to take your hand and walk with you every step of the way.

Some of the things I have learned from Practice:

• get clear
• show up
• feel the fear
• get help
• walk the talk
• keep going
• affirm yourself

There is so much that could be said but as I stated earlier: this is not rocket science, so find your practice, stick with it, and you will change your life!

I promise.

…..the money will follow.  Day 5 of interesting ways to use the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

I think that was the title of a book I once read or a quote I once saw somewhere and I have been carrying it around in my head ever since.

It is a beautiful concept and something I wish to aspire to (I know you sense it too? There is a BUT coming, right?) Let’s list some of the But’s:

1. I don’t know how.

2. It doesn’t come with benefits or health insurance.

3. I don’t have time to do what I love because I am too busy working my “regular” job.

4. The laundry needs to be done, house needs to be cleaned, bills are due, the family needs come first, I have to waterproof my boots (you get the idea)…

Making time for what I love is scary. Alright, there I said it. It is scary. Scary because (see numbers 1-4) if i go beyond the distractions of my above list I find number 5: I may fail, or at least become so vulnerable that I may not be able to function.

Since this is just a blog post (and the experts tell me not to go beyond 500 words), I will stop there and bring the tool of the day into the foreground.

Here is how I will use the Inspiration Deck today: I will start with a single focus for doing what I love and having the money follow.  My desire is to find ways to sell more decks and get more people interested in InterPlay as a life practice.

My questions (along with the cards that I pulled):

• What can I do to calm my fears right now so that I can move forward? EASY FOCUS
• Is there something that I am overlooking in my present approach? FOLLOWING and LEADING
• Where can I get more advise for my next steps? BABBLING

Depending on how much time you have you can keep going and going….

Today it makes sense to me to see what InterPlay teaches about these concepts and to take the wisdom from there.  In order to do that I have to go to the instructional booklet that comes with the deck. Once again, read on if you are interested in my process and how I make sense of these messages and apply them to my focus.

my first question is about calming my fears and the card i chose was easy focus. in the booklet i read, “easy focus allows our body to relax, helps us engage more of our senses, and puts us in the middle of our experience instead of observing it from the outside…” this helps me to see that the tension in me and the fear is coming from the place of hard focusing on the outcomes and not really being present to what it is the i am creating and working on. doing this blogging for a week has been an amazing and wonderful experience for me and the comments i have been getting awesome. i want to be able to breathe all of that in instead of just “zooming” to the next piece of productivity.

the second question is about something i may be overlooking in this approach and i chose following and leading. the line in the booklet that catches my attention is,”on occasion we get to have that wonderful experience where we are not sure who is leading and who is following…” because i have engaged easy focus right now i am able to see a bigger picture. i am not sure if i am leading and you are following or if you are leading and i am following. right now that produces a wonderful sense of anticipation and excitement. where will this blogging lead? how might this produce more interest and intrigue out in the world?  also, i want to acknowledge that i am following my own desires and leading myself on the path to manifestation.

the final question is where can i get more advise and i chose babbling. babbling is also free flow talking where we don’t have to censor ourselves (one of the gifts of blogging for sure!). “…we end up sharing information about who we are and what is important to us.” what is so great about this card is that i see that in the process of doing this week of blogging and babbling i have really learned more about how much i love this deck, love this life practice, and love sharing about it. AND i love hearing what YOU have to say about it.

I WANT MORE! more of you, and your process and what it is like for you to use the principles and practices of InterPlay and ideas about how to spread the word (and alright, i admit, sell more decks!). This is life changing, I swear it is!  But don’t just believe me, try it for yourself!

Day 2 of interesting ways to use the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

Last week I brought the idea of connection to my InterPlay class.  Phil Porter introduced the idea of small circles of connection  a few years ago and I love to play with it often when leading groups.

Finish this sentence: I belong to a small circle of people who ________?  Some answers from last week’s class:

• wear hats all year long
• have my own website
• have red hair
• would not be caught dead without lipstick

From the ridiculous to the sublime these are the ways we connect with one another, find our intersections, or lack thereof.

Using the InterPlay Inspiration Deck, I asked the group to each pick a card. I invited them to hold loosely and lightly the question: Is there something that could help me feel more connected to myself and to others? Something that would aid and guide me when I am feeling stuck or scared in my relationship to myself or others?

Here are a few of the cards that were chosen:

• following and leading
• stillness
• improvise

I led the group through a variety of experiences using movement, noticing and contact.

Everyone had profound noticings about how to use their particular card to help them have more of what they want and desire in connection to themselves and those around them.

I will share some of my own. I used the closed eyes shuffle approach to choose my card. I got Following and Leading. The first exercise we did was a solo dance in our own small dance bubble. This was followed by a medium dance bubble solo dance and then a large bubble solo dance. The medium and large bubbles overlapped with other people’s bubbles which helped to begin the investigation of connecting with others. At first I was unsure about how to do following and leading with myself. Within minutes though I was filled with ideas: use my right side to lead and my left to follow, set up a pattern and follow it, take something in the room and follow that, use my feet to lead and my hands to follow. And when the dance bubbles overlapped I had even more fun following and leading with the bodies I came in contact with (whether they were actually aware of me or not!)

Some of my noticings about following and leading:

1. setting up something very simple and repetitive works best. (this is so helpful in marriage, child rearing, and most interactions)
2. it is impossible to follow and lead at the same time. (this is so helpful in marriage, child rearing, and most interactions)
3. when I am not clearly leading nor passionately following the dance falls apart. (this is so helpful in marriage, child rearing, and most interactions)

Now it is your turn. Get your own deck and explore the possibilities!

I had to laugh when I read Anita‘s eloquent blog on Tuesday because for the past week I have been immersed in working on a Grace mandala. She captured the concept so well, while it has been quite the struggle for me to grapple with the word and all its meanings.  Mine has been in the works for several months. I had made some sketches and had written down some of my feelings about Grace. But of course, once I started to draw it, everything changed.

And there is Grace in that for sure.

So many opportunities have arisen in the last few days to challenge my ideas about it.  I have to laugh about that as well.  It seems to be the pattern.  Once I make a decision to tackle a particular word, the lessons show up all over the place.

I will be finished with it soon, and will share it here along with more of the story about making it.  I wanted to use just a small detail of it for now, but the lighting was bad, and it is late, and it all felt just a bit beyond my technical capabilities.  So for now, these are the markers and the palette that I’m using.

….between your eyebrows with your fingers, throw your hand up in the air and say, “WHEE!”

This is the gift of letting go of my hard focuser and taking a soft or easy focus.  The peripheral vision has to be engaged and more of what I am looking at invited in. When I see only what is in front of me I am extremely limited. My fears can run rampant and make me believe that, nobody likes me, everybody hates me.

remember that childhood song? it ends with, “I’m gonna eat some worms…big fat juicy….ok, you get the idea.

My time at the InterPlay Leaders’ Gathering was an amazing exercise in letting go of fixation and my belief that the world is conspiring against me.

well, maybe just a few people, but “world” sounds so much more dramatic!

While at the gathering, I decided to use my tools and apply them to myself: noticing, witnessing, body wisdom, and incrementality.  I let go of a bit of fear, allowed myself to be vulnerable, and  wonderful things began to happen:  people showed up to support me, meaningful connections were born, and The InterPlay Inspiration Deck found a whole new audience.

The principles and practices of InterPlay work, if you use them!  When I make them more than just words on the page, or concepts that I study and memorize to spew out at appropriate times, especially to show how “wise” I am, then life shows me its magic!

hmmm, maybe life is conspiring for me and not against me.

Like all the other wonderful things that I have learned, read, and studied over the years, I am finally at a place of truly  living and embodying the teachings I have spent years studying.  It is a daily practice as some days flow and some days don’t.  Many times I am in awe and just as many in tears.  I see myself behaving in new ways and also see the same old me, doing the same old sh_t!

As Easy Focus says,” Good noticing Anita. Now, get on it , get off it, and get over it!”

Okay, here I go.  Wanna come along?

from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

Message for today: GRACE

“….she has a way of knowing what is resting on your heart even before you do.

Her touch is comforting and her words uplifting……”

~from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

It seems to me like life is full of transitions. Each day brings it’s own changes and these changes call on me to adapt or transition. Today: a former roomate’s step-father recently died; my best friend’s dad just got out of the hospital; my dad has a will-not-stop tear duct that may require surgery and my eyes are watering (on behalf of?); it’s my first day back to work after two days out with a cold; and I have unanswered questions about my future always on the back-burner these days. All of these call for me to transition along with them. Seems like my theme for the day is fathering. Step-father, father, dad, fathering myself.

Inner Authority card in The InterPlay Inspiration Deck

I’m not sure that the cold is gone yet. Maybe my self-care is lagging. How well is my transition into self-fathering going, then? Not as well as I’d like.

My dad was a Protestant (Christian Church – Disciples of Christ) minister and I guess he still is in his retirement. To me, it seemed like he was always there for other people. He’s been a great example to me of an open-hearted man. I still strive to open and soften my heart the way I’ve seen him do. And I would say that he’s done some great self-care in retirement: traveling to many places around the globe while continuing to work part time. I would say that both of these pursuits are dear to him and he does well to go after them with gusto — which is exactly what he is doing.

Shuffling The InterPlay Inspiration Deck

But, back to me… I’m looking for some inspiration to make today’s transition or maybe just to determine what this transition looks like. Yes. I’ll be pulling a card from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck to help me gain some direction. I notice that Monday’s selection “Inner Authority” with its yellow sun is still on top, so I shuffle the deck even more than I usually do.

Surprise! It’s “On Behalf Of” with the cool dragonfly symbol. The colors are enticing. The stylized body seated in lotus position frames the green dragonfly.

Okay. I don’t get it. Why would I get this card today? Don’t I just need to take care of myself at the moment? Guess I’d better read the story on the back. Here’s the phrase that most catches my attention:

On Behalf Of round card from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck

“She sees everyone who has shared their pain with her bathed in warmth and love.”  Nice.  That’s the kind of acceptance I observed in my dad and in the literally hundreds of InterPlayers who have done Dances On Behalf Of for me.  Now that’s music to my internal ears.

What if I were to approach myself the way On Behalf Of (from the InterPlay Inspiration Deck) does?  This small, round card has so much to teach me.  Not that the universe hasn’t tried to bring me this noticing before.  My dad modeled it for me.  All those Dancers On Behalf Of showed me the possibility of bringing this “warmth and love” to myself.  I created my mission in the men’s work in 2002 that incorporates this open-heartedness:  “I open my heart to create a world where I and others are enlivened to appreciate and co-create beauty.”  For whatever reason, I waited for this round card to be my real teacher.  I am grateful.  I am inspired.

I don’t even know what my current transition looks like.  And already it seems less intimidating just knowing that I can bring the open heart I long to bring to others to myself.  How cool is that?

May I bless myself with this kind of ease around my current transitions and adaptations to the changes around and within me.  I bless myself.

Creative blessings to you all.

In addition to the Cheryl Cutler quote, here are what some people are saying about Anita Bondi’s InterPlay Inspiration Deck!

I have been using the deck for my Hospice work… Asking patients or caregivers to pick a card and see how it “fits” them.
Inevitably, the card is just right for the moment.

Some of the families I work with have logged onto the Interplay
website as a result of the cards and have grown interested in Interplay.
It’s a beautiful deck of cards and such an easy way to show what
Interplay is.

social worker, Hospice chaplain

So I brought my fun pack of round cards.  I was drawn to the Loosely and Tightly card…..I am thinking take it loosely….yeah…relax…then take it tightly….yeah….strangle it…till it can’t breathe…..back and forth back and forth…loose and tight. And then I turned the card over……Loosely and Lightly.  Aaaaah.  Ok.  No strangling involved whatsoever….interesting concept.  I am having to rethink this whole thing now….soften my grip and relax.

hard-working Mom with a corporate job

InterPlay Inspiration cards are easy to use and provide sweet insight into the everyday challenges.

under-employed, highly talented and trained person

I love using Anita’s InterPlay Inspiration Deck and the way it helps me tap into my own inner wisdom.  The suggested exercies are also a great way to bring InterPlay into my every day.

Mom, fierce advocate for the weak, dancer

Dawali is a huge festival in India. Atul, my Indian boyfriend (that is the joke my girlfriends and I share about him) has just informed me that they will be on holiday for the next 5 days and that is why he is trying to get the Inspiration Deck to Fedex before the end of the workday. Atul has been in my life since August. I do not know what he looks like, or what his family life is like. I do know what his voice sounds like though. He called me one night in September at about 9:30pm. I was getting ready for a big performance piece I was doing that weekend and had to run to Kmart for batteries. He was shocked that I was out so late and wanted to know why I was not at home? I decided it was because it must not be proper in India for women to be out so late. Plus, how do you describe Kmart to someone in India? I simply said I was at the grocery store. It was a funny five minutes or so with me trying to answer questions about my whereabouts at that time of the night with a man who works for the card printing company that is manufacturing my Inspiration Deck. Most of our e-mails were about paper weight, CMYK, telescopic vs. tuck boxes, and a host of other things unknown to me prior to this past summer. Now, here we were finally speaking to each other, and it was as if he was a relative concerned with my safety or someone intimate to my life and world. E-mail relationships can become that way, can’t they? When you share with someone (even just a few lines) several times a day for several weeks, you begin to get, well, comfortable, i guess would be the word. That is why my girlfriends began to call him my “Indian boyfriend.” I talked about him all the time.

“Atul said.” or “Atul recommended.” or,( and I think this was probably the clincher), ” Atul really made me angry today.”

Before the e-mail about the Dawali holiday it had been weeks since I had heard from Atul. The cards were suppose to have shipped two weeks prior and I was a bit worried about what had happened. His e-mail said that there was a delay because the 42 page, 2.75 inch booklet was sticking out a millimeter over the 3.85 inch circle cards, and that was making it hard to shrink wrap them. These numbers are important because they were the bane of my existence for weeks, as we went back and forth trying to convince the printers that we had the sizes exactly right to fit into our 4 inch packaging tins.

We, would be Marci (my friend and designer,) and myself. She has also worked tirelessly for months on this project with me! There would be no deck without her!

I began to panic! Why was the booklet sticking out? I had paid $1000.00 to have a special die cut for the circles to make sure everything would fit perfectly. Now, they were about to ship and they were not perfect? And, they were only at 50% heat for the shrink wrapping! ( Not that I had any idea what that meant.) All I knew was that it threw me into an immediate stress response that had me shaking. I just sat at the computer wide-eyed, vibrating and spewing a long litany of the details of a process that no one really wants to hear about; a process that has been too much of my world for too many months! Stan just stood there saying, “It will be fine.” He clearly did not understand. Finally, I calmed down enough to hear the voice of a much higher Self saying, “Pick a card. That is what you made them for.”

On Behalf Of is what I picked. At first I hemmed and hawed, still stuck in my victimization. Then I turned the card over and read the story:

“When you call On Behalf Of there is always time for a cup of tea and a bit of conversation. She will make time to stop and listen. If you are at her house, she will offer you special paper and a beautiful amethyst fountain pen to write down everything that is troubling or upsetting you. She places all the papers in a dragonfly jar on her kitchen windowsill. Every week she opens the window on a bright sunny day and sends the concerns off to the light…”

no more concerns!

There is more to the story, but that is the part that made me stop and exhale. I got up and found a beautiful piece of paper and wrote down everything that was troubling and upsetting and scary (okay, just about the card project!). I put the paper in one of the tins and set it on the windowsill. Yesterday, the sun was shining and it was 75 degrees! I opened the tin and put it outside on the deck. That is where I found it this morning. It is empty now and I trust that the beautiful paper with all of my concerns written on it, has been carried off to the Light!