How to Introduce PLAYFULNESS into your Life at ANY AGE

I have embarked on a playfulness challenge to live playfully put that into my calendar and not feel guilty about it having time to play gives my brain time to rest from the to-do list playfulness is so embedded into our DNA as kids that is how we learned to walk and talk and do all the things all the skills okay welcome Ivon Ivon Marquez I'm so happy to have you here with me you're the first guest on uplift uplifting Life television with y l and I'm really excited uh we've known each other for three years now I think we met on clubhouse and Ivon Marquez is an artist I think I Define you as an artist first and foremost she's an actress and a photographer and a podcaster and maybe some other things that she'll tell us about and I'm really happy to have you with me I am so excited to be here thank you for inviting me to be on your show so um Ivon calls herself her podcast is called late bluma living and she calls herself an age agitator so maybe um I don't know if I wanted to start with this but maybe we will and you will Define for us what does it mean to be an age agitator it means that I'm trying to agitate people's awareness about their attitude towards aging because I I have not I have always been afraid of Aging I knew that about myself I've was more afraid of Aging than dying probably still am um and but what I didn't realize that was doing to me was it was once I did actually start to get older that attitude towards aging started to be something that was holding me back from living my best life I was having limiting thoughts about what was possible for myself as a person who was getting older I feeling like everything was all downhill and when I realized that that thought process was hamstringing me from taking new chances um pursuing new interests that's when I was like oh my gosh wait a minute am I the only one who feels this way am I the only one who has been having thought Loops about myself that it's all over um and that's when I decided to start the podcast because I wanted to tell the stories of other people who had come up against problems in their lives in midlife and it busted something open for them and they managed to get through it on the other side and so that's how the podcast started so I think this is something which is true for all of us or most of us that we we kind of come against a brick wall when we reach mid midlife and uh things have to shift for us because otherwise we bang our heads against against it because I think um if if you live your life and you it's an upward climb to midlife when you get there and you say okay what's next and what is it downhill from here and we say no I think and I think that's what you mean is there is another Peak that we can actually climb and maybe it's not as Steep and not as difficult but maybe this time it's better to enjoy it enjoy the way and I think that's what you're doing now right so you invited something lately what is it I have embarked on a playfulness challenge a a a challenge for myself to live playfully and that involves a couple of different things y as I've looked at it it involves making more time in my life for play for the traditional idea of what we think of as play um blocking off little bits on my calendar where I can go for a walk on the beach where I get to do something that I know makes me feel good and gives me energy roller skating or paddle boarding in the summertime um it's about letting myself put that into my calendar and not feel guilty about it and consider it wasted time or frivolous time or selfish time because what I'm coming to realize is that playfulness is so embedded into our DNA as kids that is how we learned to walk and talk and do all the things all the skills we approached it from an exploratory experimental ooh what if I do this what if I do that and and that's kind of what I'm looking to incorporate in my life so having time to play gives my brain time to rest from the to-do list from the work but the other aspect of the challenge is to have a more playful attitude going into that work because I'm fortunate and and I have the privilege of Hosting this podcast and being a photographer and doing work I love but there's a lot of little things that go into doing that that are tedious mundane busy kind of things and um I have to remind myself that I get to do this it's not that I have to nobody told me to start a podcast nobody said Ivonne you need to be a photographer so I have to remember that this is something that I love doing and so I'm trying to tap into that as often as I can so I think maybe you have here a startup and not Al not for older people but for younger people because I think the I maybe one of the problems of society is that we stop playing when we as we get into our 20s where when responsibility starts sitting on our shoulders and we see playfulness something to be guilty about and then we kind of Escape into other things like booze like smoking whatever weed some people uh some people have affairs Ju Just Just to let that energy the danger the the the the feeling of playfulness we need it and it's not accepted and what you're trying to do is make it acceptable for life for your life and I love I love the notion I love the idea is living playfully it's that's what I'm trying to do I'm a bit older than you I think about 10 years or maybe more I'm I'm 65 next week well we are 10 10 years we're May a little bit less actually because I turned 56 in July so ah okay so um and uh I know that what I did yeah in recent years that's what I've been doing I'm trying to live life more playfully like like to infuse joy into my life and that's my mission my mission to infuse joy into other people's life I want them to be able to feel Joy to to to search for what is giving them joy and you are just doing the same thing in just in a different Manner and I really so aligned we're so aligned in that Y and you know I get so excited about the idea because I think imagine what the world could be like if people let themselves pursue the things they want that they they fill them with joy I mean who would have time for you know being like it takes I think it takes away a sense of scarcity worry stress and if we're less stressed then maybe the world would be a better place to live in because we'd all have this sense of self fulfilled satisfaction that's like bubbling up in us and who would have time to fight with each other if that's where we're all coming from absolutely absolutely I really agree so I want to ask you you made a transition you were an actress right Mo what made made you make that transition from being an actress to being a photographer what was it only family or was there something inside that said maybe I'm not built for this anymore it was both I I I started um I moved to New York when I was 25 to pursue the acting career prior to that I had done a lot of theater in in Denver Colorado and uh but my life dream was to be a New York theater actress that's like many others yeah I mean from the time I was 7even years old I there was no never any possibility that I was going to Los Angeles to pursue a career there I wanted to go to New York City I wanted to live there I wanted that energy and it was everything I ever wanted and it was how I identified myself and as I got into my 30s I started to see how uh the the the life of an actor started I started to realize that I was less than satisfied with continually going on auditions um I was afraid to go on vacations because an opportunity might come right when I'd go on vacation I didn't want to change my hairstyle because I invested a ton of money into getting photos done for head shot so there were there were all these limitations and I didn't want to do a lot of commercial work I didn't want to sell products as an actor that I didn't believe in and that was a a viable way to make money theater actors don't make a lot of money and so I just started my values I started really looking at my values and and did this fit with my values and then I became a mom and I thought after the first couple of years I thought I'd go back to acting and auditioning and I did and when I started doing that I realized in very short order I would audition and I'd get a call back and my husband is also an actor so he would be auditioning and getting callbacks and I realized that I just didn't have the energy to put into the whole process anymore and I wanted to be a mom I wanted to be with my child um but then that led to a five-year trip through the desert I'll say yeah of who am I what do I want to be when I grow up because I had that that had never been a question in my mind what that was your early 40s late 30s when was that that was late 30s yeah so from about the time I had my child until I turned 40 I really didn't know what I was going to do next and it it was a major identity crisis I would say um but then I fortunately got laid off from a job in the 2008 recession and I came home from that I was devastated and I came home and I said to my husband what am I going to be when I grow up I and he said you're going to be fine you're going to figure it out sleep on it don't worry and I went to bed that night and I got up in the morning and I looked at my husband first thing in the morning and I said I want to be a photographer and it came out of nowhere y it came out I had been trying to take good pictures of my kids and flowers and things that I love and I was and I had a little point and shoot camera this was pre- cell phone camera you know and I never could get the kinds of photos that I knew I wanted so I bought my first real camera we had a little bit of space left on our credit card and he let me use that to buy a fancy camera I enrolled in a photography program and I studied from home and I started doing photo I carried that camera everywhere with me in a big purse and I started learning and I started doing side gigs while I was working another job and slowly built up a business and it saved me yeah yeah I can relate because I went to film School in my mid-30s and uh but that's for another story actually it's on your podcast and whoever wants to listen to it can go there and I put a in the show notes I put a link to the podcast so you can listen to it and uh yeah you have it on your website I love your story yeah so the story is there what I did and how I I transitioned from one job to another which is really a story so uh then okay so you reach mid midlife and why did you start that podcast and it's called Late Bloomer living now why did you choose the name and what made you start it I started the podcast as okay let me back up by the time I got to be about 48 years old I had finally managed to go full-time with my photography business and and you would think at that point yay Victory woohoo we're done no I I was having trouble getting up in the mornings I was having trouble focusing um I had I was angry a lot of the time I did not want to get up in I I cannot explain to you how much I didn't want to get up in the mornings I would hit the you don't need to explain it to me I have been through for menopause as well yes and I didn't realize at the time that these were per menopausal things that were happening I've only realized that in the past couple of years but um I you know I there was a morning where it came to it and I had gotten up late as usual and was in the usual rush and craziness of trying to get the kids out to the door out the door on time and of course their kids they're not organized and they move slowly and I'm getting angry at them I'm like where's your lunchbox get your stuff let's go we're late and by the time we get down to the car I looked in the rearview mirror and I saw these big fat crocodile tears coming down my kid's face and I was so disgusted with myself and I thought I am almost 50 years old and I was literally having an adult tantrum wasn't I and I thought why can't I get my chisel together why does everybody else in the world seem to have it figured out this whole adulting thing that I can't seem to manage which is not true but you didn't know that right and uh so I I started down the path in real earnestness of trying to figure some stuff out for myself and uh I found Mel Robbins book the 5sec rule which blew things wide open for me because she had some similar things with the snooze button that were really affecting her and I thought okay I am divorcing my snooze button I am breaking up with the snooze button and so I took her advice and I put my alarm across the room my phone put it across the room so it would go off in the morning I'd have to get my feet on the floor and walk across the whole room to turn it off and once I did that it made it a little bit easier to keep going and I decided on top of that that I was going to do a 30-day experiment to get up before the family before I had to put out fires and do all the things and take time for myself to meditate and move my body and exercise and that was a complete Game Cher I'd say about a month later I went in to wake up my older kiddo and uh kissed him on the head and he had no idea what I was doing but he just looked at me and he said you seem happier mom and I I couldn't believe it and I realized that I was on the right track finally and I felt so much more energy than I had for the past decade and I was like wow I feel better than I felt all through my 40s like I I feel so much better and I started to feel hopeful about my future and I started to think about well if I'm going to be 50 soon I'm very likely to live into my 80s you know with pretty good health it's possible that's 30 years what am I gon to do with that time and I started to get excited about it instead of dreading it and when I realized the difference that that made in how I was looking at what was possible for me I started to get even more excited and I started to think I bet I am not the only one who feels this way and that's what inspired the podcast but that took me two years to actually start the podcast because I didn't think I was qualified took me two years I think three took me three years uh and yeah so I see wow um yeah so so the podcast is four years old you you have over a hundred episodes and we'll link for we'll link to it of course in the show notes an Amazon I very curious and can you show to us can you tell us about it what is it about oh my goodness I I I love this little book can I just tell you I call it the little book that could I never intended to become an author can I just say that but this little book is a combination of my photography of my flower photography and quotes uh not quotes but um definitions on of the word bloom so it's called in full bloom a guide to aging playfully and by the way I wish I had done the subtitle to be a guide To Living playfully at any age just want to say that now I know but it's filled with um flower photography from some of them are from my big fancy camera and some of them were my iPhone and there are definitions of the word bloom like to thrive I looked up the definition of the word bloom one day and I realized how tied the word bloom is to the idea of Youth and I thought hm what if I were to rewrite these and leave out anything that has anything to do with being youthful and just talk about the possibility of blossoming and blooming and so it's a little picky own adventure book that you can open up on any given day and it and have like a little daily boost or something to think about for your day and you can keep it on your nightstand or your desk this is the perfect Mother's Day right the perfect Mother's Day uh present or or for anyone birthday can I just tell you can I just tell you my my aunt who is in her 80s one of her favorite things I don't know if I can find it right away but one of her favorite parts of the book she told me was at some point I I said something there's a a part of the the definition of the word bloom that's like to suddenly appear you know to and I took that idea and thought oh okay so I asked the question in the book have you surprised yourself recently and she told me that that was her favorite part of the book at 80s something years old she was like I love that idea of surprising myself so right yeah I love that too and for any age okay my dear thank you so much um tell so I I want to ask you a few questions you you know the the Berna pivo uh questionnaire actor Studio oh yes okay I took a takeoff it's not it's not what you what's your favorite word Etc it's something completely different but I'm going to ask you question and what I would like you to do is to repeat the question so we can afterwards we can cut it into shorts for you for me uh Etc but before that before I ask you that um no I I want to relate to one of I I was looking through your um uh I think it's it's funny because I I wanted the things that I wanted to ask you and I almost forgot so let let's just go back I remember when you started with the rollerblades now rollerblades you did it as a kid so it's not something new to you but in our age we start thinking about the danger because a fall can be bad it's not very easy to heal from a fall and it took a lot of courage to just go there and into the skating ring and start skating and I remember your first video you you made a video of you trying to to do that and uh so so I want to ask you um what made you go skating again and what does it make you feel when you do that I'm not asking about the puddle boarding I think I feel the same thing about puddle boarding as you do because there is a but the skating is D it's it's skirting with danger it's you're and I want to know why and what how does it make you feel so what so the reason I started again is because I didn't feel the danger when I was a kid all I felt was Freedom um there's something about especially when I was a kid skating fast oh man just that it's like the wind in your hair and you know just just this excitement that came with it you know never I never did I never did oh my gosh I spent I spent a good two three years on skates almost every day as for as long as I could get out on my skates I was out on my skates I skated outside I skated in my friend's garage I skated at the skating rink when I could um and I wanted that experience again and I and I thought well okay if I put on a bunch of pads and a helmet I've got some protection but I have to say yeah I was not prepared for how scared I was when I put those skates on the first time and realized how wobbly I was I was my balance was not what it was when I was a kid and it was very nerve-wracking and but I was determined because I had been dreaming about it for probably a couple years I've been wanting to get back on my skates and so I thought well I've got all the padding I'm just going to go slow and see how this works and so I literally would go out for 10 or 15 minutes at a time I didn't push the boundaries too much it was just to get used to being on the skates again um and after a couple of months I felt much less wobbly there's still some and now I purposely I purposefully when I go skating now I will try to do things that make me uncomfortable on my skates because I know I know that if I turn let's say clockwise to go backwards or to stop I'm very comfortable going in that direction my my body remembers that from when I was a kid old habits they came back but going in the other direction to stop is completely uncomfortable and dangerous Frank frankly like I can really wipe out going in the other direction so I've started slowing myself down and practicing going into that direction over and over and over again and the same thing when I'm going backwards on my skates and I want to turn and go forwards I am teaching myself to go in the other direction and it's really so that I can stay safe on my skates in the long run so that if I have to avoid something step over something do anything I envy you I I envy you I never and I probably want uh won't go on skates uh it's too dangerous uh you know I had a a hip a hip bone operation I had an operation on my hip joint and it is very rickety I'm doing a lot of sports and I'm doing a lot of stuff to to strengthen myself but uh I'm not going to endanger it so there are some things that I'm not doing I'm not running um quite a few things regretfully but yeah I I accept that and I do other things whatever I can that's the thing I don't think I don't think roller skating is the answer for everybody it's the answer for me because I enjoy it so much so for for anybody else who's looking for something to bring some feeling of playfulness into your life really go back and look at what you enjoyed as a kid and if it's not something you can do anymore think about are there parts of it that you could enjoy in a different way doing something else that captures that that essence of what you enjoy I think when if as kids we used to climb trees maybe now we can go on those climbing walls you know because you have a harness and you could and I'm still planning to do that and uh go with you yeah yeah so it's a challenge and I'm going to do it okay we're gonna go paddle boarding together and we will go we will go learn how I'm just coming to the states just come I love it I okay so uh that was a a question in the head so now uh as we went through this I'm going to ask you those questions I want you to answer with the question itself so we can actually cut it into shorts okay and um I have complicated questions is now not so no no no okay if I could go back in time to what age would you if you could go back in time at what to what age would you go back and what would you tell her whatever if she was a girl uh a teenager or a young woman maybe an older woman young mom so here is yours so if I were to go back to an earlier age to give myself advice I would probably go back to my early 20s and tell her that she doesn't need to be a people pleaser she doesn't need to be perfect and that she should go take the chance right away on everything she wants to do and don't worry about needing experience in order to go do something because you will get the experience when you do the thing great that's a great answer what do you wish you had known when you started your podcast what do I wish I had known when I started my podcast I I wish I had known I don't know what I wish I had known when I started my podcast it was a pure delight to start my podcast I got up every morning in the beginning excited to figure things out and to do things I guess maybe the one thing I would have wished I knew was that it would be as easy as it is to find guests because I that was the main thing that I was nervous about was why would anybody come be a guest on this podcast that's you know from somebody they've never heard [Laughter] of okay um how how do you see yourself in 10 years time how do I see myself in 10 years time I see myself feeling really good having a lot of energy doing work I love that brings in money and helps to support my family and spending time with my husband and my kids and my friends maybe Grand children maybe I love those paintings behind you by the way okay this is me both of them h both paintings and uh they were painted by a very good friend of mine she's my painting teacher and uh the paintings that I painted are under her instructions and that was me um about 15 years ago she she took she took some pictures and on and she never took pictures she took her dad's camera and she said I want I want to paint figures and she just took some pictures of me dancing on the beach and then um she painted she chose to and she painted them so I had so cool yeah how awesome is that it is it is I love it w this is if you could live your life all over again what would be your first career choice if I could live my whole life over again what would be my first career choice I think it would still be acting I'm very happy with myself for taking the chance to do what I did and because acting is a as a career it's kind of a calling I I mean that sounds a little I don't know grandiose but um what I now realize is that the Common Thread with everything I've ever done is storytelling so I started off as an actor as a piece of a puzzle in a production that somebody else wrote directed and I did my part to tell the story and then as a photographer I'm behind the camera capturing somebody's story and then on the podcast I am quite literally helping people to tell their story and I think that story is so essential to who we are as humans and that that's why the stories we tell ourself are so important so if we are telling ourselves a story about aging that's disempowering we're going to make that true and if we're telling ourselves a different story that has possibility and excitement and curiosity then that can be true as well so I I would still I first first career I'd still go with the acting so that leads me to the last question and and I think you answered it but maybe you you better elaborate um what advice do you have to a woman in midlife crisis when she hits the brick W yeah yes the advice that I have for any woman in midlife who feels like she's having a midlife crisis is to consider the possibility that it's not a crisis consider the possibility that this is a moment of Awakening for you that there that midlife is an amazing opportunity for you to accept yourself for who you truly are and let her come out and Blossom W thank you so much Ivon that that was a pleasure do is there anything else you want to add or have we covered every everything I want first let's ask can you tell people how they can reach you absolutely so the you can always find me at Late Bloomer living.com and all the things are there uh you can find the book there I have a a community for women called the age agitators Club it's not as scary as it sounds it's actually very fun we meet once a month on zoom and keep thinking about this idea about how that's surprise ourselves as we get older uh and I've started doing what I call playshops to help people tap into how to be more playful and experimental with their lives so that's something that I've started doing recently as well and all the information is there I'm on all the uh places as Late Bloomer living.com in I'm on Instagram a lot as Late Bloomer living absolutely and uh I would I like to invite uh the viewers to our clubhouse room we we met on clubhouse three years ago during covid during the pandemic and uh we had we hold her Ivon is the one who is really hosting it I'm helping to moderate but uh it's um it's in the second AR sister's club right and uh you can always look it up because I think you on Instagram you usually put the invite uh in your stories or something that people can follow us there it's every Wednesday at 10 AM EST I think eastern time yeah and if anybody wants to join my uh my email list I always put a link to join the clubhouse room with an announcement about what we're going to be talking about great every Wednesday so and we have a great group don't we yeah ladies who meet in clubhouse and we have conversations that are just I think mindblowing right absolutely and you can always listen to to our backlog because uh we actually record them and and we we put them there so people can join us so I want to thank you so much I'm really it was really a great honor for me that you came to be guest the first guest and uh I'll see you on our next uh clubhouse room and um thank you all for listening and goodbye thank you y don't forget to subscribe to this Channel please and like it like Ivon right wherever wherever the where's the button go to the button subscribe bye bye okay Men [Laughter] Please he he would put his PO inside me tast it oh my goodness oh my goodness so I said my my glass of water oh okay

Channel: Uplifting Lifestyle Vision with Yael

Views: 95

Keywords: women over 50, women over 60, women over 70, aging, aging with fun, playful living, lifestyle after 50, lifestyle after 60, lifestyle after 70, living boldly, age agitator, Yvonne marchese, late bloomer living podcast, life quality, midlife, midlife crisis, menopause, peri menopause, post menopause, women solo, silver and solo

Id: o-isKDcAJPQ

Length: 40min 2sec (2402 seconds)

Published: Sun May 19 2024