hey it's Adam and in this video I'm super excited to talk about how to stop being so serious and uptight all the time now in this video I'm going to be sharing with you a lot of really foundational personal development theory and also some practical practices that you can use to automatically switch from being serious and uptight to automatically relax and be playful and light-hearted and spontaneous now you'll notice that you have a lot to gain by being less serious in life by living your life in a playful spontaneous relaxed way where we're just allowing the present moment to flow and we're allowing everything to come as it is this is a much better way to live your life you're gonna feel so much happier in each moment you're gonna feel so much more fulfillment from simple things you're gonna be able to play and to enjoy very simple mundane things also by being more playful and relaxed this makes you an attractive person meaning that people are gonna be attracted to you money and abundance is gonna be attracted to you health is gonna be attracted to you good luck and good fortune it's gonna seem like everything is gonna go your way if you have the ability to detach and remain cool and playful and relaxed in every present moment in your life now this is also gonna make you way more creative because in life if you're serious and you take everything so seriously then you're always scared of messing up you're scared of doing the wrong thing you're scared that something's gonna go wrong it's always rooted in fear and if you're coming from a place of fear notice how you can't be creative you can't give your gift to the world because fear is the opposite of love and creativity is love it's Experion of your love so you're gonna be a lot more creative and also if you're always in a state of fear and you're always scared about bad things happening to you then it's very easy for other people to manipulate you and it's very easy for you to be controlled by other people and by the news in the media so by putting some of these practices into place and by understanding what I'm gonna be saying in this video then you're gonna live a lot more authentically and you're gonna have a lot more good fortune and you're gonna be attracting a lot of abundance in your life that's why I'm so excited to get into this content right now so let's start by talking about I got my notes here I'm gonna be looking here once in a while what is seriousness what is it and I have a beautiful quote here from Carlos Castaneda feeling important makes one heavy clumsy and vain to be a warrior one needs to be light and fluid now Carlos Castaneda wrote the teachings of Don Juan amazing books and one of the core teachings of that book is the ability to detach from life and to not take life so seriously but to still live your purpose to still do what you love but in a playful and relaxed and joyful manner now let's talk about what is seriousness so seriousness is basically attachment to outcome seriousness this is a this very important seriousness is attachment attachment so you're attached to something going we you really really need some circumstance in your life to be a certain way so if you're serious about your sports team winning the the cup the the championship if you're very serious about it then you're attached to it and then if you're if your team loses then you're gonna be sad you're gonna suffer attachment always causes suffering whenever you're attached to something you're going to suffer that is the one of the most core principles of Buddhism and all of spirituality attachment causes suffering and seriousness is attachment you need something to go your way so people who are serious you'll notice everyone is serious from time to time so you'll notice if you can think about something you're really serious about it makes you feel tense seriousness is tension in the body in the front of the body you're closed off you're not open to allowing in whatever is here in the present moment you're closed off to the present moment you're scared of something not going your way you're scared of bad things happening to you so if you're very serious about your schoolwork for example then when you're writing your test you're gonna be nervous and you're gonna be writing and and you're gonna second-guess yourself and you're gonna put down the wrong answers whereas if you were relaxed and you were cool and you realize that this test really isn't that important it is important but in the grand scheme of the entire universe this testing isn't really that important if I fail I can probably just redo it it's not a huge deal then when you're writing the test you're gonna be relaxed you're gonna be cool and you're gonna allow yourself to put the right answers down and you're not gonna be second-guessing yourself you're not gonna be scared and nervous and tense and sweating so closure and tension and seriousness is always separation which is ego so the root cause of your attachment all your attachment and the root cause of your seriousness and your tension and your closure is ego you are misidentified with the body you think that you are the body and that this body you believe that this body is you so if something bad happens to the body you think that something bad is happening to you or if something good happens to the body you think something good is happening to you now this as I've spoken about many times in my past videos this identification with the ego this is a false identification you aren't actually the body what you are is something much greater you are the pure awareness and I'm going to be speaking about that more as we get deeper into this video but this identification with the ego this is a false identification you aren't actually the body now whenever you're believing in something that is false that's gonna cause you suffering because illusion and falsehood is suffering truth is the opposite of illusion and falsehood and that's love that's relaxation that's openness you have nothing to hide if have you noticed how if you're being honest you or you're being authentic you don't feel closed and you don't feel tense you feel relaxed you're open to the moment you're chilled so seriousness is also trying to control the present moment you're trying to manipulate your life you're you're very attached to everything going your way oh I have to meditate for 3 hours every day or else I'm going to be depressed and then you're gonna force yourself you're gonna be neurotic about it and then what's gonna happen is you're gonna guilt yourself if you don't do it you're going to shame yourself and ultimately it's not gonna work out in the end you're gonna feel sad and you're gonna be angry at yourself and that's not a very nice late way to live life and that that keeps a lot of tension in your body and that tension that separation that seriousness whenever you're serious about something you're always identified with the ego with the false self and that identification is gonna cause you to live in a vibration of fear you're gonna be scared of things and when you're scared that's holding you apart from being abundant that's not very attractive people aren't gonna be attracted to you if you're serious all the time money isn't gonna be attracted to you if you're always scared of being poor because if you're scared of being poor if you're serious about making money people won't want to pay you because they're gonna feel like you're taking from them but if you're in the vibration of love if you're relaxed if you're cool now people want to give you money because they feel like you're giving to them you're sharing love you're sharing positive vibrations so seriousness is always rooted in fear and it's the fear of losing something and there's always the illusion of importance so I want you to think about something that you're serious about it's a lot of things there's many things that that you're serious about let's say you're serious about your work or you're serious about your schooling so if you're very serious about oh I gotta get 90% on my test I got to do really well in this class or else something bad is gonna happen to me or else I'm going to have to retake the class so in your mind this thing is important to you it's important and this is actually a false sense of importance because you're not zoomed out enough in life your your you're not connected to the fact that you're going to die and everything in your life is ultimately meaningless everything you do regardless of how important you think it is right now in the grand scheme of the whole universe it's pointless you're just a speck so let's say you fail your class big deal okay you fail your class maybe you'll have to take it again maybe you won't get into med up medical school but in the grand scheme of the entire universe that isn't really going to change fundamentally the fact that the present moment right now is perfect it's a perfect present moment regardless of if you're in medical school or not because you failed your test you will still be able to be happy and joyful in this moment regardless of what kind of circumstances you're in so a serious person is always trying to control life we're always trying to make life work out we're trying to force life to be a certain way because this present moment isn't enough for you you don't like this present moment if I don't get into medical school then I'll be depressed and sad and my life will be [ __ ] that's an illusion that's an illusion of the ego that's not actually true your life is perfect in every single moment you have the best life ever this moment notice how this present moment right here the best perfect the most amazing present moment it's awesome but the Eagle likes to come in and trick you and trick you into thinking that this present moment is not perfect now let's let's let's start understanding what is playfulness because this is the opposite of seriousness this is love this is the vibration of allowing now have a beautiful quote to introduce this idea of playfulness I love this quote this quote is by Yamada mamon who is a extremely enlightens n master so this is his quote once a student came to me and asked me what is the purpose of life when I replied to play he was disappointed just to play is it he asked and went away but if you are still thinking that life must have a purpose then you have not yet arrived at the last station at the end of the railroad of life when you arrive at the last station at the end of the line which is spiritual enlightenment you play now this quote is so beautiful it actually makes me cry sometimes because this Zen master he's achieved the highest goal of all of life which is spiritual enlightenment which is basically ultimate detachment the full demolition of your ego the obliteration of all fear and separation so this spiritual enlightenment is a feeling of constant love and joy and also detachment and relaxation in every present moment this is the highest goal of life and this is what true playfulness is this is what true authenticity is when you are very conscious in a very high state of consciousness like maybe you're on some LSD or maybe you've been doing a meditation retreat you'll notice that you naturally become a lot more playful you enjoy the moment a thousand times more you feel like a little kid it's really beautiful and this is pure flow in the moment the playfulness is pure flow there's no resistance at all you except the moment has it as you take it as it comes and its blissful it's amazing playfulness is here openness it's allowing its detachment and it's also forgiveness forgiveness is actually a really it's a really big one because as humans we hold a lot of grudges against people we hate other people everyone is guilty of this we all hate other people but forgiveness is the opposite of hatred it's allowing it's loving and accepting yourself first and foremost yourself for all of your shortcomings all of the things that you think that you're bad for doing someone who is less serious about life someone who's in the vibration of playfulness and joy and spontaneity they forgive themselves instantly forgiveness and once you forgive yourself fully then it's easy to forgive other people because you realize that you are other people so forgiving yourself is actually forgiving everyone and playfulness is also very humble so you'll notice people who are very serious about life they're serious they're also very arrogant because seriousness is ultimately rooted in fear and fear means that you have something to lose you're scared of dying you're scared of something bad happening to you you're identified with the body you're identified with the false self but if you're playful you're humble you're relaxed because you're not scared there's nothing to be afraid of everything can happen exactly as it is and that would be fine everything's good all is good just relax when you're identified with your true nature your true nature check out my video you are not the body you not the mind when you're identified with your crew nature which is the awareness not the body but the one who is aware of the body not the mind but the one who is aware of the mind that's your true nature and that true nature is ultimately formless meaning that it is not bound by space and time you are an infinite being you're not bound by space and time you can never die so there's nothing to be scared about you can just chill out and play that's all there is to do once you realize your true nature is the timeless awareness the pure self that Ramana Maharshi talks about that your true nature is Nirvana that you are the Buddha once you realize that you become a much more relaxed and happy and playful person now that moves us in to the next point which are some common misconceptions about being playful versus being serious and then all then after we're gonna get into some examples and then I'm gonna give you some really powerful exercises for being less serious in your life and this is basically identifying less with the ego with the false self with the scared self who has something to lose who's gonna die and identifying more with your true self the the spirit the eternal awareness the present moment itself the the pure being of now that's your true nature and that's what we're trying to we're trying to identify with that we're trying to help you remember that that's your true nature so notice that being non-serious doesn't mean that your never gonna get anything important done this is a big a big misconception that people have when they hear me and they hear me talk about being detached and they hear me talk about not taking life so seriously and not caring about things so much people think that this means that they're just gonna sit at home and eat Cheetos and watch reruns of Seinfeld and that they're never gonna ever get anything important done because they think that in order to get anything important done in life that you have to be serious about it and you have to be so controlling about it and you have to always be scared of failing this is not the case at all being playful means that you still do the important things in your life because ultimately nothing in life matters nothing matters so you might as well just do the important things you do the things that you want to do you can still start a business you can still go out there and meet and date people and mingle and and have a girlfriend or have a boyfriend you can still get married and have kids you can still you can still do anything you want but as we're being serious quote-unquote we still remember our true nature we still remember that at the end of the day nothing matters and we're gonna our bodies gonna die and and all these little meaningless things that we've given so much important to at the end of the day really have no meaning at all and that brings me to this beautiful quote by Carlos Castaneda a warrior must first know that his acts are useless and yet he must proceed as if he didn't know it that's a shamans controlled folly now this idea of the controlled folly is very important what that means basically is you realize that life is a joke and you reel that everything is pure playfulness there's no reason to be serious at all but even then you can still be serious while knowing that everything is meaningless this is what David data calls opening while closing so if you notice yourself being serious about something right and you can't help it right just be aware of that open into that be open through your seriousness relax through your tension so you can still start a business but don't take it so seriously you can still make beautiful art but don't take it so seriously and you'll notice that your business will actually be more successful and your art will actually be even more creative because being in this vibration of playfulness helps you identify with your true nature which is spirit the divine and that's where creative insights come from that's the source of success and of abundance so when we couch ourselves and playfulness and we we stay grounded in the fact that we're eventually going to die and not all these things that we think are important really aren't important then that allows us to be relaxed and then we can allow good things to come into our life also being non serious does not mean that people are gonna walk all over you and it doesn't mean that people won't take you seriously because when people hear me talk about being non serious or being playful they think that oh okay well then everyone's just gonna think that I'm a clown and no one's gonna take me seriously but in a counterintuitive way it's actually the opposite people who are so serious about everything are the ones that nobody takes seriously because you're so serious you're so scared you're in a lower vibration being playful and being relaxed in every moment that's actually a very respectable quality and people will admire you for that and people will want to be like you and people will listen to what you have to say because you are joyful and you make them feel joyful by being around you and that will actually make you more attractive and if you have to set your boundaries then you have no problem setting boundaries if people if someone comes up to you and says hey Adam can I have $20,000 no [ __ ] off you can't have $20,000 you can go and get the [ __ ] away from me go away like I'm not gonna give you $20,000 of course not that's my money right notice how I don't actually this is actually a form of playfulness because I don't care what this person thinks about me if I turn them down if I set my boundaries right I don't care go away no I'm not gonna give you twenty thousand dollars go get out of my face good you know what I mean so being non serious about life doesn't make you a spineless doormat but it actually makes you more authentic to yourself that's a big one so now we finished all the misconceptions now we're gonna go into some examples so we talked about law of attraction and how decreasing something's importance to you actually brings it towards you so let's talk let's use the example of dating and attraction this is an amazing example so if I'm a guy and I'm I see I'm at a club and I see a beautiful girl a gorgeous girl ten out of ten and I want to go talk to her if I take myself seriously and I think that life is serious and that I'm gonna go talk to her and say a high and and you don't want to say the wrong thing and you're tripping over your words and and you're nervous because you're scared that you have something to lose if she doesn't like you you're scared that your friends are gonna make fun of you if she turns you down then when you go up to her she's gonna sense that neediness the need of you have she you need her to like you that neediness you need her to like you because she's important to you even though you just met her one second ago I don't know why she's so important to you even though you just met her 10 seconds ago just because she's beautiful then that vibration is gonna repel her she's gonna say get the [ __ ] away from me in probably she might say that or she might say it in a nicer way like I got to go to the bathroom but if you don't take yourself so seriously and you relax and maybe you go talk to her and you're dancing and you're smiling and how you make funny faces or whatever you just you be authentic or you look her in the eyes and you smile and say damn you're so beautiful but not not in a way we're like you want her to like you you're just saying it just for fun like you're pretty like nice good job high five like it doesn't it doesn't matter when something is less important to you um it's gonna attract it towards you because then that girl she's gonna read the sub communication that oh this guy he's not nervous he must have a lot of options he must have tons of pretty girls that he can talk to because or he must be very experienced with women because he's clearly not nervous he's clearly very comfortable and the fact that I'm beautiful cuz you know the beautiful girl knows she's beautiful the fact that I'm beautiful doesn't faze him at all and that's the person that I want to hang out with I don't want to hang out with some guy who's always worshipping me like like I'm like the most important like a goddess I want to be around some guy who treats me like a human being who's equal to him so that's one example of how playfulness playfulness is the root of all flirting you can't flirt if you're serious you have to be playful because that's an attractive quality another example is your career and your money so being serious all the time means being scared and as humans what we do is we tend to choose a career out of fear we choose a career because we're scared that we're gonna be poor if we don't choose this one career so like I'm gonna be an engineer even though I don't give a flying [ __ ] about being an engineer I'm still gonna go through six years of schooling to be an engineer because I'm scared that if I don't be an engineer then I'm gonna be poor see that's a form of seriousness you're taking your life too seriously you're not gonna be poor it's okay choose a career that makes you feel loved choose a career that makes you feel bliss choose something that you're passionate about okay maybe you you won't maybe you don't know yet how you're gonna make money let's say you're interested in collecting bottle caps or something like that right maybe you don't know how you're gonna make money collecting bottle caps but if it truly if you're truly passionate about it and it's what's important to you then don't take yourself so seriously and just do it see if you're so passionate about maybe you can start a YouTube channel about collecting bottle caps maybe you can help other people expand their bottle cap collection maybe you can write a book about the the rarest bottle caps that you've collected from all around the world you can make money doing anything you want as long as you're passionate about it and you love it and you allow yourself to do it without always being scared with a being scared of failing without being worried about what other people are gonna think about you because if I was really passionate about collecting bottle caps I would be self-conscious because that's kind of a weird hobby right you know mate water what's one of my parents gonna think of me what are my friends gonna think of me that I'm collecting bottle caps they're gonna think I'm weird but if you don't take yourself so seriously if you don't take life so seriously and that's gonna give you success and you're gonna have a beautiful career that you love and you're gonna be able to make money from it now the last example is your fitness and your health so being non serious actually allows you to be open in your body it allows your body to be relaxed I'm gonna actually gonna open up my body right now it allows your body to be relaxed and open and this actually will make you feel a lot more loose and a lot healthier and a lot more light a lot more limber you'll be less prone to injury and you'll also be less prone to diseases because many diseases are caused by constantly holding tension in the body and by consciously relaxing your body you are allowing your body to heal itself now let's get into some exercises for detachment now these exercises are extremely powerful and will change your entire life if you do them the first exercise is meditation now if you're new to this channel then you haven't heard me talk about meditation before but if you are not new to this channel then you hear me talk about meditation in every single video because meditation is the number one practice for you to detach from the ego from the serious afraid self and to remember your true nature which is the witness the pure awareness who is made of pure emptiness and love so when we practice meditation I'm not going to explain how to do it here I have other videos I'm going to link it right there click on that video to where I explain how to do meditation properly the next exercise is to contemplate your death a lot of people are very shy when it comes to the idea of death they're very scared when it comes to the idea of death sometimes I talk to my mom and I say mom it's okay you're gonna die anyways it's fine never remember that everyone's gonna die and it's okay she goes Adam don't say that that's bad don't don't tell me that I'm gonna I'm gonna die but it's it's it's really funny because don't be shy to contemplate your own death it's actually a mark of a very very healthy human being who is able to contemplate his own death and to remember his own death a warrior constantly remembers his own death in every moment because that puts your life into perspective that allows you this goes into the next exercise this allows you to zoom out of life zoom out of your life and take life from a bigger picture view your life from a bird's-eye view from a third-person perspective from a fourth person perspective zoom out and and think to yourself so let's say you're in you're in some type of situation that you find yourself being very important and attached like let's say you're having an argument with someone about some stupid topic we tend to do that a lot don't me I definitely do that a lot now when you're in this argument remember that you're going to die remember if I were to die in three days what I still be arguing about this stupid thing no you wouldn't you would probably give the person you're talking to a big hug apologize to them for whatever stupid thing you were arguing about and then you would go and live your life to the fullest and give your gift to the world as fully as you can before you die because you only have three days left to live many patients who are diagnosed with terminal illnesses they actually report feeling much higher feelings of happiness much higher vibes they feel like their quality of life has actually increased a lot because now all of a sudden all the stupid petty [ __ ] that you've been worrying about like like the the color collar that you're gonna buy your dog and and your your your girlfriend bought your dog a stupid collar and you're mad at her for that all that stupid petty stuff flies right out the window when you're diagnosed with a terminal illness because you realize that life is about enjoying the present moment and giving love and playing that's what life is about not about being serious and controlling and egoic and scared all the time the next exercise that we have is to release body tension this is a big one so whenever you notice yourself being serious about something also notice that there is tension in your body fear and seriousness always manifests itself as tension in your body likely the front of your body is closed off like mine is right now a little bit my legs are crossed just because I'm kind of uncomfortable sitting here if the front of your body's closed off what you can do is you can consciously recognize the tension become aware of it and breathe deeply into the tension and you'll notice a lot of your seriousness a lot of your fear is going to instantly melt away and the last exercise my favorite exercise for decreasing importance and being less serious about life is dancing and singing if you're a human being then I know that you love music and if you don't love music I don't know how you even exist to be honest are you like a robot or something because I don't know how people could not like music so unless you're deaf in which case you're not listening to this video so I know you love music so what I want you to do is allow yourself to dance and sing by yourself if you want and also in public that's a big one I personally love dancing in public I suck at dancing I'm not good at dancing at all but dancing is a amazing way for you to stop taking yourself so seriously just dance sing some Bee Gees or something or some Earth Wind and Fire right oh so do you remember oh yes it is September bye never was a birthday right I already I feel way more calm and way more relaxed because I take myself way less seriously so those are my practices this was a very long video I'm gonna wrap it up now thank you so much for listening if you like this content I really enjoy making this type of very deep very existential personal development content where it's not just a surface shallow like here's three quick tips to stop being so serious this is very I'm diving right into the core the root cause of your problems so that you can actually understand your problems so that you can actually fix them because you can't fix a system that you don't understand how it works it's like you're a mechanic you can't fix a car engine if you don't study how car engines work and that's what we're doing here on this channel I'm making very in-depth content some of it's very long but that's cool no problem with that you don't have anywhere to be your your timeless and immortal so we got all the time in the world here where I'm gonna be explaining in a lot of depth how your mind works how your psychology works because I've spent the last couple years doing that for myself I've been practicing a lot of meditation I'm very knowledgeable about the a lot of the structures and a lot of the the mechanisms the psychological mechanisms that cause me suffering and then I'm able to articulate them in these videos so if you like this video subscribe give it a like comment I love hearing your comments I love when you say thank you so much Adam because this video is amazing you're welcome I appreciate you give it a like share it with your friends share it with your uptight serious friends and lastly check out this playlist I'm gonna I'm gonna add this video to a playlist there's more videos on my channel so I'm still talking I never stopped thank you so much have yourself an amazing life [Applause]