Working Through Games

Same technique as the goals session. Different target. Today you clear the weight around games so you can engage with them freely.

If the goals session went well, you already know how this works. You bring up the concept, let memories and associations surface, cycle through the flows until the weight exhausts itself, then use the invention flows to break any fixed shapes around what games mean to you.

If you’re still working through goals, if the freedom check in Lesson 6 showed remaining weight, you can run both in the same period. Do goals for ten minutes, games for twenty. Or do them on separate days. Either works. The important thing is that both get done.

Why Games Need Their Own Session

Goals and games are related but distinct. You can be free with goals and stuck with games, or the other way around. Someone might set great goals but refuse to play the game required to achieve them. Someone else might play games obsessively but never have a clear goal behind the play.

Games carry their own weight. Maybe you were humiliated in competition as a kid. Maybe you watched someone lose everything by playing a game they shouldn’t have entered. Maybe you were told that taking life seriously means it’s “not a game.” Maybe you learned that winning is everything, and now you can’t engage without that pressure.

Whatever’s there, it needs to come up and clear out.

The Session

Find your quiet place. Close your eyes. Continue until the weight around games reduces and you feel freer. Usually twenty to thirty minutes.

Flow 1: Games you’ve played. “What game have I played?” Let them come. Childhood games. Sports. Academic competition. Career moves. Relationship dynamics. Financial decisions. Creative pursuits. Any activity where there were stakes and uncertainty and you were in it.

Don’t just think of literal games. Think of every time you were playing for something. Approval, success, survival, connection, victory. Those are all games.

Five to seven minutes. Let the memories flow without analyzing them.

Flow 2: Games you haven’t played. “What game have I not played?” This is the avoidance flow. What did you refuse to enter? What did you walk away from before it started? What did you never even consider because the idea of playing was too much?

This flow often surfaces more emotion than the first one. The games you didn’t play carry the weight of the reasons you didn’t play them. Let those reasons surface too.

Five to seven minutes.

Cycle. Go back and forth between the two flows. Games you’ve played, games you haven’t played. Keep cycling. Each pass surfaces new material. Older memories, deeper weight, forgotten games.

Continue until the flows start running dry.

Flow 3: Invent a desirable game. Make up a game you’d love to play. Something exciting, thrilling, engaging. It doesn’t have to exist. “A game where I travel the world solving puzzles.” “A game where I build something beautiful from nothing.” Create it. Feel the pull of it. Then let it go.

Flow 4: Invent an undesirable game. Make up a game you’d hate. “A game where I have to sit perfectly still for a year.” “A game where every decision is judged publicly.” Create it. Feel the aversion. Then let it go.

Alternate desirable and undesirable for several minutes. This breaks the fixed weight on what games mean. It proves to your system that games are just structures. You can create them and discard them at will.

After the Session

Sit quietly for a few minutes. How does the concept of “games” feel now compared to before? Is there less weight? More neutrality? Can you think about playing a game you’ve been avoiding without the old flinch?

Write down what shifted. You don’t need a formal freedom check today. That’s built into the next lesson. But notice the difference. The work moves faster when you pay attention to the changes it produces.

Today’s Practice

Run the full session. Continue until the weight around games reduces and you feel freer. Usually twenty to thirty minutes. All four flows with cycling. Don’t rush it and don’t skip the invention flows. They’re not optional, they’re what breaks the concept loose from fixed associations.

If strong emotions come up during the session, that’s the work doing what it does. Don’t push them away and don’t dive into them. Just acknowledge and let the next memory or feeling come. The goal is flow, not analysis.