So, what’s a FUNcoach already?
From time to time we all need to be reminded how to make things fun again. We need to be reminded that we even have that option.
It doesn’t take much to make people forget fun. Fifteen minutes of watching or listening to just about any newscast is enough to do it for them. A phone call with someone who is already having something very other than fun. A meeting with someone who’s “secret agenda” is about proving how more important she is than you. A driver who ignores you on purpose. Lost keys. Lost temper. Losing. And the whole entire beautiful thing is ruined.
This is especially true for people in transition, in remission, in recovery, people attempting to regain themselves after a particularly profound change.
Acting as a FUNcoach you can help people remember fun, remember how they can make things fun again. You can do this online, on the phone, via email, and in classes.
Here, for example, an excerpt of an email I received from Chris Collins:
…On a very deep and timely basis, I needed FUN. Maybe he could help? Of course, he said. He would give me whatever he could to get me back to laughing, acting silly, letting go of all of this heavy stuff. At least for moments at a time. Which is all I needed…just a break from the craziness…to allow joy back in.
Gooood! Gooood! I can use this! So we began, only by email, to talk about fun. About the different kinds of fun, about how to generate it, how to allow it, how to encourage it, how to be it. Oh yes, this is what I remember, this is the goofoffieness that I truly am. And Bernie could bring it. We would write to each other only when we felt like it (I was in bed most of the time), he would bring me thoughts that were new about fun, and I would let them sink in to this body, as I was letting platelets sink into my veins two times a week, for months.
I truly believe the fun thoughts were more healing. Actually I know they were.
Before long, I had found an alternative doc who would help me get better, and I would emerge from the depths of blackness, having a new friend to lead me back to the light. I had others too, to let me know that there was more to do on this plane than I had once imagined…but my Fun Coach, he came through with the peace and levity that I needed to focus on…from a perfect stranger…without feeling sorry for me, but by supporting in me what I always had, but had forgotten. Deep Fun. I thank him for that each and every day, and I look forward to what Fun I can cook up with each and every face I meet.
(You’ll find her whole letter here.)
Here, for another example, is what someone who had recently lost his wife wrote me about our email coaching:
In the first months after the accident I found DeepFun and Bernie De Koven. I wonder looking back how my life might be different if I hadn’t found Bernie. He spent time with me vitrually as a “Fun Coach” of sorts, although I don’t think he had a name for it back then.
Bernie was my personal fun coach back then as he worked with me on a strange concept Fun and Grief. He taught me techniques and gave me tools that helped start on the process of going through a major transition and helped me to focus on the fun aspects of life during a time when my life was focused on things that were anything but fun. I don’t think I can ever thank or repay Bernie for being there at a time when I really needed someone.
(more of Rod’s reflections are available here.)
The practice of deepFUN helps me make things more fun in my life, helps you make things more fun in other people’s lives, helps people who actually are playing games make game playing more fun, helps people who have stopped playing find games that will bring them fun again, helps them find fun in the world in their family and even inside themselves.
Contact me for more information.