Chris Valdheims shares his experience of getting back into DJing and how it reminded him of play's importance.

He defines play as doing something without any goal - purely for enjoyment.

Chris emphasizes the significance of play in developing one's creative voice and storytelling abilities. He discusses the challenges of losing sight of play and its impact on creativity.

Chris also explores the role of play in calming the nervous system and communicating with the younger self. He encourages listeners to prioritize play and tap into pure creativity for a more fulfilling and easier creative process.

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In the last couple of weeks, I've been getting back into DJing music. It's something I've loved doing since, I don't know, since I was a teenager back in the nineties. And a lot of my friends were into it. I was into it growing up, mostly like hip hop and house and all kinds of shit that you can mix together, um, in a good DJ set. So I hadn't done it for years. So I don't recall the last time I actually DJed for anyone else. I think it was back in like 2017 and somehow.

I got out of it. Somehow I got out of the habit and just stopped doing it. And it just fell away. Never really noticed it or made a decision. And by the way, I'm never someone who was really pursuing any kind of career in it or any kind of, um, anything out of it, which is why I enjoy it so much. So lately I've been getting back into it. And the reason why I'm telling you all this, the reason why I'm sharing this with you is because what it has done is brought me back to how important play is and.

I'm defining play here just generally as doing something without any sort of goal, doing it for strictly the enjoyment, which is how I feel about DJing. So it's not any kind of pursuit. It's not anything I'm trying to make a career out of, or even trying to impress anyone with. I'm strictly doing it for myself. Like I've told my friends when I told them, hey, I'm getting back into DJing, I'm really playing what I want. It's really about me getting into the music and having an experience with the music.

without any regard for things that will happen out of it. So that's what I'm gonna talk about today. But more importantly, even if you're not into DJing or music or anything like that, I'm talking about how important play is as an ingredient in developing your creative voice, in developing your creativity, and ultimately in telling your story. I'm Chris Valtimes, and this is the HyperMemoir Podcast, where I talk about a lot of different things, but usually centered on creativity,

telling personal stories, telling my personal story and mixing that together into something that you'll hopefully find valuable. So as I mentioned in today's intro, I'm going to be talking about prioritizing play. I guess that's sort of the best way I can explain it. And as I just mentioned a moment ago, we're talking about doing things that we do just for enjoyment.

And for a lot of you listening, that might be an obvious point, but I think there's some depth to it. And that's what I want to explore today. So we do things, you know, there's a lot of things we do and, you I can kind of speak from my own experiences. There's a lot of things that I do where I have a goal. If I think about my business, the goal is to serve people. The goal is to make money so they can support myself. When I think about writing, the goal is to put out a book that connects with people and does things.

So all those things have this operational element, which I'm happy about and I enjoy and I enjoy the pursuit of those things. But I think sometimes what that can lead to is taking things a little bit too seriously, which I do believe is antithetical to creativity. And I'll explain what I mean by that, but kind of getting back into play. So in my case, DJing and for you, that might be something else. It might be weaving, it might be painting, it might be a sport.

It doesn't need to necessarily be a creative pursuit, but I think for a lot of us, we can lose sight of doing things just for sheer enjoyment, especially when we have responsibilities like family or business or work or anything like that. It's really easy for play to fall by the wayside. And play is a really important part of creativity because it gives your mind, it gives your body, it gives yourself the space to really explore. And ultimately the weird thing is, is that can have benefits on your other.

creative avenues. So for me, I've found that the more I've gotten into DJing and the more that I give myself time to play music and mix music together, see what happens, see what comes out of it, see what I enjoy hearing, see what I like hearing mixed together, seeing what two songs go with one another, which is basically what you're doing when you're DJing, trying to find two songs that go well together or sequence a whole set and make a whole musical journey out of other people's music.

Which is fun. And for me, there's not a lot of pressure because I'm kind of relying on other people's creativity, which is great. I'm adding my own creativity by mixing it together or doing technical skill stuff that makes it sound better or makes it sound different or changes the context. That's what I like about DJing is you can kind of take something that's there and mix it. I like to DJ right now, mainly DJing house music and like 70s music like disco and funk.

I like a lot of seventies African music. So I try to mix that all together and use that to tell a story, use that to create a vibe, use that to explore music. And for me, that's what it's about. I don't really care if anybody else likes it. I have people around me who do, but whether or not they like it is immaterial to what I'm doing. And I'm keeping it that way. I'm really keeping it so that it's for me and not for anybody else. If somebody happens to like it, great. But.

The reason why I'm doing that is because I want to have a place where I can relax. And one of the things that I came to realize in the last few weeks as I was thinking about this topic or thinking about how I would talk about it is how growing up, I didn't always feel like I had the safety where I could play. If you've heard me in previous episodes, I lived in foster care, I was adopted, and I lived in circumstances that were pretty unstable.

places where I felt like I had to really look out for myself. And while I did play, just like any kid did, there was always a part of me that felt like I had to be on high alert and that carried into adulthood. And while it's been helpful in some ways, it's made me really aware of things and really responsible for things in my own life. I think it also diminished my creativity because you always have this, um,

I don't want to say fear in the background, but you always have this preoccupation in the background about what can go wrong or what, you know, you're thinking about the future or reminiscing about the past. And what I find with play is it brings me into the present moment. And what that does is it calms down my nervous system. So again, this is my pop science view of it. So if anyone out there knows this stuff better, tell me, or we can talk about it. But ultimately, you know, what I see is if my nervous system is on high alert,

I can still be creative just because I have a really good habit of being creative and making stuff. But I also find that if I'm able to relax, then I can do a lot better. I can be a lot more creative. It's a lot easier. And I had a friend conversation with a friend not too long ago about this and I was explaining it to her and she actually happens to be a therapist. And I was explaining to her that there's a part of me, my younger self when I was

in foster care, et cetera, that I've carried with me that is always on alert. And really what she was explaining is that the way that you can deal with that one way, and this is my interpretation, one way that you can deal with that feeling of being on high alert that you might gain in childhood if you've had any kind of adverse experiences or tough times is communicating with that part of yourself. And I'm not gonna go into any of the science or theory behind that, but.

Ultimately, what I realized is by DJing and getting back into playing music and doing something for myself that I enjoy and doing it to be in the moment, in a way, it's sort of communicating with that younger version of myself. And the message, the message that the younger self needs to hear is often one of it's okay. So when I'm DJing, the message that my younger self is often getting, and this is so funny, like, um,

personal, I guess, self -psychoanalysis or whatever you wanna call it. But the younger part of myself is getting the message that everything's okay. So it's one thing to be to tell myself that, yeah, everything's okay. But I feel like I have to feel that. And the way that I can feel that is through what I'm actually doing. So if I'm doing something for enjoyment, it's almost like my younger self is like, well, if you're playing, then everything must be okay, right? Like we must have what we need. There must not be any danger, et cetera.

That's my interpretation. That's kind of what I took away from that conversation. And that's what I choose to work with because I find that to be helpful. Um, so that's kind of the theory behind it. But then one thing that I tend to do, and I think some of you listening might also do is you get into play and it's good and you find something that you really enjoy doing. And it's really easy, especially for those of you who are entrepreneurial and have that mindset of creating new stuff.

It's really easy then to get too serious about things. It's too easy to set a goal or a project that I'm, like I said, big proponent of goals and projects. I have them a lot. I have them every day, have them all the time. You know that if you've listened to any of these episodes, I'm really about doing stuff. But here, what I'm trying to do is get to a counterpoint, get to a counterbalance where I feel like I can just do something for enjoyment. And part of my...

process here is to not get too caught up in a goal. So with DJing, it's really about that moment of playing music and enjoying music and not about, well, can I get a gig somewhere or can I make a perfect mix that I'll get a lot of listens? I mean, that would be cool if any of that happens. Great. But I really don't care. I don't care if I never play for anybody. That's fine. If I never get any downloads on my pardon me on my sets, that's fine.

And I don't even really upload the ones I'm doing these days because like I said, it's just for fun. So I think one of the things that I am cautious of, and we'd probably tell anyone else thinking about this to be cautious of, is turning everything into a project. You know, I, I'll even hear people, someone will say, oh, I'm like really getting into making candles. And you'll hear someone, and this might be kind of like an American thing where people are like, oh, well then you should make a business out of it. There's a big difference between making candles, let's say for the joy of it.

and turning it into a business. One's not better than the other. It just serves a different function in life. So for me, the function of DJing is really just to kind of tap back into the pure creativity, to tap back into creativity for creativity sake. And what I've found is the more that I embrace that, the more that I embrace this having an activity just for creativity sake, everything has felt much easier. I feel like...

by tapping into that creativity, what I'm doing is allowing creativity to enter other places in my life. I've noticed that things in business have gotten easier. I've noticed that just anything that I'm doing has gotten easier. And I have a lot of theories about why that is, but it turns out that when I take my nervous system down a level by being creative and I DJ, I actually start in the morning, I'll DJ for like 10 minutes or.

15 minutes between things, you know, instead of going on my phone, I'll go on DJ pro, which is the app that I use on my computer and literally just make songs. No, like no big equipment or anything special. I just flip on the app, start mixing some music and then go do something else. And it's just a signal. It's just a signal to my nervous system. And I find that it puts me in this mode where I'm less reactive. I'm less concerned with other people's judgment. I feel more, I guess some people, people would put it this way.

I feel like I'm more in my energy. I feel like I'm more in control and I'm not just reacting to things, which of course makes everything easier. It's really easy to get into a process of judging yourself about how far you're getting on something or how well you're able to meet someone else's needs. I'm doing this strictly for my own needs. And for me, the more that I can serve my own needs and really get myself into my own energy and into my own priorities, into the things that I care about.

the more that I can show up for others. And so for me, everything has become a lot easier because of that, because I am not reacting and I'm not dealing with things like comparison or perfectionism. It's almost like DJing or playing music or whatever models the behavior of like, just do stuff because you enjoy it. And who really gives a shit if it's perfect, who gives a shit if it's better than someone else's or worse than someone else's.

The only litmus is, do you enjoy the time spent? And if the answer is no, then maybe something else would be more suitable. At least that's what I find. So that's what I've gotten out of it. And that's what I've gotten out of getting back into DJing. And who knows, maybe I'll post some of the mixes to you all later or in the newsletter or whatever. I don't know, haven't decided. But like I said, that's not really the point. The point is for me to just do something that I enjoy and...

find a way for me to really spark creativity that I can then use elsewhere. I use that creativity in my business. I use it in my writing because yeah, it gives me a grounding. So I don't know. I hope that this episode is helpful. And really, if there's a takeaway to any of it, it's if you don't have something where you feel like it's play, where you're just doing it for fun. And by the way, it doesn't need to be something creative and, you know, it can be anything for some people that sports or hiking or whatever. Um,

But for me, I actually, I do think that there's, there's more when it's a creative pursuit of some sort. And maybe that's more what I'm talking about, because I do like all those other things I do like, um, you know, I do like being outdoors and doing hiking and stuff like that, but it's kind of not the same in a way. I mean, it does give you some of that, but I think there is something special about having a creative, um, pastime that you can, you can go back to and, you something that could be really easy for you as well. So nothing that requires a huge investment.

or a lot of time or something that you can just do easily whenever you want, it's probably gonna be more helpful than something that requires huge investment, et cetera. So I don't know, those are just my thoughts. I hope you enjoyed it. This is the HyperMemoir podcast and I'm pretty much doing an episode every week. So thank you to everybody who's been listening and emailing me or checking out the newsletter and especially to those of you who leave reviews, that really helps. So I appreciate that.

and I'll see you next time. I think I have some stories, some more personal stories coming up just about different topics. So for those of you who have gotten into that, really appreciate you listening to those and you'll hear more about kind of just different stuff that I'm choosing to share here. So thanks once again.