The Game of Life

Back here… with something to share

It’s been a while since I last wrote here. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I was working in silence, looking inward. Sometimes life asks that of us: to stay quiet for a while, to look inside, and let the pieces fall into place before we can speak about them.

Today, I feel it’s time to share what I’ve been understanding during this period. Because deep down, we are all playing the same game: the game of life. And when I say “game,” I don’t mean it lightly; on the contrary, I say it because I believe we’ve forgotten how to play it without fear.

To explain it better, imagine a baby learning to walk. They stand up, take two little steps and then… bam! they fall. But instead of getting scared, they often laugh and try again. A baby doesn’t know fear or shame; they only know they want to reach somewhere and have the determination to do it.

Because babies don’t know about the past or the future. Their whole world is in the present. They don’t spend time thinking about the fall from a moment ago or imagining whether they’ll fall again. That “what if?” that haunts adults all the time doesn’t exist in their minds. They simply live. They fall, laugh, get back up, try again… as if each moment were new and carried no history from the one before.

We, on the other hand, start living each day dragging the weight of all the days before. We walk with the fear of making mistakes because we think it says something about who we are. And little by little, we forget the freedom that a baby has to fall without fear, laugh without shame, and try again without the weight of the past or the anxiety of the future.

The Board and the Wrong Opponent

Over time, we start to believe that the game of life is against others: family, partners, coworkers, society, world events… as if we were in some kind of competition where we must prove ourselves. But it’s not true.

The reality is much simpler: each of us plays on our own board. And that board is your body, your emotions, your mind, your inner life. No one else can play there because no one else feels what you feel or lives what you are living.

In my case, the first “opponents” to appear in my game, as in everyone’s, were the closest ones: my family. Parents, grandparents, relatives… each with their own perspective on what life should be and an immense need to impose it, not only on me but on everyone in the family.

But there was a huge contradiction. One of my cousins, Antonio, was one of the few who always treated me well and with respect. I spent a lot of time with him because with him I felt safe: he never touched or abused me. And besides, we loved to dance. Whenever we could, we went to parties, dances, any place with music — and we were so good that people would form a circle around us just to watch us dance.

And what did my family do? They forbade us from hanging out together because, according to them, that behavior was not appropriate. The only one who treated me with respect was seen as a threat… yet with the other uncles and cousins —the same ones who did touched me inappropriately, who did abuse me— with them, apparently, there was no problem at all. With them, I could go out.

That’s when I realized the game was rigged from the start, that the rules my family wanted to impose were not to protect me or for my own good; they were to maintain an order that destroyed me. And something inside me knew that if I kept following that script, I would lose myself completely. So, in the end, I had to cut ties with many of them to stop feeling like the black sheep they claimed I was and to reclaim my emotional stability, my own game.

Let me put it this way: imagine you’re walking along a trail in the woods. Others are walking near you, some ahead, some behind. But everyone carries their own path, with their own stones and flowers, their own ups and downs. Someone else tripping doesn’t affect your path; someone else arriving somewhere first doesn’t change yours. It’s not a race. You’re not in a competition.

And yet, we waste so much energy comparing ourselves to others, as if they were our opponents, when in reality they’re not even on our board.

The Mind: Saboteur and Ally

This is where the game gets interesting. Because when we stop seeing others as opponents, we discover that the real rival has always been at home: our mind.

The mind is mischievous. It loves to feed on old memories, replay past emotions as if they were new, invent dialogues that never happened or no longer matter. It distracts us from the present with “what if I had done this” or “what if I had said that”. It keeps us hooked on guilt, fear, anger… as if replaying things again and again could change the outcome.

The worst part is that the mind never rests: it can sabotage you in the silence of the night or in the middle of laughter with friends. It whispers doubts, recalls mistakes, making you believe the game is harder than it really is.

Because your mind has spent years training to be your best saboteur. If you’ve already noticed what it tells you every day, how it makes you lose your balance, your self-confidence, then it’s time to flip the script: train with your mind so it becomes your best ally.

So that voice, instead of tearing you down, builds you up. Instead of replaying your mistakes, it teaches you what you learned from them. Instead of filling you with fear, it gives you reasons to trust yourself.

The mind can be that tough coach who seems demanding and cruel, but if you learn to listen to what really matters and ignore the noise, it draws out a strength you didn’t know you had. Because when you understand that your mind is your stubbornest rival… and your greatest teacher, you’ve understood everything.

Let’s do an exercise… and a short meditation

Before we close, I want to invite you to do something very simple. You don’t need anything special, just a moment with yourself.

1. The exercise:

Grab a piece of paper and a pen (or your phone if you prefer) and write down three memories. Just three. The ones that keep coming back to your mind over and over. Don’t analyze them, don’t judge them, don’t try to make sense of them. Just write them down.

When you’re done, notice how you feel. What emotions appear? What do you feel in your body?

I started with the memories that made my stomach twist the most, the ones that made me uneasy just by thinking about them. And I realized something: that “emotion” was my mind’s favorite food. The mind finds it almost delicious to replay those scenes over and over again, as if each repetition were a feast. It clings to every detail: what was said, what wasn’t said, what could have happened but didn’t.

It’s strange, but over time, I realized the mind doesn’t seek peace; it seeks stimulation. And for it, drama, pain, or guilt are like a delicacy. The more intense the memory, the bigger the banquet. And so, without noticing, we keep serving it the same dish, day after day, not realizing we’re the ones opening the door and inviting it to the table.

When I saw this clearly, I understood that my job wasn’t to stop remembering, but to learn to observe those memories without fueling them. To look at them as calmly as one watches a fire burn out: yes, there was heat, there were flames… but it’s no longer burning me.

2. The short meditation

🎧 Put on your headphones, hit play, and let the guided meditation below take you through the next few minutes of calm and release.

Meditation Emotions, past memoriesMalena

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Let’s play

The game of life is not about winning. It’s about playing. And when you understand that the opponent was never out there, but your own mind —the same mind that can go from being your saboteur to being your best ally— that the people you thought were opponents are only distractions, then you begin to enjoy every move, especially the falls.

I hope my experience, in every sense, is useful to you in some way. This has helped me free myself from many unnecessary burdens — maybe because I have one foot more in the afterlife than here — but I want my journey to be lighter and to enjoy it along the way.

This doesn’t end here. But for those interested, you’ll see this is intense work and it takes time. That’s why I’ve developed it in three parts, to give you space to digest each one. In the next post, we’ll go deeper: we’ll travel to our oldest memories and discover the threads that connect them, the stories we’ve unconsciously repeated… and how we can start to transform them.

See you in the next post! Don’t forget to like, share, and spread the love.

Sending y'all big hugs and lots of love. 💛

With all my love, Malena 🌿