Energies4Life Newsletter - July 2009

Play is the way people of all ages and cultures discover, create and communicate. Play is the essence of life and learning.

Play, joy and spontaneity are rooted in all of our hearts. Children and infants, driven by curiosity in their quest for survival, playfully explore with their entire bodies the universe around them, that is then translated into an inner world. Developing an understanding and balance between this inner self and the external world is a primary tool for growth.

For adults, play continues as an important vehicle for further developing creativity, communication, role rehearsal and mind/body integration. Our problem in this modern age is that work, work and more work have replaced adult play. We have forgotten how to be playful. Deadlines, responsibilities and routines are what we focus upon and how we make meaning of the world around us.

Our high-tech life with its accelerated pace has fostered a culture that seems to be always working, always rushed, always technologically connected. With mobile phones interrupting the theatre, laptop computers at the beach, internet connections in every other café, and home offices that beckon us all hours of the night and day, it’s hard to separate “play” from “work”. Yet to maintain balance in our lives, and for our ultimate well being, play is important.

Lenore Terr, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco, and author of “Beyond Love and Work: Why Adults Need to Play”, argues that play is crucial at every stage of life. In play, we discover pleasure, cultivate feelings of accomplishment, and acquire a sense of belonging. When we play, we learn and mature and find an outlet for stress. “Play is a lost key”, Terr writes. “It unlocks the door to ourselves.”

When we are completely involved in play our cares and worries disappear. Sailing, playing a game of tennis, or being thoroughly engrossed in a good novel, we feel pleasurably alive and light-hearted. There is nothing like play that allows us to be present in the moment.

Play is an holistic experience in that it invites our total being into the process. It uses both hemispheres of the brain: The left, analytical, side is essential in deciding what to do next, which strategies bring success and how things can be verbalised. The right, artistic, side allows us to enjoy the experience, use our creativity, develop our imagination and interact with the world around us.

Physically we are benefiting from play in a myriad of ways: When we are laughing, singing, moving about happily, or simply engrossed in a pleasant diversion, we tend to take fuller breaths, thus getting a better oxygen exchange. When our digestive process relaxes, we reduce the chances of gastro intestinal disorders – not to mention cardiac tension. General muscle tension is eased as well, when we play, which reduces fatigue and generalised body aches and stiffness. Finally, there is the release of endorphins into our system, which has an enormous positive impact on our overall sense of well being.

So, we can see the many benefits of incorporating play into our daily lives, whether by consistently spending more quality time with our children, or finding original ways to incorporate play into the workplace. We need to give ourselves permission to be playful. One important way of re-connecting with our innate playfulness is to spend more time in the natural world and in focusing on the wonder of the small and simple things that we normally ignore or don’t have time to see: The colour of the sky, the patterns in the cloud formations, and the movement of the wind in the trees.

Leisure time and hobbies are a great stress reliever and to be recommended, but mere playfulness for its own sake is something that we should all begin to program into our daily lives, reconnect with the child within. Carl Jung once said “The small boy (himself) is still around, and possesses a creative life which I lack. But how can I make my way to it?” (“Jung” 1965 P. 174). He subsequently learned that a key to unlocking his creative potential was to engage in the various forms of play that he had particularly enjoyed as a child.

Simple strategies to reconnect with that childhood “you”.

You can reconnect with that playful part of you by journeying back in time to your childhood. Do this exercise in a place where you are unlikely to be disturbed.

Take as much time as you need to reflect and, with pen and paper, go through these steps: Think about and describe in writing the following

 - Your favourite toys
 - Your favourite games
 - Your favourite playmates
 - Who you liked to pretend to be
 - Where you liked to play
 - When you liked to play
 - The creative or imaginative activities that you enjoyed the most

Once you have spent some quality time on this, the next step is to reflect on the adult “you”, here and now, and the playfulness that is present or absent in your current life. With a pen and paper

 - Describe the last time that you played as you did when you were a child

 - Describe when you last acted silly or playful

 - Describe the last playful encounter that you had with a co-worker

 - Describe how “play” is, or is not, a part of your adult life.

The difference between having a hobby or leisure activity and “play” is that in all the various kinds of play activities; body play, object play, social play, rough and tumble play, role play, ritual play and imaginative play, these activities in themselves have no purpose. They are activities that make us feel better, that are fun. In fact, if the purpose is more important than the simple act of doing these things, then they are not “play” at all.

Pure play, for its own sake, is what we need to re-learn and re-incorporate into our adult lives. Play knows no boundaries; it is ageless and timeless and will automatically reconnect you to a part of yourself that you may have completely forgotten ever existed: That natural, spontaneous, intuitive you.

Give yourself permission to play; to walk in the rain, jump in mud puddles, collect rainbows, smell flowers, kick leaves, laugh from your belly, meander along the way, build sandcastles, blow bubbles, watch the moon and the stars come out, smile and say hello to people, go barefoot, take yourself on adventures.

Use these summer holidays as the perfect opportunity to put playfulness high on your agenda, to practice being playful so that it will automatically become a part of your life right throughout the year!

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Thanks for reading our monthly Energies4Life Newsletter and please do feel free to contact me with your feedback. I hope you enjoyed this article and wish you all a happy and playful summer.

Until next month,

Michelle Clemons