Say YES! to playing
When’s the last time you said a wholehearted, full-bodied YES to an invitation to play?
By contrast, how often do you shut down your impulse to really let loose? Many of us have unspoken and unconscious injunctions against really playing, especially if we’ve received messages that we need to be careful around others.
Yet, research shows that play isn’t just energizing and joyful–play lights up our brain and increases our productivity, creativity, job satisfaction, and creates more satisfying relationships!
Play is aliveness in relationship from Level 2 of Wright Developmental Model.
Stephen Nachmanovitch, in his book Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, opens his prologue this way:
“There is an old Sanskrit word, lîla, which means play. Richer than our word, it means divine play, the play of creation, destruction, and re-creation, the folding and unfolding of the cosmos. Lîla, free and deep, is both the delight and enjoyment of this moment, and the play of God. It also means love.”
Have you ever been stopped in your tracks, speechless, breathless, by something that resonated with you so deeply that there was nothing to say?
This was the kind of play that always struck me as part and parcel of how people play in, with, around, and through artistic expression. This explained why it seemed to me that some of the ways I would play could be elevated to holy, sacred, divine.
I (Elizabeth) was so inspired by this (and by all of Free Play!) that I used a play on the word lîla to name my daughter. My dearest wish for her is that she finds the world an expansive playground and uses her insatiable curiosity to continue discovering and creating it. And she does! If you haven’t recently spent time with an infant exploring their world, it is deeply inspiring and humbling. She plays in her environment unabashedly. She reaches for things without any preconceived notions about what is “appropriate” or “safe.” She GOES!
Of course I want my child to keep experiencing this, but if I’m honest, I also want it for myself. What if I could play in my life with the abandon that my child plays in hers? What a lot of exploring and expressing I would do! What a lot of messes I would make and hurts I would feel deeply …until that had flowed through me completely and I moved right along to the next thing.
So next time you are getting an invitation to play, whether from a child or an adult, notice if you hesitate, and see if you can open yourself to go for it! Surprise yourself, and your playmates. Your reward will be more here-and-now engagement with greater aliveness!
LiveWright and Live Playfully,
Dr. Bob & Dr. Judith
