Playing is a form of understanding what surrounds us and who we are, and a way of engaging with others. Play is a mode of being human. Like literature, art, song, and dance, like politics and love and math, play is a way of engaging and expressing our being in the world.
Miguel Sicart
Welcome to Day Three of Reclaim Play
While play encompasses countless activities, it is also a mindset, a way of being in the world. It’s an invitation to approach daily life with curiosity, openness to surprise, a bit of looseness and ease, and a sense of possibility. In the Journal of Play (yes, there is such a thing!), Dr. Scott Eberle reminds us that play is difficult to define because “it’s a moving target. [It’s] a process, not a thing.” The Play List you created on the first day of the Pathway likely included lots of things to do. Play, though, is also a way to be.
When you engage in an activity of play, you don’t know how it will turn out — whether you’ll solve the puzzle, make the goal, dance the right steps. You probably accept these unknowns, and you remain alert for possibilities. Because it’s play, you may consciously maintain a loose stance that leaves you able to respond to what unfolds. You likely bring a mix of skill and levity to the activity. You may laugh at your mistakes or generously offer someone else a hand. It’s likely you are very present because it’s hard to engage in play and do anything else. But here’s the thing: All of these attitudes and qualities are essential not only for the activity of play; they are vibrant and meaningful ways of approaching daily life.
Today’s Practice: Adopt a Playful Approach
Today’s practice is an invitation to identify some of the qualities that play brings forth and then apply those to a specific aspect of your everyday life that would benefit from a more playful approach — one that’s less intent on a particular outcome and more open to spontaneity, discovery, and joy.
Step One: Remember and Take Notice
Close your eyes and bring to mind an experience of play when you felt fully alive and present. Maybe it’s the last time you danced, took an adventurous walk, went to a concert or ball game. Or perhaps it’s a memory from childhood when you were free to play without thought of time, purpose, or outcome. Allow yourself sufficient time to call forth a positive experience of play, whether yesterday or long ago.
Once you’ve got a vivid memory in mind, make a list of the qualities that this experience of play evoked in you. It might look something like this:
- When I was playing, I was more able to laugh at my mistakes.
- When I was immersed in play, I was liberated from my task list…I was smiling!
- Because it was play, I was more comfortable taking risks and being vulnerable.
Step Two: Put These Qualities to Work!
Identify something in your life that would benefit from a more playful approach. Is it a daily task like driving your kids to school or preparing meals? Is it a work project? An important relationship in your life? Perhaps the desire for your own improved well-being? Take your time to identify a specific area of your life where the playful qualities you named above could be usefully applied.
Building on the examples offered in step one, your reflection might look something like this:
- I’m looking to deepen my connection with a family member, and I’m realizing that if I could laugh at myself a bit more easily, it would soften this relationship.
- I’ve been longing to propose a new project at work, and approaching it more playfully would allow me to be more vulnerable.
Choose something that is actionable, something that you can experiment with today or in the near future.
Step Three: Reflect
As you practice applying the qualities of play to other areas of your life, take time to reflect on any changes that occur in your sense of well-being, in your work, in your relationships, and in your own heart.
- What does it feel like to approach your life with a more playful mindset?
- What possibilities emerge?
- Is there any sense of lightness or liberation?
Scroll to the bottom of the page (or click here) to find the Community Conversation space where we invite you to share your reflections about today’s practice.
Deepening Resource
In this short essay, Sheryl Chard shares how planning a friend’s wedding reminded her of how a playful way of being opens the door to greater meaning, joy, and even the transcendent — play as what the theologian Martin Buber called an “exultation of the possible.”
Stilt Walkers and Love Riddles: Embracing the Holiness of Play by Sheryl Chard
Research Highlight
Play is an essential way that we learn flexibility, adaptability, and creativity (Nat’l. Inst. of Play). According to researchers Sahakian and Langley (Univ. of Cambridge) and Leong (Nanyang Tech. Univ.), cognitive flexibility is “associated with higher resilience to negative life events, as well as better quality of life in older individuals.” They also cite its strong link to “the ability to understand the emotions, thoughts and intentions of others.” In other words, when we become rigid in our thinking or habits (less playful), it limits growth, resilience, and connection.
Photo by No Revisions
When I think of being playful, I sense a lighter way of being, where life is not so serious, so heavy. I find myself often in a heavy place, where I am holding things in a life-or-death way, as if my life depended on getting stuff right, not making mistakes, my body tense, jaw clenched, muscles tight.
When I catch myself doing this I suggest to myself, “Lighten up!” to put things back in perspective and then I am able to be curious, to hold things lightly, without the tight grasping I usually do. My best memories of playing are when I did art projects with my toddler granddaughter. We would splatter paint or scribble and then delight in the marks we had made. I really wanted her to think of art like that, not product-focused work, but joyfully creating something new, so I tried to model it with her.
Hank – thanks for sharing this memory of playing with your granddaughter. Children and babies are such wonderful teachers when it comes to a playful way of being!
I was invited to see Disney on Ice. Not something I would ever go to..I have many sensitivity issues. But I went and a part of me grieved at how shut down I have become. Amidst the overwhelming sensations I was feeling, I enjoyed it immensely. Welcome to play.
This morning, I decided to drive to Shenandoah National Park to photograph flowers and butterflies. This was before I read today’s practice and before I did my daily devotions. I had a marvelous, joyful time, even though I forgot the bug spray, and I turned out to be a bug magnet while photographing beautiful birds, butterflies, and flowers. I just laughed at my forgetfulness. To come home to this practice affirmed my impromptu decision, and reinforced my kinder attitude toward myself.
I’m in Minnesota and another sister in. Oregon and I are doing this retreat together. We decided to spontaneously send out a zoom meet to Dance with yesterday’s video love train. I had a pull to plan this better….give everyone lots of time to decide. Instead we opted for spontaneous and who could join would. Everyone did and I feel much lighter and happier after dancing. As an adult and even children of today have so much of their lives planned…loved the spontaneity of doing this. With Gratitude!
I am learning to be more open minded; responding to others suggestions with curiosity rather than the fixed idea that I might have in my head. It is amazing what one can learn when we take the time to actively listen to what others have to say. And the response of others from being able to express their own ideas is wonderful – allowing others to have ownership, see their appreciation of having their idea implemented. It has grown the connectivity amongst us. I think in the future to add play into this, I will throw out an outrageous idea that we can all laugh at! 😀
I have been going aha, aha, aha as I’ve read and pondered today’s lesson. I especially love the ‘deepening resource’ from Sheryl Chard. I realize that I am often most playful by myself or with strangers (and with a very small select group of friends and family). Why is that ? It would seem that I would carry my playful mindset with me wherever I go but, in reality, past fears or perceived slights or just old baggage keep me from being as playful around just the people I’d like to be more open and creative with. I am going to make a small start while I journal about why this is risky for me. i think it is an important part of understanding myself. I have reached out to my children’s father, my ex-husband, who has remained a good friend but who I mostly spend time with related to our children (now 34 and 37). We have holidays together and we would both be available if the other needed help but wouldn’t it be nice if it was a lighter relationship. We had an amicable divorce about 30 years ago and I think my children would love seeing us be more playful together. Me too! He’s a bit of a hermit but comes into town periodically. He loves to play Scrabble and is very good and beats me many times to my rare lucky win. But, it is fun for both of us and makes our children happy. They often hang out more than usual to egg us on and laugh at us – he is very slow and considerate at making his moves whereas my style is a bit more carefree (or careless, perhaps). Anyway, I feel sure he’ll say yes. I will also pay attention to some other relationships where I’m overly cautious and don’t need to be. I actually like the real me best so I’d love to let her shine. Thanks!
Buber’s “exultation of the possible” opened my heart to positivity and being vulnerable enough to the joy of spontaneous play! I have struggled with routines, rigidity and planning to the point of becoming anxious when change occurs. A work in progress. Love being a participant in this journey of play and discovery! 🤗😍😀
So glad you’re both loving this – we’re grateful for your presence!
I hear you, sister! Enjoy the journey! I am loving it too! Mary
There is a book called “Last Child in the Woods” by Richard Louv, in which he coined the term “nature-deficit disorder.” He says that my generation (I was born in the mid-70s) was the last to have free (and easy) access to wild places. When I think of my childhood play, I think of our backyard field, the dry grasses at the end of the summer, pressing the grass flat & making rooms & tunnels & hiding places; I think of the garden being tilled & the waves of earth to jump along; I think of riding our bikes with a playing card in the spokes. As an adult, I haven’t quite been able to replicate that feeling of childhood freedom, but maybe THAT is what I want? I was a young mom & realized at some point along the way that I had stopped having fun, or even knowing what fun was … and now I’m almost 50 & my kids are grown & I get to go out into the world again, & I’m trying to embrace excitement over fear, planning for play instead of hyper responsibility.
Felice, Your story sparked something in me. I was born a couple of years before you and I am in the process of becoming an empty nester (or bird launcher, to reframe). I’m realizing this time in life offers a path back to childhood joy and freedom; that at some point I lost my way and life has become too serious and heavy. So, as I venture out on this new path, I am excited to play more and make my inner child happy again.
Thank you for the re-framing image! We have launched two incredible “birds” from our nest and that is a huge place of JOY. So glad to have a positive term for this, so we can claim the truth of being good parents to wonderful humans (with whom I learned a lot about play) AND also look to the future not as “well, the fun is over now that our nest is empty” BUT “what expansive definition of PLAY can we create now with more time and a different perspective on life?” I will need to ponder on these things; but it make these sometimes “responsibility-heavy” retirement years (caring for elderly parents, settling their estates when they are no longer with us, planning for health care in our later years) easier if we can have a positive, playful, curious outlook about new connections, possible options, and relearning how to have fun together!
Candee, yes! And yay! I realized I am not an empty nester – also a bird launcher – because I am leaving the nest too! ✨
From the time that I was in first grade, just learning to read and write, I loved sitting at my little desk and writing stories and making them into a book with construction paper and a stapler and my own illustrations. That was the ultimate in FUN for me — losing track of time, using imagination, just play play play. It was so much FUN. My mother saved many of those handmade books — 60 years later! Then college, adulthood, a career in journalism — and I have become very critical of everything I write, afraid it’s not good enough or accurate enough, embarrassed. I was told by a college professor once that I “was not marketable.” Oh, the pain, the pain. I have that FUN stuck inside of me. When I write something now, I hide it, literally, for fear of not being “marketable.” My heart bursts with joy when I think of letting that spirit out of me once again. The risk!
I realized with the vulnerable sharings and the wisdom-filled teaching this course offers that I don’t know how to play. Life is not a performance. It is a process. Personal growth is not about producing a product. It’s about awareness. In his book One Minute Wisdom, Anthony de Mello tells the story of a disciple who comes to the Master and asks, “Master please define Spirituality.” The Master very quickly answers, “Awareness.” The disciple says, “I mean a full definition of the term.” The Master replies, “Awareness, Awareness, Awareness!”
Yesterday I sat on the porch and blew bubbles. I was going to do it on the back porch, which is secluded. I didn’t. Out to the front porch I went, and blew these beautiful bubbles. It was liberating. I loved the colors, and the fact that I didn’t know what the next bubble would be…would it be large or small? How long would it float? And then, I just let the bubbles go and it didn’t matter anymore how big or small, how long they lasted. It was beautiful. And simple. And easy.
And I think I came back to myself, to the wonder of it all……so, today, while I am out, I am going to buy a few more bottles of bubbles, sit on the front porch, and if any neighbors ask or comment, I will offer them their own bottle of bubbles….in fact, I think I will buy a few more to give as gifts for birthdays, so we older folks can remember what it was like to blow bubbles as a child does….yes, I have definitely come back to myself…to the child within.
Thank you Mary Pat…I love this…I take life way to seriously!
Watching some of the Olympic trials and trying to figure out why I don’t feel the joy I did as a child or even 30 years ago. I think because it no longer feels like games or joy. The athletes seemed pushed and stressed . Always trying to do more. It doesn’t feel like play. It feels like people pushing too hard. I want part of my joy to be letting go and not pushing and slowing down.
I am quite old. I am building another sailing boat. I don’t know if I have enough years on earth to finish it or sail it. Well, if I treat this as play then completion is not important. I can just fave fun right now and let completion be one possibility.
This is excellent food for thought. I’m also quite old and I have recently been letting myself do a few seemingly selfish things like extend my front porch and screen it in so I can hear the birds, feel the breeze, watch the deer… I am usually a bit practical for such but I allowed it because I think, maybe my son will live in this house when I’m gone or at least it will add to the value. Instead, I could think about what is true – I am worth it. It could be so freeing and also allow me to invite my neighbors over to enjoy the fresh air and sunshine and the view of my flowers. It doesn’t change what I’m doing but it changes my perspective. It is not selfish – it is generous because it will bring me joy. I also hope my son enjoys it but that can start while I’m still here to witness and share in the fun. Thanks!!
This is amazing! it reminds me that it took generations of builders to build the cathedrals in rope – some took 250 years. So many many people were building amazing things they would never see!
Play is important. To our psyches. Our mental health. Our over-all well-being.
Enjoying this series. How about you?
Phyll,
We’re so glad you’re enjoying this Pathway. Wishing you many playful times ahead!🫧