How play will help you thrive, not simply survive — in life and in work

“we don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing” George Bernard Shaw

“play fills the mind and soul with meanings” Linda C Mayes

I recently started a new monthly women’s circle in the city where I live in the UK. Each month, we have a theme: for April it was play. And it was joyful!

We explored play through a number of forms, including free movement to music; drawing and writing with no instructions other than to run with what arose; a discussion about how it felt and feels to play and what this might look like in our adult lives. The majority of the present women expressed how free they felt during the session and that while it felt familiar in some ways, they noticed that play was simply not as present in their lives as they’d like it to be. Some of the women took time to feel into the playfulness; this is not uncommon, for reasons I’ll go into below. Over the course of the two hours, however, with permission given by the space and by their presence in it, they allowed themselves to step into the experience and to simply see what might happen.

I took so much from the session myself. Of the many things that stayed with me, three of the most important were:

- A reminder that many adults don’t play as much as they’d like or need to

- Play is a necessity, not a luxury

- Play is absolutely something that we can reintroduce into our lives

Why might we stop playing as adults?

In the capitalist narrative, our value and purpose lie in productivity — and in uniformity. Many of us are told as children that as we get older, we should be more sensible, more structured, more industrious. Our standardised education systems in the Western world often perpetuate and reinforce these ideas.

“the exile of play is one of the greatest tragedies of standardised education” Ken Robinson

Play has been taught, or you might say colonised, out of many of us. We’re told that play is the antithesis of productivity. Play does not provide us with the instant results that we are increasingly expected to produce as we grow and age.

Creativity — the sister of play — we are told, is an exclusive club. You need to be able to do it well, and within certain parameters for it to be ‘good’ or to be of value. Play and creativity simply for the sake of it, are pushed to the side. To our detriment.

Many of us become accustomed to a way of learning and operating that requires us to remain within certain parameters. We saw this played out for a number of the women in our circle. We noted that many of us want to be told ‘the rules’, what is expected of us and how we should do it. Some people felt uncomfortable with the purposefully limited instructions that were given.

This is especially the case for those of us who might identify as ‘good girls’ and academically high-achievers. Tell me what you want me to do, so I can do it well and so please you and receive your praise. I certainly fall into this category, and have spent a lot of time in recent years ‘unlearning’ this way of being. I still notice its influence in how I work and act in certain environments.

Play is a necessity, not a luxury

“Play isn’t something trivial or useless. We think of it as something we do on the side, but it’s very important for our wellbeing, for our survival as the human race.” Michael Rosen

Play enables us to learn — in exciting, thoughtful and expansive ways.

It enables us to find new and novel solutions to problems. Play expands our capacity to be flexible, to be adaptive and to communicate.

Play is a release.

Play, of course, is of value in and of itself. It needs no justification.

Equally, if you’re feeling stuck in a part of your life, or perhaps have noticed that you’re approaching your work in a routine, overly ‘safe’ or stagnant way, then bringing more play in may well be the answer.

Play can help shift the tight boundaries that we may have put in place; or joyfully disrupt the rut that we may be stuck in, or the pattern that is no longer serving us.

In play, we practice getting things wrong and this being okay.

To quote the wonderful Ken Robinson again: “if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”.

As someone who was often more serious when I was younger, introducing more play into my life and work has been an essential part of my adaptation to, and thriving in, running my own business. It’s helped me to shift my understanding of failure as something essential to success; it’s helped me to be more creative in my offerings and it brings a whole new energy to my 1:1 and group work, when its appropriately included. I used to worry that if I was playful, I wouldn’t be taken seriously in my work: something else we are taught by our society. Of course, it’s not always what is needed in the moment, but at times it’s enabled deeper connection and has brought a lightness and levity to a situation that far from trivialises what we’re doing, in fact helps it flow.

Undoubtedly, play will benefit you in your work, whatever work you do, including those of you who are self-employed or run your own business. It can enable you to see new perspectives on issues or ideas; to shift your energy around something; simply to have more joy in what you’re doing! Not only will this help to shift your own energy, but other people pick up on this and are attracted to it.

Play is absolutely something that we can reintroduce into our lives

Play is something that is not performative and has no set expectations or requirements of outcome. We know that this can feel alien to many of us, given how we’re socialised. However, it absolutely is something that we can bring back into our lives.

Reading this now, I invite you to look away from the screen for a moment, perhaps take a deep breath and have a little shake, and to think of something silly, something playful that you used to love to do. You’ll absolutely come up with something. I wonder when you last did it? It may have been yesterday, perhaps last month, last year, or not since you were a child. You know play, and it knows you. Let’s invite some more of it in.

How might we reintroduce more play into our lives?

The possibilities are endless! Here are a few starters:

• Spend time with animals or children! Their capacity to live in the moment, to not care about how what they’re doing looks, is infectious. Playing a game with them, ‘for’ them can be a great gateway into play.

• Climb a tree — try, fail, problem solve, use your body, scare yourself, shift your perspective, hide, jump!

• Art resources with no expected outcome — make space to create, and allow yourself that the experience is the important part, not the outcome.

• Put music on and dance however your body tells you to, not how you think it ‘should’ look, but simply following where your body takes you

• Comedy improv — this one scared me so much! And reached into me and gave voice to a part of me that was desperate to come out and play! There are many free and paid for groups available, both in person and online

• Singing — wherever and however!

• Running and chasing

• Playing physical games

• Being experimental and playful during intimacy — whatever that is for you. And with consent, of course, if it involves someone else

• Applying a perspective of ‘I wonder…’ and ‘let’s see what happens if…’ to whatever activity you’re doing. This absolutely can include a gnarly, tricky issue!

I wonder, how present play is in your life?

How might you give yourself permission to play more? What forms might it take?

How might it feel to add even more of this release and exploration to your life?

As always, I’d love to hear how this has resonated with you.

Rowena x