How to persuade serious people to start learning again by engaging in playfulness
Practical insights on playfulness by Kefas Berlin, a master of creative disruption.
Two years ago in Barcelona, I was hired to offer weekly team building sessions to a small start-up of 12 people. Once a week I held one hour sessions with the team to explore ways of being together that allow for a free-flow of ideas, psychological safety and wholeness in the workplace.
In almost every session, I introduced little games and playful activities to shift the “focus attitude”most of us have at work, to a more open and peripheral attunement. In my opinion, this is a great way to get people to adopt a creative and generative state of mind. But not everyone thought the same…
One day, I got to work and one of the employees approached me and said:
- “Hey Nil, you are not going to make us play today, right? We are quite busy this week, and we don’t really have time to lose, getting distracted.” — He gave me a big smile, a pad on my shoulder and left adding- “Oh, loving your session, man.”
To be honest,this shook my confidence a bit: I did have games for that day.. The whole session was going to be a game of movement and reflection!
And even if intuitively I knew that the best contribution I could offer to their business was to play together for a very small portion of their day, I did not know how to prove it. So, I ended up changing the whole session to a dry SWOT analysis.
That day I left feeling we all had lost an hour of our life: no one learned anything new!
How can I explain to busy and serious people the importance of playfulness? How can I prepare a group to be open to playing with each other? How can I invite people to be open to be learners of their own lifes?
This past week I met Kefas Berlin at the conference Becoming Human at the Goetheanum, Switzerland.
Kefas Berlin is a voice / movement teacher and therapist who I met 4 years ago as part of the International Youth Initiative Program in Sweden.
This time, he was facilitating a 3-day workshop called Homo Ludens: The playing human, and he shared with us his “secret sauce” to live and invite others to stay open for learning and live a playful life.
In the workshop, he gave us a new set of lenses to read what is happening in any given moment from a Playfulness point of view. He then followed to give a set of tips to persuade ourselves and others to be more creative, open to learn and resourceful — which are captured in the following conversation I had with him. Without further due, enter the world of Kefas!
I’ve spent the last 36 years of my life researching play, sound, movement and the performance arts on the stage, in the classroom and with my friends and family.
The following are a set of principles to look at life playfully, so you can interact with it in a way that feels alive, creative, free and loving.
The Playfulness Checklist
We the grown up’s, the serious ones, often forget how much more fun and effective is to take life more like a game, more like a continuous and never-ending learning journey.
The following list is a distillation of the archetypal principles of playfulness. They are meant to be a map for you to remember what you already know.
This principles will give you reference points and questions for instant self-reflection to play with while you are in a meeting, an argument with your partner, a family meeting or any kind of social interaction, so you can choose to act from a more playful place in yourself.
Presence
Presence is the ability to connect and to stay connected and attentive with a given intention.
Checklist:
- What is the focus of attention now?
- What do I want the focus to be?
Tips: There are many internal and external “enemies” -thoughts, feelings, other people’s reactions..- who will always try to pull us out of our presence. Be clear -with yourself and others-, give simple and solid context-frames to your interactions.
Interactive
Interactivity is the ability to (1) connect and to (2) both receive and give in balance while being able to stay dynamic and keep moving
Checklist:
- What is required right now?
- Am I a better giver or better taker?
- Am I willing to connect?
- Do I have a willingness to enter mutuality?
- Do I have willingness to listen to you in where you are at?
- Am I willing to hear the other?
Tips: For facilitator-coach: you needs to bring lightness into interactivity. Use Speed as an ally here: leave no time to let the adult brain to reflect and get stuck. It is in this movement, in this interactivity, that you discover the points of resistance and the boundaries you hold onto. Interactivity is where you get to know yourself.
Flow
Flow is the ability to let go and allow both the internal and external impulses and information to be played without blocking. It’s the big YES- Whatever your partner does, whatever the situation throws at you, you do something with it! It’s about in the moment!
Check list:
- Forget the checklist here! Enter the interaction in a flowing way.
Tip: It’s all about eliminating the time-lapse between input and output. When a NO comes up, the invitation is to turn the blockage into an entry into the next stage which can ‘saying yes to the movement and also to saying yes to stop moving.
Dynamics
Dynamism is the ability to shift between different elements by listening to what is needed here and now.
Check list:
- What is the dynamic that is most present now?
- Am I open to my intuition (meaning the knowing in your body of what is to be done right now)?
- What is the right thing to do that I’m discovering as I’m doing?
Tips: When looking for the dynamic right now, you can play with the following 3 polarities:
Chaos — Structure
Chaos: The state where everything is possible but not yet manifested; This is the state where awareness is created, not cognition but consciousness. Wanna a more “out there” way to put it? It’s about being in the in-between, reaching into the quantum field — the Genunga Gap, as we call it in the Eda Mythology.
When Chaos appears, there is uncertainty, and that awakens awareness: The practice of not knowing, to stay with the fear in a comfortable way. All the blindfolded games for example bring this element of Chaos.
IMPORTANT: When working with people, you need to start in the pattern or state where they are. Unless explicitly invited to, It’s is of extreme importance to speak the language of the room, in other words, start by fulfilling expectations, and move from there. E.g If you enter a business meeting and you want to ring more chaos, start by entering this into the agenda, as a structured point.
Structure: What is manifested, that is what it is. Eg. I offer rules, If see there is need for more structure, I give more rules. It’s about feeding the frontal cortex. It’s about focus.
Wildness — Stillness
Wildness: Approaching the unknown, and playing with the limits. The playful way. It’s more about doing, being active, in movement.
Stillness: It’s more about being, reflecting, presencing.
On — Off
On: This is the psychological and somatic dynamic of “contraction”: Concentration, activity, remembering, higher cognition, focus…
Off: : It’s the dynamic of psychological and somatic “expansion”: Unfocused, letting go, leaving behind, end of the game.
Last of all, and maybe most important of all, playfulness is about doing, so no theory or explanation will ever be comparable with jumping on stage and getting some embodied experience! Playfulness it’s a very potent tool of inner and cultural transformation, playfulness is the most natural entrance door to learning, growing and maturing.
If I’ve managed to excite you enough for you to start consciously practicing some of this principles, I guarantee you that your life will be forever changed, forever playful!
