Playing is Important
I have been playing with playing for about a year now. It all started with this class I am taking. I was asked to complete several statements and then to look at the origin of those beliefs. One of the statements was “Playing is.” Immediately my grandmother came to mind and I finished the sentence in her voice with “Playing is frivolous and childish” with obvious disdain.
However, that is not what I now think about playing at all. I believe in playing. I believe in air guitar and blowing bubbles. I believe in coloring books and crayons. I believe in being silly. I believe in deep belly laughs with tears streaming down my face. I believe that I can play in and with just about anything.
This is what I do and who I am. And I still take myself and my life far too seriously. I have lived with stress, doubt and anxiety according to other’s people’s rules and expectations for most of my life. I truly know that I am not alone in these tendencies. I share this now because I think that most of us live in an almost constant state of stress or worry.
Perhaps playing is not THE one and only answer but it could be an answer.
We have all heard that stress seems to worsen or increase the tendency to have heart disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, depression, and asthma. There are all kinds of statistics on stress-related health conditions being at all-time highs at this time but you already know this. It’s all over the news and the pharmaceutical commercials are everywhere. If you look at where hospitals and medical corporations are putting their energy and money it is obvious that stress and anxiety are astounding in our culture.
But this is no way to live — truly live.
Ernest Holmes said, “Life is enthusiastic joy.” The very essence of Life is Joy. But if that is so why don’t we live that way and experience this Joy more fully in our day to day lives?
What about a life of play? What about a life of ease and joy? What about free time and deep breaths? What about inspiration and enthusiasm? Why must these experiences take the back seat to our busy schedules? Are they not even more important than the work we do for a living? Are they really mutually exclusive? Is stress and worry really more important than our passions and those things that fulfill us?
When it’s put that way it kind of changes the perspective on what’s important, doesn’t it?
I did a workshop a couple of months ago and I advertised it as being fun. A dear friend of mine shared with me that she would have come to it if I hadn’t used the word fun. She didn’t have any time in her schedule for fun.
It kind of goes back to my grandmother and the Puritan ideals that most of us in this culture were raised on. She’s not alone. Most of us don’t have time for fun or play.
We are encouraged to multitask. There are deadlines, bills to pay, family expectations, the house to clean, kids to take to soccer, groceries to buy and that’s just on Tuesday. Even those who are retired tend to live extremely busy lifestyles.
We dream of long vacations, relaxing on the beach and sleeping late. Too often, though, even when we give ourselves time to do these things we spend so much time planning every moment that it leaves very little room for spontaneity much less fun. That’s if we decide that we can take a vacation.
I recently saw a statistic that 662 million vacation days went unused in 2016. Wow, that’s a whole lot of stressed and overworked people.
Playing allows children to use their creativity and develop their imagination. It also supports dexterity development and physical, cognitive, and emotional strength. Play is also thought to be important to healthy brain development.
On the other hand, research has shown that it is important for us to keep our brains active as we age. An active brain is considered to be a key aspect to keeping one youthful. So if playing helps children to develop healthy brains then doesn’t it make sense that it will help us to keep our brains healthy, flexible, and youthful, too?
Rhonda Burn from “The Secret” talks about Secret Shifters. She suggests that you keep a list of ways that can help shift you out of the state of mind or mood that you don’t want to be in, to one that you wish to experience.
That is what I am saying play is. However, you play.
Dancing in the living room? Wearing a funny nose? Watching funny videos or movies? Sitting by the creek? Walking in the woods? Telling jokes? Laughing with yourself (not at yourself) aloud in front of the mirror? Jumping on a trampoline? It doesn’t have to be big. It doesn’t have to be in public. The shift you are looking for is only for you and only you know what works for you.
We need shifters in our lives. We need play. We need to play — often.
It is my belief that playing is essential to experiencing the Joy in Life and it is self-care. It could be the ultimate in self-care.
So find your play. Find your joy. Let go of the fear of not having time or worry what others will think. We are just children in adult clothes making stuff up anyway. Schedule some play time. Make it about your health or your mood, but play. This is important. This is about you.
The wonderful thing you’ll find is the more that you play and enjoy the playing the more opportunities there will be to play and enjoy Life.
