The Practice of Play

We’ve just passed through the summer solstice in the boreal hemisphere. For me, it’s a time of stretching and contemplating my own aliveness as I feel the energy of the sun in my bones. I’m moving my body more, I’m feeling the earth under my bare toes. In the Wyoming heat I’m seeking the touch of water on my skin at every opportunity. I’m interpreting the energy I feel through Solstice as a good time to try something new. I’ve been experimenting with the practice of play.

I gave a version of this to a client recently. As almost always happens, I was left wondering why I hadn’t given myself the same practice. I’m trying to play every day. 

I learn about play from my kids who are 3 and 4. They don’t approach their play with any agenda. They have no desire to perfect their play. They have no need for their play to end up a certain way (well, sometimes they do…) For the most part, if we start out playing lions, we might very soon be traveling to space in a rocket ship while finding food for baby ladybugs who need mamas. Sometimes their play is purely sensory. They pour endless buckets of water or move sand around. When they play, they are totally, completely, absorbed in the present moment.

What a gift it is for me, caught up in my adult brain and body, in the moments when I’m absorbed in play. It doesn’t come easily, but it’s a muscle we all once had, and one we have full capacity to reclaim. I’m finding I need a lot of repetition and practice. I need to make it intentional. 

I bought a skateboard last year in my version of a mid-life crisis. Turns out, it’s utterly absorbing and mildly terrifying to slowly roll my over 40 year old body down the smallest ramp at the skatepark. Very little needs to be happening on the skateboard for me to be having a ridiculous amount of fun. I’m totally and completely present - as long as the “big kids” don’t show up. 

Same goes for the trampoline. The kids and I bounce around most days, and it completely shifts my energy. I’ve taken to jumping before I meet with clients. Being airborne gets me present and in my body in a way that lets me fully show up. And it makes me giggle, even without the kids. 

What is your version of regular play you can invite into your life? What is new, sensory, makes you giggle and lets you be fully absorbed? Play doesn’t have to mean risking broken bones or putting an eyesore of a trampoline in your backyard. It could be getting out modeling clay, stopping to swing at the playground, blowing bubbles or turning your face up into the rain.

What beliefs do you hold that stop you from playing? What part of you resists play? What name would you give that part of yourself?

What shifts in you when you do something playful every day? How does play shift the patterns of how you relate to others? Where do you feel play in your body?

Happy Solstice dear ones, enjoy letting in the light. Feel the stretch and newness of play. Happy practicing. I hope you giggle. 

With love,

Liz