PLAY A COPING SKILL FOR OUR LIVES

Germany in November Archan's Mom and I

I love the word 'play' and I am afraid of it, I think. First why I am afraid, well I think it is because I have this belief that 'play' is for children only, it is a waste of time, don't know how to play as an adult so would I look silly. Why do I love the word 'play',well I was remembering this morning what I loved to do as a child, how I loved using my imagination and living my life there for periods of time. A memory just came to me, from a time when I was babysitting our two granddaughters in Digby. There was a hill very close to their home, it was summer time, and I imagined coasting down that hill. I found a crazy carpet and the three of us went coasting, what fun. I am sure some people would think that odd, coasting in the summer and at my age (about 9 years ago). I love to 'play' I was talking with Greg at the Chatterbox Cafe in Pugwash about spending time with grandchildren and how our way of being changes, we allow ourselves to play, and actually it feels natural.

 Martha Beck talks a lot about play, I am reading her book " Finding Your Way in a Wild New World, Reclaim Your True Nature to Create the Life You Want" and she says ".....the way to cope with the increasing complexity of the wild new world is to play more." Martha Beck also talks about "deep play" which involves mastering something difficult. She goes on "Real play is actually a wildly creative application of deep practice. It means picking something hard and doing it at a level that's almost too difficult."

Neuroscientists have found that this "edge of impossibilty" is where the brain produces its maximum doses of feel-good hormones like dopamine." Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls it "flow", Ellen Langer calls it "mindfulness". I like how Martha Beck says we must learn to play like we mean it. I really enjoyed as a child the difficult challenge of taming a wild barn cat, a scared race horse, I would learn the sounds the animal made and watch intensely it's body language with my whole body and mind. I would succeed in befriending it and feel so good about it (feel-good hormones). I would feel connected with everything for a period of time.

 I do want to play more, and bring this concept of play into my whole life not just brief periods of time. See what I am doing presently or something that is difficult I want to do as a time of deep play, I find that there is not an attachment to the outcome, pressure is not there, I like this human quality of 'play'. I hope you too will play more, love to all.