Here it is. (In no particular order.)

Play is….

• allowing ourselves to be “me”.
• making an effort to create the world we are happy to call ours.
• an attitude.
• being present with what is.
• doing what feels right.
• mind, body and spirit laughing.
• asking ‘why not’ more than ‘why’.
• moving for the sake of moving.
• paying attention only to the present moment.
• ignoring and transcending boundaries.
• reflecting values in action.
• moving.
• going with the flow.
• trusting yourself, each other and your surroundings.
• our inner child coming alive.
• enjoying the moment.
• a gateway to creativity.
• feeling free.
• imagining anything is possible, and then doing it.
• (re)acting with humor rather than frustration.
• allowing ourselves to fully experience.
• kicking off your shoes and dancing with the moment.
• is a language spoken and understood by all participants, body mind and soul.
• feeling no pressure.

These all hold true for me. The one that speaks the most to me is “Play is my inner child coming alive,” as I feel that that definition encompasses all of the other definitions. So now it’s your turn. What does play mean to you?

Pedalo - One of my favorite toys as a kid

Recently my friend asked me what my favorite toy was when I was a child. The two that came to mind immediately were Pedalo and Skip-It. “So you liked activity toys” my friend said. I suppose I do. I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I realized that my personal play style is probably more activity based. I also loved running around outside as a kid, something I still tremendously enjoy today. Not jogging or going on a run, just being outside and moving.

Girl using Skip-It

And while I also absolutely love playing board games, I am missing the active part of playing in my life. So I am doing an effort to incorporate more activities and play as my daily practice. For example I just bought a Hula Hoop and am teaching myself to hoop. Something I was never good at as a child, but now I can at least keep it up for several rotations and with some practice I am sure I will get it. The best part? I am having fun and working up a sweat and get my hear race and even though I keep dropping the hoop I want to keep going. It’s been a while since I had this much fun exercising. I’m sure it will be a great journey and I will be able to use this experience as a great metaphor for other parts of my life as I continue on this adventure.

I am discovering that I need to live out loud and use my whole body to express myself to be true to myself and experience the world, because that is how I play. I have let myself constricted for too long in jobs that require me to sit constantly and then studying at night. I need to move, to listen with my whole body and play with all of my senses.

How about you? How do you play? What was your favorite toy, game or play time as a kid and what does that tell you about your own personal play style?

What I found was that a lot of people looked at me like I was crazy. Fun and work shouldn’t be used in one sentence. Productivity and focus, those are words one should associate with work, but not silly words like fun and play. I started to wonder why that was. What is it about our culture that we are so focused on work and forget to play? We were so great at it when we were kids, and we learned so much. I started to wonder what is going on.

So I started having conversations with anyone I met about how they play, how they see it at work and in their lives,  how their environment might effect their ability to play and what they think play is among other things. I really felt, and still feel like this is such an important issue that I reframed my masters studies that was previously focused on story telling to creating and designing physical and cultural environments that allow us to playful, creative and explore our internal curioisities. One of my professors even gave me a new title “Playologist” – someone who studies play. Yes that’s me I am studying play in every definition possible and all the great things that come with it.. I am not only studying it though, I am also practicing it and helping people create their own playground. This blog is an account of my adventure into this new world and where it is taking me. I invite you to join me and let’s play together.