Play. Why? Because.
Play is a reason on its own. It is a universal need. A universal pleasure and a way to process your life which increase vitality, open up creativity and embrace our humanity. It holds the power to heal and transform what is being called to be healed in our lives. Did you ever try to get your child to do something and fail? They would simply not. Did you ever try to chase them as a monster up the stairs to go to bed or offer your back as a galloping horsey? Voila, easy as 1-2-3. Play became the vehicle for what needed to happen.
Play is fun, it elevates our life-state. It is a state of mind on its own, a place of endless possibilities, creative solutions and connections beyond our perceived differences as humans.
There is another side to play, as my theatre teacher, Giovanni Fusetti, said: “What you don’t play, plays you.” The shadow side of life, everything we try to hide, every sticky point in society holds a potential of being transformed through play. As we choose to see our habits through the lense of play we have the opportunity to play with patterns, our personal ones, or the ones humanity holds as a collective. Once we dare to play with it, it loses some of its power over us – simply because we shed some light on it and explored it in a playful way.
Play engages the will.
There is a field of kyros time once you enter a playful state of mind, it is an access point to the phenomenon of flow. It increases our vitality, opens up our creativity and embraces our humanity. Making life a tad less serious.
My personal experience of the transformative power of play happened when I started working in the field of medical clowning. I was suffering from post-natal depression, might not seem like the best starting point to go into a hospital and create moments of joy and connection for children at Starship. What happened though, my mind was not able to distinguish my personal life and professional life. I was having fun! I worked in an incredible supportive and artistically skilled team. The magical moments that were created between clowns and children – that were primarily for the children, whanau and staff, ended up giving me a side-effect of incredible joy too! Being on the brink of cracking myself up with non-sensical stupidity was creating a different chemistry in my brain and body, which obviously lasted way beyond when my shift was done. What a win-win!
There is a tremendous energy available to us when we enter the poetic field of play, you might notice how children can go on and on and on and on with their creative forces. This is still available to us, we just need to remember how to access it. This is the space where we find our most innovative ideas. We step up from a problem and go into potential, we allow the mind to be unlimited, we can meet all needs, play with our anger or frustrations, take the biggest frustrations and make them even bigger, take it to the max, into grotesque, let it go so wild it becomes ridiculous and then we play ridiculous. Because its all ok in a space of play.
Be wildly creative.
We were given this body and this voice, a body which can do amazing movements, a voice that can make a lot of sounds from soft exquisite beauty to wild roaring despair. However in our daily lives we seldom let ourselvs go into any of these spaces. Mostly we lie down, sit and walk. That is not a huge range. In comes play, a place of permission to explore. Of course you will find something amusing once you are there, you are feeding yourself a completely different input. There is the saying ‘if you always do what you have always done, you get what you have always gotten.’ Enter the playing field of non-sense, what will you come up with?
Be sensible. Be Non-sensible as well! We can not make sense of all in life. Thus, it is crucial to allow the non-sensical side space to flourish, they go hand in hand. Like chaos and order need each other. Too much trying to make sense and we suppress our sense of wonder! What do you choose? Sensible or wonderful?
The world needs us to play. It is far too serious. It is far to much painful stuff going on.
Our differences become less important when we play, it takes us to the core of our humanity, connects us to a universality. We are all infinitely stupid. We all fall. We all light up when we laugh. The world needs that lighting up. So go on. Play. Why? Because.
“The serious laugh” is a concept of making something that is not funny, funny. We laugh at something we “shouldn’t” be laughing at. For instance in our black comedy show Mockingbird the subject matter is mental health, depression and psychosis in particular. It is serious stuff. We have lived experience. How would you feel seeing a depressing play about depression? Thats why we use humour to play with the topic, it makes it accessible, the audience goes on a journey with the play and are engaged through a range of emotions and especially laughter. This effect anchors the message, yet they leave the theatre feeling uplifted with hope. The process behind the theatre-piece is play-based, but we had to be willing to play with the darkness in order to find the lightpoints and humour within it. We had to go all in, and yet playing with the darkest of moments – we found lightness that could be shared. It bridges our humanity.
How can you incorporate more play in your life?
Do something unexpected, put a sock on your hand, try to chew with cabbage vampier teeth, walk zig-zag. Random creative sparks that lets you explore in a different way.
Excagarate, did someone giggle at something you said, say it again, but say it bigger, with a different voice, add to it. Bring your body into it too.
If a child asks you to play. Play with them. Enter their world. Say yes. Don't try to steer it. Just see what will emerge. They are in the state of play naturally.
Say “yes lets” or “yes, and…” when someone
suggests something and your urge is to go “no, we can’t because...” or “no, what if...”. Pause for a moment, and say “yes, lets!”
Sing your actions, make your life a musical. At least a moment of a musical.
Play ‘go home, stay home’ or any other of your childhood favourite outdoor games.
www.siriembla.com
Creativity - Vitality - Humanity