The Magical World of Play
Why it’s Integral, and may be Elusive…
“Play is where children (and adults) hear the echo of what is within them, resonate in the world that is around them.”
-Deborah Macnamara
The other day, after a particularly cozy and loving-feeling meditation, I noticed my mind wandering to scenes from a favorite book of mine from childhood, Mandy, by Julie Andrews. In a moment where I felt safe and comforted, I was brought to these images of Mandy, an orphan girl who was a dreamer and who loved to read and spend time in her extensive flower garden. In the book, one day Mandy stumbled upon a run down cottage in the woods. She decided to fix it up and make it her own, expressing herself as she decorated and finding her sense of capability and empowerment as she made small, manageable improvements each day while tending to the grounds. Doing so soothed her loneliness through her connection to nature and to her very own sacred home that she had built for herself. As I reminisced on this lovely story, I felt inspired to write about the correlation between our sense of safety, and our ability to access states of play, wonder, and imagination. And if you’d like to listen to Mandy or share with a loved one, you can do so here… I highly recommend!
Why is Play so Crucial?
Play is absolutely foundational for development and establishing a strong sense of self/ identity. It’s also integral in reducing stress, regaining a sense of agency and healing from trauma. Many of the quotes I’ll share are speaking of the importance of play in childhood, but play is important for the continued development of our brains at any age, especially if we didn’t receive enough unstructured, agenda-free play through adolescence (which actually stretches until age 24!) I’ve found the age range for adolescence surprising and interesting as I believe teens and young adults in their early 20s are often pushed and rushed into adulthood too quickly, and pressured with WAY too many agendas and directives. We forget that this age group are adolescents with developing brains who need their own forms of age appropriate play and time and space to continue defining who they are and carving their way into the world naturally. Even creativity itself has been exploited for young people… I think back to the college application process where passions and extracurricular activities were commodified as a ticket to competitive and “impressive” schools. “Play is not urgent, and its importance has become camouflaged by preoccupations with performance, immediate outcomes, and getting ahead… We have become preoccupied with how children are meeting adult expectations and whether they are measuring up and achieving,” Deborah Macnamara.
Trauma healing:
When we have been conditioned to use our creativity, talents and artistic expression for results and outcomes, we can miss the therapeutic benefits of art and play. “The expressive arts have a unique role in restoring a sense of vitality and joy in traumatized individuals because aliveness is not something we can be ‘talked into.’ Instead, it is experienced, in both mind and body,” Cathy Malchiodi, PhD. Re-connecting with sensory expression, play, art, and creativity can help us heal from trauma and unprocessed emotions and survival responses in the body. Play also helps us in regaining a sense of autonomy and identity after trauma. “Through play, we have a chance to be in control and therefore increase our experience of security,” Dr Arielle Schwartz.
Stress:
“Play helps to inoculate stress or in other words, become more resilient and able to digest stress” -William Stixrud
This presents a strong case for incorporating and actually prioritizing play as something valuable and frankly indispensable as adults in our stressful world. Also, kids learn how to master life and learn how to be adults through self directed play! Play teaches them how to modulate their emotions and gain social skills to feel competent.
Development/ Identity:
States of play help develop the brain and help us reach maturity. “It is from this place of play where children (and adults) will spark their development and creativity, grow into full maturation- and find meaning, purpose and success in the world,” Deborah Macnamara. Play is essential for us to thrive. It helps define our identities and our essence, our likes and our dislikes, our individuality and uniqueness. It allows us to differentiate from our peers and find our boundaries (“where do I end and others begin?”). It also helps to develop a sense of agency and responsibility. Creativity and curiosity are also not taught, they are cultivated first through feelings of safety, and then explorative play. “Play is where the spirit that underlies growth is revealed and vitality is expressed,” DM.
How do we Access States of Play?
“If you are not rooted, you cannot grow.” -DM
In order to access states of play and prioritize it, we need to feel safe. For children, this comes down to their attachment and connection with their caregivers. They need to rest in the knowing that their safe parent can unconditionally hold them, love them and connect with them when needed. When children can rest in this, and they are not busy putting all of their focus and attention on anxiously attempting to secure attachment, earn love, correct their behavior for fear of being ejected from the family unit… then children are free to play. When children play, as stated previously, all the wonderful effects occur and their development and growth can unfold… they find their sense of agency and self, grow as individuals, discover what they like and don’t like, and their brains actually develop in the ways they should. Contrary to popular belief, maturity cannot be taught, pushed or shaped. What we need is the appropriate conditions for maturation (brain development) to unfold. It’s a natural process that occurs on it’s own in the right conditions. But if children don’t get this safety, they will not be safe and free to play, and if they lose out on play, they lose out on the natural growth and development needed to become self sufficient, successful autonomous human beings.
“When we take care of our children’s relational needs and ensure that their hearts are soft, nature will take care of the rest. We need to work not at growing our children up but at cultivating the relational gardens in which they flourish.” -DM
Later in life, as adults, our own brain development could have been halted in many areas at a young age due to a lack of safety or a lack of encouragement to play. Later in life it may be hard to access these states as we need a sense of safety to do so. We need to be able to move out of the survival centers of our brain in order to access creativity. Fear not, however! As our brains are neuroplastic, and can continue to grow and develop in ways they missed out on in childhood for our entire lives. Even later in life if we find ourselves a bit lost, unable to play, not knowing where to begin… we can slowly begin to give ourselves the safety we need in order to shift our priorities to play, discover our interests and what lights us up, and become whole and autonomous!
…
I won’t give too much away, but ultimately Mandy becomes a happy story of connection, comfort, safety and attachment. Even though I was able to access states of safety and daydream about Mandy and other lovely, pleasant imaginings the other day, I spent many years struggling to find any feelings at all of wonder, creativity, coziness, safety, warmth or awe. These shifts from survival to safety can occur! And each little moment of ease can really add up to a life of thriving. And as always, if you’d like help in your journey to discovering and prioritizing play in your life, and you’d like help in feeling safe enough to create the conditions to do so, I offer 1 on 1 NeuroEmotional coaching where we can work on fostering this together.