My last 2 days of PLAY, I just totally relaxed and let go of expectations and worries.  I went to the beach alone again in the afternoon and got in the water.  I began to frolic around and throw rocks into the water from the shore just to hear them ker-plunk.  At that moment I realized that I had been defining play from the beginning in a very limited manner.  What is play anyway??   If I think of play as only extreme fun, laughing, playing like I see children do of course I am going to be a little disappointed.  There is always time and room to let that in, but without forcing it.  The rest of the time we can integrate play into our day by asking what does play mean to me?  We use the word play for instruments, sports and card games.  However, a lot of the time these are some of the most serious activities people engage in.  Instruments require a lot of practice which is often tedious, sports commonly turn into competitions that result in losing the purpose behind them and card games have been corrupted by betting.  All of these things are wonderful ways to spend time … if you know why you want to do them.  If it’s for play and pure enjoyment, set the intention before beginning to approach the activity in a light-hearted manner. 

Later, I went with my boyfriend to the beach to play Frisbee.  Being an admitted Frisbee failure, I had way more fun than one would think.  I realized that when I am good at a sport – which growing up as a semi-jock I have always been good at most of them – makes be behave quite seriously.  But, since when I throw a Frisbee it goes everywhere except straight I giggled, belly laughed and played around not really caring where the Frisbee went and finding pure delight in watching its course!  As the sun was setting and the game came to a close my boyfriend ran over, picked me up, threw me over his shoulder and ran directly into the ocean waves – clothes and all.  I was in shock as he threw me down and started splashing me!  Then I came to life again and began wrestling him down to prove I could throw him into the water too – not an easy feat but loads of fun as I lost my breath and finally at least got his butt to touch the ground for a second – Victory! 

The last day of my play adventure we went to a neighboring hotel where there is a waterfall with beautiful pools beneath it.  Here we didn’t find ecstatic play but rather a calm, open-hearted play as we jumped into the pools, kissed while feeling the cool water on our skin and redirected the course of the water gently streaming between pools.  It left me feeling refreshed and open to experience life.

So all in all, I feel like setting an overall intention in daily life to play is a great stimulus to seek opportunities that lighten up the way we approach life.  Stress and seriousness about everything in life takes away our purpose for being here and impacts everyone around us.  If we simply choose to approach daily life in a more light-hearted manner and take each opportunity to play rather than seeing it as an obstruction to productivity we may just be able to slowly cultivate the same curiosity as we see in children about the world around them.

Day 7 provided more insights into how to elevate my spirits and not force it.  I worked all morning – enjoying the company of other people but feeling rather stressed in the afternoon.  I went down to the beach alone again and after sunbathing and drawing in the sand for a while I dove into the refreshing water and swam.  I dove under the pounding waves as they tousled my hair and swirled me around like a feather, understanding that there are moments when the ocean is still, meditative and other moments when everything is churning to the surface.  On this day the ocean reflected my internal landscape.  

In the evening we had been invited to a friends´ for a little dinner party.  Walking over to her place
my mood had not really improved and I was a little down on myself for not playing all day.  The rest of the night made it crystal clear how important it is to spend time with friends! Over dinner we chatted and laughed and then after dinner the scene turned into an all-out belly laugh until you can´t breathe
session that lasted several hours.  I had not laughed like that in I don´t know how long.  We pretended that animals were just like humans in storytelling about a couple (of birds) where the female had just decided to give up her medical career to be a house-wife.  Then we got out the computer and began to watch ridiculously stupid youtube videos together – just typing in try not to laugh or grin in the youtube
search.  Ok so generally I declare myself too mature to watch stupid shows and especially when people are playing practical jokes on others.  However, I admit that watching things like ´dramatic chipmunk´, Japanese counting in English (where the guy forgot how to say 20 and so he said ten ten!!), and the devil something playing practical jokes was an incredible way to simply let go of conventions and laugh until it hurt. This will now be added to my tool box!

On my fourth PLAY DAY I confirmed something about me and playing – I like to play alone sometimes (drawing, dancing, messing around in the water).  But, playing is so much more carefree and reaches a whole other level when I am with friends who love life.  For example, when I am with
one of my best friends we take random silly face pictures together in the car!!  Or when I am with my nephews
and they pull me into playing in the snow, we enter a totally different dimension.  So on Tuesday I went down to the beach alone and saw 2 young boys playing in the wash. 
I was tempted to join them but chose not to.  Instead I went further down the beach and started frolicking a little bit but serious thoughts kept invading my mind.  I got out and drew in the sand and
invented a game of throwing small rocks at bigger rocks I had collected to see in which direction they would fly and how far. I felt moments of absorption, but mostly I felt like I was forcing it.  I walked along the beach and found a dried palm leaf.  I snatched it up and twirled it like a baton around my torso and under my legs.  This was truly fascinating and the feel of the stick passing through my palms and the creative movement brought me 100% into the present moment.  As I walked back from the beach, I reminisced in my mind about how much more fun I would have had if I had been with a partner in play. 
I tend to push people away because I have things to do and I have been imprinted to believe that passing time with friends and community members is not an efficient and productive way to spend my time (luckily Ticos have bee slowly effective at changing this perspective). Today, with this experiment I confirmed what I have been reading in “The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World” with the Dalai Llama – happiness is very directly linked to our participation in the community surrounding us and interaction with others.  

On day five, I woke up with a lot of adult thoughts swirling in my head.  After 2 hours of yoga and
meditation, I set the intention to not take life or daily annoyances so seriously.  This is something I
have heard over and over – people write books about not sweating the small stuff (and truly if we remember that we are on this earth but not of this earth it´s ALL small stuff).  But, in practice, it´s not quite so simple.  We have patterns of ways of being that dictate our reactions to every stimulus we encounter in the day and simply deciding to see the bright side of things is not necessarily a simple transition.  I find that setting an intention for my day is very powerful and reminding myself often throughout the day of that intention keeps me in a space of mindful living.  My intention to PLAY somehow has on various occasions actually annoyed me – ahhh I just want to write in my journal,
go for a hike or read my adult books … WHAT??  This is an ongoing thing I will be continuing to analyze – why does play seem to turn into “work” when we don´t have a habit of doing it and when we choose to consciously bring it into our life??

More props to having loved ones and communicating with them …
today a close friend forwarded me a letter that Kurt Vonnegut replied to a letter a high school student sent to him.  It implored the students to do art every day for the rest of their lives – sing, dance, make faces in their mashed potatoes, etc.  This plea was not to boost their creativity nor to make them famous one day but to “experience becoming, to find out what´s inside you, to make your soul grow”.  What a great reminder on a grey rainy day when I was feeling rather uninspired to play!!!   

Keep noticing, feeling and not judging what comes up! Play, after all is not a forced action but a random, passionate, inspired action that may just change the rumba of your day or your life :)

So this playing business is not as easy as I imagined it would be!  I arrived at my tropical destination late afternoon on the 12th exhausted and all I wanted to do was shower and fall into a bed.  However, I chose to do and experiment and instead I put on my bathing suit and went down to the beach.  As I arrived it started to rain.  I began playing around, kicking the water, letting the waves wash me in and out, rolling with complete abandon (while every crevice of my bathing suit and body filled with fine sand).  I got up and ran down the beach doing cartwheels and spinning with my arms out until I fell to my knees with dizziness!  Then the rain came harder and I simply sat in the wash feeling the cold water shower my head as the warm salt water bathed my lower body.  It was exhilarating, it was energizing, it felt amazing.  Playing can totally rejuvenate even the most exhausted body, mind and soul, which I also proved later on.  As night fell and I got into bed with my boyfriend all I wanted was to sleep.  But, we somehow started a pillow fight... hehe it´s been a while since I´ve done that!  Again it drew me out of my slumber and made me feel passionate, playful, open to let life in.
Then today I woke up and again was not feeling so inspired to go out and play and I began searching for ways to play and then of course realized that it kind of defeats the purpose if I look at it like a job... So I just took one thing at a time and realized I was falling into normal patterns of relaxing, yes, of doing things I like yes, but I was still not playing, but rather focusing on the serious things I need to do (meditate, do yoga, think about my work, etc) and not allowing the lightness of life to float along with me through my day.  So I thought back on my toolbox and as I was walking the beach back for lunch I saw a huge trunk in the wash with tons of branches.  I looked around for 2 sturdy sticks and began ¨playing¨ my new found instrument ... creativity flowed and my ears were having fun distinguishing between how each individual branch sounded against my attempts to bang them with any sort of rhythm (I was not naturally gifted musically).  But it didn´t matter because I was alone on the beach and just banging away like a kid with a new drum set.
So thus far, I feel like I need to truly set the intention in my day to play and then just let it go without taking it too seriously: give it a try.  Tomorrow simply set the intention at the beginning of your day to play and then let it go.

It’s almost time to start my RESEARCH – this is the most excited I have been about researching something like ever (even though I am a huge geek and love research)!   So I have started adding things to my toolbox to make sure I am well equipped.




PLAY TOOLBOX

PRETEND – a friend mentioned the other day that she used take pretend adventures all the time as a girl, another friend now takes pretend vacations, my nephews pretend that we are planes when we play.  So what is it about pretending that fuels the spirit so much?  This is a question I aim to answer through experience rather than reading…

DANCE – movement in general is an amazing way to get blocked energy flowing into the maid-like channels (nadis) of the body to clean it out.  When it is creative movement that is linked to sounds and rhythms the results are exponential!  It helps increase physical strength, balance and flexibility; reduces stress; starts the process of self-awareness, trust and exploration; encourages surrender into the flow (and this opens the door to surrender in life and spirit as well); promotes independence as you trust your own movements without depending on J-Lo to show you how a body should move ;)

WATER – Ok so I admit my first impulse this morning was to put play with food.  However, since this is totally sacrilege and I will not be doing this experiment in my own home I will leave that for future research!  So I thought about how most children LOVE to play in the water – baths, mud puddles, hoses, ponds, etc.  Water is such a fun medium because it’s moldable, causes all kinds of sensations against the skin and creates rainbows.  In the picture here I was playing in the ocean waves and I certainly got tumbled around … but laughing and enjoying and experiencing the whole time!

INSTRUMENTS – anyone remember playing the drums on the table or making noise just to hear what sounds might come out of your mouth?  About a month ago I just randomly picked up 2 sticks and started banging them together.  The noise and also the vibration on my hands was an interesting way to wake up the senses and PLAY.

CARTOONS – hehehe so total guilty pleasure here.  Last night a friend gave me several Disney and other cartoons.  We started watching Cars 2 and I was roaring laughing.  Although I never watch TV and hardly ever watch movies I cackle like a little girl when I watch movies like Rio!    

So I have set the dates and begun the research!  I will dedicate April 12-20 to playyyyying ;)


Even just becoming conscious of my apparent lack of play has transformed my daily activities.  I have begun dancing, singing, talking to the dog, and blowing the stream of water coming out of the hose as I’m watering the garden.  It’s incredible the effect intention can have on any aspect of our lives!
So as for research: I have discovered that I am not alone – many people feel that they have forgotten how to/ stopped playing.  The other major discovery is how incredibly HEALTHY playing is!!  It boosts creativity, reduces stress and depression, permits faster and deeper bonding with partners and friends, strengthens the immune system, reduces pain and MORE.  So are you telling me the societal adage to grow up as we advance in age is actually compromising our health … well yes that’s what I’m saying.


So some out of the gate suggestions from chatting with some of my lucky friends who still play and my experimentation:
- Take pretend vacations!  Yes – go out to dinner or to a bar or to an exotic locale in your area and pretend that you are on vacation.  Also simply planning your dream vacation even if you can’t afford it, don’t have time, etc now boosts happiness!
- Put on upbeat music and sing along or dance (simply allow movement to organically come out – even if you label yourself a ‘non-dancer’ if no one is looking I promise your body will move in ways you never imagined if you give it the opportunity.
- Have a friend over for tea time –be ridiculous, behave like the queen of England!


As I dive head first into this hidden childhood realm I will continue sharing insights ;)