Play changes things
Imagine you like yoga. It doesn’t have to be yoga; it might be weightlifting, or astrophysics, or plumbing. Yoga is weirdly divisive. But stick with me for a minute - you'll see where I'm going with this.
So you go to a class at a new studio, and there’s a group of people not really talking to each other. Or maybe they are talking to each other – they’re just not talking to you. The class starts, and very quickly you feel yourself focussed on trying to get the poses right – trying to make them as close to what the exceptionally flexible instructor is doing. You’re not sure why, but you’re taking it all very seriously; when you can’t get into a pose, you feel frustrated; when you fall over, you think “dammit, what did I do wrong?”.
This isn’t that unusual – you’re a perfectionist; you feel a strong pull to get things right. But it’s not very fun. And you want it to be fun, otherwise you’ll stop doing it. So next time, instead of trying to do yoga right, you consciously decide to focus on…just doing it*. *You’re not entirely sure what you mean by that…just a feeling. But when you start, you try not to worry about whether you’re getting the poses perfectly right. Instead, you explore how they feel. You don’t follow the instructor precisely; you find what works for you. And because you’re not worrying so much, you start to push yourself a little more: you get a bit deeper, or stay a little longer. And you start to enjoy yourself.
And then you fall over.
But this time instead of thinking “dammit”, you laugh (because, let’s face it, falling over is funny). And then other people in the class start to laugh too, not at you, but at themselves, because they remember times when they fell over. And they start to laugh with each other, because you’ve all had that experience…and you all start to talk about the poses you can’t get into, and why you started doing yoga in the first place, and sharing tips, and suddenly the whole room *feels *different. And then you try again. Because now you’re not just doing a yoga class – you’re playing.
Play changes things. It changes how we feel, in ourselves, in our space, with each other...It creates space to not worry about getting things wrong; to experiment, to test our boundaries, and discover new things, because we feel safe to do so. Play lets us look at what we’re doing and question whether it’s the only way to do it. To be playful is to be engaged, open-minded, compassionate, collaborative, creative and curious.