A serious time. Time to play.
This morning, June 24, 2016, I woke up to the news of the results of the vote in Britain to leave the European Union. Shortly, I was also reminded of the presidential election campaign in the United States, the ongoing violence in the world including the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida which is close to my current home and other very serious news.
Obviously, it is a time in the history of we humans (and all the rest of creation) when we need to devote a lot of our time and energy to all the ways we humans are continuing to destroy each other and the environment. We need to do some serious problem solving.
In the early seventies, even prior to the worsening of the epidemic of addiction to drugs which is destroying so many lives, I was enrolled in a residential training center in the San Francisco Bay area. This program required that professional counselors who were working for/with those dealing with alcohol and other drug addictions attend a six or nine week (I cannot recall for sure but it seems like six or nine weeks) training program which required the attendees to attend intensive educational sessions in which we looked at our own psychological histories and surreptitiously attended treatment programs as clients. It was often a very tense and emotionally draining program. One of the requirements which sometimes produced the most tension was to work with the staff of a company which “taught” adults how to play. Many of us were very bright, educated, responsible people who had long ago forgotten, if we ever knew, the essential role of play in stimulating our minds and, thus, opening them to being more curious and more creative problem solvers.
Several years later I would take professional dance classes, hire a movement therapy therapist, and later study movement therapy. This was prior to discovering and working with Mark Taylor and the Mind-Body Consciousness organization. Mark, a professional dancer, and his wife have a son who was born developmentally challenged. Mark and his wife searched for techniques for helping their son to maximize his abilities and discovered the mind-body connection. There were able to learn the connection between particular body movements and stimulation of parts of the brain such as the part which is responsible for speech development. In fact, they discovered that every movement stimulates a part of the brain. Later Mark would begin to become a certified mind-body teacher and conduct workshops for professionals in many countries. I was fortunate enough to study with him.
When I first started studying with Mark I did not immediately make the connection between movement and play, but at some point “the light bulb” went off. As a person who had taken a lot of undergraduate and graduate courses in child psychology I was familiar with the important of play for children. Little did I realize that the play and movement was just as important for adults.
Some corporations who are looking for individuals who problem solve will now look for people who are skilled at working with their hands. Some even look for adults who play well. They now realize that hand movement and movement in general stimulates problem solving skills. I am not sure, however, that using one’s fingers on the phone and the computer keyboard to the near exclusion of other movement completely meets the daily minimum requirement for an maintaining an active mind.
It may have been serendipitous that on this very serious day that, while at the gym, I turned to Ted Talks and “happened” on one by Stuart Brown entitled Play is more than just fun. Dr. Brown is a medical doctor and founder of The Institute for Play. He is well aware of the importance of the connection between curiosity, creativity, play and movement.
I have many in my life who remind me of the importance of play. For example, my young friend Gloria, age 3, was born a budding scientist. As the youngest child of playful parents she has been inviting them to rediscover gravity, energy, the relationships between liquids and other materials, sound, and dance since she was just home from the hospital. She, like her siblings, is curious about the world and her relationship to it. Her parents appreciate and indulge her curiosity and adventurous spirit.
My friend Becky, an educator, appreciates the role of play for humans and for her feline relatives. Playtime is incidentally bed making time. She recently did a workshop on the health benefits of giggling.
It is easy for this human to get sucked into the seriousness of this life journey. After all, I am a very busy man. Yet, I go to the gym to play with folks while also exercising (others say I am just socializing). I go to Panera’s after the gym to laugh and joke with the other regular staff and customers and, hopefully, manage to get some work done. Many of us use Panera’s as our office.
There are those who are convinced that I need to conduct myself more professionally and to approach gym time more seriously. In fact, there are those who are convinced that my leprechaun approach to life is not very respectful of the tragic times in which we live and, yet….
I do not have the creative talent with my hands which was the birthright of my father and was given to siblings, especially my brother. Yet, I grew up, as did my siblings, learning that if one wanted to eat and be housed one had to perform all the requisite physical chores of hauling water, planting and maintaining a garden, caring for the chickens and other animals, and chopping wood. Now I have running water, electricity, indoor plumbing, the green grocer and both a car and a bicycle. Now I go to the gym and make intentional decisions to ride my bike. Fortunately, I also clean my own house although even that chore is not as onerous as when living in the country with wood burning stoves and a well from which to fetch water.
I am blessed with friends such as Gloria and Becky who are just as silly and playful as am I. They will remind me that if I if we are going to tackle serious issues such as physical and emotional violence, hunger, immigration, racism, radicalism and other life issues we best remember to play – to open up those channels of curiosity and creative problem solving.
Tomorrow I will let me mind wander around the relationship of dealing with trauma and the ability to play.
Written June 24, 2016
This morning, June 24, 2016, I woke up to the news of the results of the vote in Britain to leave the European Union. Shortly, I was also reminded of the presidential election campaign in the United States, the ongoing violence in the world including the recent mass shooting in Orlando, Florida which is close to my current home and other very serious news.
Obviously, it is a time in the history of we humans (and all the rest of creation) when we need to devote a lot of our time and energy to all the ways we humans are continuing to destroy each other and the environment. We need to do some serious problem solving.
In the early seventies, even prior to the worsening of the epidemic of addiction to drugs which is destroying so many lives, I was enrolled in a residential training center in the San Francisco Bay area. This program required that professional counselors who were working for/with those dealing with alcohol and other drug addictions attend a six or nine week (I cannot recall for sure but it seems like six or nine weeks) training program which required the attendees to attend intensive educational sessions in which we looked at our own psychological histories and surreptitiously attended treatment programs as clients. It was often a very tense and emotionally draining program. One of the requirements which sometimes produced the most tension was to work with the staff of a company which “taught” adults how to play. Many of us were very bright, educated, responsible people who had long ago forgotten, if we ever knew, the essential role of play in stimulating our minds and, thus, opening them to being more curious and more creative problem solvers.
Several years later I would take professional dance classes, hire a movement therapy therapist, and later study movement therapy. This was prior to discovering and working with Mark Taylor and the Mind-Body Consciousness organization. Mark, a professional dancer, and his wife have a son who was born developmentally challenged. Mark and his wife searched for techniques for helping their son to maximize his abilities and discovered the mind-body connection. There were able to learn the connection between particular body movements and stimulation of parts of the brain such as the part which is responsible for speech development. In fact, they discovered that every movement stimulates a part of the brain. Later Mark would begin to become a certified mind-body teacher and conduct workshops for professionals in many countries. I was fortunate enough to study with him.
When I first started studying with Mark I did not immediately make the connection between movement and play, but at some point “the light bulb” went off. As a person who had taken a lot of undergraduate and graduate courses in child psychology I was familiar with the important of play for children. Little did I realize that the play and movement was just as important for adults.
Some corporations who are looking for individuals who problem solve will now look for people who are skilled at working with their hands. Some even look for adults who play well. They now realize that hand movement and movement in general stimulates problem solving skills. I am not sure, however, that using one’s fingers on the phone and the computer keyboard to the near exclusion of other movement completely meets the daily minimum requirement for an maintaining an active mind.
It may have been serendipitous that on this very serious day that, while at the gym, I turned to Ted Talks and “happened” on one by Stuart Brown entitled Play is more than just fun. Dr. Brown is a medical doctor and founder of The Institute for Play. He is well aware of the importance of the connection between curiosity, creativity, play and movement.
I have many in my life who remind me of the importance of play. For example, my young friend Gloria, age 3, was born a budding scientist. As the youngest child of playful parents she has been inviting them to rediscover gravity, energy, the relationships between liquids and other materials, sound, and dance since she was just home from the hospital. She, like her siblings, is curious about the world and her relationship to it. Her parents appreciate and indulge her curiosity and adventurous spirit.
My friend Becky, an educator, appreciates the role of play for humans and for her feline relatives. Playtime is incidentally bed making time. She recently did a workshop on the health benefits of giggling.
It is easy for this human to get sucked into the seriousness of this life journey. After all, I am a very busy man. Yet, I go to the gym to play with folks while also exercising (others say I am just socializing). I go to Panera’s after the gym to laugh and joke with the other regular staff and customers and, hopefully, manage to get some work done. Many of us use Panera’s as our office.
There are those who are convinced that I need to conduct myself more professionally and to approach gym time more seriously. In fact, there are those who are convinced that my leprechaun approach to life is not very respectful of the tragic times in which we live and, yet….
I do not have the creative talent with my hands which was the birthright of my father and was given to siblings, especially my brother. Yet, I grew up, as did my siblings, learning that if one wanted to eat and be housed one had to perform all the requisite physical chores of hauling water, planting and maintaining a garden, caring for the chickens and other animals, and chopping wood. Now I have running water, electricity, indoor plumbing, the green grocer and both a car and a bicycle. Now I go to the gym and make intentional decisions to ride my bike. Fortunately, I also clean my own house although even that chore is not as onerous as when living in the country with wood burning stoves and a well from which to fetch water.
I am blessed with friends such as Gloria and Becky who are just as silly and playful as am I. They will remind me that if I if we are going to tackle serious issues such as physical and emotional violence, hunger, immigration, racism, radicalism and other life issues we best remember to play – to open up those channels of curiosity and creative problem solving.
Tomorrow I will let me mind wander around the relationship of dealing with trauma and the ability to play.
Written June 24, 2016
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