Playing and having a spirit of playfulness are very healing for your heart and soul.
When you express joyful, youthful parts of yourself, you strengthen and soothe your body and mind and support the healing process.
Do you have play in your life now?
Did you have play in your life when you were younger, when you were a child?
Did you like to play hide and seek?
Did you like to go play in the woods?
Did you like to play in the sandbox?
Did you like to play with your parents?
Did you like to play with dolls?
Did you like to play with toys?
Playfulness and play is so critical to development with adults.
It's critical for adult development, not just youthful and childhood.
See, what happens is as we go through life, we get beaten down, responsibilities, obligations, stress.
Well, you know, I'm sure you deal with it.
So we have to find some playtime.
We have to take time out to play.
It's essential for surviving.
It really is.
It's essential for living a healthy life and staying disease-free and illness-free.
And if you're suffering already from a chronic illness or a condition or you have symptoms of some kind,
then play is never more important than ever before in your life.
We really have to adopt it.
in different ways. I know a client that was very ill and we worked on the healing process and
before we got her better, we needed to bring something into her life to help her. And that
was play. But yet she didn't feel good enough to do what she wanted to do. She couldn't go out and
play tennis. She couldn't go out and ride her bike. She couldn't enjoy any kind of play.
so she brought puzzles into her life and she was putting puzzles together and it wasn't her
favorite at first but she got to like it and realized that there was a playful nature to it
and it was a form of play it moved her healing process along faster there might be things that
you like to do or you have a great idea or someone's given you an idea to do to play
playing stimulates the nerve nervous system the central nervous system it stimulates the brain
it enhances our brain function but it does more than that it strengthens the immune system
it strengthens every part of our immune system so we get a stronger immune system and it works
for us and it fights for us and it helps us heal there's many ways of playing creativity are ways
of playing. So being creative, if you like to draw, if you like to paint, even if you're not
feeling well, but you do a little bit of painting, even if you're in pain and you can't really,
you know, paint what you want to paint, but any kind of play on the most minute levels,
the most gentle, simplest level is helpful for healing and moving you forward.
And if you feel great and you just want to stay healthy, or you recovered from your chronic illness and chronic condition, and you just want to keep that health going and that motivation and move forward, then play is essential.
You have to keep it in there.
And play falls into movement.
There's so much play you can do that's also movement related.
Swimming, you can do that, riding your bicycle, hiking.
But it's not just movement.
I don't want you to think that play has to be movement all the time either.
Because it doesn't.
You could sit on the beach.
If there's a beach that you can go and sit on and relax,
you can write your name in the sand.
That's a form of play.
You can throw seashells in the water.
You can throw stones in the water.
If you're near a lake, you can throw stones in the lake.
These are forms of play.
And if you don't have any water nearby and you just want to be at a park, you could be at a park and you can pick flowers.
You can pick dandelion flowers.
Sounds so simple and so not that fun, but it is fun.
It's a form of play.
See, there's no rules.
There's no rules here.
You know, maybe there's a form of play that I'm saying that you wouldn't like.
but there may be one that you like that you're thinking of.
So kind of tap into that and think about what do you like to do for playing?
What matters to you?
Have you seen other people play?
So sure, you can play games and you can play tennis and play other things
but we also don't want too much competition in play.
Now, there's no rules so you can have competition in play.
There's no question.
Competition means you're playing against a partner.
You're playing volleyball.
You're playing tennis.
You're playing soccer.
You're playing basketball.
Those are sports.
But that doesn't have to be play for someone who doesn't want to do sports.
Maybe you're not interested in sports.
It doesn't have to be competitive.
Sometimes people like competition and they feel that's joyful and playful.
And it can be.
But remember, there's no rules.
No rules means whatever form of play.
Yoga is a form of play.
Meditation is a form of play.
When it's meditation, like taking walks in nature and watching the birds,
listening to the birds sing, that's a form of play as well.
Birds play.
If you watch them enough, you'll see birds play.
And you'll see animals play.
You'll see dogs and cats play.
Playing is part of who we are.
It's part of our soul on planet Earth.
You can't take the play out of us.
We can stifle it.
It can be buried.
It can be shoved down for decades in our life.
And it can be shoved down for a long time.
But we have to release it.
We have to release that sense of play.
We have to get that structure back.
We really do.
It's really important because it's important for you to heal.
So if you don't feel good and there's really nothing to play with,
maybe get a board game out then.
Maybe get a deck of cards out and play cards with a friend.
You know, any form of play is helpful.
It really is.
Tap into that.
I know we're serious.
I know we're always serious.
The responsibilities that we have, including healing when we're not feeling good,
responsibilities are endless. I get it. There's lots of stress. Who has time to play?
I know. And no one can just take a vacation anytime they want. I mean, maybe some people can,
but not everybody. So we have a lot of projects and we have work and we have our jobs and we have
responsibilities. But we have to take time out and play. We really do. It's so important for the
immune system. It's so important for the central nervous system. It's important for your heart.
It's important for your soul. It really is. So I want you to think about that. Take one day at a
time. Incorporate a little bit into your life. Ask yourself, what did I used to do for play?
Because we forget and we leave it behind. That's another thing too. We leave play behind from
years ago. We used to do something and then we stopped. Things got too busy. We fell into a
pattern, a pattern that stopped us from living our life the way we did before. Maybe because we don't
feel good now or maybe because things are on our plate that weren't on our plate before.
But we have to shift the gears and bring play back in. We really do. This is a big part of the
pathway to healing. And it doesn't take much. We're talking a little bit, just a little bit of play.
It doesn't have to be something, you know, so out there or something that seems intangible or
something that you can't really do, but you want to. You can dream about those and you can get to
those someday, but we've got to start somewhere. We really do. So you take one day at a time,
and you ask yourself each day, what did I do to play today? What part did I play today? Did I sew?
Sewing is a form of play. It's creativity. Remember, creativity is joined in with play
together. You can bring them both. Dancing is a form of creativity, and it's a form of play.
so whatever that is you ask yourself what did i bring in today one thing a day that's all i ask
of you and i don't mean to ask something of you but one thing a day that would be wonderful
and if you can't do that you can't pull that off then one form of play a week
let it be just one thing it could be really small remember when you were a child and you
would play dominoes or you would play with marbles or you would play crayons. Yeah, let's just think
about something it could be. And if that means taking a hike and watching birds and going to the
beach and sitting down and exactly writing your name in the sand or making a little sandcastle
because you haven't made a sandcastle in 30 years, 40 years. Let's think about it. Might even
brings a shovel and a little bucket to the beach.
A little plastic bucket and little plastic shovels and
make something in the sand as we're watching the waves come in.
It could be as simple as that and it can be also a glorious
big fun thing too. But let's bring play in.
I'm so excited for you because I know when you're bringing play in as well,
we're getting there. We're actually getting there.
It's so wonderful to see you healing.
Can't wait to see you to the next one.
Next step.
Okay, bye now.
