Do you remember as a kid, those long summer days that seemed endless, exploring the beach or the forest, swimming at the neighborhood pool, riding bikes with your friends?   Do you still know how to play like that?  As children, play is essential to our learning, growth and social development.  Yet, at some point, our lives become serious.  We must go to work and we lose our ability to play. Yet, as adults play is just as important.  We need the same opportunities because to be alive is to always be learning and growing.

“Deep Play”, a more important sounding term for those of us who may need permission to play as adults, is essential for our well-being, our work and our relationships. Deep play offers our mind an opportunity to relax, “take your mind off it”, and allows that invisible wisp of inspiration to land on your shoulder as softly as a butterfly.  Have you ever had a problem you just could not think your way out of only to solve it in the shower or find the ideas flowing during a long walk or a hike?

Diane Ackerman thought deep play so important that she wrote a book about it.  She defines deep play as “A state of unselfconscious engagement with our surroundings. An exalted zone of transcendence over time. A state of optimal creative capacity.”  Martha Beck describes deep play or real play as “a wildly creative application of deep practice (mastering something difficult)”.  How much of the time is your play wildly creative these days?

There are multitudes of ways to deep play.  Writing, dancing, playing soccer, singing, painting, hiking, creating pottery or blown glass, backpacking, white water rafting, surfing, paddle boarding, running, playing basketball, anything at all that makes your heart sing, stops time and gives you a sense of freedom to create and to choose.  Notice I did not include lying on a beach in the sun.  Deep play is active.  It requires stimulation of parts of the brain not normally active during routine daily stress.  It helps us out of our rational mind, into the creative center of our brain, the right brain that is filled with unlimited inspiration. Deep play requires you to take time for yourself to do something for yourself.

Travel is a form of deep play for me.  It takes me out of my normal routine and challenges my mind to come up with new patterns for taking a shower, getting dressed, finding my shoes.  I love new places and new experiences.

Recently, I was in place of feeling stuck and uninspired.  I was spending a lot of time behind my computer, stressing about starting a new business and losing touch with the creative part of myself.  So against the better judgment of my rational mind to spend money and take time away, my daughter and I took a long weekend and went to Stehekin, a village at the head of Lake Chelan, near the North Cascades National Park.  We had a fabulous time camping, hiking, and swimming in the freezing lake on a hot day.  It was just the time I needed to open up my life to a fresh perspective.  I realized how stuck I’d been and how I’d forgotten to play.  I’d forgotten my passion for nature, its beauty and grandness and how it feeds my soul.  This deep play was what I needed to see how far I’d moved away from the mission of my work and my own passion to transform my work into play.

Deep play is essential to our well-being, as vital as eating and sleeping. Yet, all too often we set it aside for another day when we have time.  But many times that day never comes and our lives pass by in a long series of days, moving from one thing to the next.

So in these final warm days of summer take some time for yourself and get out there and create some deep play!  Let me know how it goes.

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