The Importance of Play

For most of us we have been told to grow up or to act like an adult probably multiple times in our lives.  But what if I told you that maybe acting childish isn’t such a bad thing after all?  In my work I have so many clients who focus all their energy on meeting other people’s expectations and worry about how they are being perceived.  Often from an early age they were expected to behave a certain way or risk judgment or even worse punishment.  They grew up early and have been praised repeatedly for how mature they are, all the while feeling a lack of joy in their lives.  I don’t know about you but not getting to experience joy or feeling a passion for life does not sound at all like a life I want to live.  Really though, most of us are told to grow up eventually.  Maybe it is from peer pressure like being told that playing with action figures is for kids or maybe it is from a romantic partner who says that they don’t respect you because you act childish.  While there are certainly moments where we do need to behave in a mature way, and we should not expect our partners to be like a parent there also needs to be an understanding of who we are and the things that matter to us.  So, how do we find and maintain a balance, how do we enjoy life and what should we expect from our partners as well as ourselves?

Well, before we can worry about a partner, we have to figure out who we are and what is of importance to us.  I often have clients start with some self-exploration of what makes them happy.  What things did you give up that you wish you had not or even more what things have you sort of observed peripherally and wished you could dive into, but a sense of shame held you back?  For most of us we put things to the side when it was time to go grow up and get an adult job.  Maybe we kept a few things, but they were not things we necessarily shared with colleagues and maybe they were things when we start dating we kind of kept in the dark because someone finding out that you have a lightsaber or collect action figures might be seen as weird, and might hamper your prospects.  These are the places we need to look at ourselves and decide if we outgrew something or if we felt pressured to give it up.  If it was the former then we should not feel a sense of longing around it, but maybe a wistfulness instead. However, if it is the latter then we should start there. 

When we look at the lifespan, we often see the way some things naturally fall off in developmental stages.  At one point my kids lost their minds about peekaboo, but eventually not they just glare at me if I try to play peekaboo.  That is pretty typical developmentally, even if their judgment feels a bit sharp.  We also can see as kids the way most of us love to create.  We draw things that to others may not resemble something in reality but we love drawing for the sake of drawing, even before we can effectively convey our mind’s image onto something on the page.  We may also make up silly little songs and just sing during our day, even before we know what a musical note is.  However, we do eventually start putting that creativity to the side.  Some of that stems from seeing that our output is not as good as other people’s, so we begin with a sense of failure that means we have to give up.  Yet that joy in creating is very much there, being able to just make for the sake of making and enjoying the process is so very human and another thing I will always challenge clients to do. 

Along the way, we may receive some messaging about not worrying about what other people think, but then we are put into schools and jobs where the environment is very much all about what other people think and we are judged on our performances and output.  Everything points to worrying about what other people think and so we wind up building our lives around a sense of that conformity in an effort to not feel “othered”.  As a parent I do not want my kids to feel like outsiders, but I also want them to be fully themselves and feel safe, supported, accepted, and unconditionally loved.  If we did not have that feeling, we may have given up a lot of things that bring us joy.  As I look back in my own life, I see so many moments where I was quirky and weird and was all in on something that brought me joy until I was made to feel less than around that thing.  But now the older I get and the more I give zero fucks about how my love of something impacts someone else, the more satisfaction in life and utter joy I experience.  I own a lightsaber, I have tattoos, I love watching professional wrestling, I will go to a concert and sing loudly and have the best time and just really, I am going to be the little fucking weirdo I always was, recognizing I am doing nothing that hurts anyone else.  I will go to Disneyland, and I will have the time of my life on my terms and just feel utter joy.  I will write blog posts and books and while sure it would be cool if other people read them, I am doing it for me because I enjoy it. 

So, what are you doing to be yourself? How are you going to reclaim your joy in life and in what ways are you going to ensure your life is fun? Nothing says you have to wait or plan for it; you get to make the choices because it is YOUR life. The last question I have is do you want to have a lightsaber duel?