P is for Play

It's week sixteen of Alphabe-Thursday!

P is for Play...

When I was a kid I would spend hours lost in my imagination, creating worlds for my toys to inhabit and stories for them to act out. I suppose it's no surprise that I grew up to become a fiction writer! :-) But play wasn't just about my imagination. It was all about the fun of doing something just for pleasure. That's one of the best parts of being a child - we can frolic without guilt. We're free to fill our days with playfulness.

Adults aren't as lucky. We have work and responsibilities. Play slips further down our priority list the older we get. When we do give ourselves time to play we often encounter guilt - we even refer to our playful times as 'guilty pleasures'. But why should any pleasurable experience be a guilty one?

Play is vital for our well-being. Letting go and enjoying life is one of the best things we can do for our health. Play can relax us and stimulate us all at once. It can help us relieve tension and stress, clear our minds so we're better able to problem-solve, while also motivating us to focus on joy and carefree fun.

Play for adults has become all about competition. Our sporting heroes have built a career around playing and yet I wonder how many of them still enjoy what they're doing with the same youthful abandon of a child? Once play becomes work it often loses its joy.

Adults need to play, even when there are no kids around! We don't have to wait to join our children in their fun (if they'll let us!). We need to break out the games and reignite our ability to bring wide-eyed curiosity and carefree delight into our daily lives. 

When was the last time you had a snowball fight or swung as high as you could on the playground swings? When was the last time you skipped rope or played hopscotch? When was the last time you played a boardgame or even simply lay in the grass and looked at the clouds floating by? Remember childhood play? It was so much fun!! :-) Let's bring more of that into adulthood! 

Can you recall the last time you felt as free as a child, lost in the joy of playfulness and pleasure? If so, what were you doing?