Spirituality and Play
Play as a spiritual practice.
I danced in the mirror naked today and it made me feel more like myself than I have in a very long time.
It’s not because I’m a particularly good dancer or that I’m just so in love with my naked body (although — hey girl! — she and I are getting to be much better friends than we used to be).
It’s because it was mindless, artless, and pointless.
For the first time in a while, I let myself move for pure enjoyment. I didn't have any goals. I wasn’t moving for fitness or to burn excess energy or to improve my mood (which are wonderful reasons to move; I’m not criticizing, I’m differentiating). No, this was just for the hell of it.
It was purposeless fun.
Remember that?
Do you remember what it was like to romp around as a kid, picking up random sticks off the ground, getting into some nonsense swing competition with your friend at recess, or watching a bug crawl onto a leaf for an undetermined amount of time?
Do you remember what it feels like to play?
As adults, even our “play” time is structured or revolves around productivity. We take a wine & cheese pairing course or we go to happy hour (why can you only be happy at specific times of day?!) or we do spin class — “I’ll get my work out in and have a dance party,” we think; “it’ll be fun!”
Is it? Is it really?
Okay, maybe it is. For some measure of fun. Maybe you do enjoy these activities, but admit it, there’s a quality to play as a child that most of us don’t seem to be able to capture in adulthood.
Dancing in the mirror today, I felt the difference.
Freedom.
Play Sets Us Free
It was the freedom to do something that produces nothing. Nothing.
The freedom to do it for as long or as short a time as I saw fit. The freedom to move in whatever way felt right without judging it as “good” or “bad” dancing, the “right” or “wrong” way to move.
I didn’t follow an instructor. There was no choreography. I just danced. And something instinctive opened up within me. It made me feel joyful and connected.
This isn't the first time I’ve become aware of just how important play is as a spiritual practice, but it was a profound reminder. There’s a way in which play takes us back to a state of being that’s much more aligned with the truth of who we are.
Over time, as we take on more weight in this life, more judgment, more fear, more societal programming, we forget how to connect. We’re trapped within the confines of these boxes, limited ways of being that we’ve created for ourselves.
Play can break us free. And like any other spiritual practice, it’s most effective when done consistently.
Now, just in case you’ve forgotten the feel of play, I thought I’d share a few requirements so that you can take on the practice too.
How To Play for Adults (Because Kids Already Know How)
- Mindless creativity.
Play involves letting the mind go. No analyzing what you’re doing. No thinking about how to do the thing. It’s a direct flow from inspiration into form. What does this mean?
It means I’m glad if you enjoy baking, but it isn’t play. Not unless you have no recipe and you’re just throwing things in there and getting your hands messy. I’m glad if you enjoy writing, but it isn’t play unless you’re key smashing to your heart’s content. You must turn your brain OFF.
2. Spontaneity.
Play should give you the opportunity to surprise yourself. You may let out a screech you’ve never heard before. You may see your butt jiggle in a way it’s never done before.
Part of play is that child-like wonder, where you’re constantly amazed at what’s happening right now. Look how fast I can run. Look how dirty my knees are. Woah.
Spontaneity is a sign that you’re not filtering your experience. It’s unfolding even as you participate. Naturally, this leads to unexpected outcomes. Therein lies the magic.
3. Timelessness.
Play should take you into an experience of timelessness.
As children, we had to get called in from playtime. We weren’t watching the clock to see when we had to stop building that sand castle or making sure we kept Legos to a tight twenty minutes.
Our constant need to schedule and manage every second of our lives puts us firmly in this 4D experience of spacetime, which we know is a human construct and not reality (or rather, one particularly dense and limited aspect of reality — it’s the basest level of consciousness, let’s say).
In contrast, play should guide us into the present moment so completely that we forget time is even passing. We forget that we need to be aware of time passing.
We may look up from play and realize hours have passed by and marvel because we couldn’t say how much time had passed, but hours? Surely not hours.
Yes. Hours of timeless existence. Can you imagine?
4. Lack of judgment.
Okay, this one tends to be the hardest, but it’s crucial. Play can’t be judged. There is no right or wrong way to play. So, even if you’re taking a pottery course, a cooking class, pole dancing, whatever it is, you must allow for free expression without judgment.
Adults find this very difficult to do.
Every art or skill or task you can think of, generally, someone has mastered (and written a book about). So, we’ve come to believe that we can’t do things without doing them correctly. We can’t make mistakes. And if we do, we have to improve upon them, to get better at the thing, even if it’s just a hobby.
Hear me and hear me well.
Play is not about improvement. It is not about productivity. Play is about pure freedom of expression.
So, if the cereal bowl you make can’t actually hold cereal, great! And if the dish you created without a recipe isn’t quite edible, perfect. And if you prefer to drop it low, while everyone else in class is doing the perfect body roll, fantastic.
Be “bad” at the thing and play like a champ!
The End Result
You should feel the impact of play being reintroduced to your life pretty immediately. It’s likely to uplift you emotionally, at least during, and possibly after.
If it’s done consistently, like any other spiritual practice, it puts you into greater connection with your soul, your intuition, that part of you that is not ego-mind, the part of you that gains inspiration from someplace beyond the mind.
Connecting to that part of yourself more frequently means you condition yourself to listen to it better. This aids your spiritual growth immensely. It also tends to increase your creativity.
Plus, all of the requirements of play can aid you in your day-to-day life as well.
You might find that your experience of non-judgment makes you kinder to yourself, in general. Or maybe you can let your mind check out while you wash the dishes after dinner — find some rare peace in a menial task. Perhaps you start to bring more spontaneity into your relationship (hubba hubba, am I right?).
Ultimately, play has proven invaluable to me as a spiritual practice and I encourage everyone to get serious (this is my serious face >:( — can you see it? lol) about incorporating more play into their day.
❤
If you’d like to talk more about spirituality, feel free to drop a comment! I love chatting down there. And if you’re interested in catching other things I write, you can become a Medium member here. XO