The Power of Play (POP!) for EVERYTHING
Health, Connection, Creativity, Imagination, Intuition, etc.
Play → Spontaneity → Creativity → Healing/Wholeness
Barbara Brewster’s Presentation to Gawler Foundation’s
Mind, Immunity & Health Conference, 1998
When we change our attitude/thoughts/words, we change our energy. This is pretty self-evident if we pay attention to our feelings. Depending on our thoughts/words/focus, we can feel good or not so good. So, we have immense power–the choice regarding what words/thoughts we’ll entertain and where we‘ll focus our attention. It’s been proven that our thoughts actually change our body‘s chemical composition. Irving Oyle, author of The New American Medicine Show, puts it in a way we can understand: “When I think joy thoughts my brain secretes “joy juice.” This can be measured in my cells. When I think worry thoughts my brain secretes “worry juice,” which can be measured in my cells.
We know what to do to become beacons of positive energy attracting positive energy to us. However, changing our thoughts is sometimes not so simple. As modern citizens, even if we don’t have a sickness label, we are often stressed or bombarded by masses of chaotic energy. Especially if we’re sick, discouraged, isolated, it’s difficult to shift out of that worry place. We know we need to, but we can’t.
There are resources that can help us get there–launching pads. Meditation. Nature. Music. It could be anything. The focus in this session is on spontaneity. It’s a quick—and fun!–way of dropping ourselves into the present. And when we focus on the present we forget to focus on our projections. Our attention is on something else besides our worries.
There is much evidence about how spontaneity changes our energy (see handouts). The most valid evidence, however, is our own experience. In this play session we’ll have opportunities to remember what it’s like to simply be present without planning, plotting, projecting–anything. There is a liberation in entering an activity without taking thought, an exhilaration in allowing ourselves to trust that whatever word, movement, response, outreach is needed, is actually lurking right there inside us. Most of us respond to life’s offers from fear or habit. (How’re ya goin’? Fine.) By having the courage to actively trust the often-untapped, unacknowledged original impulses just waiting within us to be invited out, we prime our creative pumps.
Being playful with ourselves or others, whether with words or movement, allows us to reconnect with our spontaneity. When we are spontaneous in the context of the games, this stimulates our imaginations—which stimulates our creativity. When our creative juices are flowing, we are living wholly. Then we are available to healing—a creative process. We can actually see visible evidence of this in the water research of Dr Masaro Emoto. His photographs of water stunningly show how the water changes depending on which words, music and energies it is exposed to. Since our bodies (and our planet) are 70% water, this means all we have to do to heal our bodies (and planet) is to start making conscious choices in our thoughts, words, actions. The choice to be playful is one way to literally change our bodies.
Further evidence of this comes in feedback from playshop participants. “My body got still.” Parkinson’s patient. “It’s the first time in two years that I haven’t thought about my disease.” Another Parkinsons Patient. “My headache’s gone!” Anne, USA.
There are many reasons why people don’t play. Fear of doing it wrong, looking foolish, not acting one’s age, fear of disapproval, fear of being judged obscene, unoriginal, unimaginative. So, we develop controls over our spontaneity to make sure nothing “wrong” slips out. And we shut down our imaginations, and lose our talent. We can actually see in a person’s body the contortions they are going to to contain their creative energy.
This session offers you an opportunity to play with trusting your original impulses. To say “YES” to allowing out WHATEVER emerges. To “take no thought” for what you’ll say or do. To say “YES” to allowing the inner you, the original, uncontained, surprising you, to step into the game and see what adventures occur. Notice how you feel when you allow yourself to say “YES.” Notice how you feel when you hold back, which is a way of saying “No” to what the moment—LIFE–offers.
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© Barbara Brewster
