
If you want to explore how the incorporation of play could redefine your relationship with change, schedule a free discovery session to learn how work with a coach could help.

Transcript:
Welcome everyone to another episode of the Esoteric Wellness Blog. I am your host, Coach Kyle.
So today I want to talk about play, something that as adults we lose in in almost all aspects of our lives for for some reason. Our society has taught us that play is a child's um concept and and play as an adult is something that should not be strived for.
However, through helping people through change in whatever way I am, I very, very often encourage people to incorporate play. And this isn't just to make change fun. There's very real neuroscience-backed reasons for this. And when you think of what play is, what we normally think of is play as a child in childhood. Play is an incredible learning tool.
That's really why it's much more seen with childhood. Childhood is a time of learning. Learning about ourselves, learning about the world we live in, learning what's dangerous and what's not, learning how to navigate a social world. All that is done through play.
And it turns out that when we're in the mode of play, when we approach things in a playful way, our brains learn much better, much faster. And we even see this in the animal world, animals play. when they're young. And again, it's to learn, it's to learn. That is really, really the purpose of play.
So it would make sense that we've evolved to experience play in a very positive way that it's fun. So that we strive to do it so that we can learn at our maximal abilities. So when we're children, we're playing with other children, we're learning, again, social,constructs. We're learning how to behave in a social environment. We're learning how to resolve conflict amongst ourselves. We're learning how to use our bodies, how they work. We're learning what's dangerous and what's not. We're learning what's acceptable and what's not. This is really how we learn our limitations, how we learn our abilities. We learn how we learn what we're good at, what we're not good at. So play is a critical part of learning, especially early in life.
So does play still have a role to play in adulthood? I would argue that it very much does, and that I would even argue it should be playing a much larger role in adulthood than it is already. I often work with adults and I this topic comes up and it's like, when's the last time you played? And I often get a look like, what do you mean? I'm an adult. I haven't played since I was a kid. But we can bring play into the process of change to help us learn, to help us rewire our brains a little bit easier, a little bit faster. because play is the ultimate learning tool.
So what might this look like? As an adult trying to change something about your life, how do you bring play into that? Well, I can't give you an exhaustive list because it really does vary person to person and even what play could be. What I might find is playful, someone else might not. So, but some some common examples that come to mind.
I think one big one that I bring up with most everybody in some way is a sense of humor. Bringing a sense of humor into the process of change. Being able to have a laugh atWhy change is so hard? Being able to laugh at yourself in some ways when you inevitably screw it up, because that's how you have to go. That's what you have to do to change is you have to screw it up over and over and over again until you get it right over and over and over again. Change is a long process of failure after failure. That's just what we have to do to change. So having a sense of humor about that. Being able to laugh at yourself, laugh at your situation, laugh at your own misery can really, really make a difference in how you're framing all that in your mind and how your experience with it will be. And it can also help your brain change a little bit faster, a little bit easier.
I remember my time in in the Marines, we had a popular saying,I think it's probably still around, but it was embrace the suck. And, you know, in military service, you have often periods of time where you're just miserable, and everyone there with you is miserable as well. And we would use that sense of humor to lessen our misery. Embrace the suck. Accept it, have a willingness to be present with it rather than, Oh my gosh, this is terrible. When is this going to end? Which just makes your experience worse.
So again, having this sense of humor with the whole process of change, all the difficulties of change, all the ugliness, all the chaos, being able to laugh. make a big difference.
Other ways I've seen this is bringing that element of play into trying new things. Like as children, I think we're naturally curious and we approach new experiences in a playful way. And somewhere along the way, we lose that as adults. So going into trying new things with the sense of play, the sense of curiosity, like almost with some excitement, like, I don't know how this is going to go, but it's going to be fun. We're going to give it a go and see what happens. This kind of experimental mindset, like we're just going to try this and see what the outcome is. Trying to let go of expectations of an outcome, good or bad. So that can really help. and just helping us deal with trying new things that our anxious brain is going to be fearful of.
Also, another way to approach this is celebration. This is something I talk about with nearly every client I work with in some way at some point. As you're working through that process of change, celebrate the little wins along the way. You don't have to wait till you're at the final goal to celebrate. Every little step you achieve along that path of change, celebrate it, have fun, treat yourself in some way, without derailing your change, of course, depending on what you're working on, but celebrate it, feel good about it. Boost yourself up. That can make such a big difference, and it's gonna rewire your brain to be,a little bit more positive every time you practice that. Change doesn't have to be miserable. It can be, there can be fun elements to it.
So those are the the big, most common ones. Like I said, play can come in in any way, shape, and form for different people, depending on what they find enjoyable, what they find to be playful, and depending on your sense of humor, things like that, of course. But wherever you can, bring play into change. It's gonna make it that much more enjoyable. It's gonna help improve your overall experience with change. And it's actually going to literally help your brain change a little bit easier and a little bit faster. That's the purpose of play, is for learning, and change is learning.
In addition to this, I I just want to mention too, you know, there's a there's a big uptick in adolescents with anxiety in in younger adults as well. And I've been looking into this a little bit and a lot of the experts are agreeing that some of this is stemming from a lack of play and specifically social play as kid as as children in our. Society today. You know, kids aren't out there playing with the other kids nearly as often. The world today, many, many kids are in front of screens much of the day in their in their own homes. Parents are more fearful about letting their children go out in the neighborhood and play with other kids. And all this is kind of adding up to. Kids that are lacking. high quality play in a social environment with other children.
You know, I'm not even 40 and I remember my my childhood even like being cooped up in the house was a punishment. Yet today that's the norm for many kids. You know, we were outside playing with the neighborhood kids nearly every day and we were outhaving arguments, having fights, resolving your own conflicts, learning all those skills to arrive within a social environment. And when you don't get that kind of play, you don't learn all those skills. So when these kids are now growing up, going out into the real world as adults, they're really struggling with things like anxiety because they don't know how to operate in that social environment. And it's because they haven't had the play, the training, the learning to teach them those skills.
So we could do a whole another episode on this topic, but I just wanted to mention it. Play is not only important for us adults, but it's still critically important for children especially, because it's setting them up with a lot of learning that's critical tohow well they do later in life.
So my challenge to you as you're all out there working through the process of change in some way, how can you bring play into that? How can you have a little fun with it? How can you have a sense of humor with it? And it doesn't take much to make a significant difference in your experience with change and your success of change. So think about that.
So that's our show for today. Thanks for tuning in, thanks for listening. I hope you find this useful.
And as always, you are beautiful, you are loved. Until next time.
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