“Humans only play when they are free in the full sense of the word and they are only fully human when they play” –Friedrich Von Schiller
Do you remember the last time you played just for the pleasure of playing?
Often, we relate play as something exclusive to childhood and only relevant to that stage of life. But, also, lately we find that not even the children have time to play.
The game goes far beyond an activity with educational and pedagogical value that entertains the little ones or that enlivens moments for adults. The game is part of the list of evolutionary milestones that we must reach throughout our development such as the milestone of learning to walk.
Let’s look at chimpanzees, dolphins, dogs, lions, among many other animals, they play until they grow old and die. Therefore, playing transcends culture, playing is necessary for development and we should never stop doing it, in the same way that we never stop eating, walking or talking.
By playing we express ourselves and give freedom to our body and mind. The game is a machinery of achievement that over the years we atrophy.
We will call the game “realization machinery”, because it allows us to see ourselves, know ourselves, explore ourselves, it allows us to fulfill ourselves, be freer and develop and discover our full potential. If we atrophy all this, we are reduced to being more manipulable people, disconnected from ourselves, from our body, from our emotions and above all from our sensations. Those that allow us to self-regulate, understand ourselves, know what we need and why we need it.
Playing brings us closer to the present moment, since it is one of the few experiences that are done for the simple pleasure of doing them and not for the result or for what is achieved. And that, every moment in which we are connected to the present moment, is happiness.
By playing we allow the free emergence of our being, of what we need to draw out and express, our spontaneity opens, aligning mind, emotion and body. All those emotions that we accumulate, tensions, anxious symptoms, headaches, among others, can be released during moments of play.
How to recover the game?
Recovering the game may be a bit of a complicated task for some. The good news is that we are designed and prepared, as a species, for it! Why can it cost?
Having been inhibited for so long, unconscious fears of being real and spontaneous may appear. They usually appear in the form of blocks, such as experiencing shame when playing or laughing. Why do we so often cover our faces when we laugh, if it’s wonderful?
Furthermore, we often find that we have replaced “pleasure” with “duty” and this is accompanied by a series of beliefs that can be very limiting when it comes to feeling doubts about “what is right” and “ “what’s wrong” when deciding where I spend my time.
For all those people who haven’t played for a long time, expressive therapies are ideal. For example, art therapy as a vehicle for connecting with oneself, laughter therapy as a practice of “letting go” and “letting go,” dance therapy as a means to become aware of the body and release blockages.
By giving children moments and spaces of free play we allow their development to be much richer. They can explore, they can experience roles that are not their own but that they need to feel, they can discover themselves and above all they can release and express everything that they do not know how to do with words or that they cannot even yet understand.
On the other hand, As a father or mother, being able to share moments of free play with your child brings many benefits to bonding and attachment When I talk about free play, I mean play that is free of corrections and free of judgment. A game in which only intentional attention is paid to pleasure, fun, laughter, physical contact, looks and, above all, unconditional love.
Sharing this type of game means providing security to our child, giving them confidence, to explore and express. We will be conveying to him or her that we care about him or her, that we like to know more about him or her, that his or her company is pleasant for us, that it is important for him or her to express it and that it is okay for him or her to do so. We will be validating his emotions and freeing him from unpleasant feelings due to not knowing if it is okay for him to feel what he feels. And with all this, we will also be building a healthy attachment between mother/father and child.
The development of healthy attachment is one of the most essential aspects of the type of relationships that our children have and will have with the world, with reality and with the people around them.
Sometimes, we tend to believe that the best activities for our children are those that are very novel and elaborate. Let’s break that myth, it is not necessary for games to be of this type.
They can be games as simple as singing a song, dancing, playing catch-up, guessing with your eyes closed when the other’s finger reaches one of the joints of my arm, having each person draw a picture of the other, guessing flavors, smells, textures, objects with your eyes covered, speaking imitating an animal, pretending that you are an animal, a plant, an object, a firefighter, a teacher, or any profession, guessing movies or fictional characters and cartoons, making a massage chain, among many others.
All of these games mentioned above are not only games that hardly require any material, but also They are very stimulating games for our children and for ourselves With them, in addition to benefiting from everything mentioned in the previous paragraphs, we will be stimulating sensorially, providing more body awareness of oneself that will later serve them for greater emotional self-regulation.
Therefore, we have seen why play is necessary for good development, what benefits we obtain by sharing play and the importance of maintaining it throughout our lives.
Now, it’s just time to play, enjoy and feel!
“The child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play lost the child who lived in him and who will be greatly missed” –Pablo Neruda
