On the playground today I want to talk about why we can't afford NOT to play. There are a whole bunch of really frightening things happening in the world right now, and we need to talk about the importance of staying in play during times of challenge. Do you know what happens to inclusion when people feel afraid of what will happen next, or something unexpected changes their way of living, or they feel vulnerable to loss or massive change? It does not flourish… Research indicates that play deprivation can contribute to a reduced sense of personal control, reduced ability to control emotions, increased social isolation, and reduced happiness, all of which are associated with anxiety and/or depression. (Grey, P. 2017) In a time when we are reducing social contact and increasing physical isolation let’s consider what we will need to survive… it is not just food and water… without play and playfulness, we will struggle to come up with creative and innovative ideas, resilience and persistence… The world needs answers, and I believe the solutions are always in play. We need to provide space for them to grow. We can't afford NOT to play.

Today on the playground I want to talk about the fact that there are many things we all know about but do not discuss. Snot and gas Are two of those things we rarely talk about, but ALL have. That’s what talking about mental illness feels like to me and to many other people that I work with and play with. There are spaces where we feel incredibly empowered to share and connect and there are places where we whisper and hide in fear of anyone seeing our snot. However, play allows us to be in a space where the mess matters less or not at all… when was the last time you were there?

Today on the playground I want to share the second piece of the 4 part The Patient Lens Series in Play For A Change called The Freedom Frog… This is one of the parts of major depression and anxiety that I think is hard for some people to imagine. I am not trying to be mean, and I am not a heartless person, most of the time I am not anti-social. However, there is a threshold for certain life elements that is very low for me right now, I can see that I am not being kind or caring, it’s like being able to see yourself from the outside…looking down at yourself and it is full of judgement… A good person would have…. Usually you would… A good mom, teacher, friend does this and the popper response is …this… But I am empty… and covering the emptiness is what gets me to this level of my illness… When you gift wrap your life so no one can see what’s under the wrapping its exhausting… And after doing that for many years of my life the gift wrap is made of Teflon and adorned with steel bows… but it pretty to look at :) But there is a point like in any chronic illness that you don’t have the energy to tie pretty bows and make the wrapping look right… It doesn’t have to be perfect, I am not perfect, but I am worthy of more than I expected and somewhere inside I actually feel that…and I will work on believing it… Lets continue the conversation… the story matters… the story build bridges… Share it, or hold it…but know you are not alone… we survive by finding an ounce of play and then adding it back slowly into our space.

My hope for the next few episodes is to open the conversation and connect to people living with mental illness and those who love, support, counsel, parent, care, teach, and know people … because behind many well hid

Let's talk about foreplay! What has to be in place before you can play and be playful? Create "safe" (physical, and emotional) spaces to play, recognize why people do not or cannot play, and inviting people to the play. Come consider the foreplay... everyone is welcome on this playground.

Defining play is like defining joy… or love or hope and so many other things that are personal.. and universal all at the same time… I work with definitions from research to 5 year old’s, evidence and science to the wisdom of people who have lived long enough and deep enough to remind us of its importance.

Do you know how good bridges are built? Basic bridges are built on the premise of creating two foundations that support a load. According to engineers bridges balance both “tension and compression while resisting environmental forces” https://www.bigrentz.com/blog/how-are-bridges-built It seems to me that we have forgotten some of our basic bridge building skills. See you can't build a good bridge unless you have steady foundation on both sides which is how many of our conversations about diverse ways of looking at things and doing things happen. You feel or know or understand something your way, and I feel another and we have a foundation in which we build connection Often times we build a great foundation but we don't build the bridge that sits between.

Today on the playground we are going to talk about playing to your strengths … and how finding your strength and the strength of your team can change your performance and profit. A diverse workforce that connects in play will include and perform. Play will reveal both your companies underlying challenges ( the unspoken and unwritten rules) and the talents of the people you work with, and for…how you use it to improve performance and profit, that is a skill.

Episode #3 Today on the playground we are going to talk about Leveling the Playing Field, what we learn in play that we might consider in our personal and professional worlds. When was the last time your day was totally predictable? Unchanged? When you didn’t have to consider other ways of balancing priorities, time, commitment, people, planning or organization? Changing direction and newness can be hard, and often times it goes against the traditional well-structured plans laid for reproducible, predictable management of people and organizations. So if the definition of diversity is "being composed of different elements"… are we not surrounded by different elements every day? It’s what we do with them, respond to them and behavior around or about them that is important. Let’s go back to the playground or ice rink in this case to see an example: "Sticks in the Middle" as told by my husband Ken Heather about the corner rink and how the call of "sticks in the middle" decided who you were going to play with. What would happen if we just put everyone’s stick on the ice? What if we learned to adapt, flex, and change according to where the stick lands? What if we created a system where we “just played” without titles, and picking sides? What if we said this is your team … work with their strengths.

Episode #2 Today on playing for a change we are going to discuss the aversion to talking about P-L-A-Y That four letter word that scares many people.. BUT: Is it possible that play is actually the answer to some of our greatest most complex social challenges and that our fear of it comes out of what it has become in our mind purposeless, silly, boundless, undirected, volatile, unpredictable, risky,… When we protect people from feeling and falling we protect them out of self care and coping. And we limit the potential for ideas that can create change and transformation. Come on in ... this playground is for everyone.