If we don’t cut ourselves some slack, we’re setting ourselves up to “snap” one day. It’s time to convince yourself that it doesn’t have to be that way.
Everyday Adventures: Learning to Love the Unknown
When I’m burned out, the last word I want to hear is adventure. But thanks to Stacey Newman Weldon of Adventure Wednesdays, I learned that adventures don’t have to be over-complicated vacations. Adventures can start small, stimulate our creativity, keep our minds sharp and our hearts full.
Play: Light and Breezy or Real and Helpful?
Everything feels different now. I wake up in the morning without dread. I have energy. I go for walks and exercise. I find it fun. Super weird. My jaw isn’t clenched so my teeth don’t hurt. I don’t feel like I’m choking anymore – that nearly constant sensation in my throat that felt like swallowing a handful of rocks. It’s …
Six Steps Toward Building Your Play Practice
In this episode, I (Kara Fortier, you know, the host) will talk about how I finally became an adult who plays. A playful mindset came so easily to us as children, but we adults build up lots of roadblocks keeping us from it. Incorporating play has been a process. It wasn’t as easy as just deciding to “do” play. I’ve …
No Excuses: Choosing Health & Playing for Your Life
This is a deeply personal episode for me, Kara, the host of PlayGrounding. This is the second part of my conversation with Sabrina Must. Last week, we explored the role of playfulness in facing and handling grief. Sabrina and I kept talking on the day of our interview and we went in a completely different direction, but with the same …
Play in the Depths: A Playful Heart Meets Grief
It might seem counterintuitive to have a conversation about play and grief. We often associate play with frivolity, silliness and escape. But what we learn from this conversation with Sabrina Must is that a playful approach to life can take us deeper and more in touch with who we really are, even in periods of deep grief and loss. Sabrina’s …
The Trickster Consciousness in a Polarized World with Shepherd Siegel
Dada, the Beats and the Hippies – what do they all have in common? The way they played was a problem for the authorities, for the people in power trying to instill black and white order on the world. This week on PlayGrounding we’ll be talking to Shepherd Siegel, an educator and author whose work explores disruptive play and protest. …
Playing to Win at Any Age
Some people train for a sport from the time they’re very young and become elite. Some people don’t even begin to get active until much later in life but become high level competitors. This week’s guest is here to remind us to never underestimate what we can accomplish regardless of age, even those of us who’ve spent most of our …
Dealing with Shame on the Road Back to Physical Play
Do you remember what it was like to be a child at the playground? When you first arrive and see the equipment, the sand, the grass? I remember that feeling well – the desire to jump, crawl, run, do summer saults and cartwheels. But somewhere along the line, that feeling began to fade. For many of us, our enthusiasm for …
Can Fitness Really Be Fun?
Rethinking Playground Play for Grownups Fitness fun? For most of my life, I would have answered NO WAY to that question. It’s the one challenge I’ve had to my belief that whatever is true about play for children is also true for adults. Children play very differently from adults. They play with their whole selves, their imaginations, their creativity and …