Play: Zen and Zest

First snow of the season and I was snuggled up warm and tight inside. With a busy week looming, I was grateful for the break and took the day off with my girls. I greeted their late-morning risings with hot cocoa topped with whipped cream. As high schoolers, I understand these moments with them will vanish all too quickly.

I even skipped my visit to the gym. So, Lily's invitation to play in the snow would get me out and moving. When they were young, I'd bundle us all up and venture out with them, sleds in tow. As they could go on their own, I opted for comfort and grown-up things. Lily has always been the one to journey into the great white and play for hours. It's good for her soul. She'd lose track of time and the cold and I'd have to remind her to come in and relinquish the chill. Her cheeks were rosy, her eyes and heart clear. The purity of concentrated play gave her new life.

In preparing to join her, this time, I broke out my oldest jeans, snow boots, thick socks, warmest jacket, fleece cap and scarf and mis-matched gloves. "We're not going for fashion." she announced. She'd found the snowball mold and we each scooped up the fuzziness, forming perfect balls and began lopping them at each other. Neither of us was a great shot, but it was still good fun. In mixing it up, we exchanged tosses. We ran around the paths we'd created and then I decided to stockpile all the temporary weapons I could carry, sauntered across the street and secretly launched them at the boys, my neighbors, playing inside the fence. My throws were thwarted by the trees and my ability, but the message got across. Out of ammo, I scurried back across the street when  a voice boomed "I know where you live." I giggled and responded, "So do I." When was the last time I'd done something like this ... silly and spontaneous, something that made me giddy? Lily hid herself in the pines. Clearly, I was embarrassing.

Sizing up that we'd made a monstrous mess of the perfect blanket in our yard, we agreed on a little hike (normally it would be a walk, but the snow changes everything) around the neighborhood on this beautiful, crisp, clear, cold and sunny day. The contrast was blinding. Gratefully so. As we sauntered past Phoebe's house, she's a twenty-something, I was inclined to ask her out to play. I knew she'd welcome the invitation, but we had plans for an outing, a more sophisticated one (i.e. shopping therapy), with my oldest.

After we'd returned to the warmth and undressed our layers, I checked the time on my phone. Pheobe had posted on Facebook that she'd noticed us walking by and almost ran out, except that she had no shoes on. I knew she'd be up for a snowy adventure!

What is it about play that, as an adult, is so exhilarating? Probably that it is so rare in our lives. The greatest piece of parenting that no one ever mentioned to me is that it gives you an awfully good excuse to play. Before my children, I had long forgotten the fascination of rocks, mud between the toes and exploring things closer to the ground.

In the work I have been doing the past few years, particularly the spiritual aspects, play has surfaced as a major vehicle. It seems a good medium for exploring the deep stuff. I was thinking about this again, yesterday, after my play in the snow and as I plan the next "Pain as Spiritual Teacher" mini workshop for Saturday during the Victory of Light Psychic Festival. I googled research on play and, especially, play and chronic pain, the focus of this particular workshop series. Only more recently have researchers begun paying attention to adult play and even then, have had trouble recording differences between positive play and addictions or negative play.

There are adult playgrounds in major cities. Can you imagine? Hubs strewn with adult-sized toys and hammocks for napping. Sounds wondrous.

We're so slammed in this culture and divided by technology: got a minute, better check e-mail, voice mail, send a text or see what's happening on Facebook. Some of these are not necessarily work, but they aren't really play either. We're still "on." True play allows us to switch off the busyness.

I find that play and creativity are so tied together. Each takes you beyond your mind and into new and interesting, often restful, but sometimes zestful territory. Like my nieces' daughters. One infant is so laid back that she allows us to position her in yoga poses; we call her Zen. The other, a toddler full of life and not wanting to miss any minute of it, we call Zest.

Play grounds us out of the vortex of work that makes us believe the entire Universe rests upon what we do for a living. Play reminds us that we are not God, but human and in need of balance and a break from ego. Play stokes our inner creative fires, loosening inspiration, revelation, wisdom and joy.

Next time you have the urge or opportunity to play: do it!

• When was the last time I was tempted to play?
• Did I sieze the opportunity?
• If not, why?
• How can play help me balance my life?
• Where do I find Spirit in play?


aaahhh, a snow day
permission to take
time off

and just
be with my girls

who really are
well on their
way to becoming
young women

much too quickly

so this moment
is relished and
I am present

when my 14-year
old asks if I'll
come play with
her in the snow

I accept

and it is a gift
for both
of us

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Pain and the light of compassion

Pain as spiritual teacher is a concept I have been exploring for a number of years. I was introduced to the idea of pain holding a sacred message by Quaker healer John Calvi and was riveted by its truth.

More recently, I have been co-creating and leading a series of workshops on the topic with a trusted friend and healer. We both have lived with chronic pain and I had thought of her over the years. When I finally approached her about a year-and-a-half ago, she said "I was wondering when you'd ask." We have spent those 18 months plotting, planning, researching and devising such a strong mix of our skills, experience and gifts. We know this is right, but we have yet to reach the right audience. We've been seeking those in chronic pain ready to take a deeper approach. Typically that doesn't happen until you've exhausted traditional avenues.

So now, we're questioning everything. Should we omit the world spiritual? Is the idea of linking pain and anger just too much for people? Where can we go directly to those in pain? Should we find a compatible sponsor to pay for those attending and in pain.

In this mode, Renee suggested we explain what we're doing as if to a second grader. "Oh you mean an elevator speech of sorts?" I asked. "No, not to adults, but at a kids' level."

And I have been toying with that, getting at the root of what we do. It's been an interesting journey that's heading somewhere like this:

Pain as Spiritual Teacher is a series of workshops where people talk, play, create, share and think about the meaning of the pain in their life. The point is that pain always has a reason for showing up, but we’re too busy trying to cover it up to listen or recognize this.

Two people who live with pain want to help others in pain discover what they have: there is a spiritual side to living with constant pain that helps us manage our lives better. By doing exactly the opposite of what our culture tells us to do, which is run from or numb the pain, we can listen to the pain, learn its language and decipher its message. This gives us power and control and opens us from the tightness and isolation of ignoring or fighting pain.

We want to dive into the psychological side to find the silver lining. If we can find meaning, or a new direction or perspective, we can be more accepting of our condition and closer to peacefulness. When we deny our pain, we add to our suffering. When we understand it, we lessen our suffering. When we employ compassion, we make great leaps away from suffering.

That still sounded too adult, so I went deeper and simpler:

Our world teaches us to run away from pain.

If you have a headache, you take an aspirin.

If you’re bleeding, you get a band-aid.

If you have the flu, you get medicine.

We learn to take or do things to hide the pain. Some people live with constant pain that does not go away with an aspirin, band-aid or medicine. Sometimes they try riskier things to make it go away. Sometimes doctors will tell them there is nothing else to do or that the pain is imaginary. It is not. Pain is supposed to tell us something, a signal from the brain that something is wrong or not working in our body. If we cover it up and don’t listen, how are we supposed to know what it is telling us?

Two women became friends because of their pain and helped each other learn to listen. They still have pain, but they understand better.

Here's what my pain says to me:

• You’ve overdone it

• You’re not doing things for the right reason

• You are fighting yourself

• You need to be who you are, not who you think you should be

• You are beautiful as you are

• You are not your pain

• You are loved regardless

• You have life and a purpose

That may sound as if it has nothing to do with physical pain, but as webmd.com pointed out "when chronic pain sets in, your life shrinks to fit your pain." Self compassion often gets cut out.

So easily, we can fall into letting our pain define us. I find that less true if I meet it head on and really look at what it is signaling. Some of the fighting yourself stems from the comparison to who I was before the pain, what I could do then and how I am limited now. So much of that is unconscious.

What we're really striving to do is help people become aware of unconscious messages in a playful, safe manner and, most importantly, in community. Pain does isolate. An understanding community is crucial to managing chronic pain. So many of us quit talking about it to our families and friends because we feel like a broken record that no one listens because they do not share this experience. We bury it deep and try to suck it up and move on, which really causes suffering.

This work excites both of us and we are open to ideas for what to do with what we feel we have been given. Prayers, of course, are always welcome.

• What is my experience of pain?

• How do I handle it?

• Have I ever listened to it?

• What response have I received from others?

• What could it be like to find a community that listens, understand and helps me move forward?

we are bodily creatures

and want to experience

pleasure, not pain

so when it persists,

we really have

no roadmap

except numbness

and denial

pushing any

meaning as

deep as possible

in the darkness

it festers

but if we

shine the light

of compassion

we open

ourselves

to Truth and

much less suffering

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