Play is Like Pray

“Play is like pray,” my daughter said to me in the car today. I thought about it and realised that it was very profound.

Play is like pray, but we rarely see it as such. I have been thinking about this more often, of how we can create from joy rather than through suffering and by doing so, we get to feel deeply connected.

Opportunities to grow often arise through the moments of suffering, the tougher times in our lives. Often the impetus for a great change, a total shift, is the potential to be found and tapped within the darker times. But we can get so immersed in those times – we see the stories as the only viable reality and thus feel trapped.

But seeking out the joy, that which makes us really happy, can herald the onset of profound change. It is the beginning of transformation. I find it to be magical. By touching that which brings us joy and recognising it, then it nourishes us and begins to open up a different space within our lives.

We can begin to create from that space. And it is not necessary to know what it is that we are creating, I think that it is enough to be familiar with the feeling state and to ask for that to inform what we manifest. Working with intent is very powerful, but I think to set the intent to the feeling state is the point from which it all flows. It leaves the space open and allows for much creativity to come through.

It is, however, important to become familiar with that feeling state of joy. I find it can bring up many things. In my case it brought up feelings of unworthiness, I didn’t deserve to feel well. All my issues of self esteem moved around this. Why would I deserve to feel good when there was so much in pain in the world? It brought up the dis-belief that anything of value can arise that hasn’t been suffered through. I could only deserve my creation if I first paid a price for it, till I earned it. 

What exactly was joy anyway? What truly made me happy, what was true joy and what was fulfilment of needs and desires?

That is where the play comes in. The more you play, the more you touch the feeling of joy, a feeling of wholeness and fulfilment. It is for me a strengthening of my connection, to God, to All That Is, to Source. And it is most acutely felt in joy. When it is felt it bubbles up inside me and overflows. It is love and it is joy and it can be sent to anyone and anything.

I can walk past a tree and feel such appreciation for it, such love and it can be sent back and forth and beyond. But first I had to play with what my concept of a tree was. I had to play to touch it, to hold it, to recognise it, play with my mind in relation to the tree and let go of my limits, the self-consciousness, the rational judge that blocked me. Play and playfulness is a way of going beyond things easefully without the traditional head-on confrontation.

Play for me is like pray, because the more I play, the deeper and more joyfully connected I become. And from touching and holding that state of being, the physical manifestations in my life, more and more arise from there.