The Power of Play in Self-Discovery
Play doesn’t just exist in the big, joyful moments. It’s in the micro-moments.
It’s the shift that happens when you step away from a heavy workday and let your hands sink into clay, shaping something imperfect and beautiful. It’s when your body feels burdened by grief, and your husband pulls you in for a dance in the kitchen—no words, just movement, laughter, and a reminder that even in sadness, there is space for softness.
Play isn’t about saving you from the weight of life. It’s about creating space within it.
Space for lightness. For silliness. For curiosity.
We carry this misconception that if we let ourselves sink into hard emotions—grief, frustration, exhaustion—we’ll get stuck there. That it’s like quicksand, something we can’t escape. But in reality, if we just let ourselves feel it, we move through it so much faster.
The resistance is what makes it feel heavier.
But when we allow ourselves to experience our emotions and then follow them with play? That’s where the magic happens. That’s where healing and softness can coexist.
The Healing Nature of Play
We take healing so seriously. And in some ways, we should—it’s important work. But that doesn’t mean it needs to feel hard all the time.
Healing isn’t something we need to wrestle with. It’s something we need to be patient with. More compassionate with. More playful with.
There’s this belief that because healing is deep work, we need to make it difficult. But what if it gets to be easier? What if we stop gripping it so tightly and let play be part of the process?
Play is a portal—a way to step into softness. To balance the depth of healing with lightness. To let things move through us instead of becoming stuck.
Because life isn’t meant to be only self-work and deep reflection. It’s meant to be felt, in all of its paradox—both the heaviness and the ease.
How We Forget to Play
Children don’t have to try to play.
They just do. They follow what excites them. They let themselves be curious. They express themselves without worrying how it looks.
I saw this firsthand when I taught kindergarten for a year. Every day, I watched five- and six-year-olds fully immerse themselves in play. They loved each other so openly. They spoke their truth without hesitation. They were wildly resilient.
And it made me realize: This is what we lose as adults.
We build pressure. We over-schedule. We measure success in numbers and productivity. We forget that life is allowed to be fun.
We think play is something we have to earn, when in reality, it’s something we need.
Reclaiming Play as an Adult
If you’ve forgotten how to play, here’s where to start:
Go back to what used to bring you joy. What did you do for fun as a kid, before you ever worried about being good at it?
Do something completely new and allow yourself to be bad at it. Drop the pressure to be perfect and just try—paint, dance, build something, move your body in ways that feel ridiculous.
Ditch the to-do list, just for a little while. Let yourself do something just because. No outcome. No productivity. Just play.
Because play isn’t just about joy.
It’s about aliveness.
It’s about softening the edges of life, making space for the lightness that exists in all moments—not just the good ones.
And when we let play back in, we remember something we lost along the way:
That life was never meant to be so serious.