Sometimes you notice the same thing coming up too frequently for it to be coincidence. This was true for me this week and the theme was creativity, play and fun.
I attended a writers workshop on the opening of the NZ festival in Wellington. Elizabeth Knox talked about imagination and relayed childhood stories displaying the depths of our imaginations as kids. That night I saw this in action as I facilitated a goals workshop with 50 teen girls for Dream Night. The brain child of a 13 year old girl who wanted her peers to aim high. Their imaginations and world view, ambition and conscience amazed me.
Why is it as kids we have this imagination and creativity and how do we tap into it as adults.
I listened to the third week of a meditation series I’ve been following and was reminded of the answer. Having fun and making time to play helps flex the creative muscles in our brain. It gives us space to think, to be creative as well as lifting our mood.
I’m hearing a lot about fun recently and how we need to have more of it. How, as adults we’ve not got time for play or fun. It’s a serious business adulting and we’re not often encouraged to play.
Something reflected as we went around the room at Dream Night. Each table of teens had an adult role model to help them with the workshop and answer questions as we went. These were some amazing women I was privileged to share the room with, some of whom I knew. As we all introduced ourselves we spoke about our work and what we do and most of us followed that up with ‘I’m busy’, ‘I don’t get much spare time’ or words to the affect to explain the work related intro. We didn’t mention our hobbies, interests or what we loved to do when not working – our play.
So it got me thinking this week. Do I play enough? Am I having enough fun?
As an introvert, I’m often accused (by extroverts) of being boring so I worry that if I’m not out socialising all the time or at parties that maybe I’m missing out on my fun quota. But when Deepak Chopra (who I assume to be an introvert) reeled off examples of fun in the meditation I listened to I realised fun looks different to everyone.
He mentioned reading, going for a walk, playing with the kids – things often deemed at the boring end of the fun scale by others – but it is fun if the person doing it enjoys it! Fun looks different to us all and we get to define what fun looks like to us. I believe it’s less about worrying what we class as fun and more about making sure we have it. If it’s something you enjoy then it’s fun!
For me fun looks like; cooking dinner together, taking a dip in the ocean, playing with the dog, and it turns out I do have plenty of it, despite my concerns. This is good news for creativity but also general happiness and wellbeing.
Do we make enough time for this, our creativity this we should. Are you having enough fun?