Let’s play!

It is a powerful way to transform ourselves

Transformation means a change in participatory knowing (who will I be in the future, what will be my identity?), perspectival knowing (what will it be like to be me in the future?) and to some extent, procedural knowing (what will I do in the future?).

We could take the imaginary route and conjure up the image of our future world, or we could take the imaginal route and play in an imaginal world – a world in which events are connected by meaning, rather than by physical causes.

For a child this might take the form of:

• Imaginary: “drawing a picture of a pirate ship”.

• Imaginal: “putting on an eye patch, holding up a stick and acting as though you are a pirate – gaining some of the procedural, perspectival and participatory knowing of what it is like to be a pirate”.

In the animal kingdom the more highly intelligent and highly social a species is the more they play. That sounds like us bar the play.

Transformation is hard.  Just trying to imagine it can put you off altogether.  This is where play becomes important.

If we want to learn how to treat others as subjects and not objects, we can play doing this with trusted colleagues in a safe place.  We can experience what it would be like to be open, not always in control, to no longer being the expert.  What it would be like to pause and consider, rather than responding automatically.

We are a playful species, let’s use it!

 John Corrigan is an expert in helping individuals to bring their whole of mind to their daily life and increase their effectiveness and the effectiveness of those around them. This expertise scales from the individual to the team to the organisation. At the core of this work is the practice of encounter.  Earlier blogs can be found here.

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