Just Go Play

So for many people, school started this week. For some people school started last week. For others, it is the first time they have not been a part of the “school starting” energy. All of it creates excitement, stress, transition panic attacks, sadness that you are no longer on the school cycle, and every other emotion you can imagine. For me, it was a week that I needed to see a billboard everywhere I went that reminded me to…Just go Play!!! When Summer is over I feel like life is full of too much serious, too many schedules, too many must do’s and not enough time for nothing.

I am lucky, for some reason I have a neighbor that has these 4 letters up on a brick wall. So all I ever have to do is step onto my back porch and look to the left. AND…boy did I need those four letters this week. Even Emily needed quick reminder of the "Just go Play!"

Why is it that we forget to play? It is in our nature as humans…playing is not only for 4-year-olds. Running outside through the grass, chasing butterflies, jumping over rocks in the creek, all of this is something that we must keep doing forever. We just get these crazy ideas that we must be serious and grow up, or be competitive at all costs. Well, the brain and the body needs to play. That is a fact.

I work at a preschool that is a “play-based” preschool. In the past 10 years, we have had an increasing number of parents that will not accept that children learn best through play and they remove their kids from our program to go to the hardcore schools with academic learning as the only measure of success. Well, I was reminded today that the least expensive way to make your heart feel light is to go outside and play. We never outgrow this urge. We find ways to ignore, screens to distract us, shopping, drinking, and so many other ways to make us forget. But, go outside, move your body and play. It will make you lose the stress, the angst, the scary pit in your stomach – and bring that feeling of pure joy into your heart!

It is free, it is simple…just go do it.

Take a minute, the sun is shining, head outside and PLAY!

Wear a bracelet it makes it even more fun!