18. Safety!
• Image of polar bear and husky
“
When we feel safe, we
have access to neural
circuits that enable us to
be social and happy and
playful.
- Steven Porges
“
23. Why A Playground?
• Engaged workers are the lifeblood of their
organizations and have significantly higher
productivity, profitability, and customer ratings,
less turnover and absenteeism, and fewer safety
incidents than those in the bottom 25%.
• Companies that enhance employee satisfaction
by 20% can improve financial performance by
42%.
• 52% gap in operating income between high and
low-engagement companies.
• Engaged, happy employees create agile
organizations.
37. How does the
universe evolve?
•
•
•
•
•
•
Boundary crossing
Lots of feedback
Adaptive Variability
Redundancy
Exaptation
Self-organization
38. In other words…it
PLAYS!
“
The processual qualities
of play: fluidity,
malleability, movement,
and change, along with
paradox are present in,
and integral to the
workings of the cosmos
itself. It would not be a
cosmos without play!
“
- Stanislaus Grof
Thought experiment! Imagine a world without play. What would be there? What wouldn’t be there? Would there even be a world without play? Would there be thought experiments?
Scientists are finding that play has many different phylogenetic roots. It didn’t just emerge in mammals and birds. They’re finding play behavior in lizards, alligators, octopi, sharks, but why?Play is risky business. We’re distracted from predators and using up valuable resources. There must be some really good reason!
BRAIN ResearchRemoved the pre-frontal cortex from rats - higher cognition: problem solving, decision-making, language, higher order processing, the fancy stuff. Leaves just the brain stem. Do you still have play? YES! rats still played. Thrilling to researchers play sat along side the other survival drives like eating, sleeping, breathing, mating. Play is at the primal base - essential to survival.
Super food of attitude & behavior. Packed with benefits across the board: behavioral, social, emotional, physical, cognitive, and spiritual. PhysicallyEmotionallySociallyCognitivelyCulturallySpiritually
We now have instruments sensitive enough to measure thousands of the chemicals produced by positive states. More are produced during play than any other activity.Those chemicals are critical to our well-being. Every organ benefits from it (expect maybe hair)People who are play-deprived have a life expectancy 5-10 years lower than people who playPlay deprivation is a greater risk factor than smoking & obesity
We now have instruments sensitive enough to measure thousands of the chemicals produced by positive states. More are produced during play than any other activity.Those chemicals are critical to our well-being. 100 - 200 laughs = 10 minutes jogging. It deepens breathing, improves circulation and releases natural painkillers Children laugh an average of 400 times/day. Adults laugh about 17 times/day. PLAY RELIEVES STRESS – rat & cat hair study
Self-handicappingEmpathy CooperationMorality
Play is brain fertilizerPlay is the highest form of researchThe truly great advances of this generation will be made by those who can make outrageous connections, and only a mind which knows how to play can do that. –Nagle Jackson
Play lets us be in control of being out of control…We expand our repertoire of behavior and possible responses.Muscle control and tone, composure
We have a love/hate relationship to surprise! The razors edge of excitement and terror. Play lets us practice being surprised.In a world of uncertainty and change (movement), adaptability (the ability to be moved by and with the world) is survival. If a species becomes rigid or over specialized, it goes extinct.The sheer joy of play is a brilliant evolutionary strategy because it drives us to engage elements of uncertainty, surprise and risk and stay flexible… prepares us for the uncertainty of life…the biggest threat of all.
The importance of mood:Pleasant moods promote original thinking.” Meta-analysis shows that the relationship is an inverted U. Hyper-excitable states aren’t conducive to creativity, while moderately positive states are optimal.Generating new ideas is fostered by positive mood but innovative problem-solving requires determination and persistence. People tend to work harder and perform better in many situations when driven by intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation. Some types of extrinsic reward can actually reduce performance.
Human evolution – we are one of the most playful species of all! We’re wired for play.
playfulness is our original design!
Why are we killing each other and the planet
Safety is Key – It’s a condition for transformation“Safety is functionally our transformative state and neural exercises of this safe state, like play, enable the social engagement system to work. When we feel safe, we have access to neural circuits that enable us to be social and happy and playful. In this framing, play literally becomes a functional therapeutic model that exercises the neural regulation of the face, creating a sense of safety, playfulness, and joy! (Porges & Buczynski, 2011)Connection is the basis of safety!Play practices safety – normalizes riskWhen we’re happy, we feel safeIf we’re not playing we don’t feel safe. Play is risk. If we didn’t play as children, we didn’t get to test the environment to learn to trust it and our ability to respond….and to learn how to be safe in it. What has happened to western civilization that has created such a sense of unsafety?We don’t feel held by life.Play exercises neurons/social engagement brain. The vagal brake. The difference between fight and flight.Sympathetic arousal that normally activates the defensive responses of fight and flight get repeatedly Non-verbal, highly attuned right brain to right brain play with attachment figures.
World as Playground: The securely attached growing child expects the world to be friendly and adventures to be enriching. Ambiguity and uncertainty are exciting and stimulate exploratory play. Strangers are potential playmates and new environments are potential playgrounds.They tend to solicit a positive, supportive response from others.It enables the child to accurately read subtle cues about intention and sense real danger signals. It also gives the child the resources to respond to and recover from dangerous situations when they occur.
World as Proving Ground: While the anxiously attached child wants to trust others, his insecurity drives him to both prove (to himself, others, and the world) that he deserves to get his needs met or test others, forcing them to prove themselves. These individuals might be driven by a need for societal approval and strive to meet cultural standards for success that don’t ultimately provide happiness.
World as Battleground: The child sees a world full of threats (hot war) or alienation (cold war). She feels fundamentally unsafe in the world and expects to either be attacked (hot war) or ignored (cold war). The high degree of autonomy she needs prevents her from experiencing support from others or the world. She retreats into small environments over which she can feel some control. RIGIDITYMany people I’ve met who are consciously propagating memes of a living universe and cosmic consciousness, established a bond with the universe precisely because human relationships were traumatic and the human world was a source of pain. The embodiment of these concepts requires that we engage the relational field…intimately…and playfully because that’s where the original trauma occurred. And relationship was our original universe. You can’t heal relationship trauma but having epiphanies about an integral universe. Not sufficient.
Our default behavior is usually defensive, which puts us on the proving ground or battleground
According to a 2013 Gallup Report,
Play generates possibilities. Some of those possibilities might be novel (creative). And some of these creative ideas might be useful (innovations)Discovering new forms of behaviorPutting existing forms behaviors to use in new ways.Creative & innovative species tend to live longerPlay leads to creativity, and if more creative individuals are more likely to survive and reproduce.is a source of creativity beneficial to the individual by enabling it to discover new ways of dealing with an ever-changing environment.
A creative idea that is useful.Steven Johnson examined 135 cases since 1800’s and found that 2/3 of successful innovations were generated by groups of individuals instead of a single individual. And, contrary to the belief that most invention is driven by market forces, two thirds arose wtihout an explicit motive to make money.
Or…from the proving ground & battleground to the playgroundWhat it is not:Bright colors & playful decorationscompany bowling alleysGamefied jobs (do my job for no money)FORCED! The Tyranny of Fun
Umpqua bank – Morning MeditationChicago Public Schools – Medical ---
P.L.A.Y.
You can’t get there from not hereFull engagementFull participationFull receptivityA center that holds amidst chaos
Safety!AcceptanceAppreciationResponsibility for your impactThe Well-Played Game
PlayfulnessJoySurpriseCreativityDiscoveryHumor!
Welcoming realityThen adding to it creatively
The immense and astonishing creativity of the universeIt started, essentially, as a hydrogen cloud
Evomimicry – The universe knows how to innovate and adapt under constantly changing conditions. It’s good. Possibly the best. Humans & our organizations have evolved as part of a 14 billion year universe. It’s time to act our age.Organizations are Agility and Collective Intelligence (swarms) are the next evolutionary capacity we’re developing to become as intelligent as the universe
Not very carefully.Boundary crossing – sloshing around, merging promiscuouslyAdapativeVariability - – trying everything under the sunExaptation - Improvising with what it hasSelf-organization – Let’s try this – a pick up game
Adapative Variability - – trying everything under the sunExaptation - Improvising with what it hasRedundancyExaptationCrossing BoundariesSelf-organizing
The universe has been navigating uncertain, innovating, self-organizing, increasing complexity, adapting, scaling, for 13.7 billion. It’s an effective organization. Possibly the best. We would be wise to consult it.
