Last weekend I wasn’t feeling great. I had a tendency to emotionally withdraw from my love, and to rather spend time alone than with him and his kids. So I went to my house (we live in two houses) and tried to reconnect to myself by meditating. This didn’t do the trick fully, so I decided to put on some music and move my body to it (#movement play) in the hope this would help. And it did, a little bit; playing and dancing to “Shake it off” by Taylor Swift. Then I felt inspired to take out some big pieces of paper and my paint (which I haven’t used for about two years) and started playing with colors. This creative play finally let me BE in the present moment. It was fun to see how the colors mixed and what inspiration came up to move them around on the paper. I did three of them. I’m not unhappy with the result, but that is not the point. It was all about the process of doing them, that got me connected back to myself and feel better.

The next day I took my paint and papers to my boyfriends house and introduced this way of working to them. Everybody wanted to try it too. We had a lovely time creating our very different paintings and admiring eachothers results. The kids loved it and one of them asked me if we could do something creative like this every two weeks. Play connects. To ourselves, being in the present moment and then to others where we share our play with.

Have a playful day!

Annemarie Steen