Safely playing means you don't lean as much on fear as your teacher. Fear can show us a lot about the way we see and perceive the world.
Remembering that fear is an excellent teacher is one way that we can look back as adults and see how we have shaped our perceptions of the world. Fear can be an excellent indicator of where we have emotional work to do, physical barriers to overcome and spiritual guides to be gained. Not to mention that we have a politically charged world to tell us where to direct our fear. This episode I hope puts all that in perspective. Fearing where we are going is not the answer. Finding why we fear, is how we know what we care about.
INTRO: You’re listening to the Art of Play Podcast. This podcast is about play. Not just childhood play, all play. This podcast is exploring play as a means of not just being better adults, but better, well-rounded humans. Play makes us reignite the fun while adding to our proactive human nature.
Good morning! Happy Friday. I am a little later in getting the podcast out this week, mainly because I could not seem to untangle my thoughts and feelings very well this week. I know that means that many of you may not be able to listen to this until much later than anticipated. The last few weeks have been heavy and heart-wrenching. In the United States there is hurt and heartbreak being expressed and addressed, and although it seems chaotic and noisy, I just want to address a few thoughts. I am not going to get political, and these views only come from my own process of thinking. I am putting this on my podcast, in this way only because it relates heavily to how I see this podcast. Right now, in my country millions of voices are speaking up about a lack of safety. Safety to express hurt, fear, injustice and the list goes on. Safety in any day, everyday activities. Safety solely based on the color of their skin. Now, I cannot speak for that sort of fear. I am white, which affords me the ability to not fear because of my skin. Which in reality can give me no basis to relate to what it is like to be black. I can do my best to listen and try to understand, but I will never fully understand. This week I had an epiphany of sorts, and I hope that it will not be offensive, but rather at least from my perspective help put into context some of the conversation that needs to happen in the United States.
We are going to talk about Safety today. I hope that you will let me know if you listen all the way through. I hope that you will let me know what you believe, what you think, what your perspective is. I hope that we are all practicing active listening more and more in this world that just wants to yell and be heard. There are three things we are going to address here today, and I hope you will stay with me to the end. They have a lot to do with Play, but I am not going to specifically mention and outline how they are play related. First we are going to talk about Fear. Then we will address safety measures. And finally we will talk about Signals of Safety.
Okay, Fear. You are born as every other typical human with only two fears. Every other fear is learned or taught. You are innately afraid of falling and hearing sudden loud noises. Now, there are exceptions if a person is born with a sensory disorder of some sort, but for the majority of you listening these are the two innate fears you and I both have. You have always had them and you will continue to have them. Now, that is not to say you can’t learn to deal with your fear. Many of us become accustomed to loud noises of traffic patterns or music, or a construction project. We can become complacent in the fear. It can be a constant state in our lives and it just becomes an undercurrent to what we experience. New fears in our lives just become part of our personal history. We all react uniquely to our fears, and that writes our story in a way that only we understand. Our bodies learn to cope in various ways and some of those ways are more productive than others. Fear is a broad teacher, and also a great overlord. There are all types of fears in our lives and some of the most paralyzing can be some that seem highly illogical to our adult minds. I want you to take a minute maybe now maybe later, and process some of your fear. Processing fear can look like you listing things that don’t make sense to you, sorting through social pressure and why you feel that way, breaking down why you get anxious in certain situations, or even people that trigger a flight response. I want to encourage you to try an imagine that baby you were born as. You had no problem asking for food when you were hungry and something warm and fatty sounded good. You had no fear about trying to reach for something just out of reach. You had no problem finding a cardboard box as the newest hottest toy. You had no problem crying in frustration, laughing at something you truly found hilarious, smiling at strangers, or listening intently to some new sounds you had never heard. Somewhere along the way you were cued by experience, or social circumstances, or even blatantly ridiculed into fearing certain things. Your fear has formed your perceptions and informed your interactions. It’s normal and natural for that to be a process of life, so don’t get all judgy. Just accept and understand that about yourself.
I want you to try and look at the world as if you were not afraid of it for just a moment. Pretend everyone else in the world is doing the same thing at the same time. No fear of failing, no fear of perception, no fear of not being loveable, no fear of not belonging, no fear of playing or looking silly you make your own list too, don’t let me tell you what to not be afraid of. Does that not sound phenomenal? Now imagine, without fear of starving or failing, do you think people would have much reason to steal? Without fear of not belonging, do you think people would hurt others? Without fear of something being too hard, do you think innovation in the world would leap forward? Without fear of one certain outcome, do you think more creative outcomes could happen? What would the world look like if it were not afraid? It would probably be safe. At least safer than it is now.
So fear is a strong catalyst in our lives we have established. Let’s talk about Safety. The best analogy I could come up with for this purpose is an amusement park, or maybe more specifically a roller coaster. I did a very shallow dig to find out a bit about the history of roller coasters and it turns out humans have wanted to be entertained as long as we have been around, but roller coasters had to wait for rails to become commonplace enough that someone got bored in the early 1800s and put a cart with a bench on rails and rode with gravity down a hill. Now, they had to do this with enough anticipation of the fun rather than the fear of crashing and dying. Because those are the stakes in the early days right? Over time roller coasters have been modified and become safer in mortality rates. Instructions for building them safer, trial and error (meaning deaths), and guidelines have been added over time. Knowledge of physics and steel manufacturing have come a long way to keeping all of us strapped down in the appropriate manner for each coaster. Today in the United States even though there are no federal laws governing the safety of roller coasters most of us would not think twice about the physical safety of getting on a roller coaster. We assume that someone has taken the appropriate safety measures, done the appropriate testing, and vetted the science behind it. We can rightly assume that. Each state has governing bodies that make sure everyone is safe. Daily, and sometimes hourly safety checks are done on all coasters, with inspections at frequent, regular intervals. This is not a segment about how you should not ride rollercoasters, I am simply trying to show you that many systems have been put in place to ensure safety of participants, and to protect the liability of the parks. Remember how you have an innate fear of falling? If you have not squashed it out by other means, or are not an overstimulated adrenaline junkie you can feel that fear kick in just as you reach the top peak of a roller coaster ready to plummet. It’s can be an exhilarating tickle that makes you giggle, or smile from ear to ear, and maybe want to throw up a little. It’s intended to be a thrill, but not be more than that, and it can give you an internal release of chemicals called noradrenaline to combat your adrenaline after coming off, which can give you a sense of happiness and peace— and can even bond you to your fellow riders. Over time, physics and safety have merged to create more and more intense thrills when it comes to roller coasters. There are some that have record holding numbers of inversions, NASA-like G forces, and world renowned wait times. All meant to capitalize on that innate initial fear built into your body.
Now imagine having PTSD and going to ride a roller coaster. In fact imagine going to an amusement park in the first place. Trauma in our former life rigidly forms our perceptions, and can permanently alter our interactions. Adrenaline is a universal signal to our bodies that something is wrong. If you have had traumatic experiences that have had little resolve or have no safe outlet, a roller coaster could be a disaster. Tapping into one of your most innate fears, and sending your adrenaline shooting astronomically could put you in a situation where your body is fearing it will surely die. Your brain and body signals would be working overtime, and from the outside perception, you could look as though you were fine or just slightly disoriented. To someone who has not had such trauma in their lives, a fear of roller coasters, or a fear amusement parks seems laughable. Why would you shy away from something so safely implemented? Why would so many safety precautions be taken if it weren’t really safe to participate? The person with PTSD and the person without would absolutely not have the same experience, and have a very hard time relating to each other, unless a proper conversation took place. The safety of one is not the same definition as the safety of the other. My point here is that safety is relative to the past experiences you have been taught in your life. If you have been taught that fear of a rollercoaster is unwarranted because it’s just a thrill seeking modality, you will see little harm in it. If you have been taught that fear of a rollercoaster keeps you safer psychologically you will avoid any and all rollercoasters. Safety being relative to each other is something this world needs to listen to with feeling. The individual experiences influence the safety measures taken by each individual. This can have a wide variety of applications as I am sure you know. I want you to take away from this segment the fact that we don’t get to define safety for anyone not under our direct care. We don’t get to say the system is meant for others safety if others aren’t feeling safe in the system. We have an obligation to safety, the bounds of which need to be inclusive.
Alright, finally, let’s talk about Safety Signaling. Signaling is human nature. You signaled to your caregiver that you were hungry in your initial days, and because you are here on this earth right now I know that someone saw your signal and fed you then. We signal all the time to each other. There are all sorts of signals and the most common are used to ensure meaning. We signal in our cars to change lanes not to inform ourselves, but other drivers. We signal to a restaurant server that we would like to pay our bill quicker than they may be thinking. We signal to our neighbors that we see them by waving. We signal to our family that we are unhappy about a particular choice because we don’t participate. We signal to our children that we care about others when we talk about our observations in this world. We signal to our partners that a political issue has personal meaning when we flair up about hot button issues. We signal hurt, we signal fear, we signal anger, we signal outrage. What I fear that not enough people are signaling is that there is safety. A safety signal would mean someone could trust you. A safety signal would mean that if you are the person with PTSD riding a rollercoaster with a friend, you would be able to safely say: "I need a break to calm down," and your companion would say something like: "let me find you a quiet place in the shade, what else can I do?” We need to signal safety to our fellow human beings within our influence. Safety signaling looks a lot like love. In fact, I would say it is.
We live surrounded by fear aplenty. Hey, it’s 2020, and the chaos is exponential. There are so many voices wanting to be heard. There are so many of our communities expressing outrage, hurt, fear, folly, and misinformation. There is little guidance, and for all intents and purposes we have reached the point in the American experiment where we have to figure out which parts of this experiment can or need to be altered. It’s hard. It doesn’t help that we are being marketed to that we are divided, we have separate ideals, we see enemies everywhere, and that we are not allowed to be tired. We fear signaling our unknowing to each other. We fear failure, we fear the unknown, we fear hurting or being hurt. I fear those same things. But, I have learned that I get to build my own path. I get to build my own signal. I get to build my life in such a way that it signals that I am here to learn, I am here to do better than I did yesterday, and I want to be a signal of safety. I want to be in the crew of amusement park goers who empathetically understands that someone’s reluctance to go on a rollercoaster is not meant to be a show for ridicule, but a chance to connect and learn about them. I want to do more safety signaling than virtue signaling. I want to build a world where more of us feel safer.
I guess that is my final thought, that a life lived fearfully is not a life in it’s full potential. Fear is part of our human nature but it does not have to be our governing body. We have the ability to hope for more, imagine more, give more, love more. We have the ability to be a safe harbor for our friends and neighbors. We can build up others without devaluing anyone including ourselves.
So, in your innate fears, find your safety. Find your threshold, face those fears and more toward safety. Gather people as you go. Surround yourself with people that have little to do with how they look and what they make. Signal to others you are willing to fight for safety for all. True safety. Have a good weekend. Much love from this household to yours.
This podcast is fueled by my family’s mission at the Oliver Fund. We send toys to children in hardship all over the world. Because we believe to have the ability to work hard there is value in playing well. It’s a part of our personal family creed. You can find out more online at TheOliverFund.org or on social media @TheOliverFund and @ArtofPlayPodcast
OUTRO: Here’s to leaving you to your weekend a little more hopeful and hopefully more happily playful, if only for five minutes.