Families who play together ~ stay together, it goes without saying. Or does it?

How often do your family play together?

And what kind of things do you do?

A kick about with a ball, cooking together and licking the bowl, playing on the beach?

Or do you get messy and explore?

When you're playing, how easy is it, do you feel like you should be better at it,
That you should be some kind of creative genius?

This is very common and one of the reasons I teach families to play together. Its easier than you probably think. And it brings families so much closer.

Its just that for some reason we get all hung up about it and think we're supposed to 'know what to do'.

Relax.  Playing is all about exploring, you don't have to be perfect and you don't have to know what the end is going to be before you start.

Get hold of a big sheet of plastic to protect the furniture and begin. There is no 'right way'

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I learned today that languages with alphabets that contain vowels read from left to write and languages that don't have them read from right to left.*

This is highly significant.

Languages that don't use vowels require you to 'get the gist' of an entire sentence to be able to read the words, context and holistic thinking is everything here. They trigger the right brain into activity.

Ancient Greek was the first left to right language and it's appearance coincided with the development of pure science in that up until then all science had had entirely practical applications. Science existed for the creation of solutions to tangible problems It wasn't abstract or for its own sake.

I suspect that before the development of linear (rather than contextual) language, all the 'big questions' like "Why are we here?" will have lead to holistic, possibly even mystical answers.

The development of linear, analytical thinking lead to answers based on that linear, analytical thinking; science as we know it today.

Soon after the development of the Greek language, Christianity began to spread. Although the religion came from regions where vowelless languages were prevalent, the Bible was written in the new Greek language (Ancient Greek to us). As a result of using analytical language to write religious thought, Europe (where Christianity became most popular quickest) developed believing that religion and science were the same.

Fascinatingly though, if using a language that reads from left to right we develop more analytical brains, and if from right to left, more creative, holistic, community-thinking type brains.

My next question is, what difference will this make to the type of society we develop?

And my sense of humour asks, was it an Ancient Geek using Ancient Greek who invented science?

* Chinese is structured totally differently and goes down the page, it has completely different rules.

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Play brings lightness into our lives as well as having long term therapeutic benefits.

Recent research in US with soldiers and others suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has shown that play is “a powerful expressive approach to trauma counselling that provides pathways to accessing and expressing internal experiences, especially with individuals who have become stuck in talk therapy and other traditional methods (Baggerley, 2005; Gil, 2006;  Webber and Mascari, 2008). The multisensory process facilitates access to traumatic memories and gives voice to unspeakable events” Jane Webber, New Jersey City University and J Barry Mascari, Kean University.

So, if drugs aren't working (or you choose not to take them) and talking isn't helping, why not try play?

“Fragments of traumatic memory are lodged in the brain separated from the part that gives words to the story” van der Kolk, 1995, as in flashbacks. Playing allows the pieces of story to come back together without the need for verbalisation. Once the story has coherence many of the most disturbing symptoms of severe stress cease and play methods can be used to facilitate the work of healing.

Playing helps you put yourself and your story back together without the need for words.

Because of the way it works we stop going over and over specific memroies or parts of memories this happens because when something is just too much for us, our brain splits it into pieces.

It's once the memory is in pieces that it begins this endless circling. To stop this we need to be able to put it in its own place, to see where it fits within the story of our lives.

Play allows this to happen totally naturally but more than that, it enables us to create ourselves and our story anew.

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wait for the puppy to arrive then see if you can make her roll over

thanks to http://abowman.com/about/

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put your mouse in the box and see what happens

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What do we all want?

Money? Happiness? Better relationships? and since it's a Sunday; a better relationship with our spirit?

Sunday has always been our day of rest, though it seems that with our iPhones, Blackberries and tablets that is finally being eroded.

As we are given ways to have more fun with our technology we are losing our boundaries around work and don't ever really stop.

Does this increase our ability to make money, being able to make it any time, and is that going to make us happier overall?

What does it do for our relationships (and spirit)?

I say, take some time out to play!

EVEN when we love our work, time doing something totally different is good for us.

For you, what do you do all week? Now, what's the most different thing you can think of? What is it?

Just do it!

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How necessary is play within relationships?

My partner and I row all the time, we have what's known as a fiery relationship. I have no doubt we would not be able to maintain this without liberal amounts of playing for balance.

This is not just snowball fights or the physical play involved in sexual relationships, it means we have a specific look we secretly share sometimes at a comment we know the other will consider ridiculous (this secrecy increases the fun!).

It is sitting over a smoky fire together, or walking the dog along a beach, laughing at America's Next Top Model!

Play is what you make it; different things to different people.

I also play alone. My partner has no interest in playing with glue and glitter. For me, this recharges my batteries and brings me back to 'us' rejuvenated.

My partner plays Sudoko, something I find unbearably tedious.

We both also play with children. This serves other purposes, for one thing, we are far more conscious of it being a relationship building or maintaining process. That it is 'good for us'.

This consciousness is because we are fully aware that the responsibility for maintaining safety and boundaries is ours. We therefore don't follow our own flights of fancy, we follow what's appropriate for the child(ren).

This is the case when I lead a Play Workshop within a workplace too.

Although I'm with a group of adults, it's my responsibility to maintain the space so that the group can allow themselves to become fully involved. Almost like with a group of children, I will be keeping my eye out for any potential conflicts to nip them before they begin, enabling everyone to have a positive experience.

This is not patronising; all groups have a dynamic. Groups of people who usually only meet in a work environment probably have an established (even if unspoken) hierarchy. To play fully, this has to be broken down, the group members need to know their play won't be judged. Sometimes this is most uncomfortable for the bosses!

Which brings us back to the groups we all started with; families. These are the most comlex groups and we carry the patterns of our families through our whole lives. Some of us have had the opportunity to reflect on these patterns, but most of us haven't.

One of the things I watch for in groups of colleagues is people unknowingly taking on roles I suspect may have been with them since they were children, or becoming their own mother or father.

I'm also alert for this in work with couples, or other family groups.

Because I take on this caretaker role, adults who participate in my play workshops can feel relaxed and explore a freedom they may not have felt since they were children, before they were imprinted with these roles.

My workshops are all about freedom. For most of us, we haven't really had that since we were under three years old! This is how my workshops differ from many other play experiences. You really can act like a kid!

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What a ridiculously obvious statement

so why does it need stating at all?

Why don't we have more fun on a day to day level?

I think it was Einstein who said that people who smile a lot aren't taken seriously.

What are the advantages of seriousness?

Is there, in fact any evidence suggesting that serious people achieve more? I suspect not; I haven't found any anyhow.

While those of us who believe in playing and fun produce evidence to say they have a place in work and adult life, that not only do they enhance our quality of life but that they also increase our productiveness. There is virtually nothing telling us that we need to be serious.

Why then are schools, workplaces, even families not filled with happy people; laughing, playing and productively having fun?

There's a growing band of us standing up and being counted against that most insidious of Victorian Values, that work is the opposite of play and if it isn't, it is worthless.

Lets bring play, fun and moments of frivolity into all areas of life.

They enhance group relationships, be they family, friend or team and far from distracting us, play and fun increase our clarity, creativity and productivity (and there's nothing wrong with a solitary giggle, or even guffaw either!)

For more information on Play Workshops for adults please contact me at: mica@micamay.com

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Any activity that removes us from the humdrum concerns and stresses of our day to day life creates 'space' for us to come at life fresh and new; from a new perspective.
However, if all we do is create a space in our heads it's highly likely that thoughts will just rush into it, like air into a vacuum, because we're so used to being at the beck and call of them. That's why for many of us most meditation techniques are so difficult, we end up just shovelling the thoughts out and out again.

We are only capable of feeling good or feeling bad. We can't do both at once. If we feel good, we experience everything from that perspective and the world is a wonderful place, we attract smiles and we're capable of coming up with solutions. We see obstacels as fun opportunities to get to our goals by an interesting route.
Conversely, when we feel bad, people are horrible to us in the street and we experience obstacles are examples of our bad luck and how life and the world is against us.

So the first thing that engaging with play materials in a play workshop does is that it gives us something to put into the space we create by stepping outside our life and this actively prevents the thoughts from popping in.
Next our engagement with them is enhanced because exploration and creativity is a natural state for us to be in as humans.  Accessing this natural state creates a sense of relief; we're doing what we are meant to.

Letting go of expectations to 'produce' anything ourselves allows us to explore this more deeply. It's really unusual for us as adults (even as children once we're over about 5) to have this supportive, non-judgemental environment where we can just 'mess about'. There's a freedom in it which brings with it joyfulness and lightness.

Then, the materials are specifically chosen to remind us of childhood and take away any sense of being grown up and responsible which might be still hanging around and this frees us up some more.
Although we begin with materials which we're more familiar with and which we can make things with, gradually these are replaced by materials which take us into a deeper sensory experience so we're engaging with our senses more fully. This helps cast out "thoughts" some more.

All of this is happening while we're collaborating with other people; engaging with one another as a group.

Everyone is doing the same thing, so no one feels silly. When more than one person is feeling similarly in the same place, that emotional state is magnified. When we're having fun in a gorup, we have more fun and this deepens our relationships and trust of one another. Great for friends, couples, families and teams.

So the engagement with the materials, their sensory nature both prevents our everyday lives from intruding and deepens this experience into one of timeless freedom most of us haven't experienced since early childhood. This is being in the now and why it feels so good.
The reason being in the now does us good is not only because it takes us away from stress (although this alone is a very valuable thing). Being in the now puts us into an emotional place where we don't let obstacles get in our way. As little children we don't know failure, so it's inconceivable ~ we aren't capable of inventing it for ourselves (babies fall on average 11.000 times when learning to walk, they simply get back up and try again).
Touching that 'flife is success' feeling and being able to enter it with other people who are also experiencing it makes it more tangible.

Merely experiencing this state is positive and helpful for us. Repeating it teaches us to experience the world differently, to come at life new and fresh, not full of memories of pain and failure or worrying about the future and outcomes. To be engaged and free from the stress of the outside world at the same time rejuvenates us, enables us to be more positive and creative, to think outside the box and to be more determined, moving forward towards whatever is life enhancing. Achieving this within a group, cements the bonds of that group (and creates them if they don't already exist) as well as everyone experiencing that together making the whole thing more tanbgible and repeatable; a part of life.

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What do you do that makes you smile?

Play more. Smile more!

Even science is now telling us that smiling is good for us.

Playing more is one of the things that can make us smile.

Attend a play workshop.

To keep informed about our play workshops simply click here and add your details on the Free Newsletter page. Thank you.

We promise not to sell your details or overwhelm your inbox!

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How can this be?

Playing seems to be so simple and yet it has such massive effects.

At its simplest level, having fun together can create great bonds.
Essentially, much of playing is exploration; people who make discoveries together share something quite special, which brings them closer together.

Collaboration in an uncompetitive atmosphere of acceptance happens rarely but brings out the best in people; they see one another in a new light.

This is different from the bonds created in a team which plays to win and can be harder to articulate but exists nonetheless.

The bonds of trust and laughter, created when someone lets their guard down for the first time and throws their head back to laugh deeply can be very powerful and lasting.

The intensity of play is often overlooked since playing is something done only by children. But the focus brought by children to their play is actually a state of concentration many of us adults would find enviable.

Sharing this intensity can be as significant as sharing intimacy.

In the play workshops I run I discourage participants from chatting, talking about their 'everyday life'.

It’s not until we learn to talk that we learn to cover up what's really going on (and by talk I mean quite a sophisticated level of language development, any cover up requires considerable planning and strategy beyond small children).

Without complex linear language our communications become naked and honest.
It’s this honesty that can create the strength of the bonds developed at play.
The almost wordless communication that begins to take place within this atmosphere of deep focussing is like a shared secret.

This makes a play workshop sound like a heavy emotional place but the atmosphere is usually light and filled with laughter, often highly productive.

The lack of talk becomes a lack of the need for talk which somehow enhances our ability to collaborate. Like children, no one needs to know each others name, role or status. This freedom somehow creates a safety to be ourselves. Seeing and recognising one another as our true unguarded selves is deep and powerful, but doesn’t have to be spoken about.

It simply is.

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I realised I was in need of more spiritual support so I delved into NLP and studied Reiki Healing to Master Level.

This lead me to address the needs of the most vulnerable and I became a Play Therapist in order to work with children who’d experienced abuse (taking in some Psychodrama, Psychosynthesis and the latest brain science along the way).

I felt I needed to support my clients to look forward rather than back and studied Coaching.

By this point, things had got pretty heavy and I turned my back on most of this and studied business, including becoming a Master Practitioner in an I Ching based system of personality profiling to enable business people and entrepreneurs to discover their flow (known as Wealth Dynamics 8pathstowealth.com).

Things didn’t really get much lighter

I turned around and looked at what I love; in fact I put my feet into a bucket of sand, which lead me to go to the beach and run around.

It was then I realised I am enough.

The light began to flow back into me.

I stopped studying and looked at what I’d achieved and learned and began assembling it all into something. This helped me recognise my own expertise in a field I now realise is pretty unusual.

Play for Adults and using it to reach enlightenment.

We can get pretty heavy about enlightenment and it doesn’t really make sense does it?

We get dragged into our modern day, Western perception of asceticism, a monkishness which seems to include large amounts of “working at” our spirituality and “trying harder” to meditate or pray, I’m sure sometimes we even get into mental flagellation (guilt tripping, “I really must meditate more, I am so bad at my spiritual practice!”) I call it “enheavyment”.

And yet, isn’t it the case for most of us, that genuine glimpses of The Light, our fullest connection and experience of it come often by accident? A piercing joy when we look into a baby’s eyes, see a sunset, hear the last chord of some gorgeous piece of music, smell the ocean and know it is near, taste a divine pudding?

They come when we’re not working at it, or even particularly looking for them.

And certainly for me, and many of my clients, they come through my body, in a way that is outside of language and thought.

Examining this for myself, I considered the combination (finally) of what makes me happiest and has been most helpful to most people.

And it has been both wordless and simple. In my practice, it has been the simplest things that have been most effective, similarly when I’ve been the recipient.

Engaging with energy is one of these methods, and when used in combination with play techniques clients come easily and swiftly to peace and transformation.

It’s as though the very simple, pared down play techniques I use with adults create space in the brain for the light to come in.

Clients quickly become absorbed and discover they are feeling a joy that often, till then has come very rarely in their rushed and stressed lives.

Even people who follow regular spiritual practice are finding play to be an efficient and incredibly compassionate way for them to connect with their deeper selves, to allow distress and baggage to simply flow away and be replaced by lightness.

This is joy.

We often put barriers in our way by struggling to “understand”. Here in the West in this time, we have a belief that we are our mind. There are many ways we use to “get out of our head” but they tend to be difficult and our minds’ chatter constantly interrupts us.

The simple play techniques I use bring us out of our head and into our body, we begin to experience “like a child”, without expectation. We lose track of time and come into The Now. The sand and other media quickly absorb us and actually seem to absorb the “thoughting” we might otherwise do and which prevents us from experiencing our connection to All That Is.

I run groups and work with individuals using play and am currently experimenting with doing it over skype for people outside the UK wanting to lighten their life and their load on the kind of regular basis that creates transformations.

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We believe children are important

Too important to be merely included in our workshops.

As a trained Play Therapist Mica has many years experience* working with children, helping them through difficult times in their lives.

She does not provide "open groups" for children. However, if you have a child or small group of children you'd like her to consider working with please get in touch (use the form below) to discuss this.

Often, if something difficult is happening in a family it's the children's behaviour that suffers. This is a symptom of the issue.

Your child may be grouchy or withdrawn or do something out of character.

This does not necessarily mean that therapy is the best route.

Sometimes, an open and honest discussion between the adult(s) involved and Mica will sort things out. Often, a few sessions to follow up, support and check in are required.

Mica can help with behaviour management too.

Play is the natural way for children to communicate and sometimes, when it's hard to put their feelings into words, a few play sessions can help children enormously.

If something is happening in your family that you feel your child may be struggling with, contact Mica using this form to have a chat and discover the best way forward.

*Mica has created and run two Play Therapy services in Central Manchester, one for a national charity and another for a small charity responding to the needs and requests of the local community.

She not only provided Play Therapy herself for children helping them recover from distress and trauma but supervised and trained Play Therapists.

She set up a Parent's Consultancy Service to help parents support their children, in which she combined her expert knowledge, straight talking and compassion.

Mica is also a Behaviour Management Specialist and has helped hundreds of parents to understand their children's behaviour and to devise better ways of coping.

She has appeard many times on the Heather Stott radio show on BBC Radio Manchester where she is known as their "own Super Nanny, but  nicer"!

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I realise I’ve been totally underselling the potential transformational power of play in previous blogs and newsletters for fear of seeming a bit woowoo and that has not been doing anyone any favours.

Yes, I am carrying out research for my book, but over the last twenty years I’ve had plenty of time to gather evidence of how effective it is.

Do you want more joy in your life? Play can give it to you.

Do you want more fun? Play can give you that.

Do you want to be more in touch with your creativity? Play can give it to you.

Do you want to sleep better at night? Play can help you there.

Do you want to feel more relaxed and to cope with stress better? Play can do that.

Do you want better relationships? Play can help you there too.

In fact the way our brain works affects everything, so play can pretty much cure whatever ails you!

Can you play on your own at home? Of course. Why wouldn't you do something that's so much fun every single day?...

But will you?...

Do you?...

If you do, fine. If, now that I’ve made you aware of just how much power play has to bring all the good things you want into your life you’ll play often and regularly, great, brilliant. Come round and we’ll play together on the hills where I live.

But for most of us, setting aside time for ourselves is very low on our priorities even when we know just how important for everything else that can be.

How much is it costing you not to play?

Even I, a total play addict forgot to play regularly when life got tough for me. My mom died and the charity I was running with a colleague succumbed to funding cuts. Just when I needed it most, I stopped playing.

My life spiralled out of control. I couldn't get other work I enjoyed, I became very ill, my life was literally draining from me, my finances were in ruins and my relationship was shaky.

Then one day I stuck one foot in a bucket of sand and the other in a bucket of water and from that moment my life improved!

Crazy isn't it that something so simple and so easy created the change? Of course, I remembered once I'd done it exactly what I needed to do, I had the resources and the trust in the process already. I'd seen it work for other people hundreds of times so I understood what to do and how much it would help me. And it did.

Life is now. Are you missing it?

For the vast majority of us our brains are so unbalanced in the way we use them, if we were riding a bike we’d fall straight off!

In the last twenty years I have developed ways of playing that stimulate our underused right brain and allow the connections between the two sides of our brain to get stronger. Playing restores balance within our brains.

There’s plenty here about this, no need for me to go on.

My play workshops give you unprecedented access to me, the creator of these programmes.

The workshops are not chalk and talk. You will be playing and have the opportunity to become fully immersed in your own world of play, reconnect to your childhood innocence and have fun.

You will be fully in the now, as Mike Symes MD of Strand Financial said “there are few opportunities you have as an adult to just be in the moment” and to benefit from the fast and effective power playing has.

This is what you can do to use your right brain and connect your brain hemispheres more effectively. This really can positively change your whole life.

I can't explain how excited I am about this. How passionate I am about play and how powerful it is to restore us all to great emotional health, improve our ability to think, increase our potential and raise our consciousness.

Play works in similar ways to meditation, but it is accessible eaily to anyone. It doesn't matter if you're not great at sitting still, if oyur concentration span is short or you usually can't turn off the voice in your head; play cuts through all that and takes you exactly where you need to go, at your pace.

This is because it is experiential. It isn't a head based exercise that requires you to think or not think. It simply "is".

Like most people you have probably invested in expensive programmes that give you great information, but we’re all in information overwhelm, what we all want is something that works and works quickly.

I’m sure that you, like me have had enough of standardised products in which you get a formulated experience.

These play workshops are an individual personal experience in which you can take exactly as much as you’re able to assimilate.

I'm so excited at the power of play and passionate about helping people by giving them a good time! That's why I decided to come out about just how amazing play can be.

I've used play with people from all walks of life who have been amazed and delighted at the changes they've experienced.

Alice from WImbledon who hadn't had a full night's sleep for 6 years and was utterly exhausted, found she slept better after just one session so continued. After 5 sessions the tossing and turning had gone away completely and she's been sleeping all night every night for the 3 years since.

James was studying Theatre Lighting at Perth College. He felt tired and stressed at the end of the day and was drinking heavily, not helpful when you're moving heavy lights high up on scaffolding.

He did a short series of play sessions and by integrating play into his everyday life and was able to get his drinking under control, finish his degree with flying colours and now has a great job in the West End.

Billy, a stained glass artist felt he'd lost his creativity as a result of the success of his business. The pressure of deadlines had caused a block. His marriage was on the verge of breakup when he took one play session to relax. He found it so helpful, he took a short course and not only halted his decline, he and his wife are very happily expecting a baby, they're  living in a brand new house he designed himself and his business is thriving.

Marie has a highly responsible job at a large bank's head office. Although she had two lovely homes and plenty of holidays she felt she never managed to shed the stress of her job. Her relationships never lasted due, she suspected to her very high standards.

She began to become ill and was seriously worried that her health problems and the time she was needing to take off would mean she'd lose everything. She took a series of play sessions and to her great surprise her health improved. She integrated regular play sessions into her life and began a relationship with someone she met in the group. A carpenter, she'd have been unlikely to consider having a relationship with before. They've recently celebrated their baby's first birthday.

The workshops are not for the faint hearted. Yes, it’s playing but this is hard core transformational process and you will get dirty! Are you ready to make this level of change simply by having fun?

There will be an opportunity at the workshop to discover how you can gain from more in depth playing experiences.

Next Sunday 27th at 11-3.00 I’m running another play workshop in London at Hatton Garden.

If you’re ready to allow having a really good time to begin making the transformation of your entire life that it can  if you just let it, come and join us.

The fee for readers of my newsletters and blog fans is reduced from £97 to £47 for 1 workshop.

I won’t be giving this reduced rate again.

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The clearest description I've come across of the ways the two sides of the brain operate.

Jill Bolte Taylor was a brain scientist when she had a stroke. This gave her extraordinary insight into what was happening to her.

I never stop being amazed by listening to her although I've watched this TED Talk many times.

Playing changes our brains in ways that are good for us.

When we play more we feel happier and if we play regularly the chemicals we release during our play can make long term changes to our brains.

The pathways we're creating within our brains can actually cause us to learn to think differently.

This can also have a lasting effect.

Come along to an Adults Play Workshop to find out what it's all about or join us for a series of workshops.

At the very least it'll be fun but it could be totally life changing

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You can, but do you?

Playing is so easy, there's absolutely no reason why we can't just do it every day, any time, at home or anywhere else for that matter.

But do we? Do you?

When was the last time you allowed your free, child~like self some time?

Even 5 minutes?

It's almost as though it is so easy that's why we don't.

Just have a belly laugh, let it out, let it go.

Allow that freedom to fill you and release the ties pinning you down, free your whole self and let your creativity out.

There; that didn't take long did it?

And how much better do you feel for it?

Commit to this, just 5 minutes a day can make a difference.

Playing changes our brains in ways that are good for us.

When we play more we feel happier and if we play regularly the chemicals we release during our play can make long term changes to our brains.

The pathways we're creating within our brains can actually cause us to learn to think differently.

This can also have a lasting effect.

Come along to an Adults Play Workshop to find out what it's all about or join us for a series of workshops.

At the very least it'll be fun but it could be totally life changing

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I'd say anytime can be playtime; but then I would wouldn't I?

Play means so many different things, even to one person.

Certainly, an attitude of playfulness supports us in every area of our lives.

Is there any situations where playfulness is inappropriate?

Of course. The horrors being experienced by the Japanese people and people living in terror in Lybia for example.

But for the rest of us, an open attitude, looking for the fun and lightness in life can only be helpful.

This enables us to maintain a healthy distance even while we are fully involved.

Not taking ourselves too seriously allows us to welcome the perspective of others, it removes defensiveness and lets us perceive solutions in the darkest of corners.

Be open to laughter, be ready to dance the happy dance, look out of the window and regain your perspective. For the vast majority of us life is pretty sweet.

Playing changes our brains in ways that are good for us.

When we play more we feel happier and if we play regularly the chemicals we release during our play can make long term changes to our brains.

The pathways we're creating within our brains can actually cause us to learn to think differently, be happier.

This can have a lasting effect.

Come along to an Adults Play Workshop to find out what it's all about or join us for a series of workshops.

At the very least it'll be fun but for those who totally commit to the transformation, it will be life changing

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When we can just do what we feel like and don't have to do anything that feels good too.

When we feel good chemicals are released in our brains that are good for us.

But when we play in ways that allow our right brain to become more active we're using more of our potential.

We're making ourselves brighter, accessing more of our real self, our whole self.

When we frequently play in ways that integrate our right and left brain we increase our ability.

When we allow our right brain a chance of being in charge it stops hassling us and being a nuisance and starts co-operating, increasing our creativity, helping us sleep better, making us feel happier, more satisfied, more curious and generally, by reducing our stress levels it helps us to be more productive as well as nicer to be around.

Join us for a workshop or even a programme for long term changes.

At the very least it will be fun or it could be totally life transforming

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We all use a combination of our left and right brain, shifting from one side to the other according to what we’re doing.

So for example, writing prose uses both sides of our brain; the left side for the technical and grammatical aspects of what we’re writing and the right side for the creativity, to create the ideas that we are expressing. Selecting specific words for clarity would be the department of our left brain and for their poetic beauty, much more right brain.

I will however describe individuals as either right or left brained for brevity’s sake, what I’m actually meaning is “person who leans on their right brain activity more” or “ …. left brain activity…”

Structured games, cross words, sudoku and the like, use the left brain more and are therefore likely to be easy and natural for a left brained person. A strong right brainer may see these activities as something they’d be forced to do in hell and never choose them.

That’s fine, because they’re usually solitary, which is something strong left brainers are fine with. The right brainer may want to join in, because they find it natural to operate in groups, and feel left out, but they won’t have a natural predisposition for games like this.

All sport requires a degree of right brain, as our right brain is in charge of our body and its movement. Highly physically co-ordinated people are either strongly right brained or else have a high degree of integration between their left and right brain.

Someone who has a good degree of integration between right and left sides of their brain but who still leans towards the left brain may choose a sport like tennis whereas someone who leans more to the right brain may choose a team sport like rugby.

Someone more strongly right brained who wanted to use their body may choose to dance rather than follow the rules of a sport.

So if we’re looking at something which will satisfy all comers, a murder mystery game for example is likely to have something in it to please most people, since a left brainer will calculate the likelihood of the various characters having committed the murder based on actual evidence, which they will probably be diligent in collecting, whereas the right brainer will get into character and also assess the personalities of the other characters to determine the likelihood of them being the murderer. They will use the story of events to work it out.

The easy answer to this question is “It depends how much they want to play together”.

We will all involve ourselves in activities that don’t feel natural if we really want to.

For a strong right brainer, they’re likely to do this is they want to be among the people doing the activity, or if it satisfies their need for personal expression (like dancing).

A strong right brainer may join others to learn and become adept at something they really want to be good at, or which they feel will lead to personal improvement.

So, it’s not so much whether they can it’s all about whether they will.

I am strongly right brained, I have little self control or focus for things that don’t involve and inspire me but I will go on and on without a break when I’m involved in doing something I love. In general, I say I don’t enjoy games.

I was highly entertained at Christmas however by us playing “Just a Minute” (based n the radio programme where each person has to talk for 1 minute on a subject without repetition, hesitation or deviation.

I love exploring ideas, it satisfies my creative impulses to delve and discover about a subject, especially if I can do this by talking rather than research. I was mostly got out by repeating myself, not because I was coming back to something, but for emphasis; “very very” for example.

Those among us who like rules and predictability were satisfied by the structure of the game and its competitiveness so a good time was had by all.

It is all about choice in the end.

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