Play Is How to Add Peace Within Your Relationships

Hi, Maude here. Hope this post will give you some ideas to think about to counter-balance life in 2026. Get out there and play!

Phil and I were talking about how to get some balance between the daily barrage of distressing information and the peaceful interactions and way of responding to our daily lives that we practice. And as strange as it may seem, the answer that came to me was to be sure and get a good measure of play and new adventures.

The society we live in is one that pushes achievement and busyness over everything. The U.S. has the shortest amount of paid vacation time from work, and there are many jobs where there is none. People often feel a sense of guilt if they take time out to play, rest, and relax. Yet, it has been proven that play is vital to your health and well-being and your optimum brain function.

Many of you are familiar with Julia Cameron’s work in The Artist’s Way series of books. She describes a path toward optimum creativity, which involves something called morning pages, and taking at least a two-hour play date every week. I have known many individuals and groups who have done this program, and in each of the cases, people have shared how difficult it was for them to find the time to do the play date with themselves. Only two hours a week, and people have difficulty finding the time!

As with many things, you need to first apply this to yourself before you can take it into your relationships. Finding ways to have leisure time and to reach out for new experiences will open paths to growth and satisfaction. The more you allow this kind of time into your life and your experiences with yourself, the more you will be able to bring that into your relationships.

In relationships that promote living peace, playing is a critical factor. We need to recognize its importance and find ways to incorporate it into our times together. Sharing the joy of being together and taking the opportunity to just be, rather than to do, brings an intimacy and creates a bond that cannot be gained in any other way. Building shared experiences and adventures is part of the glue that brings you together when things get tough or the problems of the outside world start to pull you down.

It is important to recognize the value of time spent that’s not about achievement, but rather about just being and feeling and loving. Sharing experiences, laughing together, and discovering how just being with each other feels, how just being feels, is an art we need to develop for a balanced happy life and balanced happy relationships.

Reading Corner

Here are some of our previous posts on this topic.

How Being Playful and Just Being Together Affect Your Relationships “The need for play doesn’t change just because we “grow up”. We are all just bigger, older children. These basic needs, like the need to play, never diminish in importance for any of us, at any time in our lives. Similarly, play time is an essential part of peaceful, harmonious relationships. We need to recognize the importance of play in our relationships and find ways to incorporate it into our times together. It is important to recognize the value of time spent that’s not about achievement, but rather about just being and feeling and loving. Sharing experiences, laughing together and discovering how just being with each other feels, how just being feels, is an art we need to develop for a balanced happy life and balanced happy relationships.”

Why is Time for Play Important in Your Relationship? “Yet we also need to show respect for our bodies and our minds. They need time off, time out, or time in other pursuits. Individually and in our relationships we all need play time where we are not working on anything; not on progressing, not on taking care of business, and definitely not on achieving anything. We recently had a marvelous and rejuvenating few days. These were days where we stepped outside our usual patterns and day to day projects and were just together having an intimate and lovely time. We didn’t do anything big and important. We were very present with each other talking, laughing, sharing. We are not referring to date nights, trips, or other planned escapades together. Here we are referring to spontaneous, unplanned, unscheduled, open free time. It started when Maude suggested hanging out with each other with no goal other than that. We had each been so busy with our individual jobs and tasks or with mutual social events, that we hadn’t spent much time with each other just relaxing or having adventures. Those things that we enjoy doing separately can make us forget to spend time together, but time like that is important precisely because it doesn’t involve doing anything. It’s an opportunity to reconnect to ourselves and each other.”

The Powerful Value of Play in a Relationship “The late Dr. Karyn Purvis, Director of Texas Christian University’s Child Development Center stated, “scientists have recently determined that it takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain…unless it is done with play, in which case it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions.” Play is an experience where pleasure and learning are combined in a relatively stress-free environment. The benefits have been extolled by many scientists and educators. And yet, we are sorely put to create playtime within our lives and within our relationships. In modern society, priorities are fostered that emphasize responsibility, care-taking, accomplishment — taking care of business. We fill our time with earning a living, paying the bills, cleaning the house, shopping, taking the kids to school, picking up the grandkids. All important to our very existence. Playing has become an element that has all but disappeared from many people’s lives. Yes, people have taken up activities like regular exercise, sports, dinner dates with friends, gaming, travel. But are these the same as free-form spontaneous play?”

Originally published at https://philandmaude.substack.com.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.