The Science of Play with TJ Matton

Self-LeadershipMental HealthMindfulness
Written By Sara Lobkovich

Are you ready to rethink everything you think you know about play? Want to learn more about the science of play as a powerful tool for personal growth and well-being?

This week’s guest, TJ Matton, founder and chief play officer of the Playful Revolution, joins me to dive deep into the science and practice of play (especially for those of us for whom "play" may not feel like it comes naturally.

TJ shares her insights as a trauma therapist and play advocate, exploring some foundational science (and neuroscience) about play, including play as a "primal drive" and essential part of learning. This episode is part one in a two part series: today, we lay the foundation of why play is important. In next week's episode, we'll continue our conversation with practical guidance for how to incorporate play into your mindfulness practices (even if you want to run the other direction when I say "play" or "mindfulness").

Episode Highlights

  • Introduction to TJ Matton: TJ’s background as a trauma therapist and her journey into the world of play.

  • The Primal Drive of Play: Understanding play as a biological necessity, akin to hunger or thirst.

  • Neurology of Play: How play helps develop new neural pathways and its importance across the lifespan.

  • Types and Modes of Play: Exploring different play styles, including solo play, parallel play, and collaborative play.

  • Balancing Novelty and Repetition: The delicate balance needed to keep play engaging and beneficial.

  • Play and Neurodivergence: How play can be particularly beneficial for neurodivergent individuals.

  • Play as a Social Activity: The importance of finding compatible play partners and creating safe play environments.

  • Conflict as Play: Viewing conflict as a form of play and its role in building better relationships and systems.

Episode Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Thinkydoers Podcast

00:40 Quick Promo and Upcoming Events

02:10 Exciting Episode with TJ: Play and Mindfulness

03:48 TJ's Background and Passion for Play

06:04 The Importance of Play in Our Lives

09:47 Balancing Novelty and Repetition in Play

17:44 Exploring Different Play Styles

21:19 Play as a Social and Solo Activity

29:06 Play and Vulnerability

34:37 Conclusion and Next Episode Teaser

Common Questions

  • What is the primal drive of play?: Play is a biological necessity that helps us learn and develop new neural pathways.

  • How does play benefit neurodivergent individuals?: Play can help neurodivergent individuals engage in a way that feels authentic and liberating.

  • What are the different types of play?: Play can be solo, parallel, or collaborative, and can involve different styles such as intellectual, kinesthetic, or storytelling play.

  • How can play be balanced between novelty and repetition?: Play needs to be novel enough to stay engaging but repetitive enough to allow learning and mastery.

Notable Quotes from TJ Matton

  • “Play is a primal drive in the body, regulated the same way as sleep, hunger, and thirst.”

  • “Play is how we learn everything neurologically, and that never changes.”

  • “Conflict is a form of play and is essential for building better relationships and systems.”

  • “Play always starts with choice and is an embodied experience of engagement and enjoyment.”

TJ’s Links and Resources

Sara's Links and Resources

FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Episode 25: The Science of Play with TJ Matton

© Sara Lobkovich, Red Currant Collective LLC (2024). All Rights Reserved.

[00:00:00] Sara: Welcome to the Thinkydoers podcast. Thinkydoers are those of us drawn to deep work where thinking is working. But we don't stop there. We're compelled to move the work from insight to idea, through the messy middle, to find courage and confidence to put our thoughts into action. I'm Sara Lobkovich, and I'm a Thinkydoer. I'm here to help others find more satisfaction, less frustration, less friction, and more flow in our work. My mission is to help changemakers like you transform our workplaces and world. So, let's get started.

 Hi all. I am going to make today's promo lightning fast because I want to get into the episode with TJ because it's so good. if you're listening to this when it's published, it's mid September, which means we are in the Q3, Q4 reset season. [00:01:00] It is time to set the rest of your 2024 up for success with a strong quarterly review.

And this Friday, September 20th at 9am Pacific, I'm hosting a free live guided reset session, simulcast to YouTube and LinkedIn at the same time.

So we'll do a focused 30 minute co- working guided reset session together, followed by 15 minutes of live Q& A.

And then members of my Unblock Your Inner Strategist membership will adjourn to our private room for another 45 minutes of debrief and individual support.

I'll put the links to RSVP for the YouTube or LinkedIn version in the show notes of today's episode. You can also find me on YouTube or LinkedIn. I'm the only Sara Lobkovich on either platform,

And if you'd like information on my Unblock Your Inner Strategist [00:02:00] community, visit findrc.co/ubyis.

Now, let's get into today's episode.

[00:02:10] Sara: All right, listeners. I know I always say I'm really excited about my episodes, and it is true. I am always really excited. But when TJ and I connected on Facebook, I did an actual physical excited dance when I saw the words "play" and "mindfulness" together in your bio. So, we have a really big treat. TJ is joining us for actually two episodes. TJ is the founder and chief play officer of the Playful Revolution. I'll have her introduce herself and tell you a little bit about her background and what she does. Today, we're going to get super nerdy about play. And then in our second part, which will come out next week, we're going to talk about Integrating play as a mindfulness practice. And if you hear those [00:03:00] words and you're like, "That's not for me," then I want you to come back.

[00:03:03] TJ: It is. Yes, If you hate the word "mindfulness", come back. I promise.

[00:03:08] Sara: TJ, I just can't thank you enough. I had so much fun when we pre-met. I looked back at the notes on our pre-meet and I was like, "Dang, we could have just run with our pre-meet as the episode."

[00:03:19] TJ: I feel like a little cheated sometimes when I know it's gonna be a good connection and there's so much excitement and spark that happens in those, and I'm like, "People need the uncut version!"

[00:03:29] Sara: TJ isgoing to talk about play and neurology of play. Also, about types and modes of play. So, if you are a listener of Thinkydoers and you hear the word "play" and you're like, "This is not for me," this is literally for you. That's why we're doing it. TJ, I'd just love to have you introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, what you do, and what makes you excited to be here.

[00:03:55] TJ: I am a truama therapist here in [00:04:00] Annapolis, Maryland, and I've been a trauma therapist for adults for about 11 years. And about two or three years into my practice, I started working with a collection of adults that were parents of young kids. I became really intrigued with parents' responses to play, both in their personal relationships but also culturally. There's this shift to a lot of pressure for parents to play with their kids, and I just got very " rabbit hole-y" about play, as probably many of the Thinkydoers know what it's like to fall into a good rabbit hole. I have just decided to camp out here in the playland, and this now, I am now like making my home here, and anybody can come visit, the door is open, we welcome visitors anytime. So, what I ended up like really falling in love with is the fact that we live in a play-deprived culture and that play is a primal drive in the body. It's homeostatically regulated the same way that sleep, hunger, and thirst [00:05:00] is, but we don't have anybody teaching us intuitive play culturally, right? So a lot of adults hear things like, That feel like an enormous level of pressure, like, "go have fun! You need to have more fun in your life!" and then you're like, "What the fuck does that mean? Where do I start?" Especially if you come from a kind of neurodivergent, background where a lot of our fun has been shamed because it like doesn't look very coherent, or we fall really deep into rabbit holes that people call obsessive. It's not always like linear or productive. A lot of neurodivergence I found either hyper-protected their play in a way that was still shrouded with a little bit of shame, or it was something that had become so suppressed. So, people were basically either binging on play or restricting play. I want people to understand that like play is actually something we need to have a really balanced, healthy relationship [00:06:00] with, the same way we do food, water, and sleep. I got really interested in the fact that play is a primal drive, right? It is something that we biologically are required to do in our human body. How do we begin to redevelop that relationship with it in a culture that like just really wants us to be productive?

[00:06:20] Sara: you're gonna have to double click on that one, Mm dude. Ding Ding. To me, that play is a drive, just like a hunger or thirst, that's a brand new concept me. So tell me a little bit more about that.

[00:06:36] TJ: Play is how we learn everything neurologically, right? It's how we develop new neural pathways. We know in kids that play is super essential, right? Like, how many blocks can I put on top of each other before it falls? And then you watch kids repeating that. You watch them repeating that. And part of play is that there's a repetitive need for it in order for us to learn from [00:07:00] the experience. There's a kind of a balance between novelty and repetitiveness, where it has to stay new enough for us to stay engaged, but repetitive enough for us to learn from it. and this can be a really tricky balance for people. But we see, and we know in kids that practice and play are really meaningful in learning new ways of doing things. And that doesn't ever change. part of what we've seen from a systemic lens is like we've really pushed play out of people's nervous systems, out of their biology in lieu of like compliance and coherence to behavioral and thinking standards. And so we have driven down uniqueness in the individual in order to function as a society. I think that's probably how they would have defended it, but it's not like we're functioning very well as a society.

[00:07:55] Sara: They're just systemic realities we live under here that aren't [00:08:00] necessarily compatible with all of our well-being.

[00:08:03] TJ: Play is this practice of kind of low-risk testing, right? It is really important that it's low-risk enough for the body to not end up feeling overly exposed in our vulnerability, right? I always tell people we don't start playing where it matters, right? And we'll talk about this next time—but play as a mindfulness practice. When I'm working with people, like for instance, if you're working on human connections —If that's what we're playing for, it's better capacity for relationships—I'm not going to start you with your family, right? I'm going to start you with the coffee shop person. Who cares? Just get your coffee and run. So you start playing where it's tingly and exciting and a little bit scary, but it's really important that it's digestible. It's really important that play is something that we can have an interactive relationship with, so that again, it's digestible. And it's something that we can learn from and integrate [00:09:00] from and have a positive, repetitive relationship with where we can consistently increase the challenges as our body is ready. I think one of the things I always want people to understand about play is, again, it is how we neurologically learn new ways. And that never changes. And so when we start to get stuck in patterns within our bodies, which all of us do, play is the way out. And it can be the way out from like a flight mode, but it also is just like the embodied way out. Like you can't shift from one thing to another, one way of thinking, or one way of behaving, one way of doing, without experimenting with like other ways of being and doing.

[00:09:47] Sara: Yeah. It's one of the things that, as an adult educator, I'm hearing in what you're saying is that play needs to be sub-threshold. It needs to be in the learning [00:10:00] zone. If we're over threshold, it's too stressful. I think aboutI will not play D&D with my family. And they are the people who love me, and it is the safest environment on the face of the planet, and they're all rooting for me, and even just saying the words, I am on the verge of a panic response, like it's so stressful me. So, I love that you're pointing out that we don't have to suffer in that. We can find low-risk testing ways to get started. And we will talk about getting started in our second episode.

[00:10:36] TJ: Can I ask you why you won't play with your family? Can we talk a little bit about that?

[00:10:41] Sara: Yeah, I am a born creative. I identify as a creative, but being creative on the spot is my kryptonite. Imagine a scenario... role-plays are enough to make me want to curl up in a ball in corner of the [00:11:00] room. And it's why I don't use them in my classes. Like we do a lot of practice, but we practice with real scenarios so people don't have the extra overhead of imagining a scenario. "Imagine a scenario and then play within it" is one more thing than my brain can do.

[00:11:18] TJ: Do you play D&D then like outside or do they play D&D and you won't join?

[00:11:25] Sara: They play D&D, and I'm always invited. And I have tried, like I've sat down at the table and tried and it's just like an absolute nervous system flood, like a overwhelm for me.

[00:11:38] TJ: Yeah, It's like these are the most important people in your life, so theoretically they should be the safest people to experiment with play. But sometimes the safest people are actually really high-risk because we love them so freaking much that the vulnerability is so high. And then if you combine the vulnerability we feel with our most [00:12:00] vulnerable people with the vulnerability of a new challenge those sometimes don't match, right? And a lot of what we want to assess with play is like, where are the spaces that shrink my capacity to step out of my zone? And where are the places that expand it? I've always dreamed of creating a D&D game that is more so about your everyday life. Like, "How do you deal with the mountain of laundry? What do you do when you have to pick up three kids at the same time?" And I've always wanted to make a very realistic, epic adventure through an everyday life, of where again, it doesn't require so much imaginative power, and actually, like, you could just use your magic wand to deal with laundry. And then you like step into laundry, you're like, "Oh. let me just do it," Again, that imaginative step for some people is really hard, but also we don't need to imagine epic adventures to be put in a challenge. We face everyday [00:13:00] challenges that are stupid and annoying all the time, and I've always wanted to create a D&D game where it's just so boring.

[00:13:07] Sara: I would totally play that game.

[00:13:09] TJ: Okay, That's good to know. I will start finding my creators. Because I've never played D&D, so I don't even know if that's possible.

[00:13:16] Sara: I don't either, because I just shut down the minute anyone starts talking about D&D.

[00:13:19] TJ: I'm currently on for a beginner's community here in my area.

[00:13:23] Sara: Oh, I have friends. I'm sure they know someone. Because they're, the sweetest, most amazing, Geraldine and Rand, I love you, like the most amazing humans —

[00:13:31] TJ: Those are, like, very epic names, too. They sound like Rand has come straight from Wheel of Time. And if Geraldine is not in Wheel of Time, she probably should be weaved in as epic character in that.

[00:13:43] Sara: They're pretty epic. I'm gonna leave that part in. No, it's, safest, most loving most amazing environment that I could play in I'll ask them for some friendlies in your zone. So one of the things that you said that stood out to me is that [00:14:00] play is a balance between novelty and repetition. And my neurodivergent brain is like, "Ding ding." That's very interesting because that's the balance that it takes for my wiring to stay engaged. So can you tell us a little bit more about, how that works or what is it about play that makes it something that's balanced there?

[00:14:25] TJ: novelty is often something that like, alerts the nervous system, it puts that fight or flight actually a little bit on alert because it's a moment of uncertainty, right? So it's a moment where we're trying to figure out is this moment safe, right? And this is part of what play is so powerful also as like a nervous system like practice and as something that creates a more expansive and more flexible nervous system is that when we embrace play as a form of really functional practice, we become more adaptable in [00:15:00] novel situations, which happen every day, right? Because every day is a new day. And at the same time, we want repetition because it allows us to zone that nervous system down a little bit and engage a little deeper. And so there's this balance of the novelty that turns that hyper, like aliveness on, which can shift a lot of people. into a hypervigilance, right? And so we want to think about play as something that like alerts me, but doesn't shift me into hypervigilance. It shifts me into that what's going on, right? And like, he has that sort of alertness to it without shifting us into hypervigilance in that parasympathetic state. But then when we practice it in repetition, that is what creates belonging. That is what's Oh, like I know how to do this. That is what builds skill, like a sense of skill, belonging, a sense of mastery. and so this combo is really hard. And is like always being toggled a little bit. [00:16:00] And which is why also it's so important for us to think about, play across the lifespan. That novelty, that we're in this kind of constant, infinite game of exploring new balances between those things. And one of the things I talk a lot about in my work is many of us are, like, trapped in very repetitive things that, and particularly for neurodivergent brains that are, really intrigued by novelty, that are intrigued who are motivated by interest, but then and are incredibly skilled in certain areas, but then, Struggle and shut down very quickly in things like laundry. To do lists grocery lists. And I think what I always remind people with neurodivergent brains is that it's not that they're not capable of doing these things. It's that the skill and interest isn't aligned. The novelty and repetition isn't aligned. And the absence of interest, the absence of novelty, like, why the hell would you want to do those things? It's very [00:17:00] counterintuitive to a neurodivergent brain for many people. And so Many people who struggle with this balance end up becoming thrill seekers, Where they're extraordinarily dependent on novelty because in that like sensory play becomes the place that they play safest. And they really struggle settling into repetitive belonging style of play. While other people will cling very deeply on to repetition And it becomes almost a rigid way of being. Like, I'm only going to order a chicken sandwich every single time. Sort of thing. And can become really rigid without learning to create that flexibility that novelty requires.

[00:17:44] Sara: the reason that we connected in the first place is I am looking for experts who can talk to me about the brain difference between hyperfocus and flow. And we're not going to talk about that, but if anyone knows that expert, send them my [00:18:00] way. But in what you just said, that sequence of events from novelty, which is what neurodivergent brains need, sparks curiosity, which is what our brains are really good at, and then gets us into that kind of flow. of play with that, repetition and belonging option or, pursuit of mastery. that is a way of describing behavior that is both really positive and constructive and also completely neurodivergently friendly.

 when we talk about mastery, I think it's really easy to understand how mastery and productivity can become entangled when they're completely, totally different. part of what I think is really important about play is play always starts with choices. it always starts with choice and it's an embodied experience, it's really important for me to help people understand is that play is not an action. It's an embodied experience. [00:19:00] It's an experience of being engaged with something with enjoyment, So fun is a byproduct of play. It's not like a direct hit. It's like one of these things that you're like, Oh, that was fun. But it's actually enjoy, like the embodied experience of being engaged with something and enjoying something is the play experience. And it lives right between that sense of like belonging and aliveness. Like it's that. middle state between those states in the nervous system, the ventral and the parasympathetic state. We could talk all day, my friend I can't wait to write books together. So Is there anything else you want to tell us about the foundations of play before we get into neurology and play types?

[00:19:43] TJ: Yeah. I think that I the primary things that I always want to make sure people understand is again, play as a state within the nervous system. It's an embodied experience. And and it always starts with choice. And we also want to understand is that like [00:20:00] how it ends, right? It isn't always our choice, right? many of us grew up in like, Oh, you have ten minutes to play, it's time to come in for dinner, right? We didn't necessarily get to have embodied endings. And this is another thing I see people really experience when they, Come into terms with is again that initiation of play and that closure of play are oftentimes that we have a lot of wounds around our play flows, right? Where and again, people have disruptions in different places of their play, right? Where they don't get to go as deep as they naturally want to, and so they pull back, or they don't know how to initiate, because initiation was not liberated. They don't know how to close, and so they like, stay in stuff too long, or they end too abruptly. a play is like this wave that starts with kind of curiosity and interest and shifts to engagement and then shifts into flow and then comes to that settling and then that [00:21:00] rest place. But many of us have not, didn't grow up having space for the whole play flow state. And. Part of this, part of re embracing play is really learning that, whether that be in two minute segments or three, three hour segments.

[00:21:16] Sara: So one of the things there that really stands out to me is. play is also a social activity, or am I wrong about that? Because I even, I hear you describe play starts with choice, and then sometimes we might not have that. The skills around closing out the play cycle and for me, I'm like yeah, I don't read social cues. So I don't know when other people are done playing but that for me even shows that my assumption is that play is a social activity, which I know it is, but play doesn't have to be a social activity. So tell me more about solo play or about whatever it's called when you're playing by yourself.

[00:21:55] TJ: I think people naturally either are really thrive as solo players [00:22:00] or parallel players or like collaborative players, And I think, we've seen a big push in giving people spaces for parallel playing, right? Like we love the term body doubles. that's become something that's really real and those are parallel players.

Right? People who are just like sort of around. Maybe they're doing the same thing as you, but like maybe they're just around reading a book. Right? and you're like as a way to contain the play. So some people naturally thrive as solo players. this is not from science, but from my own experience with clients, that I find a lot of neurodivergent people are really skilled as solo players because they have been so subjected to masking as a cultural requirement, where they're not actually authentic in their play and group play, and so the place that they are the most authentic and most liberated is in their individualism. And the places then they really need to find unique neurodivergent friendly play communities [00:23:00] so that they can they can learn that unmasking, but many neurodivergents that I work with feel safest in solo play. And one of the things we do is we re enhance solo play in their life so that they can start to understand like what play feels like solely within their system, right? But at the end of the day, play does bring us back into social community. So even if I go and play by myself, like we often want that social cue connection afterwards that is Look what I did! Because play inherently does crave that sense of being seen, because it is us. It's our humanness in this like creative, alive way, and we want to be seen. This is part of us, part of our neurological makeup as humans. Is that drive for social connection?

[00:23:52] Sara: I think something else that stands out for me too is wondering about how generational this is, that you start with [00:24:00] play starts with choice. when I was growing up. We didn't have choice, like consent, it's one of the highlights of my life has been teaching my stepkids about consent and reparenting myself in the process about consent and that consent is revocable. And even in play, you get to choose, does this feel good? Is this a play partner? Who's a good fit for me? Or is this someone who's hurting me? And I didn't have that growing

[00:24:29] TJ: No.

[00:24:29] Sara: it. We were subjected to a lot without knowing that we could make those choices for ourselves. So you mentioned, finding compatible play partners. Tell me a bit, about play love languages or about types and modes of play. that my listeners might not even be thinking about as play.

[00:24:49] TJ: Yeah. I often think about top down players and bottom up players. So I talk about play. in a lot of different ways. And so This is one of the ways I think about it. It's like [00:25:00] top down players, people who like love to problem solve, people who are intellectual players, like puzzle people word game people, right? People who love to organize closets people who, where there's like sort of a start and an end to their play, where there's often like a purpose. to their play. And then I think there's also this framework of like bottom up players, right? Explorers who like are great at like out of the box sort of thinking. And navigating dark spaces where there's not like, where they don't, these are people who often I think have don't want to be told what to do. Because they're bottom up experiential players, Versus the kind of top down players, where more structural play. becomes more natural to them. then the opposite is true, where we want to play with our weaknesses, right? Where we want to spend time in our natural play because it feels good, and it is natural, and it feels like fun. And we wanted to try different varieties as a way to [00:26:00] expand and challenge our play profiles. So one of the ways I think of is like this kind of top down players and these bottom up players, and where there's closed loops versus wander-y loops of play. And then I also think about the fact that there are brain players, And then there's kind of storyteller players, like people who like play within their with their imagination and then I think theres body players who like really have to have the kinesthetics, like in order to play, So I often talk about the fact that anxiety is a fantastic example of maladaptive play, right? Like anxiety is 100 percent storytelling. It's just, gotten diverted into a protective space. And so it is a really strong example, culturally, of a play a storytelling-play deprived brain, right? I often find people who really struggle with just really low energy some depression, sometimes chronic [00:27:00] pain, are actually kinesthetic players. That really crave movement, but they may have only been exposed to linear movement. Do it this way, and then they're like, I don't want to! So their body starts to shut down. That was me for a very long time. And then I think a lot of times some of the patterns I see for intellectual players is that they get seen as controlling, instead of some head high energy rigid in their thinking, because they actually have really intuitive frameworks around predictive problem solving, around predictive creativity. And when that is not given enough space, we try, our bodies are always trying to engage in these kind of play flows. that get stuck when we're not identifying our personal patterns of play. And so I often find that people there is a inner Entanglement between their play deprivation and their play [00:28:00] styles and, like, where they're, like, mental health wise struggling or just lifestyle struggling. again, play is a very anti ABA, right? There's no expectation that you would behave or perform a certain way as a result of play. It is really, truly about liberating the best of our humanness. And that's gonna look different for everybody.

[00:28:22] Sara: You're blowing my mind.

[00:28:24] TJ: Good!

I want people to really understand and feel play as a different thing than Like, frivolous whimsical, joker-y style of play. Because that is such a small quantity of players.

[00:28:41] Sara: It's just such a revolutionary thought that play is a space to be embodied exactly as you are whether it's with yourself or with other people who are not judging or evaluating, they are also [00:29:00] regulated and in that zone with you.

[00:29:03] TJ: let me pull something out that you just said. Because when we're in play, we're not exactly regulated. We are a little bit scared. And we are judging and we are evaluating. And I think this is part of we are on when we are playing, right? Like it would make no sense to go to a soccer game and not judge the other players on the field and not to judge your other teammates. Like absolutely. Like judgment is a big part of play, right? That's a big part of who's the best passer. Who's the best receiver. Who do I want to compete against? so we're not super regulated. We're not in that social rest and digest. it's like there's an alive experimentation. There's a high level of vulnerability in play. And this is why it's so critical to assess for safety. For play because it's super vulnerable one of the things that's so powerful to me in learning about play And so when we talk about leveling the playing field and that's a real thing There's a beautiful story about this like hiker who was in the woods with his [00:30:00] dog and this bear Came out of the woods and was like clearly malnourished and this his dog rushed to the bear and he got so scared that this bear was going to maul his dog and it said both animals Like took on the play bodies, right? The dogs go like kind of chest down butt up and wiggle, And the bears like go up like this belly forward, right? This is an incredibly vulnerable place to be And so like in order to play we both have to abandon the power structure while also stepping in to empowerment. And so this is what's so important about co creating a play experience is co creating a power structure that works for people. And this is also why I think play as a social revolutionary practice is that if we learn how to be better play buddies, we build a more equitable education system, social justice system, financial system, where everybody has a chance to play.

[00:30:57] Sara: what I'm hearing [00:31:00] is the emphasis you're putting is on that all hinges on the safety,it's because even like thinking about the way I talked about it, for me to feel safe, it has to be sub threshold, when really, that's not play, if it's sub threshold.

 

[00:31:19] TJ: I'm gonna be a little scared.

[00:31:22] Sara: this is so important, I wanted You to talk to my listeners because we're not all the same. Everybody who listens here is different, I was a mini old person. I am a top down, big brain, all the thinking have a hard time with social cues. All the list goes on. And I've done all the therapy for years, and what you talk about is, this is wild what I'm going to say, what you talk about, I feel in my body, which I never say in therapy, that's not [00:32:00] something, I've had all the therapy to what does your body say? And my body says it doesn't say, but when you talk about play this way, My body

[00:32:09] TJ: Turns on.

[00:32:10] Sara: and that's not something that I have in other settings, so I'm just really excited to have more people hear about what you're doing, and then also the other side of that is then we're not in control of other people's responses or reactions or judgments, but we are in control of what we consent to and when we can revoke consent. And so I think that's a really important piece too, to say it is really vulnerable, or it is just the right amount vulnerable.

[00:32:48] TJ: and that eventually the greatest relationships come with like, yo, that response did not land right. Conflict is a form of play and that is what we really need as a [00:33:00] culture is not to be forced to share, like not to be, keep it all ourselves, but to enter this conflict based relationship because there is, conflict is this form of there is something that is in you and within me that like deserves to meet and share and to learn from each other.

[00:33:21] Sara: it's one of my favorite quotes is from a book, and it's something along the lines of living beings need something to push off of. Yes

I first,

[00:33:30] TJ: Oh my God. I love that quote.

[00:33:32] Sara: I'll send it to you, like I first read it in a conflict resolution training and it, life changing. So before we get into part two, is there anything else you want to share with us foundationally?

[00:33:46] TJ: I just want to highlight I think there's a lot of people who getthat experience where you've had therapists ask you like, how does that feel in your body? But if you're a top down person, like that question's not going to resonate, but that doesn't mean we can't [00:34:00] get. to the body through play, right? And that again, we have this sort of framework right now in trauma work where it's all about bottom up work and somatic work and experiential work, which is my base. I love working with in that way. And coming from that direction is not the only way to get into the body. And so like, yes, like I, it, it made me truly emotional for you to like, be able to notice like, Oh, play is in the body. Shoot.

I can feel things. Damn it! She trapped me. She trapped me

[00:34:34] Sara: Live therapy on the podcast.

[00:34:37] TJ: alright, so that's where we're gonna end our first conversation and then come back next week because next week's episode is about putting what we've talked about today into practice. So thank you so much, TJ. I can't wait to see you next week.

​Sara: Thank you for joining and listening. I really can't wait to hear from you about what in this episode resonated, so I would love to hear your feedback. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our newsletter at findrc.co/newsletter, so you can hear about everything happening all at once before the general public.

If there's anything I said today that you have questions about, you can find

me at Sara Lobkovich pretty much everywhere. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one. You're always invited to contact me by email. The easiest one to [00:32:00] spell is sara, S A R A at Thinkydoers.com. If you have other Thinkydoers in your work world, please pass this episode along. We really appreciate your referrals, your mentions, your shares, and your reviews.

Thank you for tuning in today. And I look forward to hearing the questions this prompts for you.

In the foreground is the copy: Thinkydoers: The science of play. In the background is a picture of Sara on the left. On the right is a collage of TJ playing outside, swinging on a swing, stooping to play in the dirt in the forest, and dancing.
Sara Lobkovich
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