Rethinking Play

Play is not just fluff; it is as essential as rest, movement, and connection, and its absence can be costly.

How do your perceptions of play shape the way you engage with it?

We are messy–buttoned people. We carry both polish and mud on our shoes. We wear all the hats, juggle all the roles—all the time—yet somehow hold these paradoxes together.

Play, like us, isn’t one-dimensional. Sure, it can look structured, like a board game with rules, roles, and boundaries. But it can also be loose, improvised, and wide open, like playground play. Most of the time, it lives somewhere in between. Just like us: layered, contrasting, and fully human.

Play creates space where more of ourselves can shine through, be engaged,  and utilized — the multidimensional us. The messy–buttoned people us.

Unfortunately, play is so often misunderstood, undervalued, or completely dismissed. It’s seen as a “nice-to-have,” something reserved for children, the less serious, or something you let out once in a while, maybe on the weekends. We engage with it in passing for our kids, but not always with our kids. We rarely fully immerse ourselves in it. We treat it as nostalgia, something we’ve outgrown or a guilty pleasure we sneak in between the serious business of life. But there are a lucky few of us who’ve found our way back to play through our careers. 

We’re the ones trying to shout above the crowd: “Play is vital.” 

But even when play makes it into adult conversations, it barely skims the surface, reduced to a top-level nod instead of being recognized for the depth it truly holds, and for all the ways and spaces it can impact our lives. We’re still only scratching the surface of its potential. Of our potential. Something deeper is going on. And just like us, there is another side to play.

We’re seeing a massive surge in play and games in spaces normally reserved for the staunch and serious because there’s a deep need for it. A need for healing, for stress recovery, for innovative ways forward in a time of constant change and upheaval. Play rises because people are searching for new energy, new connection, new resilience. A new perspective.

Play is not an add-on. It’s not a bonus. It’s as essential to our wellbeing as rest, movement, nourishment, and connection. And its absence is consequential at all ages. That’s why it’s imperative that we dig even deeper into play.

When we reframe play this way, we begin to see its magnitude. 

Play helps us navigate:

• Stress and burnout recovery

• Strengthening focus and resilience

• Sparking creativity and innovation

• Rebuilding connections and trust

• Diving into the unknown to uncover strengths, overcome fears, and imagine new possibilities

Research show us it matters everywhere: in teams, in families, in communities, and in classrooms. 

And it matters to everyone:  adults at work, for teachers molding the future, for parents holding it all together, for leaders navigating change, for career pivoters, and for hidden talent waiting to be seen.

My own journey has shown me that play is about shifting perspective and building resilience. Over the years, I’ve been an educator, a creative leader in corporate and startup spaces, a collaborator in higher ed and government, an artist, a storyteller, a builder of products and strategy, and later stepped into the roles of entrepreneur, wife, and mother.

Like play itself, I’ve never fit neatly into one bucket. That’s why I believe in creating space for all of our facets to shine: the many roles, skills, and sides of ourselves.

The cognitive tool I created, The Doodle Challenge™, evolved across these spaces. It began in education, then became a brainstorming warm-up, then a way to spark connection in meetings, then as a way to break the ice in new social settings. It blossomed into a tool for stress and trauma recovery.

October is a month centered on mental health and wellbeing. As we step into this new season, of the year and ourselves, it’s worth remembering that play is not fluff, not a guilty pleasure, not a once-in-a-while escape, not just fun. It’s intrinsic. It’s invaluable. And it’s irreplaceable.

That’s why I created The Doodle Challenge™ — not as a distraction, but as a science-backed game suite that helps shift perspective, spark creativity, reduce stress, and reconnect us when life feels forced or disconnected. An instrument to remind us that play holds power — for recovery, for resilience, for innovation.

Because a shift is in order. We owe it to ourselves, our families, our communities, our work spaces —wherever, however we show up — to not just play, but to play well.

So we can heal. So we can connect. So we can create what’s next.

And so we can tap into our full potential: the hidden and the seen, the depths we hold, the fullness of us. 

Messy buttons and all.