Bringing Play Back Into Your Life: Fall Edition

When thinking of the Fall season, we often think of children trick or treating, copious amounts of candy, scary movies, and lots and lots of pumpkins! Halloween is a holiday focused on the joy of children with maybe a little bit of fear sprinkled in there. As we grow up, we often lose sight of what it was like to experience that childhood joy and magic. For some, we might not have ever gotten to experience that joy because our households weren’t safe or secure.

Bringing play back into your life is one way to start healing your inner child. Healing your inner child refers to healing the parts of you that remain hurt from childhood experiences, releasing the shame accompanied by those experiences, and changing the narrative that keeps you feeling stuck. While working to heal your inner child should be done accompanied by a professional, you can start to make space for your inner child now by incorporating more play into your everyday life!

Let’s start out with exploring your inner child with these questions:

• What aspects of your childhood are no longer a part of you?

  • These can be hobbies or interests (sports, music, entertainment, arts, etc.)

    • Do you want to make space for these aspects?

    • Why are these aspects no longer a part of you?

    • How can you create time to bring back these parts of you?

    • What value will bringing these aspects give to your life?

      • This one can be tricky but think of it from a child’s perspective. A child in a safe and secure environment would never turn down the opportunity to play!

Now that you have a list of things that used to be a part of your childhood, determine what activities you can start with. For example: As a child, you loved baking treats with your Grandma every Fall. This was an experience with fond memories and you felt joy. Currently, you live a busy life where you haven’t baked in years. Start with making space for the activities that used to bring joy. Go find the recipe or one like it, turn on some music that reminds you of Grandma, and skip the Netflix binge session that has taken a sacred spot on your Friday night calendar, and bake the treats! The idea here is that you are saying to your inner child, you are still worth that quality time with yourself, you are still worth creating joyful moments.

Everyone’s inner child activities will be different but the overall goal is to pick activities that bring back play and fun into your life! As we know, play and fun are the first things to go when life gets stressful and hard but play and fun help combat the impact of that same stress!

Let’s take this a step further and ask yourself:

• What did I always want to do as a child?

  • This might have been that activity that your parents couldn’t afford or said no to. This might be the activity that everyone else got to do but you.

    • Think about the message you internalized about why you couldn’t go.

      • Ask yourself, how can I make this happen for my younger self now?

Create a list of activities that your younger self would have been so excited to do! For example: You always wanted to go through a corn maze but never got to. Start by reminding yourself that it’s okay to take some time to go play and find the nearest corn maze, grab a corn maze companion and go have fun!

Autumn is a great excuse for children of all ages (even the children lost inside of all of us) to play and have fun! In the end, healing your inner child comes down to you reversing some of the messages you have internalized from childhood. You are worthy of having time to play, You are deserving of relaxing and taking a break, You are worthy of having hobbies and interests that are just for you. Take advantage of the season of costumes and candy and bring out your inner child!

Having trouble coming up with your own list, here are more examples:

• Dress up in your favorite costume or as your favorite character (whether you have Halloween plans or not)

• Pick up your favorite candy

• Make those crafts that you used to love

• Watch your favorite Halloween/spooky shows or movies

• Read your favorite books

• Restart your collection (Let’s be honest, we all collected something as a child)

• Create art that you used to love

• Play a favorite sport from childhood

• Break out your most loved video games or board games

One final thought, don’t just think about your inner child, think about your inner teenager too!