Playful Healing: Emotional Recovery Workshop Through Play & Playfulness

"Fun is a spiritual thing. It is often a healing thing. It changes our perspective: on ourselves, our bodies, our relationships, our community. It changes our energy, our mood, our worldview. It brings us moments of happiness, of peace, freedom. It frees us even from ourselves.

- Bernard De Koven

The Playful Healing: Emotional Recovery Workshop Through Play & Playfulness is around 2 hours long. We will start with playful improv games designed to open up emotional channels and laugh in a safe sharing environment full of new friends that understand what you are experiencing. The session is open to all, no previous experience of Improv is required, just willingness to participate.

“Improvisation can be a lot of fun and involves the practice of mindful participating with spontaneity. It also involves letting go of being separate from others and throwing oneself into the story plot that is unfolding as each person takes a turn. if you have an improv teacher who can come to teach a group class, or if one of your group leaders has experience with improv (or is willing to read up and experiment with it), this can be a very good way to increase participants' (arid your own) mindful participation skills”.

In addition the DBT manual recommends laughter as therapeutic as “laughing can have very positive effects on health and happiness” (DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) Skills Training Manual, Marsha M. Linehan, Nov. 2014)

In this workshop we will introducing 2 skills from DBT as a daily practice, half a smile and willing hands.

"The skills of half-smiling and willing hands are usually taught together and are ways to accept reality with the body. In half-smiling, facial muscles are relaxed, with lips slightly upturned at the corners.Because emotions are partially controlled by facial or expressions, adopting this facial expression helps clients feel more accepting, In willing hands, the hands are unclenched, with palms Lip and fingers relayed, Willing hands arc the opposite of clenched hands, which are indicative of anger and of fighting to change reality." (DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) Skills Training Manual, Marsha M. Linehan, Nov. 2014)

Laughter idea was proposed by Marsha Linehan, PhD as a way to illustrate mindfulness and full participation. Meditation and mindfulness involve being fully and completely aware of the moment. Laughing requires that we are fully present and have complete awareness. Linehan notes that, if the laughter is genuine, then self-consciousness disappears. All too often, we are in a place or an activity, and our minds are doing a million other things. The laughter is a way to help us to learn to be fully present in a fun, playful and a pleasant environment.

In this workshop we will be exploring:

1) Building trust within the group

2) Being present and in peace

3) Improving our listening skills

4) Negotiating inner conflicts

5) Explore the inner and deeper self which is beyond ourselves

6) Engaging with our inner source of playfulness and creativity

7) Accepting and rejoicing life as is

8) Releasing tension and stress

9) Exploring spirituality and inner wisdom within the group

10) Reflecting on a path that is pathless

This Playful Healing workshop is interactive, experiential group work; we will explore our inner wisdom, spirituality and become aware of different possibilities. We will be working in a supportive, non-judgmental environment with discussion, demonstration, movement, sharing, role-play and improvisation exercises in small groups. In the process, we may discover new insights into ourselves.

Bart Sumner, actor and Improv teacher, developed Healing Improv: Comedy Improv Grief Workshop based on a personal grief and loss. Bart Sumner explains Healing Improv “as an interactive workshop of improvisational exercises for people dealing with grief from the death of a loved one, or medical situations in their life or the life of loved one, who feel overwhelmed by the circumstances and are having trouble moving forward in their lives. That’s the long description. The short description is, it’s fun comedy improve games to help you learn to laugh again.

One of the keys to Healing Improv’s success is this connection to the ability of people to let go of the social norms and constrains that the adult world has put on them. These games and exercises reach people on a playful level, and enable them to reconnect with their youthful spirit, which is not afraid to laugh, cry and express it’s emotions freely. All too often people suffering from grief and depression are told ‘get over it’, or ‘move on’. Those who are suffering in their pain are told, if not directly, at least my implication, that their pain is not acceptable in the grown-up world and they need to get past it. The trust is we never ‘get over it’. It’s absurd that our society treat grief and heartache in the manner, when grief over the loss of a loved one is something that happens to almost everyone at one time or another.

The key is learning to recognize the pain and find a way to integrate it into our lives where we understand it, and can accept its existence and direct it into a positive influence in our lives, not a destructive one. Through creativity and participation, the games free the participants to let go of societal restrains in a safe environment. Simply put, it gives people the permission to act foolish and be free within a group of individuals who are going through similar emotional trials in their own lives.” From ‘Healing Improv: Journey Through Grief to Laughter’ by Bart Sumner, 2014. Further details on Bart Sumner and his work at http://www.healing-improv.org

Recommended Reading: 'A Playful Path' by Bernard de Koven, 2014. You can download a free copy from here

http://www.aplayfulpath.com/

Who is this workshop for: anybody recovering from emotional suffering, trauma, depression, anxiety, loss, grief, socially anxious, anybody who is looking for a safe space to share and explore.

How much?

£10 for all

Where?

Theatre Delicatessen, Rehearsal Room 1

The session is offered by Nat Tsolak

Nat is a coach, Improv teacher and consultant with over 15 years international experience in training, leading and facilitating groups. Nat puts positive psychology into practice with fun, play and laughter.

Nat is trained in Improvisational acting and drama by Keith Johnstone (Author of Impro) and in stand up comedy by Logan Murrey (Author of 'Be a Great Stand-Up: Teach Yourself').

Nat holds Masters in Psychology from Glasgow University and MBA from Imperial College Business School. Nat is a member of the British Psychological Society.

"Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life."