Speaker 1: Welcome to the Psychology Podcast, where we give you insights
Speaker 1: into the mind, brain, behavior and creativity. I'm doctor Scott
Speaker 1: Barry Kaufman, and in each episode I have a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guest who will stimulate your mind and give
Speaker 1: you a greater understanding of yourself, others, and the world
Speaker 1: to live in. Hopefully we'll also provide a glimpse into
Speaker 1: human possibility. Thanks for listening and enjoy the podcast today.
Speaker 1: It's a great pleasure to have Gwen Gordon on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Gordon began her career building muppets for Sesame Street. Since
Speaker 1: leaving Sesame Street, Gwen developed Awakened Play, a play based
Speaker 1: approach to making behavior change irresistible and transformation delightful. She
Speaker 1: has applied her insights and organizations ranging from San Quentin
Speaker 1: Prison to the MIT Media Lab, and from IDEO to
Speaker 1: Pepsi Company. Along the way, Gwen has collected a master's
Speaker 1: degree in philosophy and an Emmy Award in children's programming.
Speaker 1: Her latest book is The Wonderful w which is the
Speaker 1: first picture book for grownups. Hey, so great to chat
Speaker 1: with you today, Gwen. Great to be here with you, Scott.
Speaker 1: Is this the first I just want to clarify something.
Speaker 1: Is this the first picture book for grown ups you've
Speaker 1: done or that ever in the history of the world. Well,
Speaker 1: being a complete authority on the history of the world,
Speaker 1: I can say definitively, I have absolutely no idea. No,
Speaker 1: there have definitely been picture books for grown ups, and
Speaker 1: it's actually not my even my first picture book for
Speaker 1: grown ups. It's the first one I've published, though, Okay,
Speaker 1: the first one you pomplished. Well, cool, I mean I
Speaker 1: loved it. I still do love it. I love it.
Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, I'd love hearing that. Well, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the plot a little bit of the wonderful little
Speaker 1: w But you know, maybe we shouldn't give away like
Speaker 1: the ending or something, because we won't people like buy it. Right, So,
Speaker 1: like the basic premise, you know that we try all
Speaker 1: sorts of well, you can tell me if i'm my
Speaker 1: interpretation of the basic premise is correct after reading it,
Speaker 1: But that we try to fill our deficiency, our whole
Speaker 1: in our hearts up with so many of the wrong
Speaker 1: things that we think are going to fill us up
Speaker 1: that maybe only temporarily do so, and we very rarely,
Speaker 1: you know, we spend almost our whole lives, avoiding ourselves
Speaker 1: and looking and examining what lies deep within? Is that
Speaker 1: a fair summation, a good encapsulation. I would add a
Speaker 1: few things, but I'm impressed. Well thanks, No, feel free
Speaker 1: to add or modifier change. That's what I got from it,
Speaker 1: And you know, it resonated so much with me because
Speaker 1: of you know, I consider myself a humanistic psychologist, and
Speaker 1: the core philosophy of human psychology is becoming a whole
Speaker 1: person and living an examined life, you know, So I
Speaker 1: just resonated with me so much. It's it was such
Speaker 1: a wonderful book. So congratulations on it, by the way,
Speaker 1: thank you. Yeah. One of my favorit. Our teachers said
Speaker 1: told me once said, everything every strategy we have as personalities, adjusting, managing,
Speaker 1: negotiating our world, everything is actually fear of the void,
Speaker 1: and the void being the void being really the sense
Speaker 1: of our own so sort of deep hunch about our
Speaker 1: Then this is a spiritual perspective. So you know, this
Speaker 1: won't include everybody listening, I know, but it's the hunch
Speaker 1: that we actually don't exist as a solid, separate self,
Speaker 1: and everything we're doing is trying to compensate for the
Speaker 1: sense of deficiency that comes from that basic lack of
Speaker 1: substantial self outside of our defenses against it. So that's
Speaker 1: a big that's a big leap. Oh no, and it's
Speaker 1: an existential leap. It's great. You have you come across
Speaker 1: our Bielm's work. No, oh well, you do love it,
Speaker 1: you'd love it. And he talks a lot about you know,
Speaker 1: we have this need for belonging, but then there's like
Speaker 1: a deeper, like existential need for belonging. It's like there's
Speaker 1: actually Carl Rogers talking about a lot too. You know,
Speaker 1: we have this like superficial need to belong but then
Speaker 1: there's this other kind of like deeper awareness of the
Speaker 1: fact that we will always be separate no matter what
Speaker 1: we do, no matter what we engage ourselves in, no
Speaker 1: matter how much we try to associate with people to
Speaker 1: fulfill that need, there will always be this existential need
Speaker 1: because we are ultimately at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, dialone. It's not a very uplifting view. It
Speaker 1: characterizes as existentialists. Yes, very well, I think the book
Speaker 1: is really and my own philosophy is not existential I
Speaker 1: actually have had directly as depressing. No, no, it's not.
Speaker 1: You know by the book that there's actually a way
Speaker 1: to experience wholeness, and it comes from really facing fully
Speaker 1: and experiencing without any resistance that sense of deficiency. Like,
Speaker 1: that's the doorway the sense of wholeness, and that's the
Speaker 1: wonderful w turning the holes into holes. Well, reading your
Speaker 1: book made me feel better about my existence than reading
Speaker 1: exercential philosophy. But I don't know who's more right. I
Speaker 1: hope you're right. Well alone, that was worth it. Yeah, well, wonderful.
Speaker 1: You know, I'd like to back up a little bit
Speaker 1: talking about you know, you're such an interesting human being
Speaker 1: and have done so many varied things. I'd like to
Speaker 1: back up a second and go back to age nineteen
Speaker 1: when you got your dream job. Tell me about that. Oh, well,
Speaker 1: that was the job working for the Muppets. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a story about how I got the job. There's
Speaker 1: a story about being at the Muppets. What are you
Speaker 1: most interested in? I want to know, like what that
Speaker 1: time period, what was going on at Sesame Street at
Speaker 1: that time, Like, I want to know everything. Who did
Speaker 1: you interact with? Which muppets did you meet? You know,
Speaker 1: did you meet in the Kermit, the Frog did you
Speaker 1: have a conversation with Kermit the Frog? This is what
Speaker 1: I want to know. Yes, yeah, well those are very
Speaker 1: important questions, and I'm glad I can answer them. I
Speaker 1: have met Kermit the Frog quite have quite like intimately deeply. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have performed surgery on Kermit the Frog. I've explored
Speaker 1: his inner world. Oh gosh, this is you know this
Speaker 1: is a g rated podcast, Gwen. Yeah, well it might
Speaker 1: comfort your listeners to know that he doesn't actually exist
Speaker 1: from the waist down. Oh okay, we don't want to
Speaker 1: put an explicit rating on this chat then, given the
Speaker 1: biblical senses, actually quite still quite superficial. Yeah, so there
Speaker 1: were only five. So when I came to Muppets, it
Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty four, possibly three, and I'm terrible at dates,
Speaker 1: and I actually arrived. I you know what, Actually it
Speaker 1: was coming full circle. I got the job partly because
Speaker 1: of a puppet that I made that you know, I
Speaker 1: had never made a puppet before, and I decided I
Speaker 1: would just try one, and I sent it. It It was
Speaker 1: a big bird called Clyde, And I sent the bird
Speaker 1: as if he was applying for the job, with a
Speaker 1: little note saying, you know, big book is my favorite
Speaker 1: role model. I'm ready to renest Mack, you know. And
Speaker 1: then I got the interview, and what I brought to
Speaker 1: the interview was I wrote and illustrated a children's book
Speaker 1: for grown ups, my first one when I was sixteen,
Speaker 1: called I Think In my Last Life I must have
Speaker 1: been a Rabbit. And it was for my college application.
Speaker 1: I actually was in Holland my senior year and I
Speaker 1: didn't really wasn't that motivated to focus on my big
Speaker 1: college career. I was actually having a great time, and
Speaker 1: I thought, well, I'll write this book. And you know,
Speaker 1: they got my test scores, I got everything else. But
Speaker 1: I'll write this book if and I'll send it and
Speaker 1: if I don't get in, I probably won't go to college.
Speaker 1: And it was my first choice, early decision school actually
Speaker 1: probably Wesleyan, which was right your alma mater. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: I got in, which you know, luckily I would not
Speaker 1: have probably gone to school. It's my only college application.
Speaker 1: And I brought the book, this book to my interview
Speaker 1: at Muppets and was wearing everything I wore I had made,
Speaker 1: so that got me the job. And they're only at
Speaker 1: the time they were they were making Muppets take Manhattan,
Speaker 1: so they nice. I loved that. I loved that movie.
Speaker 1: Where did you work on that movie? Yeah? I made
Speaker 1: the fish in the fish scene where they're throwing fish
Speaker 1: at the theater. Yeah, of course. So that was sort
Speaker 1: of the summer job. But in the in the fall,
Speaker 1: Sesame Street season goes from September to January, so they
Speaker 1: brought kept me in to work on Sesame Street. And
Speaker 1: Sesame Street only had a team of like four or
Speaker 1: five people. It's the only one to five people. So
Speaker 1: we were responsible for everything, Like we would read scripts
Speaker 1: every week and we'd you know, make a list of
Speaker 1: all the things that were needed. And sometimes there were
Speaker 1: new characters that came in, and sometimes they were anything muppets,
Speaker 1: you know, like anonymous girl, you know, father, and then
Speaker 1: sometimes they involved the classic characters in costumes, and sometimes
Speaker 1: there are props like Slimy the Worms basketball court or
Speaker 1: Stuffalopagus his nose flute, or a budge just singing bananas
Speaker 1: or that kind of thing, and we just would you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I made a made a chorus of singing bananas, and
Speaker 1: so yeah, we would we would build stuff each week,
Speaker 1: and I was really lucky my first year. I got
Speaker 1: to design new characters, because we just wrote sketches when
Speaker 1: there were new characters and sent them up to Michael Frith,
Speaker 1: who was the art director, and he would choose the
Speaker 1: ones he liked. And my very first year he chose
Speaker 1: my characters. So they were the Rockheads. These little rocks
Speaker 1: that had little would come alive when someone walked by them.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so we would repair, Kermit, we would repair,
Speaker 1: we would refurbish, grow over. We were like every time
Speaker 1: there was a shoot, we'd come, bring the puppets back
Speaker 1: and clean them up and polish their eyeballs and call
Speaker 1: it today. Yeah, I just Google imaged the Rockheads and
Speaker 1: I'll put a picture up on the show notes. That's
Speaker 1: so correct. Actually a shot of the Rockheads. Oh, there's
Speaker 1: hundreds and hundreds. In fact, there's a whole Muppet wiki page.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness about the Rockheads. A group of characters
Speaker 1: who lived on an empty lot on Sesame Street. They
Speaker 1: were created to teach the concept of what is alive
Speaker 1: and what is not? Is that true? Levy? I have
Speaker 1: to google now to see if they're the same ones,
Speaker 1: because who knows, maybe later on they they were that
Speaker 1: they were like, well, just put in your chat chat
Speaker 1: window the link. Oh good, okay. They appeared in episode
Speaker 1: one nineteen thirty nine, where they tried to decide how
Speaker 1: many of them there would be if one of them left,
Speaker 1: with David teaching them subtraction to figure out. At the
Speaker 1: end of the same episode, they provide a rock concert
Speaker 1: doing their own rendition of the Sesame Street theme. Is
Speaker 1: this a ringing bell at all? Those were shot, those
Speaker 1: episodes weren't shot when I was there for Oh, there
Speaker 1: we go. Excuse me? Yeah, those are my characters. Yay, god, yay,
Speaker 1: that's too funny. Yes, those were my first That was
Speaker 1: my very first year as nineteen years old, and I
Speaker 1: created and designed these little Well, they should give you
Speaker 1: credit on the wiki page they link. Nobody gets individual
Speaker 1: car Okay, that's always just well, you're getting credit now
Speaker 1: because it's on the record now at the Psychology podcast. Oh,
Speaker 1: Ed Christy, No, it actually gave credit to Oh that's funny.
Speaker 1: It gives credit to Ed Christy, who did not design
Speaker 1: and build them. Oh that is not cool. I have
Speaker 1: been I've been ripped off. Yeah, that is actually not cool.
Speaker 1: So Ed, he's a wonderful, wonderful person. Yeah. Yeah, puppets, Yeah, good. Well,
Speaker 1: we're going to correct the record right now. We love
Speaker 1: doing that on the Psychology podcast. So let's move on
Speaker 1: in your life. Then you designed computer PlayStations for children.
Speaker 1: Is this before computers were computers? Well, no, this was
Speaker 1: like let's see eighty five eight. This was after Muppet.
Speaker 1: So it was the heyday of the media lab, you know,
Speaker 1: when interactive multimedia was exploding onto the scene. And Marvin Minsky,
Speaker 1: who's the sort of father of artificial intelligence, and Alan Kay,
Speaker 1: one of the Apple luminaries, were there and I felt
Speaker 1: like Forrest Gump. I was like getting to be in
Speaker 1: all these places with the originators and the stars of
Speaker 1: the field. So Alan Kay was our advisor for the
Speaker 1: Vivarium was an Apple research group that was exploring how
Speaker 1: to teach children about animal behavior, and there was a
Speaker 1: master's thesis project in that lab and they wanted to
Speaker 1: create this big furry computer PlayStation. This was when the
Speaker 1: Apple two gs was. Oh my gosh, that was my
Speaker 1: first computer. Yes, yeah, so I ended up developing on
Speaker 1: the twogs even after that. I remember hearing that from you.
Speaker 1: So you heard that from me, Well, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: listening to some interviews that you did. I mentioned at
Speaker 1: some point because that was my first computer. Oh, I've
Speaker 1: talked about it before. I don't remember talking about it before.
Speaker 1: That's so cool that you heard that. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my first computer and I my grandmam bought it for
Speaker 1: me because she wanted to. She thought that I would
Speaker 1: would take to it, and I instantly took to it.
Speaker 1: I actually started programming games on it. I program this
Speaker 1: game called Mystery, but I still have saved. I have
Speaker 1: the Apple to gs in my basement. I wonder if
Speaker 1: it's worth something. I wonder if it's worth something. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So we were trying to The computer was housed inside
Speaker 1: the creature's stomach. You can actually do another Google search
Speaker 1: for newby by b Ie Okay, my TV lab. It
Speaker 1: was in Stuart Brand's book. So it's just wonderful creature.
Speaker 1: And they wanted muppets to make it, to build it
Speaker 1: for them, but they were coming into some problems with
Speaker 1: the IP and so the workshop. I had moved to
Speaker 1: Cambridge by then, and the workshop leader, Jim Morrison his name,
Speaker 1: he sent them to me. He just said, Gwen'll build it.
Speaker 1: Just you know, she's there, no problems. So I just
Speaker 1: became part of the team, and I was building this
Speaker 1: big creature, and then I also did all the animations
Speaker 1: because it was basically like a huge mister potato Head
Speaker 1: that you just squeeze the different body parts and an
Speaker 1: animated version would appear on the screen and cycle through
Speaker 1: whatever different kinds of those body parts where there's a
Speaker 1: if you're squeezing the hand, it might become a claw
Speaker 1: or you know, a fin, or any number of things.
Speaker 1: So you could create your own animals by sight, like
Speaker 1: mister potato Head, and then find out how they survived
Speaker 1: in different environments. And that was the way children learned.
Speaker 1: And so I did all the animations and the user
Speaker 1: and the all the UI, and and you know, just
Speaker 1: got into that world. And then after leaving the lab,
Speaker 1: the woman whose master's thesis that was, and I started
Speaker 1: at a company called Telltale Technologies, and we were creating
Speaker 1: other kinds of alternative input devices, mostly stuffed animals. Does
Speaker 1: that seemed to be what I could do? So yeah,
Speaker 1: that was that chapter. Oh cool, you're such an interesting person,
Speaker 1: so let's let's move on. You know, you got a
Speaker 1: master's degree in philosophy. I was wondering, how have you
Speaker 1: applied philosophy have you applied do you apply it in
Speaker 1: your work? Oh? Yeah, well it was really like, you know,
Speaker 1: all these different seeds that were there as a child,
Speaker 1: I was, you know, even at Muppets. I was taking
Speaker 1: critical theory classes at night at the New School while
Speaker 1: I was so I'd be constructing Muppets during the day
Speaker 1: and be constructing them at night and thinking really critically
Speaker 1: about what are we really doing? What is what are
Speaker 1: messages are we conveying with these characters that were not
Speaker 1: necessarily conscious of, you know, Kermit being a reptile, you know,
Speaker 1: as the leader, a cold blooded like essentially green male,
Speaker 1: I mean white male, and the mayhem that he's able
Speaker 1: to hold, and that the feminine Miss Piggy is like femininity,
Speaker 1: femaleness occupies the entire landscape of her personality. Have you
Speaker 1: met Miss Piggy? Oh yeah, Oh my gosh. I had
Speaker 1: such a crush on Miss Piggy when I was five
Speaker 1: years old. I've never admitted that to anyone before. Wow,
Speaker 1: I think he might be rare. Really, Miss Piggy is
Speaker 1: slightly designed to repel or scare men. You know, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I never knew that I missed that memo. I thought
Speaker 1: she was like, really fierce, Well you're in luck because
Speaker 1: she is an archetype and I'm sure that many women
Speaker 1: carry that, so you might be able to find it somewhere.
Speaker 1: That's hilarious. Okay, okay, anyway, So I was anyway, even
Speaker 1: at the media lab, I was very much wasn't just
Speaker 1: happy making. I am happy making, but I am also
Speaker 1: really a thinker, and so I was asking difficult questions
Speaker 1: and you know, like is this really good? How we
Speaker 1: know this is? You know, what we're doing is really
Speaker 1: of service? And anyway, so it was like a wonderful
Speaker 1: thing to be able to finally focus my full attention
Speaker 1: on the question the philosophical questions that I always had.
Speaker 1: So that really what that did was it shifted me
Speaker 1: from just being a creator to being reflecting on creating
Speaker 1: and reflecting on the deeper principles that apply to a
Speaker 1: creative life. And that's when I started actually looking to
Speaker 1: understand play, or I wasn't really looking to understand. I
Speaker 1: had a deep intuition about play like that that it
Speaker 1: had a potency that was beyond the way been you know,
Speaker 1: characterized and trivialized in our Protestant work ethic. You know, culture.
Speaker 1: So I was drawn. Studying philosophy sharpened my tools for
Speaker 1: cracking the nut that I had always had around the
Speaker 1: sense of what is this power of play? And so
Speaker 1: I you know, that definitely shifted my life. After studying philosophy,
Speaker 1: I started teaching about I also studied cosmology. I was
Speaker 1: looking at deeper evolutionary principles and just the question of ultimacy,
Speaker 1: you know, from different through different lenses, like what what
Speaker 1: are the ultimate physical principles? And from a cosmological perspective,
Speaker 1: what are the ultimate philosophical principles? What is happening here?
Speaker 1: And what are we here for? And how do we
Speaker 1: participate fully in this seventeen billion year old universe that
Speaker 1: gave rise to us? And you know, just what is
Speaker 1: life for and about? And what does play have to
Speaker 1: do with that? So what's the answer forty two? I
Speaker 1: don't have no Now I have no I don't have
Speaker 1: to do any more podcast episodes. There again, I got it.
Speaker 1: We're a full service podcast interview. Well, how you applied
Speaker 1: your work to lots of domans? I mean, look, how
Speaker 1: do you help weight watchers, you know with play? Like
Speaker 1: can I play my way to lose fifty pounds, we're
Speaker 1: really bouncing around. Yeah, it's all connected. It's all connected.
Speaker 1: Is it? Absolutely is? So I was glib when I
Speaker 1: said forty two, of course, but I it's obviously you
Speaker 1: were not entirely serious about the question. And it's of
Speaker 1: course you know, it's something I've I've unpacked a lot
Speaker 1: and have and how it applies. So I've been looking at, well,
Speaker 1: what are the insights that I've got. How can I
Speaker 1: apply the insights that I've gotten about power of play?
Speaker 1: And with weight Watchers, I was brought into help create
Speaker 1: a more playful meeting experience and to help socialize the
Speaker 1: whole organization around the value of play, you know, which
Speaker 1: has historically been since they're also very rooted in hard science,
Speaker 1: as you know, as chonal for everything they do, they
Speaker 1: don't have the they hadn't really caught up on the
Speaker 1: hard science of play, and they always thought of play
Speaker 1: as something that was versus everything they were trying to do.
Speaker 1: And I was really shifting their perspective to see it
Speaker 1: as via everything they were trying to do. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: did you do that with pepsi? Is that what you
Speaker 1: did with pepsi as well? And ARP and they know basic.
Speaker 1: That was the basic theme of what you were brought
Speaker 1: in for. No, each one was really different. ARP was
Speaker 1: hatching their Hatchery, which is their innovation think tank. They're
Speaker 1: now well known for it. They took a big leap
Speaker 1: and brought themselves fully into a twenty first century innovation
Speaker 1: culture with this beautiful space called the Hatchery to innovate
Speaker 1: new products and ideas. And I was brought in to
Speaker 1: do some workshops on one of the principles for innovation,
Speaker 1: which was fresh how to bring in fresh thinking. That
Speaker 1: was just a workshop and training and support in their
Speaker 1: general project of innovation culture and PepsiCo was I was
Speaker 1: brought in really almost purely as a thought leader on
Speaker 1: play because they had an entrepreneurial venture called Wello which
Speaker 1: they were developing for women over fifty. So I had
Speaker 1: just hit fifty, So I was like in their graduations
Speaker 1: that was like five years ago, do the math, and
Speaker 1: I was I had. They found me. I had done
Speaker 1: a Kickstarter for film I was producing about play, and
Speaker 1: so they wanted me to sort of be the face
Speaker 1: of their culture, the play culture that they were cultivating
Speaker 1: for their market. So I would go instead of sponsoring
Speaker 1: events for that population, they wanted to create experiences for
Speaker 1: those events. So I'd go to conferences and gatherings and
Speaker 1: offer these plays workshops, and they were sponsored by Willow,
Speaker 1: which is PepsiCo. Very cool. I'm sure they benefited greatly.
Speaker 1: I wonder if it benefited the taste of the pepsi
Speaker 1: product at all. Yeah, that this was actually a non
Speaker 1: sugar base, Yeah, yeah, I mean there's always it's a
Speaker 1: complex world. It is, it is well, there's lots of
Speaker 1: moving pieces of each organization. Yeah. The women who were
Speaker 1: spearheading this were really actually really had a shared sense
Speaker 1: as I do, of of what healthy, what health meant,
Speaker 1: and well being. So there wasn't a tension there. There
Speaker 1: was within the larger organization, but not within the group
Speaker 1: that I was part of. Cool. Probably was more fun
Speaker 1: to work with that part of the group. So how
Speaker 1: can play save the world? I mean you talk about
Speaker 1: how you believe in the quote the gospel of play,
Speaker 1: So do you view yourself as an evangelic cist? Wait,
Speaker 1: how do you pronounce that word? Envelop? Do you yourself
Speaker 1: as an evangelist of play? You know, it's actually evolved
Speaker 1: a lot since I was, you know, spreading the gospel
Speaker 1: of play. What I've seen is that the play message
Speaker 1: is actually getting mainstream attention. And I don't know if
Speaker 1: you can hear my pug coughing, but apologies for all.
Speaker 1: How was your pug is sounded like a human? It's
Speaker 1: a Your pug is like a lot of power there,
Speaker 1: Oh dear, I'll try to cover the mic. It's okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I used to be sort of passionately spreading the
Speaker 1: gospel of play because I could. I knew that it
Speaker 1: was a fundamental force and primal survival drive but also
Speaker 1: evolutionary drive. So it seemed to me that this was
Speaker 1: the way not only that we would find balance and
Speaker 1: reduce stress and you know, and generate creativity all the
Speaker 1: benefits that play confers, but it was also like our
Speaker 1: potentially our it was an expression of our true i'll
Speaker 1: say true nature, like humans homoludins are inherently playful. So
Speaker 1: it was like a sort of deeper you know, let
Speaker 1: us be humans, like, let's connect to this deep life
Speaker 1: affirming drive. And that's a very particular lens for play
Speaker 1: that because it's been so pressed, so suppressed, and so
Speaker 1: you know, we are so play deprived as a such
Speaker 1: individualistic and competitive and I mean, I like to call
Speaker 1: it the proving ground. We've left the playground. We've landed
Speaker 1: on either a proving ground or a battleground. And I
Speaker 1: wanted to restore the playground. Yes, And yet what I found,
Speaker 1: what I really saw was, you know, that message at
Speaker 1: one point was really important because it countered this strong
Speaker 1: tendency to elevate seriousness as if it's the same as value.
Speaker 1: And there were just a lot of messages that it
Speaker 1: felt important that play could counter that would restore some balance.
Speaker 1: But what I started to see was, as you know,
Speaker 1: after Stuart Brown's book which was Your Time's bestseller on play,
Speaker 1: and it started to diffuse into the system. It started
Speaker 1: to get co opted by every agenda you know, you
Speaker 1: had what happens. Yeah, and so organizations were like, we're
Speaker 1: going to get used play to become more productive, and
Speaker 1: we have it used as you know, it's a great
Speaker 1: stress reliever, Charlie Owens works wonderful, but it's it was
Speaker 1: sort of utilitarian like and you could see that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a shadow side to play. Play is not always
Speaker 1: really not life infirming. Oh yeah, I'm just king. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so I was I actually started writing to it felt
Speaker 1: like the movement had gone far enough that it required
Speaker 1: some reflection and some distinctions about what kind of play
Speaker 1: actually transformed proving ground mindsets into playground mindsets, and what
Speaker 1: kinds of play reinforce it. You know, like putting a
Speaker 1: ping pong table into a game room and a corporation
Speaker 1: which is cutthroat and competitive, isn't going to necessarily turn
Speaker 1: it into this like you know, joy life affirming, joy
Speaker 1: filled playground. It's like you can use any play, any
Speaker 1: kind of play from a mindset of proving and battling,
Speaker 1: and that it won't necessarily shift the mindset. So I
Speaker 1: was looking at the play that reinforces it, the play
Speaker 1: that opposes it, the play that reforms it, and the
Speaker 1: play that transforms it, and they're really different. And and
Speaker 1: I even went further and was looking at well, when
Speaker 1: we used when we I've had playgroups and I was
Speaker 1: working with people who just wanted to play more, and
Speaker 1: what we saw. What I saw was that inevitably you'd
Speaker 1: find blocks, right, so you know, at first it'd be
Speaker 1: like a wild animal release from captivity. I get to
Speaker 1: play permission and games and structures and some safety and
Speaker 1: awesome like freedom. But eventually, you know, you'd start to
Speaker 1: see people's the backlash and the blocks and the proving
Speaker 1: around the fears and the places basically because because plays
Speaker 1: is freedom, it's like any place in which we weren't
Speaker 1: free started to show up, and even the backlash of
Speaker 1: shame of like oh I shouldn't have done that, or
Speaker 1: inhibitions or and as a first layer was to play
Speaker 1: with the blocks to play, which could which helped, you
Speaker 1: know whatever. It's like taking the part of us it's
Speaker 1: free and using it to help liberate the parts that aren't.
Speaker 1: But it essentially eventually it gets to the parts that
Speaker 1: are are just can't play with the blocks to play
Speaker 1: and just need holding and just need the soothing and
Speaker 1: like the the space to be with fairly difficult emotions.
Speaker 1: And so it became a bigger journey around, well, how
Speaker 1: do we get to liberate the playground people said that
Speaker 1: they're living on a playground? Became really like how do
Speaker 1: we heal ourselves at the deepest level where because those
Speaker 1: are the places where we're not playable, where life is
Speaker 1: in play. So in order for life to be play
Speaker 1: it really is the path to wholeness. It's like facing
Speaker 1: all the parts that aren't that don't feel capable of
Speaker 1: playing and using play the playful part of us as
Speaker 1: a resource, you know, to the extent that we can beautiful.
Speaker 1: I love the articles about that about how not all
Speaker 1: play is transformative and how we can, as you say,
Speaker 1: restore the playground because you say the playground is our
Speaker 1: true habitats. Yeah, but you know, in kind of when
Speaker 1: you talk about these principles or these ways that play
Speaker 1: can reinforce, reform, oppose, or trans form. I really like
Speaker 1: this notion of a single guide to when it is transformative,
Speaker 1: that being how much does it feel like you're going
Speaker 1: against the inertia of who you are and the world
Speaker 1: or going against it? I really like that metaphor you
Speaker 1: say quote it's just a heck of a lot more
Speaker 1: fun to play Tug of War than it is to
Speaker 1: be at war with the world. What a great summation
Speaker 1: of maybe a compass for understanding when your play is
Speaker 1: being transformative versus when it's coming from a place of deprivation. Right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Well that's and the whole idea of being able to
Speaker 1: play Tug of war, play with that battling energy versus
Speaker 1: sort of merging with it and be just acting from it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's a really powerful step toward freedom. And
Speaker 1: actually what Stephen Porgies, the neurobiologist, was the first articulator
Speaker 1: of the whole vaguel system as a third part of
Speaker 1: the nervous system. Are you feeling with that all Vegel? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I absolutely am. Like Barbara Fredrickson has done some good
Speaker 1: research on that topic. Yeah, Stephen Poor just wrote a
Speaker 1: big tone called I think called Vagel theory. Anyway, he
Speaker 1: describes play a sympathetic arousal without fear. So that's why
Speaker 1: you see like chase play and fighting play and tug
Speaker 1: of warplay and animals. It's like all the basic sympathetic
Speaker 1: arousal fight flight, right, but without fear, where all that
Speaker 1: tension gets released without the trauma response, without it being
Speaker 1: a trauma response. So when we I mean sometimes I'll
Speaker 1: just like tap my partner Tony and say chase me,
Speaker 1: chase me, and it's like, oh, it's a joy. It's
Speaker 1: like this primal release, right just or when you're ready
Speaker 1: to fight with somebody, like what would be like to
Speaker 1: just shift to you know, play fighting and just get
Speaker 1: that tension up And that's the mastery. That's like being
Speaker 1: able to play with those activated states versus having to
Speaker 1: live in a world that's full of threat. And yeah,
Speaker 1: like it turns the world into a playground and then
Speaker 1: the threat is something playable. I love it. I don't
Speaker 1: play really doesn't get near as much attention as childhood play,
Speaker 1: and childhood play doesn't get as mu attention as it should.
Speaker 1: You know, So all that is true what I just said. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but oh boy, you know, I just love this shot.
Speaker 1: The spotlight that you're shining on this well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because we shouldn't be ending this podcast with
Speaker 1: this question. We have started with it. But what is play?
Speaker 1: I mean, you write a whole You wrote a whole
Speaker 1: paper that I found fascinating outlining the inherent paradoxes of
Speaker 1: play and how we should define it. So how do
Speaker 1: you define it? Well, I'm going to give you a
Speaker 1: couple of quick ones, okay answers. So you know, play
Speaker 1: has an Oxford English dictionary. I think over twenty it
Speaker 1: might be twenty three definitions. Yeah, and one of the
Speaker 1: ones I really like is is movement like a rope
Speaker 1: has play if it does wiggle room, if it's not rigid.
Speaker 1: So the opposite of play is rigidity? Oh nice? I
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, And I think of the movement as
Speaker 1: a flexible response to whatever it's time for, like the
Speaker 1: capacity to respond to whatever it's time for. I'll go
Speaker 1: with that for now. Wow. Yeah, So what is play
Speaker 1: is probably my least favorite question, Like everyone wants to
Speaker 1: know and I hate answering, Like I just I just
Speaker 1: find it, you know, because I had to go into
Speaker 1: a post rational course mode in order to actually get
Speaker 1: toward it, get moved toward it, and I, yeah, I
Speaker 1: just find that that's not an easy zone to enter. Okay,
Speaker 1: So you've written multiparticles I've written. I read all your
Speaker 1: articles in preparation for this interview. Wrote a great article
Speaker 1: about how play is essential stepstone to healthy childhood development.
Speaker 1: So can you maybe talk about why? Sure? Well, so
Speaker 1: it's actually two angles. One was that I wanted to
Speaker 1: understand playfulness. Yeah, like, where does playfulness come from? Why
Speaker 1: are some people more playful than others? What can we
Speaker 1: do about it? Is it just like a happiness set
Speaker 1: point where you just started luck out? Because playfulness and
Speaker 1: there's all these wonderful advantages in life, just like happiness does,
Speaker 1: and it's they're very related of course, but I was
Speaker 1: looking at, well, how does our worldview get shaped, you know,
Speaker 1: really so that we can see the world as a playground,
Speaker 1: and can we do anything about it if we aren't
Speaker 1: inherently playful? So that was yea, my interest, and so
Speaker 1: I was looking back at well, where do worldviews come from?
Speaker 1: What are the early experiences that shape how we see
Speaker 1: ourselves and whether the world is safe or not? And
Speaker 1: because we playd the extent that we feel safe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: dosuming that everyone would naturally be playful to some extent,
Speaker 1: I mean differently with different styles and different but in
Speaker 1: that essential way of like have of the freedom to
Speaker 1: respond to what's needed in each moment and to be
Speaker 1: able to have their full expression in relation to as
Speaker 1: much of life as possible, which is another way to
Speaker 1: see play I was interested in one of those experiences,
Speaker 1: so I saw that, you know, the earliest experiences are
Speaker 1: the ones that are have the biggest impact on our
Speaker 1: sense of safety. And of course attachment is you know,
Speaker 1: our first our first universe is the relationship with our caretaker.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is basic attachment theory that we
Speaker 1: are internal working models, right, are created by the quality,
Speaker 1: the level security of that attachment bond. And what I
Speaker 1: saw is that, you know, if you have an insecure
Speaker 1: attachment bond, like let's just start with the most insecure,
Speaker 1: a disorganized attachment, then you're likely to see the world
Speaker 1: as a prison. Like the world is fundamentally unsafe, there's
Speaker 1: nothing that we're not empowered. The best we could do
Speaker 1: is just you know, just manage ourselves, and I mean
Speaker 1: we disorganized, it's even difficult to do that. So it's
Speaker 1: like everything is threatening. We don't have the capacity to
Speaker 1: regulate enough even to do that, So it's very difficult
Speaker 1: for life to be play. Yeah, when life is a prison,
Speaker 1: then the next stage, you know, an insecure attachment avoidant
Speaker 1: would be that life is a battleground, that everything's a threat.
Speaker 1: So it really has to do with the security reflects
Speaker 1: the degree of threat that we perceive as the world,
Speaker 1: and a degree of threat and security give rise to
Speaker 1: the level of play that we are capable of. So
Speaker 1: when we see the world as when we're we didn't
Speaker 1: when we got that insecure intermittent, when the attachment caregiver
Speaker 1: was you know, inconsistent, not emotionally or even violent, then
Speaker 1: the world is a threaten we feel like we live
Speaker 1: in a battleground, and we perceive threat where it doesn't exist,
Speaker 1: so we're defended, so it actually, you know, we create
Speaker 1: the reality. Yeah, so of course, you know, you meet
Speaker 1: someone who's defensive and you're less likely to be friendly
Speaker 1: to them, and so the world actually shows up as threatening.
Speaker 1: You know, defensive people are scary, so you get scared,
Speaker 1: and so defenses escalated, so you end up in a
Speaker 1: world that really feels like a battleground because you're seeing
Speaker 1: it that way and it's actually playing out to be
Speaker 1: that way. I'm really simplifying, as you know, and your
Speaker 1: listeners are sophisticated and will oh yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: just so queer that you really love thinking about play
Speaker 1: in a really really broad, holistic sense of its impact
Speaker 1: on the whole system of human nature or not, like
Speaker 1: you said, how it's been co opted you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to just complete because when you see
Speaker 1: just the idea that when you do have secure attachment,
Speaker 1: then the world can be a playground. You know that
Speaker 1: that then we can see realistic risk. We can perceive
Speaker 1: it when it's realistic. It's not like you suddenly a
Speaker 1: Pollyanna and everything is play, but we can sense when
Speaker 1: there is risk and it's safe to have adventures, it's
Speaker 1: safe to express ourselves, it's safe to connect, and that makes,
Speaker 1: you know, gives us more playmates and new experiences. Ambiguous
Speaker 1: experiences are threatening, So the ambiguity and the unknown that
Speaker 1: is so much an inherent part of life is actually
Speaker 1: considered full of possibilities rather than full of threats. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Abraham as talked about defense versus growth, and yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we limit our our growth so much from
Speaker 1: erecting our defenses, and it plays a great way to
Speaker 1: get out of the comfort zone, right, Yeah, Well, and
Speaker 1: we can play when we have enough security. So we
Speaker 1: take the level of security that we have and we
Speaker 1: can grow it by playing more. Yes, Oh yes, I
Speaker 1: love it. I mean you do talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: getting out of our boxes to enable creativity to flourish.
Speaker 1: You say, the way you phrase it is by changing
Speaker 1: the preset radio station or turning the radio off all together,
Speaker 1: so that something new is possible. I feel like quoting
Speaker 1: you is enhancing this episode. Yeah, I'll shut up so
Speaker 1: you can just tell me about because you know, like
Speaker 1: you have so you've said, You've said on the record,
Speaker 1: so many beautiful things, right, that. Yeah, that comes back
Speaker 1: to your work on default mode networks, right, it sure does.
Speaker 1: And that's that's the seed of a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of the psychological play for sure. But isn't it.
Speaker 1: I mean I was thinking about this because I did
Speaker 1: my research too, and I listened to whole bunch of
Speaker 1: your talk and interviews podcasts, and it was really interesting
Speaker 1: because I started thinking about, well, default mode network is
Speaker 1: can just be a box, right, It's it's our identity,
Speaker 1: it's our it's our default sense of self, right, so
Speaker 1: that can just be the old radio station playing over
Speaker 1: and over again. Most of the thoughts that we have
Speaker 1: that when we're not focused on something else in a
Speaker 1: different part of our brain, are our just habitual identity
Speaker 1: creating thoughts. Yeah, identity thoughts. And that's why, like you know, psychedelics,
Speaker 1: where the default mode network gets quiet and something new
Speaker 1: can happen, that's really getting out of the box. Or
Speaker 1: like at the end of my like the way that
Speaker 1: the book will come full circle to the wonderful w
Speaker 1: because the way that that I wrote that initial seedt
Speaker 1: for that story ten years ago and because I had
Speaker 1: this intuition and it was playful. I had a friend
Speaker 1: who lost her and her welcome sign, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to give her a gift. I gave her a W,
Speaker 1: and I was thinking, oh, hole and whole, and like
Speaker 1: she should what would happen if she fell into a hole?
Speaker 1: She'd need a W. And you know, I had this
Speaker 1: feeling of like, there's something really interesting about the relationship
Speaker 1: between holes and holes with a W. So I was
Speaker 1: playing with that and I wrote her a story and
Speaker 1: gave her W for her birthday. And that was ten
Speaker 1: years ago, and I didn't quite know how the story ended,
Speaker 1: and I was trying to figure out how does the
Speaker 1: princess find her W? Where? Did really like, where do
Speaker 1: we get our w's? Yeah? And I ended up going
Speaker 1: on to retreat with a meditation retreat silent retreat for
Speaker 1: six days. And I started, as I got quieter and quieter,
Speaker 1: my mind became lucid. And I know I have this
Speaker 1: tendency when I get more and more lucid, to like go,
Speaker 1: oh good, my tools sharp, Let me take it to
Speaker 1: some good problems. And so I was like started thinking
Speaker 1: about things. You know, I get quiet and then I
Speaker 1: go off and you and think about things. And I
Speaker 1: ended up like filling sixty nine pages of my journey
Speaker 1: on this retreat writing three children's stories, and then like
Speaker 1: there's this other conventional book about playloads writing. I was like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got all this. And then I finally like it's
Speaker 1: almost like I, you know, your identity starts to loosen,
Speaker 1: the default mode network gets quieter. It's like new ideas come.
Speaker 1: And I thinking of it as like in the ozone
Speaker 1: layer when you get real if you were like to
Speaker 1: travel out and or expand and you get really close
Speaker 1: to that final layer of your atmosphere of your habitual self,
Speaker 1: like right there at the edge where the ozone's really thin,
Speaker 1: and you're starting to get like in you know, I
Speaker 1: was sticking antennas out into the into the like universe
Speaker 1: from my ozone. Yeah, I get all this, I get
Speaker 1: all this stuff right, and I go. I called it
Speaker 1: absolut looting, because you're that outer zone is like the absolute,
Speaker 1: and I would just loot it from my personality was
Speaker 1: still intact, but it was thin and it was, you know, quieter,
Speaker 1: but I just grabbed these big buckets of stuff that
Speaker 1: I get, like from from the absolute, but all the
Speaker 1: answers to my question. And then and I would go
Speaker 1: back and fill my journal. And then at a certain point,
Speaker 1: I remember thinking, wow, this journal looks like everybody else's
Speaker 1: journal and my name isn't on it. What if I
Speaker 1: lose it? What if I what if this? You know,
Speaker 1: like this is some good stuff in here. And I
Speaker 1: started to like, go, oh, mine my ideas. My idea is,
Speaker 1: you know, which is the opposite of what's happening in meditation, right,
Speaker 1: loosening of identification. And I had this impulse like I
Speaker 1: just want to write my name on my journal so
Speaker 1: I won't lose it. Yeah, started to write my name.
Speaker 1: You may not end up keeping this story. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: as I wrote my name, basically my whole identity just
Speaker 1: contracted right back. Sure, And I was like, okay, I'm
Speaker 1: letting it go, and I'm just gonna I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let it go, and then I'm going to put my
Speaker 1: journal in my room. And I just finally was like,
Speaker 1: it's not worth it, Like Gwen being a Gwen is
Speaker 1: not better than what's possible if I really let that
Speaker 1: default loan network go, like it got quieter. That's very
Speaker 1: a Buddhist of you. It was a Buddhist retreat, and
Speaker 1: I did, and it was open and it was like, oh, wonderful,
Speaker 1: that's the W. That's the W. And it was this
Speaker 1: an inspiration for the book you wrote. It was for
Speaker 1: the ending of the book. It's like I had to
Speaker 1: figure out how it is, yeah, which we won't really
Speaker 1: explicitly of it. Yeah, but you know, maybe they can
Speaker 1: fill in the blanks, but it's definitely worth getting. Well.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for imparting your wisdom on play for
Speaker 1: us today. I'm going to end with another one of
Speaker 1: your favorite quotes. Play is life force itself. When we
Speaker 1: can sense and amplify its most life affirming, transformative impulses,
Speaker 1: it will point us directly to the playground. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for chatting with me today, Glenn. Thank you
Speaker 1: for the pleasure. Scott. Thanks for listening to the Psychology Podcast.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like to
Speaker 1: react in some way to something you heard, I encourage
Speaker 1: you to join in the discussion at thus Psychology podcast
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Speaker 1: brain behavior and creativity.