Loosen Up. Play Around. ✣ When you’re a kid, there’s one thing you know how to enjoy: play. Play is the idea of doing something just because you like it: sports, getting in nature, joking around, instruments, teasing and “playfulness,” games. ✣ As you grow up, you get more serious as the realities of adulthood responsibilities set in. Work puts you in your head. You’re not present anymore. You’re not playing anymore. It’s tougher to just let go and get swept up in the fun of play. ✣ Make an effort to get back into play, get present, get loose. Release yourself from all limitations, free from stress and fear. It boosts your optimism, positive emotions, and sense of belonging. ✣ It’s essential to having healthy relationships with others. To quote the National Institute for Play: ✣ “Humor, the enjoyment of novelty, the capacity to share a lighthearted sense of the world’s ironies, the enjoyment of mutual storytelling, the capacity to openly divulge imagination and fantasies. These playful communications and interactions, when nourished, produce a climate for easy connection and deepening, more rewarding relationship: true intimacy.” ✣ #play #playful #playfulness #hiking #hawaiihikes #mickeymousehat #havefun #getoutsideandplay #loosenup #gohavefun ✣ What’s your way to play? (at Crouching Lion Hike)