Walking through Central Park one recent morning, I watched a dog have a great deal of fun playing with a squeeze toy his human companion threw for him.  The fun part was that - rather than just picking up the toy and returning it to his human companion for another throw - the dog grabbed up the squeeze toy in his mouth and then kept squeezing it, creating a constant rhythm of squeaks, until his human companion threw it again.  The dog was both excited and seeming to have a good time biting the toy just hard enough to get it to squeak.  He did it with real finesse, as the squeaks were clear, crisp and loud each and every time.  The energy and enthusiasm with which he did this again and again radiated delight and I was amused by what seemed to be his skill at knowing just how hard to bite the toy to get it to make the right sound.  (I may have made all this up, of course, as reading a dog's mind isn't my true talent... but at least it looked like he was enjoying this play!)

The scene was fun to watch and got me to thinking about how we can capture everyday moments and add some playfulness to them.  It can be as simple as taking the time to kick a stone that shows up in front of you and seeing how far it goes, or taking the time to stay and laugh at something amusing that happens along the way.  So many of us seem to lose play as one of the options in our adult lives - unless we're lucky enough to have children around us - and playfulness is one of those attitudes that spontaneously fuels creativity and well-being.

For this week's experiment, I invite you to notice moments of playfulness whenever and wherever you may encounter them, and to take time to soak them in.  For example, if you happen to see a child with his or her face painted, as we often do in Central Park, take a bit of time to enjoy the fun of that, allowing yourself to imagine what the child feels when his or her face is adorned with lightning bolts or flowers and stars.  Or, if you discover that you have an opportunity to laugh when you don't expect it, notice what it's like to even more fully enter the experience and have some fun with it.

In fact, another way to play with this experiment is to notice your laughter.  When something funny happens, do you allow yourself a full belly laugh or do you hold back.  If you allow yourself the full laugh, engage it even more completely.  If you tend to keep your whole body from being part of laughter, notice what happens when you give yourself over to it more than you normally would do.  Also, notice - is it easy for you to laugh or is it uncomfortable?  Laughter is a healing force and it's a gift to be able to engage it with the whole body when that's appropriate.

As with all the experiments, remember that there are no right answers to how to engage this one and explore what it offers to you.  The key is to bring conscious awareness to the themes we engage each week and to discover how that awareness can enhance your quality of life.  That's why curiosity is such an important companion along the way.  It allows you to discover what's interesting to you without having to make any judgments about how you engage the process or what you experience.