Games We Play With Ourselves
Theory behind the 6-week Ludic Liberation intensive
Hello Ludic Liberators,
In today’s existential game theory issue of The Lab Report, I want to share the philosophy behind the 6-week workshop series starting on October 6, called Games We Play With Ourselves. The four ideas below are foundational to the Ludic Liberation approach in general, so it’s useful to articulate them for anyone who is new here, or who’s been lurking for a while but is still struggling to figure out what Ludic Liberation, the Lab, and Existential Games are all about. By the way, I’m still figuring it out too — thank you for witnessing the process! :)
Four Axioms of Ludic Liberation:
(an axiom is a statement or assumption taken to be true—although it may itself be “unprovable”—that functions as a starting premise for further argument or investigation.)
There is wisdom in the games we played as children.
While the Ludic Liberation practice doesn’t usually involve us recreating games from when we were kids, such as digging in sandboxes or dressing up dolls, when we want to analyze what existential games we are playing with ourselves as adults, it’s useful to look back at our childhood play repertoires. There are several reasons for this. As children, we had very porous boundaries between experiences of play, “normal life,” and dreaming. That’s partly because between years 0-7, we spent most of our time in Alpha and Theta brain wave cycles, which is the same state we enter during hypnosis, meditation, or under the influence of DMT. Yup, childhood is basically one long, wild trip!
Our experiences as kids, then, were crucial for programming our existential imaginarium. But during our childhood play, we were also finding ways to explore and express ourselves in completely unique-to-us ways, ways that no one taught or showed us, ways that hold clues (though not straight answers!) to our special gifts, our soul’s desires, and the genius that we might need to give form to in this lifetime. Recovering childhood play repertoires is a joyful and empowering excavation process. During Games We Play With Ourselves, we will go on an inner journey to reconnect with our childhood play dynamics and explore how they continue to influence our existential games as adults.
We are constantly playing existential games—but don’t always realize that we are. I see any activity that involves “rules”—unconscious or explicit—as an existential game. We are always playing some kind of game (or several!), even when the play doesn’t seem fun or voluntary or joyful.
For some games, we create our own voluntary rules, win and lose conditions. For example, we might play the HAVING A FAVORITE MUG game—deciding on a favorite mug and making it “a win” to drink from it every morning and “a lose” to break the mug 😢. For other games we play, we adopt the rules set by external game makers, such as parents, cultural influencers, or societal ideology. For example, you might be playing SAVING FOR RETIREMENT game (well or badly!)— which is probably not a game your psychedelic child self would have invented on their own.
And then there are games that we don’t even know we are playing, and would prefer not to admit to anyone or ourselves that we are. But clearly we are playing these games because we keep finding ourselves in similar existential situations year after year, thanks to games like MAKING MYSELF TOO BUSY TO EVER MAKE ART OR FEEL MY REAL FEELINGS. These are our shadow games which involve an additional layer of existential HIDE & SEEK. Ever watch the manic joy of a kid involved in a game of PEEK-A-BOO? We never actually grew out of that drooling delight— we just got more sophisticated at creating it for ourselves as adults, thanks to our clever shadows!The rules of existential games we are playing by are often contradictory and crazy-making.
You might be starting to realize how this might happen. Say you’ve got your personal existential games that you made up for yourself and enjoy playing, but their rules/win/lose conditions in some ways rub up against the rules/win/lose conditions of other games you’ve agreed to play, such as the games of CAREER, RELATIONSHIPS, IDEAL BODY, etc. And those rules might even be in opposition to the rules of your own shadow games!
These contradictions tangle up to form various existential disentanglement puzzle games that may be more colloquially known as SELF-SABOTAGE, “BAD LUCK,” ALWAYS DOING THE WRONG THING, CREATIVE BLOCKS, ANXIETY, ADDICTION, CODEPENDENCY, DISASSOCIATION, and more. I’m sure you’ve got your favorite name for the game that makes you feel your favorite kind of crazy.
Revealing our existential game rules can liberate us to change them.
One of my favorite experiences during 1:1 sessions I hold for Ludic Liberation players is somebody breaking out in laughter as they reveal an unconscious rule from one or more of their existential games. (Sometimes people break out in tears too, which I also love–emotional release is beautiful!). The humor or cathartic crying in these moments comes from the breaking of an expectation, often one we didn’t consciously know we had. Ludic Liberation games are designed to gently help us break these unconscious expectations, thereby revealing our hidden rules. Seeing these rules out in the open immediately changes our existential playing field. It gives us the clear perspective and power to change the rules—if we want to!
We might not be able to change the rules of the games that are much bigger and older than us—games of CAPITALISM or GENDER, for example—but we can alter how we relate to these games and establish a sense of inner consent or empowered inner rebellion in the games we choose to play with ourselves. We can make our existential gameplay more conscious, value-aligned, and exploratory—with “wins” not dependent on any specific outcome. Can you imagine breaking your favorite mug and finding that you’ve actually unlocked new levels of other delightful games to play, like MOURNING YOUR FAVORITE MUG game, FINDING A NEW FAVORITE MUG game, the game of INVITING NEW COOL MUGS TO COME INTO YOUR LIFE? :) ☕️
Do these principles resonate for you? Are you confused or skeptical? Did this list only provoke more questions? Reply and let me know! I’m still figuring out the best ways to share these ideas with people so that they may be maximally useful and liberating.
I have loved experimenting with putting these theories into practice trough games we play in the Ludic Liberation Lab and facilitating the process for people one-on-one, but I’m so excited to deepen into the Ludic Liberation practice through an intimate small group container! Playing with a cohort of people over a series of sessions is very powerful, because of a collective witnessing effect (I’ll write about this another time) and the gift of other people articulating an existential rule we all share but might not yet been able to express in our own words.
Read the full description of the 6-week series here and sign up! If you have any questions about this workshop, please hit reply and let me know!
Also, you are invited to GET A LITTLE TASTE of the workshop at the Deep Play Institute Open House this Sunday, September 26, 7-9pm EST, which will include a sampling of my series as well as the three other programs running this Fall that might appeal to you. The other sessions will be playing with LOVE, “CONTACT”, and our DEEPEST PASSIONs! Ooh la la! The Open House is FREE!
In Play & Liberation
Natalia
Game Maker/Destroyer
P.S. I’m sending this installment of Existential Game Theory to everyone on the list because it’s so foundational to the practice & theory of Ludic Liberation, but this section will typically only go out to paying supporters of the newsletter in the future. If you want to make sure you don’t miss any upcoming existential game theory dispatches, and to receive next week’s slab report (the secret and special lab report in which I will share how I accidentally created a board game about synchronicity!!!!), consider becoming a supporter! And if you already are one, YOU’RE THE BEST, THANK YOU :)