How do we grow? We play.
Play
The way that Womanity approaches human and cultural growth is through play. Why play? Because the conversations we already know how to do around bias, inclusion, gender roles, wellness, aging, creativity, success… are pretty tightly scripted. And we become isolated and stuck in these same conversations! To create new kinds of conversations and relationships, we need new tools. I use the tools of theater, storytelling, coaching and applied improvisation, all infused by the philosophy of social therapeutics, to create the stage where together we can disrupt patterns, encourage curiosity and take the risks to make new choices. In the process, stigma and labels dissolve, imagination and connections emerge. Cultural transformation happens. Together, we create a new play.
Grow
I practice a unique, practical, philosophical and innovative approach called Social Therapeutics, developed by the East Side Institute. The approach relates to human beings not as behaving individuals who only adapt to culture but as culture’s creators and performers of their lives, their communities and the world. In this practice, we develop as ensemble and create what is called Zones of Proximal Development. Together, we create the environment you and/or the group need to approach growth as a process of co-creation. Together, we develop our capacity to approach the unknown as an opportunity to connect, innovate and transform.
Womanity Play offerings combine one-to-one and group coaching, role-play, improvisational activities and creative facilitation and emotional development, all informed from what we build together along the way.
The power of play & performance
There is an innovative social and cultural movement that brings together a growing number of coaches, educators, researchers, consultants and improvisers all around the world and see our post-Covid transition as an opportunity to rebuild and renegotiate our culture in a creative and human way. Let me explain in a few words what this movement is based on.
We are living a scientific revolution: to be and not to be yet
It began at the beginning of the 20th century with the discovery of quantum physics which tells us that the real can be (material nature) and not be simultaneously (vibratory nature). This discovery is revolutionary and has repercussions in all areas of our life and human relationships.
We are living a human revolution
We are an evolving species and we are becoming together. We are both a political animal (relational) and a historical animal (becoming). We are both who we are and who we are not yet, we are both impacted by what we do and what we want to do next. And that's how we develop, how we are constantly transforming.
We have the capacity to transform
Yes, we are great at adapting. Knowing enables to reproduce behaviors, learn and retain data, adapt, but machines and Artificial Intelligence will soon do it better than us.
And what makes us unique is our ability to improvise and respond, create with change. Growing with what is emerging allows us to create, develop, evolve. Together, we have the capacity to compose our lives and our environment in an unknowing way.
We can learn to improvise more and together.
It is through play and improvisation that Womanity approaches leadership and human development. And by “play” we mean both “playing” a game as children play, but also “playing a role” or playing with our cultural and philosophical assumptions to develop our ability to see, listen and build with others.
Human development is not a manual to follow, it is an activity to create together. And improvisational play is a tool for social change.
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Some reading for inspiration
PLAY AS IF YOUR MENTAL HEALTH DEPENDED ON IT, by Lois Holzmann
Play helps us move around depression, anxiety, hopelessness and loneliness
I don’t like labels, so one of the things I play around with is what to call myself. I used to say I’m a developmental psychologist, since that’s what I was trained to be. But developmental psychology is an academic discipline that studies people and explains them in ways I have some big problems with. So I started to call myself a developmentalist to highlight that I try to help people develop and grow. I also sometimes say I’m an activity-ist since it’s human activity and not behavior that I am interested in and want to foster. Lately I’ve been saying I’m a play revolutionary. Now you might find it strange to put those two words together. But they’re more similar than you think. Both play and revolution transform what is into something qualitatively different. As a play revolutionary, I believe that play can revolutionarily transform the world and all of its people.
GROWING IN A NOT KNOWING-GROWING WAY
Holding fast to the belief that the happenings of our lives are knowable can get us into deep trouble. (So too can believing that what will happen in politics and world events is knowable by the experts, which we are witness to each day). We can be unprepared, both materially and emotionally, if things seem to take a sudden turn because we “thought we knew for sure” how they’d go. Accepting—better yet, embracing— unknowability helps us be more, not less, prepared. More prepared to participate in what’s transpiring and give some direction to it. More prepared to create with others what will emerge from the process. More prepared to improvise. More prepared to grow.
Embracing unknowability is a way to live a “yes, and…” life. It can not only lower the negative temperature of your conversations, but also help you see offers in some pretty grim situations. One of the greats of the musical improv world, Stephen Nachmanovitch, writes articulately about the value and joy of an improvisational life. Here, he focuses on some of the grimly unknowable we can build with:
"Pieces of art can be built; incredible things can be built from conflict. They can be built on uncertainty; they can be built on fear. That’s the great thing about this kind of work, it doesn’t have to be nice; it doesn’t have to be known. But if you are using your capacity to listen and if you are using the innate structuring ability that’s built into you as a 4.5 billion-year-old living organism, then you can use fear, conflict, difficulty, unknow-ability as the basis for doing incredible things…"
Or, as Fred Newman used to say, “We can create with crap.”
Lois Holzman. The Overweight Brain: How our obsession with knowing keeps us from getting smart enough to make a better world (pp. 173-174).
THE DEVELOPMENTALIST
I’m convinced that most of the times we’re feeling stuck in our day to day lives, we’re actually deep in what I call a developmental dilemma. How we frame the situation and understand the moves we can make, how we talk about the problem to ourselves and with others are limited and limiting. We really need a way to make something new with what we’ve got, especially when what we’ve got isn’t so hot.
For me and many, many others, writing down what’s bothering you can be extremely helpful. Which is why I started this column—The Developmentalist — to invite you to articulate in the written word what’s going on and ask for my help. (If you just do that, “Bravo!” You’ll already have done something new with what you have.) Then send me your letter. I’ll respond. I’ll suggest some ways to see and think and relate that you may not have tried. I’ll give you some performance direction. I’ll advise you developmentally.
I hope you take me up on my offer to share your story and allow me to see it through the eyes of a developmentalist.
Write to me at LHolzman@EastSideInstitute.org, and in the subject line, put “The
Developmentalist.”
What is Emotional Development?
Hi Lois!
Lately I’ve found myself in conversations where I’m being asked to tell people what emotional development is. I may have mentioned to them that I am a therapist, or I may have invited them to a class or a workshop. When I get this question, I say things like it’s “creating new emotional responses, relating to people in new ways, learning how to have conversations, co-creating possibilities in your life, etc.”
But the reality is, I am not good with examples. I know you’ve been talking about emotional development for years and would like to hear what your answer is!
Much Love,
Majo in Mexico
Dear Majo in Mexico…,
I greatly appreciate your question and the circumstances in which it comes up for you. “Emotional development” is not the easiest conversation starter, that’s for sure! First off, development isn’t something people typically think about. And even when it does enter consciousness or conversation, people’s connection to development invariably has to do with babies and little kids. And what of emotions? Aren’t they a basic grouping of feelings inside us (like anger, love, jealousy, fear, and so on)? How could it be that emotions develop? Don’t we just need to manage them?
This is some of what you’re up against. It’s no surprise, then, that you’re likely to get a blank stare, a glazed-over look or— in the best cases—a sincere, “What does that mean?”
You’re right that I’ve been talking about emotional development for years! And you know what? Every time it’s different! I try never to tell people what emotional development is. (I actually try not to tell people anything beyond what time it is or how to get to Times Square.) Telling can be a real conversation stopper.
It sounds like you might be equating “telling” with “talking.” But talking is vastly broader than telling! There are so many things we can do when we talk, so many things we can create with how others hear and don’t hear us and how we hear and don’t hear them, with how we and they look and move our eyes and mouths and hands and bodies. But if we are focusing on telling it (in the “right” way), we can miss all of that. We can forget that we’re creating a conversation with someone.
A conversation is a relationship builder—the relationship between you, who you’re speaking with, and whatever your topic is. A developmental conversation is almost always improvisational, requiring you to at least entertain the possibility that you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about until the conversation is created. That’s where the meaning is.
With this in mind, let’s return to emotional development. Looking at the things you say you say (in your “telling”)—”creating new emotional responses, relating to people in new ways, learning how to have conversations, co-creating possibilities in your life, etc.”—what do you see? Better yet, say them aloud. What do you hear? Whatever you hear, you can be sure it’s not what others will hear. That’s the beauty and challenge and paradox of making meaning! Engaging in this beauty and challenge and paradox together can be developmental—emotionally and otherwise.
My advice? Create conversations with others. Focus on the relationship, listen to and for offers, explore concepts and opinions and experiences together. This will make your problem of “not being good with examples” vanish.
Developmentally Yours,
Lois