🎂 🎂 🎂 July is the month for celebrating many of the precious patriarchs in my life – including one of my most playful teachers and fellow peaceseeker and peacemaker Dan Booth Cohen!
Back in 2020, I was searching for better tools to enable organisations and systems to transform and flourish for greater good when I came across Dan’s truly inspirational book about Family Constellations “I Carry Your Heart in My Heart – Family Constellations in Prison”.
I first began training with Dan in Systemic Constellations online during lockdown in 2021 and was very fortunate to train with him and Emily Blefeld in 2023-2024 on their Alchemical Constellations Facilitator training in the spiritual Menla Resort in New York created by the Dalai Lama.
To celebrate Dan and our mutual lifelong pursuit for creating peace, here’s the latest episode from The School of Play Play Alchemy podcast!
🕯️💖 🌎 If you’re looking for hope, magic and peace… Listen to our Play for Peace podcast episode and you might just be inspired to shift for greater good!
Category: Playful Leadership
Are You Ready Player One?
You’re Invited! Open Day Events this Summer
Make more of this summer season and join us for a free 60-minute live virtual tour of The School of Play this 28 July and 8 September where you’ll get a taste of what being part of our school feels like.
Explore your relationship with play as a leader and team member. Meet future students like yourself as well as school alumni who’ll share their experiences of learning and growing with The School of Play.
Playful Leadership Programme Goes Online
Are you prematurely aging because of stuckness at work? Do you dream of clarity, alignment and flow for yourself, your team and your organisation? Do you long for control and order amidst complexity and chaos?
Join us this autumn to learn how to navigate complex and chaotic systems and enable them to flourish by living and leading your best playful life!
The Beauty of Play
Have you ever wondered what happens when children play to their hearts’ content?
Now imagine what happens when adults get to play to their hearts’ content…
Wonder no longer! This is what we look like and what we sound like when a bunch of likehearted and openminded adults get together… we bring to life our full potential by tapping into our greatest individual and collective super power what Dr. Stuart Brown and I like to call True Play.
Playful Leadership: CREATION THROUGH PLAY ALCHEMY is a groundbreaking introductory course to the concept, practice and magic of Play Alchemy – a term coined by Portia Tung, the founder of The School of Play. Play Alchemy describes the process, tools and techniques for transmuting the seemingly insurmountable challenges we face into positive outcomes so that we can thrive and have fun making a living in a VUCA world.
If you long to imagine at least six impossible things before breakfast and have realised a bunch of them by dinner time, this is the course for you. You’ll get to explore your relationship with play and creativity in community and experience deep joy as you regain your superpower of manifesting more of what you wish for like you used to as a child.
And we didn’t just co-write one song, we co-composed two! Special thanks to Stuart Cocks our music meister for putting music and video to our words of calm delight and sheer joy!
Song #1: Keep Calm Be Patient & Song #2: It’s Love Obviously #madewithlove #playfulleadership #playalchemy
I Capture the Castle
Did you know that at the heart of creativity – the kind that enables us to flourish and feel joy – is play without which we would lack the resourcefulness to get started in the first place?
Play is the skeleton key that unlocks our creativity, our infinite potential. When it comes to creativity, we are the creator and the creation as well as the creative process as we transmute and manifest our soul’s expression and deepest desires.
According to the creator of Systemic Constellations Bert Hellinger, “Love equals seeing plus distance minus judgment.” And because we are relational beings, this observation isn’t only poignant in terms of our relationship with others but more vitally when it comes to being in relationship with ourselves. What’s more, love for ourselves is essential when it comes to being in healthy relationship with our creations and our creative process.
Play Alchemy: Exploring Our Roots of Creativity a 3-day course in the art and science of creativity takes place this autumn 11-13 September at the beautiful Ashridge House (aka home-of-magic Hogwarts) in Berkhamsted, UK within a stone’s throw from London (if you’re Hagrid).
If you’re a grownup who longs to remember how to play and have fun – just like children do – be it at work, at home or anywhere you go, you’re invited to join Play Alchemist Portia Tung this September, along with a constellation of other grownups who love life, to rediscover and harness our greatest superpower – play of course!
Among this bright constellation of likehearted and lighthearted playmakers you will experience what being the best version of yourself feels like as we dance in profound partnership and embark on the play adventure of a lifetime.
Isn’t it high time you explored your roots of creativity?
Book a FREE discovery call with Portia to see what magic we can weave together through this Play Alchemy course!
Happy 7th Birthday to The School of Play!
Play isn’t just an act of hope or faith. Play is an aria of consciousness. Play enables us to self-actualise through accompaniment and mutual support. This is why laughter is the sound of play. Laughter is the sound our heart makes when we are having fun.
Having played for the past 30 years – both professionally and personally – for most of my adult life, I’ve discovered the golden key to game-changing transformation is by changing our relationship with play.
When our relationship with play changes, we change, the world around us changes. Play isn’t just good for us. Play is good for everyone.
We hope you’ll join us in celebrating the Feast at the Party of Life as The School of Play turns 7 years old this week!
We made this to share with you. For each and everyone of us who yearns and learns to play the True Play way.
Are You Ready to Emerge and Play?
If so, we’ve assembled a gorgeous range of play adventures, be it in-person or online, that will inspire you to play well and play better – be it at work, at home or anywhere you go.
Playful Leadership
COURSE FULL: 8-10 May 2024 @ Ashridge House, Berkhamsted, UK
Four Seasons of Play
A highly enjoyable online play programme made up of individual one-off workshops designed to resource, restore and re-invigorate you through the Four Seasons
Begins 14 June 2024
The Magic Circle
A 6-week online circle of like-hearted seekers who wish to manifest their playful selves through Play Alchemy
Begins 18 June 2024, every Tuesday for 6 weeks
Play Alchemy
A deeply nourishing 3-day in-person introductory course to explore your roots of creativity
17-19 September 2024 @ Ashridge House, Berkhamsted, UK
Resonance Summit Recordings Package
You can hear Portia’s latest talk Play’s Hidden Symmetry: Constellations Through Play Alchemy by purchasing the amazing Resonance Summit 2024 recording package from Neuroscience Educator and Constellations Facilitator Sarah Peyton.
The Play Jungle Calls…
Isn’t it time you reconnected with your greatest superpower? If you long to answer the clamorous call of play, creativity or rejuvenation but aren’t quite sure how best to get started, why not schedule a chat over a virtual cup of tea with me and see what emerges?
One thing’s for certain, it’s never too late to start playing for your life or re-ignite your play brain. Let’s have a chat to get you on your way!
Lead from Your Heart in 2024 with Play Alchemy
If you’re looking to learn how to lead from your heart and have fun doing it, then you’ve come to right play space!
Playful Leadership is a unique, intuitive and deeply resourcing approach to cultivating your own leadership based on the powerful quintuplet of Play Science, neuroscience, psychology, coaching and Systemic Constellations. It is grounded in what Portia Tung, the founder of The School of Play, calls Play Alchemy which is made up of the process, tools and techniques for transmuting the seemingly insurmountable challenges we face into positive outcomes so that we can thrive, have fun and get more of what we want done in a VUCA world.
When asked how best to describe their experience on the Playful Leadership programme, participants unanimously agree with a smile and a cheer, “It’s not a course, it’s a PLAY-cation!” That’s because the word PLAY-cation sums up neatly that wondrous tingling feeling we get after a proper holiday from the routine and mundane and of having achieved a profound transformation that took barely any effort because it was so much fun.
Meet You Second Star to the Right
Dear Playmakers,
As this year draws to an end and we stand together on the cusp of a new year, I’d like to thank you for your warm interest, enthusiasm and commitment in leading more playful lives and enabling transformational change for greater good – be it at work, at home or wherever life finds you.
A Wise Owl Looks Back…
This year has been a rollercoaster ride of fun and growth as the Playful Leadership programme launched two brand new courses in the beautiful play space of Ashridge House, inspiration for Hogwarts, in Berkhamsted, UK.
In spring 2023, we cultivated greater emotional awareness and intelligence on Playful Leadership: Rejuvenation which re-connected us with some of our most powerful inner resources to overcome the challenges we face.
In summer 2023, I splish-splashed with delight with Robert Digings on the subject of play and leadership in his podcast series Highly Relational – that play could not only be an approach to work but a credible and effective leadership approach I call Playful Leadership.
This autumn brought together the highest number of The School of Play’s alumni at a single event, along with new playmakers, as we accompanied one another on our individual journey back to our collective point of origin on Playful Leadership: Origination to increase our creativity by harnessing our passions, skills, wishes and dreams.
This winter we gathered in my home city of Milton Keynes for a 1-day workshop Glow in Prosperity to explore our relationship with giving and taking through techniques for manifesting abundance so it can percolate in different aspects of our lives.
Meet You Second Star to the Right in 2024
To celebrate the new year, we at The School of Play are merrily preparing a whole host of heart-warming and new ways for you to say “Yay!” to more play in 2024.
Keep your eyes peeled for upcoming events by signing up for The School of Play newsletter-blog here.
The Play in Me bows to the Play in You and Those You Are Important To,
Portia
From Christmas Dinner to a Festive Tea Party
Imagine the Christmas dining table as a clockface, where the first one to arrive sits at 12 o’clock. We continue clockwise as the next one to arrive sits on their left. Each of us continues to take our rightful place until the most recent joiner of the system pulls up a chair nearest to 12 o’clock to complete the circle. As you slowly look around the circle, beginning with the first to arrive in this system, how does it feel? How does your place in this system influence who you are and how you act – be it at home, at work, anywhere you go?
Now lean back a little and notice that this system doesn’t exist in isolation, rather it’s part of a greater whole. In the same way you are, being part of your birth family and all those who came before as well as being part of another system among newer loved ones, perhaps a family of your own.
As the Christmas season approaches its pinnacle, how lucky are you feeling this year? What if instead of trying to play our cards right at the Christmas dining table, we have a go at playing our cards better by making the most of the cards we’ve been dealt?
If you celebrate Christmas, I wish you a merry one. If you celebrate in a different way, I wish you a merry one, too. And if you prefer not to celebrate, I wish you joy in the choice you have made.
Wishing you and your loved ones much love, light and laughter this winter season!
Year 2022: Play – Make – Do You
What better way to celebrate what some are calling the “year of the new abnormal” by saying “Yay!” to play? You’re cordially invited to Four Seasons of Play, the School of Play’s freshest year-long programme where you’re invited to play, make and, most vitally, do you.
Through the unique practical mashup of the latest play science, psychology, neuroscience and coaching techniques, you’ll feast on fun and purpose towards transformative change, leaving each workshop feeling inspired and resourced to embrace all that 2022 has to offer. For you and those to whom you matter.
Enjoy each workshop as a standalone experience or as a combination of 4 modules in a year-long programme where you’ll learn about true play, innovative ways to cultivate your play intelligence and shift towards a play mindset as the seasons change. Play your cards right and you’ll grow as an individual and as a leader so you can thrive instead of just survive in what some folks are describing as “new abnormal” times.
Celebrate Each Season with Play
- Spring Bloom and Blossom: The Life-changing Magic of a Spring Clean – 4 March 2022
- Summer Fun: Splish Splash in the Sea, Sand and Sun – 3 June 2022
- Autumn Harvest: Feast on Your Life – 9 September 2022
- Winter is Coming: Towards Better Beginnings Through Relationships at Play – 2 December 2022
There’s no need to go it alone when it comes to creating the change you want to see or turning your dreams into reality. Experience the transformative power of play in the company of true leaders, adults who dare to play.
As American director and actor Orson Welles once said, “If you want a happy ending, that depends on, of course, where you stop your story.” Where will you choose to take your story?
THE SCHOOL OF PLAY 