De’Nicea Hilton Harper wore a purple feather boa and butterfly tiara to her 2021 Playful Creative Summit interview with Alyea Sandovar. The custodian and founder of the Perfect Playground – “your spot where women come to meet other women who’re in a place of exploring their Holistic Healing and the meaning behind their experience so that you may live life Authentically and Peacefully” – perfectly presented her concepts with that delightful image, demonstrating that people are allowed and need to be silly, colorful, joyful, creative, adventurous and playful – and a bunch of other active, curious states – to be true to ourselves. She emphasizes, from conversation with a coworker, that each of us is perfect, which at its roots means ” flawless, ideal, complete, full, finished, lacking in no way, completed, ready, excellent, accomplished, exquisite.” And thank you to De’Nicea for teaching me about the Online Entymology Dictionary, a new toy for this wordsmith. Authenticity gives us the tools to work with our strengths and interact with partners in any arena.

What does she call “play”? Risk-taking, like climbing up (and going down!) a slide for the first time. Interacting with your world holistically, through your senses. Not planning your exploration, but letting your experiences guide you.

And then she WOWed me – Potential in Learning About Yourself.

De’Nicea spoke to the power of fear, suggesting we “become fear-full.” That if we allow ourselves to be aware of, feel and experience/play with our fears, and how they manifest in our bodies and minds, we are inviting ourselves to grow. Because fear is a signal that something needs to be different, but the fear is causing us to resist. We might accept the urge to change, or we can decide we’re not ready. I see this frequently in my clients, and in myself. And her ideas are NOT only for women – she simply works with women.