Playful Lessons From Burning Man

This is a milestone post as it’s the final chapter of Part 1 of The Turned-On Couple (relationships). In Part 2 we’ll be moving into the subject of desire, the what, whys and hows of desire in long-term relationships.

Burning Man 2025 is around the corner. This year I’m packing up my partner and sending him off for his own experience in our Post Office camp. After 5 years, I’m taking a hiatus and embracing two weeks of fasting from our companionship, including no phone calls.

No contact for two weeks is a rare experience in our interconnected world where everyone is only a text away, 24/7. Much like food fasting, contact fasting can reset the system and clear out the cobwebs of overfamiliarity.

I wrote this chapter last year post-Burning Man. It’s about the importance of play, and why play isn’t just for fun. It’s for relationship resilience, transcendence, challenges and adventure, all necessary ingredients for a thriving, connected partnership.

My partner and I pulled into our driveway in a cloud of playa dust, direct from the festival known as Burning Man, feeling enlivened, enriched, and exhausted.

Every year we embrace the challenge that comes with high heat, dust storms, and late nights, as part of the fully immersive experience in the middle of the Nevada Desert.

What brings tens of thousands to this wild, unpredictable, uninhabitable place every year? I believe it’s the desire to immerse ourselves in the wonder of play again, with the same spirit and curiosity we did as children.

Most of Burning Man’s long-held principles lend themselves to play by promoting cooperation, inclusion, radical self-expression, generosity, and open-hearted presence. All the elements of life with which every one of us is born and that we intuitively understand as children. Play is a reset button for our over-stressed, news-saturated, time-pressured adult minds.

Most couples I work with will readily admit that play is not something they experience on a regular basis. Life has become too busy. There’s barely enough time to be alone to talk, much less play! Our time has become more about schedules, finances, work, family, and errands.

We wake up planning our busy days and fall into bed drained. One of the casualties of growing up is our ability to embrace play for its own sake, to seek out joyful moments for no other reason than to be present in the moment and have fun together.

Playing on the Playa

One of our neighbors on the playa (meaning ‘beach’ in Spanish) was a couple in their early fifties who are parents of three kids in college. When I asked if they ever bring their kids to Burning Man, they said, emphatically, “No!”

Burning Man is their time to be alone together and enjoy an adventure as a couple, not parents. They looked and acted more as they did at the age when they met, twenty five years ago. They dressed in colorful outfits that expressed their playful sides and laid-back attitudes. Burning Man was their annual escape to reconnect, having nothing more to do than be together in a mood of exploration and adventure. Each day we’d watch them hop on their bikes and head off, returning late into the night with smiles and stories to share.

When couples give each other permission to play together, they acknowledge that their relationship is a place to engage their imaginations and embrace parts of themselves they may have left behind along the way.

Play for its own sake is not a trivial, unnecessary activity. Play is foundational to maintaining a happy, growing relationship. (Read that sentence again, out loud!)

When we invite joyful, carefree moments into our time with our partner, we experience the childlike essence behind the busy adult, and the inherent joy in living.

If the idea of play seems like a distant memory in your relationship, maybe it’s time to sit down and talk about it! What activities would bring out playfulness in you as a couple? Is it learning how to partner dance? Or sharing a new sport? Is it hitting the road to commune with nature? Is it camping around a fire with friends? Or laughing together at a local comedy club? Is it starting a 2000-piece puzzle? Or pulling out a Jenga tower?

Of course, we can bring play into the bedroom as well, using our imagination to explore our erotic personas and engage with our partner through a different lens.

Couples who enjoy roleplay appreciate the experience of stepping out of the norm and embracing alternative ways of relating to each other erotically. (More on that later in the Part 3 of The Turned-On Couple.)

A few years ago a client of mine discovered a side of herself that loved to pretend she was still in college, before the kids, the job, and the mortgage, the payments. She gave that part of her the name Sassy. Her partner loved spending time with Sassy. When she brought Sassy out to play, her partner felt invited into a more carefree space as well. The presence of Sassy was the signal that conversations about adult worries were put on hold, and play was the focus.

Bringing play into your relationship is a team effort. In order to let ourselves feel playful, we need to feel supported by our partner. We can give each other permission to make the great escape from adult demands.

Trust that your partner has your back in new adventures. Be patient with each other as you try out new ways of being playful together.

Be courageous by stepping into your more child-like enthusiasm, out of your adult responsibilities and let go into a more child-like enjoyment.

Attune to your partner, to create a shared experience. Collaborate in designing the play that you’re creating together.

Cooperate to bring that vision into being, whether that’s riding your bikes through the sights and sounds of Burning Man, planning a vacation full of new experiences, or sneaking off for a night in a hotel room with tickets to your favorite live concert.

Be happy; nothing is in control

One of the challenges of creating play at Burning Man was trying to set up camp during two days of winds and dust storms. I have memories of holding onto the end of a 15-foot square tarp, trying not to be swept off my feet with gusts of 30 mph winds. By the end of that day, we lay exhausted, laughing about what we had to overcome to get settled, and feeling unified in our shared victory.

Playfulness requires full participation and presence, requiring us to relinquish the control we cling to in our day-to-day lives. Play can push us out of the comfort zone of familiarity. It asks us to put our phones down and forget about timelines. Play challenges our rigid, adult expectations of right and wrong, or yes and no.

One of the most important transitions I make at Burning Man usually comes within the first three days, when I’m confronted with my need to control circumstances and surroundings. It’s in that confrontation where the true reset can begin. Letting go of control and going with the flow is the gift that play gives us.

There’s a science behind play. It’s been shown to release endorphins and improve brain functionality. It stimulates creativity and, of course, increases our feelings of well-being. New forms of play introduce into our relationships the much-needed experiences of novelty and mystery, two of the necessary ingredients for a vibrant, growing relationship.

When a couple engages in the novelty of new experiences, their brains produce all the love hormones that support bonding and closeness.

Oxytocin comes from the attraction of seeing our partner with fresh eyes as we engage in new experiences that bring out their joyfulness.

Vasopressin helps us mobilize physically and emotionally to take on new adventures.

Phenylethylamine is another love hormone responsible for releasing adrenaline that comes from new experiences.

Dopamine comes from the bonding and closeness of sharing those new experiences.

All these love hormones combine to make a cocktail of powerful feelings. In other words, when we introduce novel ways of playing together Mother Nature supplies us with everything we need to feel happy and in love with our partner.

New experiences can be as simple as trying out indoor rock climbing, visiting an Escape Room, or jumping on a local zip line in the woods.

If a couple comes to see me complaining of low desire or boredom, we talk about the importance of keeping novelty and mystery alive in their relationship. These two ingredients help produce the chemical soup that reawakens desire between partners.

Sit down with your partner and talk about what play means in your relationship. Take a break from this crazy adult world. You can be sure it’ll be here when you get back from your personal playground, feeling renewed, engaged, and happily exhausted.

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