Mental Health Check-In: The Inner Kid Is Not Optional

This Mental Health Check-In launches Adult Recess Festival week by reframing play not as nostalgia or leisure, but as a critical component of adult mental health and nervous system regulation.

For many adults—especially those navigating chronic stress, grief, burnout, and responsibility—life has become about survival rather than fullness. This conversation invites us to examine what we’ve lost in that shift, and what the “inner kid” still holds: curiosity, regulation, creativity, emotional honesty, and the capacity to feel safe in our bodies and connected to others.

Grounded in lived experience, community wisdom, and public-health-informed insight, this check-in explores:

• How play supports nervous system regulation across adulthood
• What survival mode looks like in adult life—and how it shows up in our relationships, work, and health
• What the inner child teaches us about rest, boundaries, joy, and emotional expression
• How regulated adults create safer, more connected communities
• Why play is not optional, but foundational to living fully

This is not a clinical intervention—it is a collective pause, a space for reflection, honesty, and reconnection. A reminder that healing does not happen in isolation, and that joy is not something we earn after burnout—it is something we practice together.

This Mental Health Check-In sets the tone for the week:
from coping → to regulating
from surviving → to living fully
from isolation → to community

Come as you are.
Leave more connected than you arrived.

This experience reflects a grassroots approach to wellness—neighbors, professionals, and organizers working side by side to ensure our community has access to holistic, non-clinical support. Trust is built not only through systems, but through shared spaces, honest conversation, and showing up for one another.Food and drinks will be available for purchase.

💜 Community support helps sustain this work.
Donations are welcome and directly support preventative, community-based wellness programming. 501(c)(3) status pending.

Come curious.
Come open.
Come as you are. 🧡

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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