Esther Perel Instagram – Imagination is the most important tool I use in my work. The free sense of play that transforms the woods into a fairy kingdom or a pirate’s den is the same quality that alchemizes the mundane into the extraordinary in adult life. Play is a container for permission to explore and imagination is the source energy that fuels it. That is the energy that has fueled what my team and I have been calling our “theater project,” for the last year. In the early stages of planning, a dear friend and theater director asked us: “Why a theater tour?” “It’s because Esther is a ‘theater kid,’” one of my colleagues said. I had never heard this phrase, but I understood it. I grew up recreating my mother’s romance novels in the parking lot behind our house. I studied psychodrama. I was a puppeteer. Come to think of it, it’s clear why I was drawn to a narrative approach in my clinical work. So, as I embark on my U.S. tour this week, I’m excited to bring that same sense of imagination and play to our time together on stage, at the theater. Read this month’s newsletter through the link in my bio where I delve deeper to answer “Why a theater tour?” And for even more on this topic, I share a lot of behind-the-scenes stories about my theater background in a new episode of my Apple Podcast subscription, “Couple Therapy is the Best Theater in Town.”