Play as a Spiritual Practice (Understanding PACE Part One)

Catherine: Welcome to the Loved Called Gifted podcast. This is your place to come for musings about spirituality, identity and purpose. I'm your host, Catherine Cowell.


Catherine: So this episode I'm delighted to be joined by Margaret McGregor. We're going to be doing

Margaret: >> Hello.

Catherine: a couple of episodes around the concepts of PACE parenting, which is around how do you parent in a way which builds relationship with your children, because quite a lot of children with additional needs and certainly children with attachment problems don't respond to traditional parenting. And PACE, we will come back to, stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy. And this one is going to be about playfulness. And then in the subsequent episode, we're going to talk about acceptance, curiosity and empathy.

So we met quite a number of years ago, we had neighbours a couple of doors down. And when I said that I was going to adopt, she said, Oh, you need to meet Margaret. So we did, which is probably like 13, 14 years ago now. We did, but then you have friends with everybody. You do, extremely well networked.

Margaret: Yes, probably. And we also had mutual friends, we found out afterwards.
I get about.

Catherine: So lots and lots of people that I talk to know you. And then you pointed out to me that they also knew me. So maybe I knew quite a lot of people too.

Margaret: Yes, I was about to say that, that actually I think you also are known by quite a few people.

Catherine: Do you want to introduce yourself? That would be great.

Margaret: Yeah, my name is Margaret, married to Frank and we have five children.
Three are now adults with children of their own, so I’m grandma or grandmarg because my name is Margaret. And we have two teenage girls who we adopted when they were quite young, one at eight months and one at 16 months.


We've worked within churches as well. My husband's a church leader or has been, he's now retired. So we've been in lots of different churches around the country over the years.

Catherine: Yeah. And you were already working with kids before this, you were a health visitor weren’t you?

Margaret: I was a nurse, practice nurse, then a health visitor and then moved on to working in the infant feeding team as an infant feeding specialist. So working with pregnant mums and also mums with very small babies in the first few months of their lives.


Catherine: Yeah. And we've just been working together running a parenting course for, but primarily for Christians actually, but it could be for anybody, I guess, but combining sort of special needs parenting, which ends up being a bit different as we'll talk about and also spirituality,

Catherine: which has been quite good fun.

Margaret: Yes, because we actually, I suppose when we were trying to get our say recruits guinea pigs because it was the first one we'd run.

Margaret: We were talking about actually who do we go to for a spiritual input, I don't think we nailed it down to Christian but we said that's obviously our background.

Margaret: So if you've got spiritual interests as well as parenting special needs kids, would this be of interest to you?

Margaret: And we got a nice group together from all around the country who felt that it was something that might be of interest to them.

Margaret: So yeah, we did that.

Catherine: One of the things that we have talked about is around how do you parent in a way which builds relationship with your children, because quite a lot of children with additional needs and certainly children with attachment problems, which ours have, don't respond to traditional parenting and PACE, we will come back to stands for Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity and Empathy.

Catherine: So when did you know that you would end up adopting children?

Margaret: Before we even got married we had a discussion about it.
My husband will deny all knowledge of that discussion but we definitely did.

Catherine: Yes.

Margaret: We just thought it was something that we as Christians we would want to do and felt it was something that perhaps God was calling us to do.

Catherine: Yes.

Margaret: And I always knew I would have five children.

Looking at the verse where it says you'll be blessed and have a quiver full of children.

Margaret: We'll ignore the fact that actually it said sons because I've only got two sons and three daughters. But five is one of those numbers isn't it that reappears in the Bible.

Margaret: And I always knew we would have five so we got married and we had three birth children but we also had two miscarriages. So I did wonder is that my five, have I done five? But then the theme of adoption kept coming back through books I was reading, television programs I was watching. So then we did revisit.

We looked into adopting internationally first but then we didn't do that.

We went to the local authority and enquired through them first of all. And we then adopted two girls one at a time. They came home three years apart. They're not siblings.

Catherine: Yes, and your beautiful daughters are now 17 and 14.

Margaret: Seventeen and fourteen which is quite scary. So you know my seventeen year old came home when she was eight months old. So we had the privilege of seeing her first birthday, seeing her first everything really which is a real privilege.
But also quite mixed emotions because you realise when you adopt that actually the world isn't quite as it should be. And these beautiful children should be with their birth families.

But circumstances are not right for whatever reason and they end up needing to have a forever family rather than their birth family. So I remember my daughter's first birthday was absolutely joyous but had a lot of mixed emotions.

Catherine: Yes, yeah.

Margaret: Because you think she shouldn't be here, she should be with her birth mother but she can't be so we're standing in the gap.

Catherine: Something very profound about the grace of God in those situations where something that shouldn't have happened has. Yeah, I quite often think, because I am now married to a widower and have two adopted children, that this relationship was not first choice for any of them. And yet, and yet there is so much love and grace and joy in the midst of all of that.

Margaret: Yes the fact with adoption you get so much joy from adopting a child but so much tragedy has had to happen before that. So similarly you know when we look at second marriages especially with widows a tragedy has happened along the way. But there can still be joy come out of it absolutely.

Catherine: Yes, and a miraculous level of restoration and redemption that means that it doesn't feel at all second best. Unless I'm having a particularly low moment, kind of overthinking - having a down on myself day.

Margaret: Yes and that's why I say you know our adopted children are blessings.
They're not easy, it's not an easy blessing to carry let's put it that way. But yes I knew, I know that God wanted us to have those girls in our lives. You know I know that so when it is tricky for want of a better word I can go back to the fact they're meant to be with us.

Catherine: Yeah, yeah, and I would absolutely echo with that.

Margaret: We are meant to be their parents.

Catherine: There's never been a moment when I thought, my goodness, what did we do? Because I knew.

Margaret: Yes, yes so you know that it's God's plan so it'll be okay.

Catherine: Yes, yes, or at least God will love us in the middle of it, even when it's feeling definitively not okay this day, yes.

Margaret: It's a definition of okay. We can argue that one.

Margaret: What is the definition of okay?

Catherine: Yes, I might leave that to one side. So we're gonna talk about pace as a way of approaching parenting. But not just parenting, actually, I think there is something in it which is really helpful for all sorts of relationships and also for our relationship with God and our relationship with ourselves. And that's something that we were exploring on our course. And really, actually, it would be worth having a conversation about this.

So do you want to just take us through where PACE came from?

Margaret: PACE I think originated with Daniel Hughes who is an American and he's written many books, very large books I seem to remember. Because I remember thinking this is a big book to read. But it's a way of parenting children therapeutically who may in particular have problems with attachment. So it applies to children who are adopted, those in the foster care situation. But also it does really apply to all children.
And so I think it was invented, if that's the right word, for children who needed that little extra support. And parents needed extra support with parenting in those particular situations. But actually they can transfer those, the ideas, those skills onto everyday parenting.

But we decided that it was very useful for children with additional needs. That includes adopted children and foster children. But also children who perhaps have or have not got a diagnosis. So perhaps with autism or ADHD. And there's loads and loads of diagnoses out there that it may help with as well. And it's really based on relationship.
And I think that's the thing that a whole course kept coming back to. That it's about relationship. And it was our relationship with God. And how we see ourselves through God's eyes. And then how we see ourselves, perhaps if we're married, in a relationship.
And then as a parent. So our relationship with our children. We kept coming back to, it's about relationship.

Catherine: Yeah, yeah.

Margaret: And is this actually helping build relationship or is it actually breaking a relationship, severing a relationship
Catherine: So traditional parenting works on the basis that you kind of look at consequences, doesn't it? So if somebody does something, you will teach them what the consequence of that is in terms of what happens in their relationship with you. So if they do something you don't want them to, you might sit them on the stairs for 10 minutes or whatever. Probably not 10 minutes, I think you're supposed to, I think that would be a bit long for, but what happens in that process is that you're saying, okay,
I'm going to break my relationship with you and tell you that you're not okay. And then you will decide, well, you don't want to do that thing that makes you feel that you're not okay, and that our relationship is severed. So you'll come back and do the thing that I was hoping you would do. And both for children for whom they already are coming with a broken sense of relationship, it doesn't work.

So that's our children who've had early trauma, who are fostered or adopted or might be in special guardianship, but things have gone wrong. But also for a lot of kids with additional needs, the thing that they are being asked to do by the adults in their life,
they actually can't comply with. Neither can they comply often with the timeout or
the whatever that you are hoping that they will do. So a very typical situation that we often hear parents talking about is, they've got kids in school who needs to run around.
And so the teachers decide that because they have not been sitting still in the lesson, they need to learn that there is a consequence. And the consequences, well, you can't go out and play at playtime because you haven't been sitting still.

Well, they couldn't comply with the sitting still in the first place, and they can't really comply with the not going out and running around.

Catherine: Yes, yeah, interesting sort of side link from that into motivational theory.
We know that people are best motivated by things which are intrinsic. So if you really enjoy doing something, then that's gonna be the thing which motivates you best.
Whereas if somebody says, well, I'll give you a tenner if you do it. Well, you might do it if you need the tenner, but you're not necessarily gonna like it.

So there was a number of interesting experiments that were done that Dan Pink talks about in his book Drive actually. And they commissioned pieces of artwork. And there were some people who were told, well, you can do this art because you have been chosen to do this art and you have the honor of doing it. And then there were another bunch of people who were doing artwork because they

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: were told, if you do this artwork, we'll give you a sum of money. And then they had independent people assessing the art. And what they found was that the ones who were doing it for the love of it. Produced better art than the ones who were doing it for the money.

I think there's a real parallel between that and sort of the parenting that we're talking about.

So the first letter in the pace is playfulness. And I've heard Dan Hughes say that he would make this the smaller letter, that sometimes you can apply play and playfulness and sometimes it doesn't work. So I presume he would have put it at the end if that made a word.

Which, yes.

But Achep isn't as good as Pace.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: But that is really referring to the fact that it can be really helpful in

Catherine: actually in any relationship to have a sense of lightness and playfulness.

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: And I've certainly found that that has worked really well with my kids at times.

Margaret: Yeah, because I think sometimes if you can laugh with your children, have fun with your children,

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: you're building a relationship at the same time, but like you say, if it's about some behaviour, you know,

Catherine: Yes, yeah.

Margaret: some behaviours that might not be as acceptable as we would like, definitely not making fun of the child,

Margaret: it's having fun with the child, so that might not be your first port of call immediately,

Margaret: you might work on the other letters in PACE, and then include playfulness as you're hopefully repairing

Margaret: the relationship or encouraging a healthy relationship.

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: I've used it quite often.

Catherine: It's quite often got us around things when we've been in a sort of a state of

Catherine: a state of disrepair or this kind of angst going on.

Catherine: You sort of trying to make things happen and they're not,

Catherine: then creating a game out of something is often quite helpful.

Catherine: >> Yeah.

Catherine: >> So when my boys were really small, telling them you must put your shoes

Catherine: on now probably wouldn't work.

Catherine: But playfully saying, I am going to be quicker than you at my shoes today.

Catherine: I'm going to be very, very, very speedy and

Catherine: you can't possibly put your shoes on faster than I can.

Catherine: And then they would be delighted to beat me.

Catherine: And then I would be kind of mock horrified and I'm going to win next time.

Catherine: [LAUGH] In fact, we would do whole getting dressed based on I'm definitely

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: going to be able to put my clothes on quicker than you.

Catherine: And then I would go back and proudly announce that I have put my t-shirt on.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: The games we play as parents.

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: And then they'd be like, but I've got my number before you and that, but

Catherine: that worked quite well.

Catherine: There's been quite a lot of situations where just turning something into a game

Catherine: has been quite helpful.

Catherine: >> Yeah.

Catherine: >> One of my boys, there was an occasion when they were,

Catherine: I'll tell you a bit about what my household has been like at times.

Catherine: But one of them was in the garden trying to throw stones at the other

Catherine: through his bedroom window.

Catherine: And we've got ornamental slate in our garden, what possessed me, I do not know.

Catherine: I've had it since before the kids came along.

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: And we also live next to a canal.

Catherine: This all sounds really dangerous, doesn't it?

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: Why? Why?

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: But I remember saying to him, I remember saying to him,

Catherine: that is such a waste of a skimming stone.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: When you're throwing it to your brother, we could get some of these and

Catherine: we could skim them on the canal, and we did.

Catherine: And actually in that moment, that kind of broke that really,

Catherine: completely diffused it.

Catherine: And we had a good time skimming stones on the canal.

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: And he was young enough that he then forgotten what on earth it was that his

Catherine: brother had done that had annoyed him.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: And you didn't get any broken windows or...

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: No, thank goodness.

Catherine: No, thank goodness for double glazing.

Catherine: It's very difficult to break double glazing.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: But I'm sure our children will try.

Catherine: Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: So that's kind of how we might use it in terms of parenting.

Catherine: But we were also talking about play and playfulness in terms of our own

Catherine: relationship with ourselves and a relationship with God.

Margaret: Yeah.

Catherine: I think this is relevant across the board.

Margaret: [no audio]

Catherine: But one of the things that really resonates with me is the fact that

Catherine: we are playful with people that we like.

Catherine: >> Yes.

Catherine: >> So playfulness communicates a number of things.

Catherine: One is, I like being with you.

Catherine: I enjoy being with you.

Catherine: And I think understanding that God enjoys being with us is really powerful.

Margaret: Yeah. And just having that time to do something which may look, in one sense, like a waste of time,

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: when we've got busy lives as mums, you know, doing work and everything, and keeping up on top of the admin

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: that our children produce, it's sometimes difficult to remember ourselves in all that.

Margaret: And lots of courses will talk about self-care, but it all seems to be lighting candles and, you know,

Margaret: staring into nothingness or whatever. Although I do like candles.

Margaret: And, you know, one of my self-care would be have a bath with a book, because I do like reading,

Margaret: and that's definitely one of my things that I need to do for me.

Margaret: But actually doing something fun, sometimes on your own. Some people do things like running.

Margaret: I used to run. My back's not good enough to continue that.

Margaret: But I know we both enjoy going swimming in cold lakes, which some people might think is not a fun thing.

Margaret: But actually it isn't necessarily fun getting in, but the actual joy of being in and also then getting out,

Margaret: there is an exhilaration about that. And you have a good laugh with whoever you're with,

Margaret: even if it's a complete stranger doing it at the same time.

Margaret: There may be some swearing going on and screams as people get in, but you have a sense of togetherness

Margaret: and being one with people. Complete strangers often, but it is nice to go.

Margaret: I know we go together with another friend, sometimes we go, and that's just great.

Margaret: Yes, it's grown-up activities. Strange though it may sound to those who don't do it.

Margaret: And I know there's a lot going, "Why on earth would you want to do that?"

Margaret: But actually there is a lot of benefit of cold water. We won't go into that now.

Margaret: But there is a lot of benefits of cold water.

Margaret: But to actually make time to do something fun, it doesn't have to be cold water, whatever floats your boat, as it were,

Margaret: it's really important for us, for ourselves, to give ourselves time, but also to do it with friends,

Margaret: or even complete strangers like we do swimming, is very, very valuable.

Catherine: You do realize Margaret that quite a lot of people listening to this will think

Margaret: And I know when I've made the effort to do it, because sometimes there's an effort involved to actually carving out time

Margaret: and going and getting in a lake, or whatever it is.

Margaret: I know, I know. I said whatever floats your boat.

Catherine: that we're talking more about torture than play?

Catherine: >> [LAUGH]

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: >> Yes, canoeing, I quite like canoeing.

Margaret: And actually it was something that I thought, actually I want to do things that challenge me as well.

Catherine: >> Yeah.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: I followed it a lot, people doing open water swimming during Covid, when we really weren't doing anything,

Margaret: and that was, people decided this was fun and safe during Covid.

Margaret: I watched it a lot online, a long, long time before I actually did it.

Catherine: Play.

Margaret: But sometimes it's good to do something that is a bit out of your comfort zone to stretch it.

Margaret: But it's important to make time for you, as a mum, as a wife, whatever, just time for...

Margaret: Yes.

Margaret: No.

Catherine: >> The thing about play is that it is by definition,

Catherine: something that you're doing for the joy of it.

Catherine: It does not have a purpose or an end goal.

Catherine: It's not something that you're doing because you have a duty to do.

Margaret: No.

Catherine: So the moment you're cold water swimming is on the fitness regime and

Catherine: you've decided that you really need to do it three times a week,

Catherine: then it potentially loses some of that playfulness.

Catherine: And sometimes I think you can get that back by saying, well,

Catherine: actually I'm doing this for fun.

Catherine: I went with the kids quite a number of years ago, we went on a sort of

Catherine: adventurey thing where children and

Margaret: Yes.

Margaret: Yes.

Catherine: parents were all encouraged to do activities together.

Catherine: And one of the things that we did was raft building.

Catherine: And then parents and kids together, and then there was quite a lot of

Catherine: knocking each other off of rafts into the water.

Catherine: And I've still got a picture of me running off of a jetty and

Catherine: leaping into a lake.

Catherine: >> Wonderful.

Catherine: >> It was really, really, really good fun.

Catherine: But it is saying, actually, I am worth this time.

Catherine: The people that I am with, it's worth just spending time with them.

Margaret: Yes.

Margaret: Yes.

Catherine: I was thinking as well as you were talking about when I worked as a manager

Margaret: Yes.

Catherine: in the NHS for a while, and I quite liked injecting

Catherine: something a bit more lighthearted into things.

Catherine: So if I was gonna have a meeting with someone,

Catherine: if there was any excuse to do it in a cafe over cake.

Margaret: I agree.

Margaret: Yes.

Catherine: Yes, then let's escape.

Margaret: Change the environment.

Catherine: I know that's kind of it's a very small element of playfulness.

Catherine: But there was something about saying,

Catherine: we don't have to be sitting in this grim office.

Catherine: We could, yeah, and do something slightly fun.

Margaret: Yes.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: And that obviously, it's when you're in the depths of parenting children who have additional needs,

Margaret: it can be quite hard work and time consuming.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: But actually, having time for yourself, brilliant, you definitely, definitely need to do it.

Margaret: But also having fun with the kids, like you were saying about the raft building,

Margaret: and doing things that are a bit out of your comfort zone, but the kids perhaps are a bit better at than you,

Margaret: is really good for relationship building.

Margaret: And they probably, we can never laugh at children, but they can laugh at us.

Margaret: And often do, at how they are better at something perhaps than we are,

Margaret: but in a playful way, not putting each other down, but in a playful way.

Catherine: >> Or jumping in the puddles as you walk past them or there's lots of things,

Margaret: And that's the competition side that you were talking about with getting dressed as well, isn't it?

Margaret: Having fun together, a bit of competition.

Margaret: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: lots of ways that you can inject a bit of playfulness.

Catherine: And it builds memories as well.

Catherine: And it means that you've got time you spent together where you've been enjoying

Catherine: one another's company that kind of builds that base of good relationship.

Margaret: I think often when children's behaviours are tricky, we get so immersed or entrenched in that,

Catherine: That means that when things get tricky, you're undergirded by this

Catherine: sort of this foundation of affection and love and joy and playfulness.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Margaret: that you feel that the only things that come out of your mouth or the only things that you do are quite negative things,

Margaret: because you're trying to manage the situation and it might be you're always thinking in your head,

Margaret: how can I manage it better and whatever.

Margaret: So to have something fun, which has got, I'll say on paper, it doesn't look as if there's any worth in it,

Margaret: but there is huge worth in it to actually have fun together and laugh together.

Margaret: And I know one of my kids at the moment, my youngest one, she's struggling and fun is not something in her vocabulary really.

Margaret: She's really struggling to find fun.

Margaret: And so I have to sort of go with her on what she finds fun independently often,

Margaret: and sort of try and join her in what she enjoys, as opposed to me directing it,

Margaret: because she would struggle with that.

Margaret: So it's, and like you say, when you're walking around a park with a two year old, for instance,

Margaret: they will be kicking the leaves and going in the puddles and picking up stuff that you'd rather they didn't pick up.

Margaret: But that's how they're learning about the world.

Margaret: And it's rather than kind of rush them through to get to where you want.

Margaret: It's sometimes joining them where they are.

Margaret: So, but it's not just about two year olds. It's all age where they are.

Margaret: So sometimes as they're, you know, when kids become teenagers, it may be gaming, which bores the pants off me.

Margaret: But sometimes you just have to join them in it, ask questions and join them where they are.

Margaret: And I'm sure most teenagers would wax lyrical about the games that they're playing and you're nearly falling asleep listening to them.

Margaret: But that is actually really important for that connection, especially when they become teenagers, where they become more disconnected as teenagers do.

Margaret: To actually join them in their world is really important.

Margaret: .

Catherine: >> Yes, yeah, I have to admit I find that quite tricky.

Catherine: >> Yes.

Catherine: >> I can join in their joy when they've done well at something there.

Catherine: So if they have announced that they've, I don't know,

Catherine: they've won a fortnight game or something, then I can join in the joy of that.

Catherine: Despite the fact that my ability to join in listening to them talking about it is

Catherine: perhaps more limited.

Catherine: >> Yes.

Catherine: >> But with creativity,

Catherine: I think you can find fun in situations that aren't necessarily.

Catherine: I was just remembering we had quite a long,

Catherine: had quite long seasons of school refusal in my house.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Which is really stressful and we have huge empathy if that's something you're going

Catherine: through, huge empathy because it is really, it is traumatic.

Catherine: >> Yes.

Catherine: >> There have been some studies recently where they have talked about the trauma

Catherine: experience of parents who've got kids with school refusal.

Catherine: But anyway, there was a particular morning when one of mine was

Catherine: reluctant to come out of, he actually was reluctant to come out of my office,

Catherine: which he'd snuck into, I've got a lockable office, but he had,

Catherine: he snuck into a hole in the door that he'd previously made.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: And we'd got, so you can tell there was quite a lot of stress going on in the house

Catherine: at the time.

Catherine: And he'd had a wardrobe that I was planning to sell because we were swapping

Catherine: furniture, but he'd managed to break some of the bits of it in a moment when it was

Catherine: crossed.

Catherine: So there he is in my office, hidden away and I mean, we're talking a bit about kind

Catherine: of acceptance, but I was just kind of like, accepting the situation of working and

Catherine: what we're gonna do next.

Catherine: And I'd been passing him milk and biscuits through the hole and

Catherine: just sort of sitting there with him.

Catherine: I'm like, what are we gonna do next?

Catherine: And I remember the wardrobe and one of the things that I wanted to do was to get

Catherine: the wardrobe to the tip because it was now no longer saleable.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: And it just occurred to me that he needed to let off a bit of steam and I said,

Catherine: I need some help with something.

Catherine: He said, what do you need help with?

Catherine: I said, I need somebody to throw the pieces of wardrobe down the stairs.

Catherine: And at the time my house needed to be decorating anyway, for

Catherine: reasons that you could imagine.

Catherine: So we weren't gonna do damage, but it just was, I said, I need somebody to throw

Catherine: the wardrobe down the stairs.

Catherine: And then we need to put it in the car, then we need to throw it in the tip.

Catherine: So that's what we did.

Catherine: Yes, he had great fun hurling these pieces of wardrobe downstairs.

Catherine: And then we put them in the car and then together we held them into the tip.

Catherine: And created fun out of a situation which arguably on the surface.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: You feel that the unfun was perhaps less than, more than surface level.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: We did, yes.

Catherine: One of the things, actually, if you're looking for kind of stress relieving,

Catherine: one of the things that I kind of happened upon by chance,

Catherine: well, it wasn't that much by chance, I think.

Catherine: We had had milk cartons broken at various points.

Catherine: I had a birthday when the fact that I'd got a birthday just disrupted

Catherine: the routine enough and left enough unsettledness.

Catherine: In the course of a morning, a rather large flagon of milk sort of broke,

Catherine: shall we say.

Catherine: Yes, yes, well, it turned out that if you throw them, they break.

Catherine: But the silver lining of this was discovered that actually you can,

Catherine: if you fill empty plastic milk bottles up, kind of the ones.

Catherine: Yes, if you've got a patio, if you hold them up into the air full of water,

Catherine: they then fall and smash.

Catherine: >> Smash.

Catherine: >> Actually.

Catherine: And so there's all sorts in there.

Catherine: It's great, it is great fun.

Catherine: And there is something sensory about the hurling something really big and

Catherine: heavy and then it smashes.

Catherine: And what I have found is that over the years,

Catherine: we've not needed to do it for ages now.

Catherine: But over the years, that has been a really, really good way of relieving stress.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yeah, I wouldn't throw those.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: If you're very green and you do recycled milk bottles,

Catherine: then that isn't gonna work for you.

Catherine: But I sort of thought people would work that out.

Catherine: But there have been occasions when my son has really struggled with

Catherine: that because he knows he needs to relieve stress.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes, so being playful about the fact that I've just said, well, I need to throw

Catherine: some of these so I'm gonna fill one up for me and you're not having it cuz I need

Catherine: to do it, kind of guaranteed that he would nick it from me and so.

Catherine: >> Yes.

Catherine: >> Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Catherine: But the other thing I was gonna say about playfulness in terms of our spiritual

Catherine: life is that quite often our Christian lives are very much about the things we

Catherine: think we ought to be doing.

Catherine: And even our connection with God is all about, well, I've decided, for example,

Catherine: that I'm always going to pray and read my Bible in the morning.

Catherine: And these are my Bible study notes and this is what I'm gonna do.

Catherine: And here's my list of people that I'm praying for.

Catherine: And then I'm gonna go to church and I'm gonna volunteer there or

Catherine: I'm gonna go through my reading the Bible in a year app.

Catherine: All of those things which become very kind of routine and

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes, absolutely they do.

Catherine: But underneath that is a sense that our relationship with God is all about doing.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: And we're not worthy and our value to God is about doing.

Catherine: I remember having a conversation with somebody two or three years ago.

Catherine: And she said that she'd realized that her prayer time with God was very much,

Catherine: very, very deep faith, very spiritual.

Catherine: But she'd had this kind of revelatory moment of realizing that

Catherine: when she met with God, it was to get her instructions for the day.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: The purpose to it, yeah.

Catherine: And I think deliberately taking time to play is saying actually,

Catherine: it's not just about doing, it's about being.

Catherine: And whether you're somebody of faith or not, I think that getting to a point

Catherine: where we value ourselves for just who we are is really, really crucial.

Catherine: There is an earlier podcast about kind of being and doing.

Catherine: I'll perhaps put a link to that in a note.

Catherine: But play says your being is valuable.

Catherine: You don't have to do anything for it to be valuable.

Catherine: It's just the being.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: They don't necessarily model it.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes, yeah.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yes.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: It does, it does.

Catherine: And I think if that's undergirded by this sense that we are valuable for

Catherine: who we are, yeah, and God enjoys us, and we can enjoy God.

Catherine: So that kind of sense of playfulness, I think, yeah, I think it's really valuable

Catherine: in adding a kind of a lightness and a joy and a pleasure in relationships.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yeah.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Now actually quite often the work is the discipline of allowing there to be fun.

Catherine: And not allowing everything else to kind of crowd in.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: I'm just thinking there is that verse, isn't there,

Catherine: that says that the joy of the Lord is my strength.

Catherine: Yeah.

Catherine: And joy is, it is full of energy.

Catherine: It is, when you're joyful, you have got more strength, because it just kind of.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: I think one of the things that you bring is that you're not just a lady who

Catherine: lunches, you're a lady who lunches and laughs.

Catherine: Yes.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: I think one of the things that you bring is that you're not just a lady who

Catherine: lunches, you're a lady who lunches and laughs.

Catherine: Yes.

Catherine: [LAUGH]

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Yeah, but it's true, isn't it?

Catherine: A lot of that is because you do bring a lightness and a sense of humor and

Catherine: a sense of perspective to all this stuff,

Catherine: despite the fact that things are really challenging.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: Absolutely, I am thinking that we have been talking about 40 minutes on play.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: So is there anything else about playfulness that you think we should have mentioned that we haven't?

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: So that was playfulness, and I hope that that's been really helpful and informative.

Catherine: And we would really encourage you to go and play,

Catherine: partly because it's about saying that who you are is worthy and worthwhile,

Catherine: even if you're not doing anything particularly productive.

Catherine: But also because of what it does for our relationships with our children,

Catherine: with our spouses, with other people in our lives.

Catherine: So thank you very much, Margaret.

Catherine: [BLANK_AUDIO]

Catherine: I hope this conversation has been helpful.

Catherine: If you would be interested in the parenting course that we've been talking about, then do get in

Catherine: touch. You can email me at lovedcalledgifted@gmail.com.

Catherine: And if you think that this would be worth sharing with somebody else, then please do.

Catherine: Thank you very much.

Catherine: [MUSIC]

Catherine: Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Loved Called Gifted podcast.

Catherine: If you'd like to get in touch, you can email lovedcalledgifted@gmail.com.

Catherine: You can find a transcript of this podcast at lovedcalledgifted.com.

Catherine: And that's also the place to go if you're interested in the Loved Called Gifted course,

Catherine: or if you'd like to find out about spiritual direction or coaching.

Catherine: Thank you for listening.

Catherine: [MUSIC]