March 8, 2024 • 24 mins
In a conversation taking place after the second Relational Cadre session of 2024, Amy and Kevin reflect on the discussions and playful activity of the group around the topic of Imagining Together, part of the year-long focus on Playful Connections. They talk about some insights and questions that arose from the session, and try to connect play to serious benefits in other areas of life.
Cadre is a podcast that explores concepts from Relational-Cultural Theory (RCT), a psychological theory that started with Jean Baker Miller, and grew through collaboration and connection in places like the Stone Center at Wellesley College. RCT is built on the idea that people grow through and towards relationships, and that those relationships shape and are shaped by the cultures we co-create. Culture often creates challenges to connection through inequity and hierarchies.
Each year, the Bloomington Center for Connection selects a guiding theme for monthly small-group discussions of RCT concepts.
Amy Makice is the founder of Bloomington Center for Connection and a licensed psychotherapist based in Bloomington, Indiana. Amy offers individual therapy and parent support for people in the Bloomington area, workshops for parents and caregivers, and training on Relational Cultural theory.
Kevin Makice is a user experience designer and enthusiastic gamer who has been steeping in RCT for three decades.
Theme music created by Vlad Gluschenko ("Positive Thinking" and "Serpantine") and downloaded from Soundcloud through Creative Commons Attribution 3.0.
https://soundcloud.com/vgl9/positive-thinking
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:20):
We're doing this right after the cadre, and I am noticing a lot of energy in
me, which is interesting because sometimes when we do like,
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but sometimes I'm just sort of like my brain is dead afterward.
And right now I'm feeling pretty energized.
(00:43):
I'm feeling energized and connected, I would say.
It's nice to see new faces. It was nice to see some faces that couldn't make
it last time that we were expecting.
We missed some faces, so slowly we're getting a larger and larger group.
But this is really where having those activities in the second part of the second
(01:06):
discussion, I want to get better at that as we go because I think there's a
lot of learning in there.
And that's really where the play is, is in trying to figure things,
these things out together and try to apply them.
Yeah, I enjoyed today quite a bit.
Some of the things that we discussed on this podcast last time.
(01:27):
So, you know, agency doesn't need to be isolated.
Even though you can have choices and you don't have to do it in absence of what
everybody else does. to be intentional about and aware of what other people
need so you can give them something and they can give something back.
We talked about supported vulnerability and mutuality as being two key ingredients
(01:48):
in this, meaning you have to create a space where you feel it's okay to play,
that you can make mistakes,
you can be vulnerable, you can just see where it goes.
Everybody's trying to move this together to some end that you don't know about. Yes, yes.
And in our breakout group on Zoom, Evan was in mine both times.
(02:12):
And so I actually have two things that he said that I jotted down.
The thing that made me laugh was I was talking about my reaction when someone
tells me they've made a game to help children learn.
And he said, oh, we call that chocolate-covered broccoli because everybody still
(02:34):
knows that it's broccoli.
So I liked that a lot.
One of the themes that we talked about, I think, throughout the day was being
trauma-responsive, trauma-informed, and caring for each other as we play.
I think all of us were talking about, you know, different ways that you can
(02:58):
create a safe place for play.
You know, you can have the different systems of holding up a card when you need
to, when you need it to stop, Or when you need it to slow down.
And, you know, there's a few different systems for that.
But one of the things that Evan said is you need the people in the game.
(03:20):
They just have to know, I will not abandon you. I loved that.
(03:55):
And take more risks. Our first discussion was just responding to what we call our popcorn questions.
So we talked about matching together in a condensed way as we did last week on this podcast.
And then the questions that came up, we solicited a few.
And one was about how do you get adults to play, particularly if they're reluctant to do that.
(04:19):
Another one was about how can you to encourage people to take play seriously.
And so we talked a lot in our discussion about just that first one about,
you know, encouraging adults to play.
And one of the things that was on my mind as we were listening to the stories
is that one of our people, Jen,
(04:40):
had talked about going to visit a friend in a hospital and just dressing up
in a costume and being nervous about doing that just for a moment,
but already dressed up and so just did it anyway.
And then walking through and just delighting everybody, not just herself for
getting that reaction and not just the person she was intending to visit,
but like everybody along the way.
(05:01):
And for me, the way she described it, it's like when I encounter animals out in the wild or on my walk,
or the other day I shared the story about, you know, there was a dog that was
just out on the lawn, but it was cute and it was, you know, really wanted to be pet.
And so I spent like 10 minutes there on my walk doing that until the owner came out.
(05:22):
There are things that I just stop what I'm doing to be in the moment and to just enjoy that.
And I think it happens with me with animals most because it feels like this
is a special thing that's never going to be there again. But also it's a different set of rules.
It's not like somebody coming to my work, everything that is not planned,
(05:44):
that suddenly there's an animal there and what am I going to do with it?
And it was just this joy that I also feel when we really get into games and
we are having a good time and we're creating a story together and it's going
in a great place that that's the feeling that I was feeling.
Susan also talked about bringing treats on walks specifically to,
(06:06):
you know, give to dogs and the dogs are then the avenue to have a conversation
with a complete stranger. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. So that's some ways to engage maybe reluctant players into play?
To answer that question, I think we started in places of what would make somebody reluctant.
(06:27):
Jen also talked about biking down the roads with a bunch of friends when they
do their midnight bike rides.
And generally, they are able to stay off roads, but when they're on the roads,
inevitably, somebody is honking or upset by it.
And so that took us into an area of talking about disruption,
you know, so it's not that what you are trying to do or your play.
(06:50):
Is the thing that they're really upset about. It's that there's an expectation
or a path. This is disrupting that.
And that may be something that needs to be addressed.
What is being tossed aside or pushed aside in order for me to play?
And I'm willing to do that. And then something to ease people into it.
(07:11):
So we've pulled out games before that have of encyclopedias for rules and you
can't just sit down, open up the box and then take a game like that and then
expect everybody to stay at the table while you read and figure it out.
Complicated games, while they're still fun to play, somebody has to do that learning ahead of time.
So if somebody already had that knowledge or it was already all set up,
(07:35):
you're just lowering barriers for somebody to take that first step and come in.
Disruption was one part of it, but fear was
the the other part and there's a lot of things you could
do to lessen the fear and then
that just is removing some of the obstacles to say yes i will i will play with
you larry cohen talks a lot in trying to get reluctant teenagers to play and
(07:59):
i i would assume this is similar with adults just playing really really ignorant
like you know nothing that's how he gets them involved and,
When you were talking about play disrupting things and then needing to ease
some people into play, that made me think of Kay saying, all things that breathe play.
(08:19):
And that if something, a being isn't playing, then that's when you're like,
oh, something's wrong here.
We need to get in there and check it out. I would love for us to get to that
place where we're like, oh, oh dear, that person isn't playing at all.
How can we help? Because we need it. Yeah, it's a good way to reframe that moment.
(08:42):
If I really want to play a game and nobody wants to play with me, that's a rejection.
So it's on me feeling like the world doesn't want to be with me.
But if it's twisted the other way to say, you know, everybody should want to
play with me because playing is fun and this is going to be a fun game and you
don't, let's talk about that.
(09:02):
And maybe we could find a way to to do this cool thing that's that's playing.
Or maybe we can find some on ramp play that would work.
You do need some guidelines in order to you want to do the yes and for sure.
And you want to stay within the mutuality of it, like supporting each other
(09:23):
and collaborating, basically. basically, but also some restrictions,
you know, like saying, okay, this is a world that doesn't have magic,
or this is a world that does have magic.
I've recently been looking for runners for the hallway here because of the snow
and the salt and it gets really gross.
And so I keep Googling and one of the runners that showed up was a Flores lava runner.
(09:48):
That is like a 3d image that goes on the ground that looks like you're jumping over a volcano to Yeah.
(10:13):
Just a room into a big play place.
Yeah, constraints are powerful. So we did an exercise where,
you know, we needed to come up with something and then pass our character around to be created.
And the hardest part was starting because when you're looking at a blank sheet.
Anything could be on there.
But the moment that it gets filled with anything now, that world just got focused in some way.
(10:38):
And even though there's lots of agency to be able able to make decisions and
it can go all sorts of ways.
It's a starting point that helps. And we see this in design too,
is if you give somebody, what do you want to build?
I don't know. And that's a hard question to answer.
But if you talk about it in terms of constraints, or you say,
(11:01):
we're just going to work on this little thing, or we only have this much time,
now the world of what what you can do gets easier to manage in some way.
And that invites you in to be less overwhelmed as you are trying to figure things
out. And I think play is the same thing.
We encounter it a lot when we sit down as a family and stuff and,
(11:22):
you know, what do you want to do? Well, we have games.
We have lots of shows that we could watch, but everybody doesn't know how the
other person is going to do it. So it just sits there for a while.
Yeah. The second discussion that we had was an activity, and we're trying to
do this this year, particularly with the play, to have something more concrete
to do in the second discussion.
(11:44):
We gave three pictures as prompts, just interesting pictures of worlds.
And we asked the group to pick one and then describe it.
And so when we described it, we actually spent a little bit of time on this.
So we had quite a bit of backstory. It was called the Isle of Cider.
Oh, wow. And we could see from the picture, it was the one with the moons on
(12:05):
it, that you could clearly have
enough resources on whatever moon this was to be able to build things.
There were different kingdoms and they coexisted different
creatures there with the water was reflective so
that meant it was tranquil and and that we
talked a bit about what it meant to live on a moon if if this was a moon and
(12:26):
that was a planet what would that be like to have this larger looming thing
in the sky where we're yeah used to having a little you know quarter in the
the sky all the time and decided that it felt good because we felt protected
rather than intimidated.
But we spent a lot of time just on that before we got to the guts of it.
(12:47):
And that was if you played Telestrations, which we have quite a bit,
it's the same kind of thing.
So everybody starts out on a piece of paper and they will write a character
and a very brief description about who that character is.
And then we pass that. So we passed it to the left and now I've got somebody
And then there was a series of 10 questions that we figured out what question
(13:10):
we want to answer and then everybody answered that.
So by the time it gets back around to you, your character that was just a name
and a description now had information added to it and you could see what other
people had contributed. contributed.
Our group spent a lot of time on that. It was very, very quiet as people were writing.
And then we were just getting to the point where we're going to discuss it.
(13:32):
And the next group came in.
So what was your experience like doing that? It took us a little bit because
we were doing it in a zoom room.
And we had to figure out our our method.
Maybe it's the going back and forth. That's actually more difficult for me.
It was hard to like sort of sense if there was a world that was calling to anyone
(13:53):
but we wound up choosing the the lush really thick with trees that one of our
group members called magic dutch gone wild.
And then we each wrote our character and a sentence about our character and
then we sent it to the person we went counterclockwise and took turns picking
(14:18):
a question from from the list of questions.
So it was it was pretty quiet, too. You know, we would type an answer and then send it along.
And we didn't really get to process it. And I would have loved to have heard how people responded.
Experienced the changes like there's a
piece of knowing that you're impacting someone
(14:40):
that is a piece of
the transformative nature of relational cultural therapy and of play and like
that's you're making a difference even if it's that you're making a difference
in the creation of this one character in this game i wish we'd have more time
to process our reactions to it We had that same thing.
(15:02):
We had no processing that we're able to do except in the larger group.
But what I noticed for myself was this idea of constraint. So it was difficult to start.
I was very aware of the time. So if it didn't start and we didn't get this part
done, then we couldn't do the next one or the next one or the next one.
And so throughout all of this, even though I had an inclination to try to be
(15:26):
more nuanced in it or be longer in it, I tried to, you know,
be brief so we could try to move it along.
But everybody was very into the thing that they were writing.
What I noticed as I got each new thing, I mean, I had to reintroduce or introduce
myself to that character by reading the name and the description,
then reading the answer to the question that I know we had done, is that I saw their dots.
(15:52):
Dots the first dot that you put on there
you know the question is where you place it so you have to sort of answer that
but the second dot is always going to be in relation to the first so once you
have two dots you've got a line which means there's a direction in some way
okay and then when you do the third one now you've got an area of some form
(16:12):
so everything that we added to it.
Added these constraints to say, no work within here.
And it was different people adding it every time.
So when I got the character back, it was sort of clear to see what resonated
with the person making that second dot and how the other dots sort of worked around that space.
(16:34):
Because when I made my character, what I was trying to do was come up with something
that was a conflict. So rather than being an accountant trapped and wanting
to be an artist, I reversed those.
So it was an artist surrounded by paints who really wanted to be an accountant.
And so what I was thinking was that was a, you know, inner debate that would
be the thing that they would try to
(16:56):
explore, but they just let him be an accountant and the love of numbers.
And so there's a lot of reasons why that was special that were explored in here
that was really interesting to get back.
Back so you didn't have to you didn't have to endure like the will he won't he of becoming.
(17:16):
You just that they just gave it to you yes yeah
and that was something that came up in our discussions was
how caring everybody was towards the characters yeah they gave them what they
needed yeah yeah i liked that a lot we had some questions that came up again
evan was talking Talking about the engagement gap and how to cross it.
(17:41):
And I had jotted down in response to that, what keeps us from being curious?
Because we know that when we feel that curiosity, it leads us to learn.
The reward there is learning. Like, that's what feels good.
And so feeling curious about someone else and connecting and learning,
that should be a no-brainer.
But I think it's the cultural impact a lot of times is what keeps us from doing that.
(18:04):
You know, I don't want to be seen as intrusive. I don't want to be seen as goofy.
Goofy. I want to be taken seriously.
Or I don't want to seem like I don't care deeply about this by taking it too lightly.
Like I could feel myself like even as I was saying it being like,
I hope I'm not saying this in a way that sounds like I would take things too lightly.
(18:27):
So I can see how like the various cultural fears and structures to keep us disconnected
disconnected work against curiosity and against learning.
And that made me think of disruptive empathy.
You know, what we're trying to do is disrupt the hierarchies that prevent us
(18:51):
from connecting with each other.
Disruptive empathy is one of those tools. And we don't have,
you know, Maureen Walker has a book, When Getting Along Is Not Enough,
where there's lots about it in there.
Disruption was a theme of our first discussion as a barrier and the question
(19:12):
being, is it okay that whatever I was going to do is going to be disrupted by this play?
But in Disruptive Empathy, you know, the intent is that there's something about
this that is not right or that is keeping us apart and we want to disrupt that.
I know. And it was when you were talking about that, that I wrote down that
I wrote it down because I was thinking of like.
(19:35):
How we just keep going on our road the exact way we go.
And, you know, I don't want someone to get in my way when I'm going to work
or when I'm going home from work or like whatever I'm doing,
because I'm doing my work.
But if I allow myself to be disrupted in that moment, sort of like you,
when you see an animal as you're walking into work, there's like an opportunity there to be curious.
(19:58):
When you were talking about how the culture is doing this to us,
think of it not in terms of play, but in terms of things we're asked to do to
help people out that are being threatened.
When you walk down the street and you see an argument or you hear a comment
at work that's derogatory,
(20:18):
the inclination I think that we're all told to do in some way is not say anything
because you might be wrong, not say anything because you don't know context,
or that it might might blow up.
Those are the same types of things that keep you from play.
Or if you could get better at play, then maybe in those moments,
(20:40):
the curiosity and the willingness to just involve yourself with that can actually
change the serious things that you talk about too.
So the play is practice and gaining courage and gaining skills to be able to
live with uncertainty and live with With disruption and be a part of the world
(21:01):
around you in a way that you don't know how it's going to turn out.
Like play is practice and play is real. Like I will say that because if you
play at something and in the game,
you become the confident leader that you're wanting to be in this game.
Right. Right. And you feel a sense of worth and maybe some zestiness to free
(21:28):
to take action as you're as you're experiencing that play.
And those feelings like that's real and that translates into real other areas of your life, too.
So like so maybe that gets back to one of our earlier questions,
which is how do we help people value play? You know, it develops things that we need.
(21:51):
Yeah, we need sleep. Our brain does weird things when we don't sleep.
It needs that to cleanse thing.
Somebody described it once to me as like a garbage disposal.
Somebody's got to go around and clean that stuff up. And that happens when you sleep.
Play is the same thing is that the things that you get out of it are real.
And so if you need energy for something, the play shouldn't be the thing that is draining you.
(22:17):
It should be the thing that gives you that energy to do the other things.
So playing frequently, playing different things, going in to uncertainty and
being okay with the outcome.
I mean, all that stuff is important in play and it can fuel everything else that you do.
The next episode we're going to do is going to be in a couple of weeks and it's
(22:39):
going to be a prompt for sharing the experience, which is going to be our topic
for our March 24th session for the cadre.
And what we mean by that is using expressive play to co-create meaning through
the power of symbolism, metaphor, two of your favorite things,
in connection, and bringing a shared language to future interactions.
(23:02):
Like as a kid, we would watch TV shows and independently, but once we had that,
we would come back the next day and we'd talk about it.
And those things sometimes resonated far beyond that. We have experiences where
we played a particular game in a particular way, and that becomes something we can come back to.
How do you take that out into the world, bring it back, have it sticky, reuse it?
(23:26):
But how do you encourage other people to play as well? How can it be contagious?
Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be fun.
I'm looking forward to it. And that will be, again, on March 24th,
1 to 3 p.m. Eastern. And it'll be all the way Zoom, so you don't have to have
in-person envy if you're on Zoom.
(23:48):
So thank you so much. I'm glad we get to do this together. Yeah, I really love it. Me too.
Music.
This episode of Cadre is a production of the Bloomington Center for Connection,
an organization using relational cultural theory to promote social change through connection.
(24:10):
This conversation between Kevin McKeese and Amy McKeese, LCSW,
took place on February 25, 2024 in Bloomington, Indiana, and was edited for
this podcast by Kevin McKeese.
Theme music lovingly sampled from Positive Thinking and Serpentine by Vlad Glushenko.
Follow Bloomington Center for Connection on Facebook and other social media platforms.
(24:31):
Music.
Music.
(00:20):
We're doing this right after the cadre, and I am noticing a lot of energy in
me, which is interesting because sometimes when we do like,
I'm not saying this is a bad thing, but sometimes I'm just sort of like my brain is dead afterward.
And right now I'm feeling pretty energized.
(00:43):
I'm feeling energized and connected, I would say.
It's nice to see new faces. It was nice to see some faces that couldn't make
it last time that we were expecting.
We missed some faces, so slowly we're getting a larger and larger group.
But this is really where having those activities in the second part of the second
(01:06):
discussion, I want to get better at that as we go because I think there's a
lot of learning in there.
And that's really where the play is, is in trying to figure things,
these things out together and try to apply them.
Yeah, I enjoyed today quite a bit.
Some of the things that we discussed on this podcast last time.
(01:27):
So, you know, agency doesn't need to be isolated.
Even though you can have choices and you don't have to do it in absence of what
everybody else does. to be intentional about and aware of what other people
need so you can give them something and they can give something back.
We talked about supported vulnerability and mutuality as being two key ingredients
(01:48):
in this, meaning you have to create a space where you feel it's okay to play,
that you can make mistakes,
you can be vulnerable, you can just see where it goes.
Everybody's trying to move this together to some end that you don't know about. Yes, yes.
And in our breakout group on Zoom, Evan was in mine both times.
(02:12):
And so I actually have two things that he said that I jotted down.
The thing that made me laugh was I was talking about my reaction when someone
tells me they've made a game to help children learn.
And he said, oh, we call that chocolate-covered broccoli because everybody still
(02:34):
knows that it's broccoli.
So I liked that a lot.
One of the themes that we talked about, I think, throughout the day was being
trauma-responsive, trauma-informed, and caring for each other as we play.
I think all of us were talking about, you know, different ways that you can
(02:58):
create a safe place for play.
You know, you can have the different systems of holding up a card when you need
to, when you need it to stop, Or when you need it to slow down.
And, you know, there's a few different systems for that.
But one of the things that Evan said is you need the people in the game.
(03:20):
They just have to know, I will not abandon you. I loved that.
(03:55):
And take more risks. Our first discussion was just responding to what we call our popcorn questions.
So we talked about matching together in a condensed way as we did last week on this podcast.
And then the questions that came up, we solicited a few.
And one was about how do you get adults to play, particularly if they're reluctant to do that.
(04:19):
Another one was about how can you to encourage people to take play seriously.
And so we talked a lot in our discussion about just that first one about,
you know, encouraging adults to play.
And one of the things that was on my mind as we were listening to the stories
is that one of our people, Jen,
(04:40):
had talked about going to visit a friend in a hospital and just dressing up
in a costume and being nervous about doing that just for a moment,
but already dressed up and so just did it anyway.
And then walking through and just delighting everybody, not just herself for
getting that reaction and not just the person she was intending to visit,
but like everybody along the way.
(05:01):
And for me, the way she described it, it's like when I encounter animals out in the wild or on my walk,
or the other day I shared the story about, you know, there was a dog that was
just out on the lawn, but it was cute and it was, you know, really wanted to be pet.
And so I spent like 10 minutes there on my walk doing that until the owner came out.
(05:22):
There are things that I just stop what I'm doing to be in the moment and to just enjoy that.
And I think it happens with me with animals most because it feels like this
is a special thing that's never going to be there again. But also it's a different set of rules.
It's not like somebody coming to my work, everything that is not planned,
(05:44):
that suddenly there's an animal there and what am I going to do with it?
And it was just this joy that I also feel when we really get into games and
we are having a good time and we're creating a story together and it's going
in a great place that that's the feeling that I was feeling.
Susan also talked about bringing treats on walks specifically to,
(06:06):
you know, give to dogs and the dogs are then the avenue to have a conversation
with a complete stranger. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm. So that's some ways to engage maybe reluctant players into play?
To answer that question, I think we started in places of what would make somebody reluctant.
(06:27):
Jen also talked about biking down the roads with a bunch of friends when they
do their midnight bike rides.
And generally, they are able to stay off roads, but when they're on the roads,
inevitably, somebody is honking or upset by it.
And so that took us into an area of talking about disruption,
you know, so it's not that what you are trying to do or your play.
(06:50):
Is the thing that they're really upset about. It's that there's an expectation
or a path. This is disrupting that.
And that may be something that needs to be addressed.
What is being tossed aside or pushed aside in order for me to play?
And I'm willing to do that. And then something to ease people into it.
(07:11):
So we've pulled out games before that have of encyclopedias for rules and you
can't just sit down, open up the box and then take a game like that and then
expect everybody to stay at the table while you read and figure it out.
Complicated games, while they're still fun to play, somebody has to do that learning ahead of time.
So if somebody already had that knowledge or it was already all set up,
(07:35):
you're just lowering barriers for somebody to take that first step and come in.
Disruption was one part of it, but fear was
the the other part and there's a lot of things you could
do to lessen the fear and then
that just is removing some of the obstacles to say yes i will i will play with
you larry cohen talks a lot in trying to get reluctant teenagers to play and
(07:59):
i i would assume this is similar with adults just playing really really ignorant
like you know nothing that's how he gets them involved and,
When you were talking about play disrupting things and then needing to ease
some people into play, that made me think of Kay saying, all things that breathe play.
(08:19):
And that if something, a being isn't playing, then that's when you're like,
oh, something's wrong here.
We need to get in there and check it out. I would love for us to get to that
place where we're like, oh, oh dear, that person isn't playing at all.
How can we help? Because we need it. Yeah, it's a good way to reframe that moment.
(08:42):
If I really want to play a game and nobody wants to play with me, that's a rejection.
So it's on me feeling like the world doesn't want to be with me.
But if it's twisted the other way to say, you know, everybody should want to
play with me because playing is fun and this is going to be a fun game and you
don't, let's talk about that.
(09:02):
And maybe we could find a way to to do this cool thing that's that's playing.
Or maybe we can find some on ramp play that would work.
You do need some guidelines in order to you want to do the yes and for sure.
And you want to stay within the mutuality of it, like supporting each other
(09:23):
and collaborating, basically. basically, but also some restrictions,
you know, like saying, okay, this is a world that doesn't have magic,
or this is a world that does have magic.
I've recently been looking for runners for the hallway here because of the snow
and the salt and it gets really gross.
And so I keep Googling and one of the runners that showed up was a Flores lava runner.
(09:48):
That is like a 3d image that goes on the ground that looks like you're jumping over a volcano to Yeah.
(10:13):
Just a room into a big play place.
Yeah, constraints are powerful. So we did an exercise where,
you know, we needed to come up with something and then pass our character around to be created.
And the hardest part was starting because when you're looking at a blank sheet.
Anything could be on there.
But the moment that it gets filled with anything now, that world just got focused in some way.
(10:38):
And even though there's lots of agency to be able able to make decisions and
it can go all sorts of ways.
It's a starting point that helps. And we see this in design too,
is if you give somebody, what do you want to build?
I don't know. And that's a hard question to answer.
But if you talk about it in terms of constraints, or you say,
(11:01):
we're just going to work on this little thing, or we only have this much time,
now the world of what what you can do gets easier to manage in some way.
And that invites you in to be less overwhelmed as you are trying to figure things
out. And I think play is the same thing.
We encounter it a lot when we sit down as a family and stuff and,
(11:22):
you know, what do you want to do? Well, we have games.
We have lots of shows that we could watch, but everybody doesn't know how the
other person is going to do it. So it just sits there for a while.
Yeah. The second discussion that we had was an activity, and we're trying to
do this this year, particularly with the play, to have something more concrete
to do in the second discussion.
(11:44):
We gave three pictures as prompts, just interesting pictures of worlds.
And we asked the group to pick one and then describe it.
And so when we described it, we actually spent a little bit of time on this.
So we had quite a bit of backstory. It was called the Isle of Cider.
Oh, wow. And we could see from the picture, it was the one with the moons on
(12:05):
it, that you could clearly have
enough resources on whatever moon this was to be able to build things.
There were different kingdoms and they coexisted different
creatures there with the water was reflective so
that meant it was tranquil and and that we
talked a bit about what it meant to live on a moon if if this was a moon and
(12:26):
that was a planet what would that be like to have this larger looming thing
in the sky where we're yeah used to having a little you know quarter in the
the sky all the time and decided that it felt good because we felt protected
rather than intimidated.
But we spent a lot of time just on that before we got to the guts of it.
(12:47):
And that was if you played Telestrations, which we have quite a bit,
it's the same kind of thing.
So everybody starts out on a piece of paper and they will write a character
and a very brief description about who that character is.
And then we pass that. So we passed it to the left and now I've got somebody
And then there was a series of 10 questions that we figured out what question
(13:10):
we want to answer and then everybody answered that.
So by the time it gets back around to you, your character that was just a name
and a description now had information added to it and you could see what other
people had contributed. contributed.
Our group spent a lot of time on that. It was very, very quiet as people were writing.
And then we were just getting to the point where we're going to discuss it.
(13:32):
And the next group came in.
So what was your experience like doing that? It took us a little bit because
we were doing it in a zoom room.
And we had to figure out our our method.
Maybe it's the going back and forth. That's actually more difficult for me.
It was hard to like sort of sense if there was a world that was calling to anyone
(13:53):
but we wound up choosing the the lush really thick with trees that one of our
group members called magic dutch gone wild.
And then we each wrote our character and a sentence about our character and
then we sent it to the person we went counterclockwise and took turns picking
(14:18):
a question from from the list of questions.
So it was it was pretty quiet, too. You know, we would type an answer and then send it along.
And we didn't really get to process it. And I would have loved to have heard how people responded.
Experienced the changes like there's a
piece of knowing that you're impacting someone
(14:40):
that is a piece of
the transformative nature of relational cultural therapy and of play and like
that's you're making a difference even if it's that you're making a difference
in the creation of this one character in this game i wish we'd have more time
to process our reactions to it We had that same thing.
(15:02):
We had no processing that we're able to do except in the larger group.
But what I noticed for myself was this idea of constraint. So it was difficult to start.
I was very aware of the time. So if it didn't start and we didn't get this part
done, then we couldn't do the next one or the next one or the next one.
And so throughout all of this, even though I had an inclination to try to be
(15:26):
more nuanced in it or be longer in it, I tried to, you know,
be brief so we could try to move it along.
But everybody was very into the thing that they were writing.
What I noticed as I got each new thing, I mean, I had to reintroduce or introduce
myself to that character by reading the name and the description,
then reading the answer to the question that I know we had done, is that I saw their dots.
(15:52):
Dots the first dot that you put on there
you know the question is where you place it so you have to sort of answer that
but the second dot is always going to be in relation to the first so once you
have two dots you've got a line which means there's a direction in some way
okay and then when you do the third one now you've got an area of some form
(16:12):
so everything that we added to it.
Added these constraints to say, no work within here.
And it was different people adding it every time.
So when I got the character back, it was sort of clear to see what resonated
with the person making that second dot and how the other dots sort of worked around that space.
(16:34):
Because when I made my character, what I was trying to do was come up with something
that was a conflict. So rather than being an accountant trapped and wanting
to be an artist, I reversed those.
So it was an artist surrounded by paints who really wanted to be an accountant.
And so what I was thinking was that was a, you know, inner debate that would
be the thing that they would try to
(16:56):
explore, but they just let him be an accountant and the love of numbers.
And so there's a lot of reasons why that was special that were explored in here
that was really interesting to get back.
Back so you didn't have to you didn't have to endure like the will he won't he of becoming.
(17:16):
You just that they just gave it to you yes yeah
and that was something that came up in our discussions was
how caring everybody was towards the characters yeah they gave them what they
needed yeah yeah i liked that a lot we had some questions that came up again
evan was talking Talking about the engagement gap and how to cross it.
(17:41):
And I had jotted down in response to that, what keeps us from being curious?
Because we know that when we feel that curiosity, it leads us to learn.
The reward there is learning. Like, that's what feels good.
And so feeling curious about someone else and connecting and learning,
that should be a no-brainer.
But I think it's the cultural impact a lot of times is what keeps us from doing that.
(18:04):
You know, I don't want to be seen as intrusive. I don't want to be seen as goofy.
Goofy. I want to be taken seriously.
Or I don't want to seem like I don't care deeply about this by taking it too lightly.
Like I could feel myself like even as I was saying it being like,
I hope I'm not saying this in a way that sounds like I would take things too lightly.
(18:27):
So I can see how like the various cultural fears and structures to keep us disconnected
disconnected work against curiosity and against learning.
And that made me think of disruptive empathy.
You know, what we're trying to do is disrupt the hierarchies that prevent us
(18:51):
from connecting with each other.
Disruptive empathy is one of those tools. And we don't have,
you know, Maureen Walker has a book, When Getting Along Is Not Enough,
where there's lots about it in there.
Disruption was a theme of our first discussion as a barrier and the question
(19:12):
being, is it okay that whatever I was going to do is going to be disrupted by this play?
But in Disruptive Empathy, you know, the intent is that there's something about
this that is not right or that is keeping us apart and we want to disrupt that.
I know. And it was when you were talking about that, that I wrote down that
I wrote it down because I was thinking of like.
(19:35):
How we just keep going on our road the exact way we go.
And, you know, I don't want someone to get in my way when I'm going to work
or when I'm going home from work or like whatever I'm doing,
because I'm doing my work.
But if I allow myself to be disrupted in that moment, sort of like you,
when you see an animal as you're walking into work, there's like an opportunity there to be curious.
(19:58):
When you were talking about how the culture is doing this to us,
think of it not in terms of play, but in terms of things we're asked to do to
help people out that are being threatened.
When you walk down the street and you see an argument or you hear a comment
at work that's derogatory,
(20:18):
the inclination I think that we're all told to do in some way is not say anything
because you might be wrong, not say anything because you don't know context,
or that it might might blow up.
Those are the same types of things that keep you from play.
Or if you could get better at play, then maybe in those moments,
(20:40):
the curiosity and the willingness to just involve yourself with that can actually
change the serious things that you talk about too.
So the play is practice and gaining courage and gaining skills to be able to
live with uncertainty and live with With disruption and be a part of the world
(21:01):
around you in a way that you don't know how it's going to turn out.
Like play is practice and play is real. Like I will say that because if you
play at something and in the game,
you become the confident leader that you're wanting to be in this game.
Right. Right. And you feel a sense of worth and maybe some zestiness to free
(21:28):
to take action as you're as you're experiencing that play.
And those feelings like that's real and that translates into real other areas of your life, too.
So like so maybe that gets back to one of our earlier questions,
which is how do we help people value play? You know, it develops things that we need.
(21:51):
Yeah, we need sleep. Our brain does weird things when we don't sleep.
It needs that to cleanse thing.
Somebody described it once to me as like a garbage disposal.
Somebody's got to go around and clean that stuff up. And that happens when you sleep.
Play is the same thing is that the things that you get out of it are real.
And so if you need energy for something, the play shouldn't be the thing that is draining you.
(22:17):
It should be the thing that gives you that energy to do the other things.
So playing frequently, playing different things, going in to uncertainty and
being okay with the outcome.
I mean, all that stuff is important in play and it can fuel everything else that you do.
The next episode we're going to do is going to be in a couple of weeks and it's
(22:39):
going to be a prompt for sharing the experience, which is going to be our topic
for our March 24th session for the cadre.
And what we mean by that is using expressive play to co-create meaning through
the power of symbolism, metaphor, two of your favorite things,
in connection, and bringing a shared language to future interactions.
(23:02):
Like as a kid, we would watch TV shows and independently, but once we had that,
we would come back the next day and we'd talk about it.
And those things sometimes resonated far beyond that. We have experiences where
we played a particular game in a particular way, and that becomes something we can come back to.
How do you take that out into the world, bring it back, have it sticky, reuse it?
(23:26):
But how do you encourage other people to play as well? How can it be contagious?
Yeah. Yeah. That's going to be fun.
I'm looking forward to it. And that will be, again, on March 24th,
1 to 3 p.m. Eastern. And it'll be all the way Zoom, so you don't have to have
in-person envy if you're on Zoom.
(23:48):
So thank you so much. I'm glad we get to do this together. Yeah, I really love it. Me too.
Music.
This episode of Cadre is a production of the Bloomington Center for Connection,
an organization using relational cultural theory to promote social change through connection.
(24:10):
This conversation between Kevin McKeese and Amy McKeese, LCSW,
took place on February 25, 2024 in Bloomington, Indiana, and was edited for
this podcast by Kevin McKeese.
Theme music lovingly sampled from Positive Thinking and Serpentine by Vlad Glushenko.
Follow Bloomington Center for Connection on Facebook and other social media platforms.
(24:31):
Music.
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