In this episode Catherine interviews Sarah Page about the gruelling glory and redemption she experienced in the transition from monastic prayer warrior to severely sleep-deprived mother of a suffering baby, and then stepping into the balance between the two as they've grown up, with lessons learned and a call to the church to do it differently.

It's a story of when dreams and expectations don't end up lining up with reality, and the choice to either let them go, or live with them being ripped from you. The God who is there in both the bad and the good.

It's one woman's very personal, difficult story. And a universal story about finding -- and being found by -- God, during difficult times. Inside and outside of church.

Content warning for pregnancy/birth/breastfeeding, birth trauma, miscarriage, and a baby that would not stop screaming.

Understanding Personality Part 3: Thinking and Feeling

This is the third in our series on personality, users the lens of the Myers-Briggs model. This time, Catherine is joined by Sean Kennedy to discuss thinking and feeling. How do you process information? When faced with a situation, do you work out what you think about it before you decide what you feel about it? Or are you one of those people who doesn't know what they think about something until they've understood what they feel about it? What difference might that make to your life, your relationships with others and the way you like to work?

Missing women in church history: Getting Cross and Getting Creative with Katie Moritz

While studying theology, Katie discovered that there were women and women's movements in church history that she knew nothing about. Incredible, creative, humanitarians, writers and revolutionaries who have been largely forgotten. People like Julian of Norwich, whose writings only survived because they were hidden by nuns for centuries. Desert mothers, Marie D'Oignies and the Beguines. Katie shares her discoveries, the way her learning has given her insights into the lives of women today and her passion for supporting the women around her.

Internal Family Systems with Sally Bubbers

Ever had a reaction that seemed really out of proportion to the situation at hand? Or a fear that you knew was irrational? Ever wondered why your inner voice can be so darn critical at times?

In this episode Catherine talks with Sally Bubbers, a psychotherapist, who answers all these questions and more as she explains the Parts Theory of Internal Family Systems. A slightly shorter episode, but dense with food for thought, delivered with Catherine's usual welcome, grace and good humour. Definitely one you do not want to miss!

Felicia Goodwin: Church, family, love and welcome

Catherine talks with Felicia, who founded and pastors New Life Family Church. In their conversation together, Felicia shares the story of how that happened.

It's a story of welcome, of tears, of considered decisions and second chances. And a story of reading the times, knowing when to move forward and when to wait. It’s about the fact that calling is far more about who we are than what we do. Above all, it’s about love. There’s a lot to learn from Felicia in this episode!

Paint Reflections with Hannah Lamberth

Catherine is joined again by Hannah Lamberth, who has been redecorating recently. She shares reflections about faith, Jesus, life and Farrow and Balls paint charts.

Joe Davis: Stages of Faith. How spirituality changes across a lifetime

Do you feel like your faith suddenly isn't making sense any more? Have the answers you've been relying on stopped making sense? Feeling like you've outgrown church...but you don't really want to abandon it? Like you're too far along and this should all be sorted by now? Where the worldview you formed from reading the Bible doesn't properly fit your actual real life, and, like having one foot each side on a cracking iceberg, you need to take a leap in order to be left with any hope at all? And, ever felt like you're all on your own with it?

As to the last, you are not on your own. In this episode, Catherine talks with Joe Davis from The Mid-Faith Crisis podcast, and they explore together common stages of Christian faith that look nothing like the previous ones -- and everything like it at the same time, and what growing up to maturity in the faith really looks like.

Howard Jones: Downward mobility and radical acceptance

Howard is a baptist minister who chose to leave his successful church in the posh part of Birmingham to move with his wife, Iona, to Cobridge, one of the most deprived areas of Stoke on Trent. He no longer leads a church. Instead, working as part of Urban Expression, he and Iona seek simply to be a blessing to the community they have grown to love. He talks honestly about the challenges and joys of leaving behind his previous role and what he has learnt about the radical acceptance of Jesus.

Understanding Personality 4: why some people do details and others just don't

Catherine is joined by Polly for our fourth conversation looking at personality through the lens of the Myers Briggs model. This time we’re discussing what Myers Briggs refers to as Sensing and Intuition - the S and the N for those who speak MBTI.

Are you practical, down to earth and good at remembering details? Do you like ideas and theories? Do you prefer to learn by thinking things through or experiencing them first hand? Do you love a good gossip or do you get bored by small talk? How many notebooks do you own?

We all have a preference for either sensing (focusing on details and practicalities) or intuition (seeing the big picture, looking for connections and possibilities). Catherine and Polly discuss the profound impact these differences have on the ways that we understand the world, communicate with one another and organise our lives. Even down to how many notebooks we might choose to own. Lots of information here to help you to understand yourself and other people a bit better and avoid some common causes of misunderstanding.

Understanding Personality 5: Judging and Perceiving

Polly joins Catherine for the last of our series looking at personality through the lens of Myers Briggs. This time we're talking about judging and perceiving.

Do you like things planned, organised and decided, or do you prefer to keep possibilities open? Do you find structure and rules calming or constraining? Do you like the adrenaline of the unexpected? Or the opportunity to prepare properly?

We all have a preference for either what the MBTI calls 'judging' or for 'perceiving'. Understanding our own preferences and how they differ from those of other people can really help us to work more harmoniously and effectively with others.

Window of Tolerance with Sally Bubbers

"Window of Tolerance" might not be a term that you've heard before, but it's a really useful concept and in this episode, Sally Bubbers explains it beautifully. You know that there are good days, when you are in that zone where life has enough interest and excitement and challenge to keep you engaged, curious, grounded, emotionally stable and winning at life. That's when you're operating in your 'window of tolerance'. Sally explains what the window of tolerance is, how we can spot the signs that we've left our window of tolerance, how to get back into it again and how to support others who are struggling. Lots of really practical ideas, hints, tips and insights that will be useful for anyone but particularly helpful for parents of children who have experienced trauma - or for anyone who has experienced trauma or is supporting others who have.

There are resources for this episode that can be found here.

Love and the Divine

What does it mean to have a love relationship with the divine? Christianity has at its core the concept that faith is about loving God and being loved by God. But what does that actually look like in practice? In this episode, Catherine shares some thoughts about that. The truth is that it's different for everyone...

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Maria Garvey: Community, Belonging and Finding our Home in God

Catherine talks with Maria Garvey who, twenty years ago, founded a L'Arche community in Northern Ireland. She describes her work as being about 'creating communities of belonging for people who find themselves marginalised. She says "Who I am really is a commitment to everyone knowing that they matter, no matter what." In this wide ranging conversation Maria talks about encountering people who experience themselves as marginalised and her understanding of God, of whom she says, "God is a space in which everyone and everything has its place. Everything and everyone belongs."

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She Matters: Tracy Sickel of Imago Dei shares her passion for women in the prison system

96% of the people in prison are men which means that the 4% of women in prison in the UK often find themselves overlooked in a system that was designed for men. Eight years ago, Tracy Sickel, a free church prison chaplain, started Imago Dei and since then she and her team have been ministering to women in prison, helping them to feel loved and valued, to know their worth, improve their self respect and invest in who they are. You can find out more about Imago Dei and how to support their work at

https://www.idprisonministry.org.uk

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Hannah Lamberth: Wedding Dress Adventures

Catherine is marrying the podcast editor next week [their transcriptionist wishes them well!]. In this episode Catherine recounts to Hannah Lambert the tale of finding her wedding dress, which then segues beautifully into a conversation about finding God in the details...or not, sometimes. If you like girly wedding talk, you'll enjoy this one, but even if you don't, there's definitely still something for you here.

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Waterways Chaplains

For the first time Catherine has two guests in this episode, married couple Gill and John. They are both waterways chaplains, driving their boat through Britain's canals and helping the people they meet along the way. We start out meeting them and finding out a bit more about what they do, but the conversation quickly shifts and blossoms into learning more about God's grace, from people who have been walking with Jesus for over 40 years.

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Different kinds of intelligence

How would you answer the question "Are you intelligent?" In this episode, drawing on the work of educational psychologist Howard Gardner, Catherine talks about why that's not a very useful question. A much better question is 'In what way are you intelligent?' The narrow way in which intelligence is often understood in society and education can leave many people undervaluing the skills that they have. So this episode looks at intelligence more broadly and the different ways in which different people are intelligent.

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Create Bolton

Today we are joining Catherine in Bolton at Create Bolton, a creative cafe that shows everyone that they have something to offer. The heartbeat and proprietor is Joy Kilpatrick who is the guest this week, talking about the twists and turns in her life path, and the faithfulness of God, that have enabled her to bring together her artistic creativity and her compassion for people into this sanctuary where people can find respite, relief and wholeness, as well as lots of beautiful artwork. Joy takes so much enjoyment from seeing other people's stories come to blossom and flourish, that hearing her speak about a few of her friends from the cafe, their interactions and the way those journeys have developed is truly a delight to hear; you too will be cheering them on all the way!

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Wintering with Charli

Catherine's friend Charli joins her today and they talk about Autumns and Winters in both their lives; paring back and releasing obligations in order to re-centre, and the things that then grow in the space created. Catherine also shares her wisdom as they compare stories about navigating school problems with and on behalf of their children who have found it really difficult. And as always, how God's graciousness still shows up.

Key themes: being and doing, neurodiversity, attachment, ADHD, shame, school refusal, deconstruction, spiritual renewal

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Questions to help you find your calling

This is more of a work-book episode of the podcast rather than a story-time one, as Catherine brings out some of her coaching and spiritual direction skills to share with us as we all learn a few more key questions to help us refine the mission for our own lives -- and some of them may even take you by surprise!

Even if you are confident that you are swimming in the right lane of life, if you still put in the effort to do these exercises, I'm sure you will be glad you did. It's a shorter episode, but that means that you still have time to pause the podcast and take some notes -- you won't regret it. And Catherine would love you to drop her an email once you have: lovedcalledgifted@gmail.com

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Maria Garvey: Advent Thoughts

Catherine chats with Maria Garvey, who is about to lead an advent retreat, to find they'd both been having similar thoughts regarding Advent. Namely that if you want to see the light that our Christ brings into the darkness, sometimes you have to be willing to see the darkness first. They explore that together in this episode; the ways it works and the ways sometimes it doesn't, and how it all points back to love.

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Compassion with Siobhan Horton

What is compassion? Can we keep being compassionate without reaching burnout? Siobhan Horton, who is a spiritual director and who worked with the dying for three decades as a palliative care nurse, has been fascinated by compassion for several years. In this episode, she shares her deep knowledge and insight about compassion, drawing together wisdom from evolutionary biology, buddhism and Christian thought.

This episode is an interesting follow up to the conversation in the last episode with Maria Garvey, with some synergies and some differences of perspective.

If you would like to explore further you might interested in these resources:

1. Paul Gilbert's Compassionate Mind Foundation
2. Paul Gilbert interviewing Tanyia Singer on her work on empathy and compassion
3. Paul Gilbert interviewing French Buddhist Monk on Compassion