Where to start to tap into the 3 components of true fun in your life, as researched by “The Power of Fun” author.
If you had an hour totally to yourself, what would you do? Author Catherine Price explains in today’s interview that when faced with that exact situation she found herself signing up for a guitar class. That choice spiraled into what she now knows as true fun.
When was the last time that you had fun? Maybe you’re wondering what fun even is. Catherine compiled her research into her book “The Power of Fun,” which she shares about in this episode along with some powerful personal anecdotes.
By taking care of ourselves in this way and giving ourselves the opportunity to let go and have fun, it makes us better at our responsibilities. If you are capable of having fun then you bring it to other people, and it’s a gift to give others that comfort, joy, and lightness. It’s time to take having fun more seriously and see how rewarding that can be.
About a few other things…
Reclaim your creative power and rediscover who you actually are! If you’re ready to come back home to yourself, to be able to say that you know who you are and what matters to you, take my foundation course, “Finding Me.” It’s OK that you’ve lost parts of yourself along the way; but as you learn to anchor back into who you are and align your life to what matters to you, you’ll find that you have more strength, more fulfilment, and more creativity to bring to your important roles and responsibilities.
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica: Catherine Price, welcome to About Progress.
Catherine: Thank you so much for that.
Monica: I have been introduced to your book, the Power of Fun from one of my community members who I really trust. And they’re like, this is a book that.
has your name all over it. And I loved it, devoured it. And I can’t wait to talk about the main point of this whole book to me is that we need to have more fun as adults.
My favorite chapter title was why you feel dead inside, which made me both laugh, cause I could like see your humor sprinkled throughout the book, but also yeah. That’s how so many of us feel and why we are here today.
So tell us a little bit personally, why fun matters to you?
Catherine: Sure. And I should start by thanking you for liking that chapter title, because that does mean we’re kindred spirits. Cause it can go two ways with that one, but yes, why fun matters to me? Well, I mean, the backstory is I had written my previous book, how to break up with your phone about creating a more intentional relationship with our devices and the main takeaway for that, for me personally, what I tried to get across in that book is that our lives are what we pay attention to by which I mean that you only experience what you pay attention to. And therefore you only remember where you pay attention to.
And so every time we make a decision, you know, in the moment about what to pay attention to it’s really bigger decision about how we want to live our lives. And that really changed my own approach to how I spend my time and attention. But I hadn’t realized that that’s really only the first step, because once you recognize the value of your time and attention and your attention in particular, the next step is, well, what do you want to spend it on?
And so, I realized that even though I do my best to have a meaningful and rich life, you know, I had kind of lost this feeling of aliveness that I felt more often when I was younger. I think adulthood kind of zaps out of us as we add more responsibilities to our lives or even. Beautiful and joyful things like getting married or having a kid.
There’s a certain weight that comes with all of that. And for me, I ended up I remember having kind of an existential moment on my couch, actually in the room that I’m speaking to you from right now, where I was taking a break from all of my screens, like everything. And I was alone on the couch. My husband was out, my daughter was napping and I had this whole hour to do anything I wanted to with.
I couldn’t think of what to do. And I ended up asking myself the question, I’d ask people for how to break up your phone, which is what’s something you want to do, but supposedly don’t have time for, and I ended up signing up for this music class for this guitar class. Cause I decided I wanted to learn guitar and I ended up just feeling this sense of buoyancy and lightness and joy in this class that carried me through the whole week.
It was very interesting and I couldn’t quite put my finger on what to call it. And again, I mean, I have a lovely life and I’m very happy and I have lots of great friends and, you know, some degree of playfulness, but this was different. And I, and this word that best described it, I realized it was fun. And that’s what, that’s what I would got me started on writing this book, because I wanted to understand what this.
That I called fun was, and I wanted to understand if I was the only person experiencing it this way, or if other people felt this way about the word too, because obviously we use it in a lot of contexts that are not that profound and it’s just become a guiding principle for me. So to answer it, this is a very long answer to your question, but why it matters to me is because yeah, when I find opportunities to tap into fun, it’s the moments in which I feel the most alive and prioritizing fun.
Changed my life. You know, I, I, I have an entirely new community of people whom I regularly get together with now to play music, which I don’t think any activity per se is fun. Cause sometimes the same activity feels a lot more fun than others, but I found a community of people with whom when we do play music, I nearly always do tap into this power of fun and it’s life affirming.
And I should also note, I signed the book contract in April, 2020. So in the beginning of lockdowns which was difficult to write a book about fun during a pandemic, but it also crystallized how important it was. And it made the moments in which I did have fun stand out all the more and prioritizing those experiences really helped me weather, especially those first, that first year with my spirits intact.
It’s very powerful. I think it’s really blown me away to recognize how powerful fun is. I wouldn’t have thought that.
Monica: I love seeing just how relevant it’s been to changing your life. Like it’s a life changing thing. honestly, that’s why people recommend this book to me because able to see now there was a turning point in my own life I was trying to find what basically what it meant like to be alive outside of my responsibilities and a big part of it actually was learning how to have fun.
you know, just like at the beginning of your. Screen-free time. We were trying to figure out, well, what do I do at this time? think a lot of people don’t understand what fun even is. And love how you define this because I chuckled in some parts of your book where you described, like when you leave a party and it was like, it was okay, but you leave.
And you’re like, oh, that was fun. You know? And then there’s other times where it’s like real deep fun, too. So set apart for us. What is true? Versus fake fun. And why do we need to have more of the former?
Catherine: Yeah. Yeah. So one of the things I was struck by when I started to look into fun, you know, once this word kind of came to me as like the best word to describe this feeling, I was like, okay, well, you know, what does the dictionary say? And the dictionary just said that it was fun, was enjoyment or amusement or lighthearted pleasure.
And then it said, the example was like, the kids are having fun in the play area, which is also, that was funny that they like what’s a play area. I guess they met in a playground, but. But I began to notice that in our everyday speech, we use the word fun really casually. And now I think almost sloppily.
I mean, not, that’s not a criticism of us. Cause I think we just haven’t really thought about it, but we use it in all these different contexts that if we reflect on it, most people would say, oh no, that’s actually not fun. Like, just like you’re saying, like, “Oh that was so fun, we should do that again soon.” It’s like, no, that was like mediocre at best, but we’re just saying this cause it’s a tick.
Or we also engage in what I think of fake fun, which their market, you know products or activities that are marketed to us as fun, but don’t actually result in this true feeling of fun. So to answer your question. I felt like I needed to come up with a more precise definition of what fun is.
And I needed to figure out a way to distinguish it from some of the other ways in which we use the word fun. Some of which I think are okay, and some of which I think are downright wrong. And so I ended up collecting all these stories from people around the world about anecdotes from their own lives that they would, they considered to be at that point, I just called it so fun.
And I wanted to see if they would match the feeling that I had. And it was really amazing because the details were all different. Not surprisingly. And they were really often quite mundane. It’s not, I think one misperception we have about fun is you need to go on vacation to have it. You need to be outside of your normal existence.
And that’s not the case. There are these very small moments,
Monica: Yeah.
Catherine: But there was this really profound life affirming energy running through these stories that people shared with me to the point that even now, if I read through them and then they’ve got thousands of them, by this point, I have this huge smile on my face, but I often tear up and I noticed that there were three factors that stood out to me from my own experience and that I checked with other people as well.
And they were so consistently present that. I believe that they constituted definition that I call true fun and the three factors were playfulness, connection, and flow. And I think that the feeling of fun, because fun is a feeling, that happens when we tap into those three factors when they’re all there.
That’s what fun is. So to, to elaborate on that a bit by playfulness, I’m not talking about necessarily having to play games, a lot of adults clench up if you say play, they really don’t like the idea. They think it’s just for kids, they feel kind of dumb, even thinking about it, kind of the feeling I get.
If you were to ask me to play pin the tail on the donkey where I’m like self-conscious and just please don’t. It feels very, that’s true. I think that’s it. Yeah. Vulnerable. There’s a vulnerability, which is so strange to reflect on it, but we do, we feel vulnerable about that. So I like to say it’s not about anything in particular.
It’s about the attitude of having a lighthearted spirit and doing things just for the sake of doing them and letting go of our perfectionism, you know, for a second and not caring too much about the outcome and having a playful spirit. So that’s what playfulness means. And you’ll notice that if you talk to people about fun or even if you reflect on your own moments of fun, there’s this feeling of a release that is a company that accompanies it and this feeling of letting go.
And I think that that’s the playful aspect. And then the connection is the feeling of having a special, shared experience. And I do think it’s possible to sometimes have fun alone. Like if you’re really tapped into your surroundings or, or the activity or in many cases yourself. Right? Like I think when people have fun alone, it’s because they feel this real sense of connection with their authentic selves, but I will say in most of the stories people share with me, there’s another person. And in fact, when I asked people, because I had this whole survey that people answered, which is how I got my research data. And I said, is there anything about what you just shared with me that surprises you?
And I was surprised at a number of people said, Something along the lines of I’m a self-proclaimed introvert. And I’m really surprised at all the stories I just told you had other people in them. So that, that was worth reflecting on, you know, perhaps the difference between extroverts and introverts is not so much that whether or not introverts do or don’t like people, it’s really more the type of connection that makes you feel able to let go.
And then flow is the psychological state when we’re so engaged and actively engaged in what we’re doing, that we lose track of time. So the most quintessential example is like an athlete in the middle of a game. We are in moments of flow all the time. Like right now I’m in flow because I’m totally concentrating on speaking with you and engaged and present and focused. And I thought it was interesting to reflect on how you can have moments of flow that aren’t fun. Like there’s plenty of things. You could just be working on a really tough problem or be in an argument or something, and you’re in flow, but you’re not having fun, but you, you can’t have fun if you’re not in flow.
And I thought that was interesting to reflect on because it means that, and this is a segue, but anything that distracts us is going to kick us out of flow. And it’s therefore going to prevent us from having fun.,So all that is to say my definition of what I call true fun is the center of the Venn diagram, where you have playfulness and connection and flow all meeting together.
And one of the things I love about the definition. Or that proposed definition is that you’re not going to spend your whole life in the center of that Venn diagram. Like it’s impossible, but that’s not the point. The point is just to aim more at those three variables, almost like it’s a dart board and you’re trying to hit the center, but honestly, if you hit any of those other things, if you have just playfulness for a moment that’s great or connection or connection and flow, like any combination is going to be a lot better than the state of anxiety and fear and self judgment that we’re often in, in our everyday lives. So I just love it. It’s kind of like a tool with which we can reorient our lives, kind of a compass of sorts that is beneficial. Even if you’re not always hitting the bulls-eye every single time.
There’s a lot of metaphors I threw in there. They’re all mixed up.
Monica: Oh, no, that makes it helps, helps me really visualize this, but also make it real. And think one of the things that in the way of us fully embracing this is just life, just adult life, full of responsibilities. Like you said, even the good kinds get in the way of us actually feeling like living, breathing, humans you know, with souls and interests and knowing who we are, all that. What are some of the biggest obstacles you’ve seen both in your own life and in your research, that’s getting in the way of us having true fun?
Catherine: I think we legitimately are really busy. You know, adult life comes with a lot of responsibilities. I mean, it’s the reason I think that people do associate fun with vacations in part, because you are escaping from the, from laundry,
Monica: Yeah.
Catherine: Dropping your kid off at school, packing lunches, paying the mortgage, dealing with taxes, you know, reading the daily headlines.
I think there’s a lot of reasons that it’s hard to prioritize. Fun. But I think that it’s essential and it is possible. It’s just, I think we really have a tough time giving ourselves permission. I think that’s another big thing is we feel guilty about enjoying our own lives. And I think there’s a lot of reasons, different reasons that can come to be, but we feel really guilty about it. And as a result, I think there’s often a sense of hostility that people feel when one such as me suggest maybe we should prioritize fun. You know, some people are really open to it and some people are quite dismissive and very, I think it, I think it really triggers something to people sometimes, but I think there’s this guilt and this feeling that there’s so many hard things, difficult, awful things, frankly, in the world.
And how can you possibly suggest that we think about fun. That’s self-indulgent, that’s frivolous, you know, And I think I have a number of ways that I would push back on that. And one is that life is not zero sum. You don’t have to be miserable in order to care about other people. I mean, if you say it that way, does that make any sense?
Like why, why would it. Enjoying myself. And if I am having fun, first of all, I’m spreading it to others because fun is contagious. When people tell me stories about their own past fun, even if it’s years ago, they give off this energy that is contagious. It is beautiful. Even just to hear it in their voices is beautiful and it is energizing.
So just sharing your stories of fun is a gift other people. And if you do have fun with other people, you give them the gift of that feeling of release and joy and euphoria in some cases, themselves. So to be someone who is able to experience fun also gives you the ability to share the experience of fun.
And that is beautiful. And it also enables you to bridge differences and divide. So if you and I had radically different political beliefs, but we have fun together. We have a human connection that then enables us to engage in more productive discussions about the things that we don’t inherently have a connection on.
So I think there’s actually a true value and power in fun as a way to help us remember and reclaim our shared humanity. And then that can be the first step in working together to address some of these problems. Who are you helping by just scrolling doom, scrolling on social media and posting angry rants to people who already agree with you like that.
To me, that’s frivolous. So I think there’s a lot of work to be done in. Kind of investigating for ourselves. What is our internal resistance to fun? Is it that we’ve forgotten how to have it? So it feels threatening because we don’t remember how to tap into it. And that really scares us in some degree.
Like, I think that that’s true for a number of people. But I really, I just pushed back on the idea that it really challenged people to think about your gut reactions, to fun and investigate what they’re about. I really do think the more fun that each of us has individually, the more positive energy will bring to the world at large and the better we’ll be able to be humans together.
Monica: Yeah, I, I, you know what this is to me, why it matters so much. I, I seen the difference myself. You’ve seen the difference,
A larger spread out, trickle down effect difference. I think the world needs more than ever, because I think one of the biggest obstacles I’ve seen in my life beyond just getting the not being in practice of having fun, not even knowing what that looks like for me and learning what that part is. also just that guilt of it’s not responsible, even though do have the responsibility to be ourselves and to show up one of the bigger things is that fake fun is just, seems so much easier and it’s all around us.
It’s easier to numb out instead of intentionally trying to feel alive.
Catherine: Yes, I
Monica: Do that Venn diagram of fun. Yeah. that’s what your first book was about. But I just wanted to know, we could talk a whole hour on that topic alone. Just the big fun obstacle, but what is one thing you want women to know about?
Just that one that, that, that draw to numb out with primarily devices, I would say.
Catherine: Yeah, I think that, gosh, I do have a lot of thoughts on that. I think one thing that would be practical to take away is that a lot of us feel like we don’t have any time for fun. Okay. I would challenge you to then look at your screen time and see how much time you’re spending on Instagram or on watching TV.
I should clarify, so to take a step back, I think that there’s kind of three categories of things we do with our leisure time. I think one of them is this true fun that I’m describing, which I should note can happen when you’re working too. I do not think those are mutually exclusive, but if we’re talking stereotypical leisure time, the joyful, like the feeling alive, that the true fun. Great. That’s fantastic. The more of it, the better then you have, what I call is we’re saying fake fun, which is the stuff marketed to us as fun, but it doesn’t produce playful connected flow. And that is what I’m saying. It’s suppose social media is the biggest culprit or just watching too much of something too much passive consumption.
It was really passive consumption, I think is what to watch out for, as you’re saying, though, That’s really appealing and it’s been designed and engineered to be difficult, to stop consuming. It’s the junk food of leisure time. But I also think it’s worth noting. There is a big middle category. Here are things that we legitimately enjoy that might not result in true fun per se, but that we should prioritize.
So, cause I think a lot of people feel a sense of pressure when they’re like, oh my goodness. Was I having true fun all the time? No. Like if you like reading a book. Right. I would argue that that’s not true fun. And I’ve seen lots of people come to that,realization themselves when they say, oh yeah, I think reading books is fun.
And then they’ll think actually, is that really fun or is it enjoyment? So that gets a little semantic. Right. But like, there’s a whole category of like taking baths. Yeah. Reading books, watching your favorite shows, but not to the point where your eyes glaze over, like watching a couple of episodes where you’re like, no, that was, I really enjoyed that.
I think that’s great. But I think it’s the category of. Yeah, it can be restorative. Yeah, exactly. Like the equivalent of a bubble bath. Right. Like anything that’s that kind of like, that’s great. But I think you’re entirely correct. We often cross the line to numbing. So I’d say. My biggest message is that it feels really daunting if you’re used to, if that’s your default, it feels very daunting to figure out a way to break out of that.
And I would say that it’s worth it. Like, yes, it actually is going to take a bit of effort to figure out something to do with the time that you normally spend scrolling, Instagram, or, you know, watching too many Episodes or drinking a bottle of wine or whatever. You’re like numbing out mode. Maybe like numbing out is easy.
And it does feel good up to a point. But as the term itself makes clear, it doesn’t make us the opposite of feeling alive. How do you cross the line? That’s the trick is like, how do you jump over that chasm and experience what life is like on the other side? Even for a moment, because once you have that experience, then it will be self perpetuating because you do realize, like, it took effort for me to find a guitar class and sign up for a guitar class and start playing guitar.
But once I did it, I realized how good it made me feel. And then I started to work my life around that in a way. Really? I mean, yeah, like it becomes easier, I guess, in a way it certainly helps to have a supportive partner, but like, for example, you know, I have a seven year old and we just work it so that on Wednesday nights, when I, my class, I’m not in bedtime duty.
So it just works out that way. So it’s like my night. And so I think that starting to explore, like, what’s something you’re curious about, what’s something you used to enjoy that you haven’t done in forever for a lot of people that’s dancing and interestingly, you know, like, but something, whatever used to light you up.
What was that? Or what’s a friend who you always with, whom you always laugh a lot, or like you really enjoy their company, but you haven’t seen each other. Cause things are just too busy, you know, like what’s even a little thing, like calling up one of those people and going for a walk together or something, just a tiny thing.
Don’t put pressure on yourself, but just try to this part of us is so clenched up inside and just so overwhelmed and can’t deal with that. I think that the numbing out thing is kind of a. Equivalent of curling up in a ball because we feel so overwhelmed, you know, and two, what would it be like to relax just a tiny bit, just a teensy, tiny bit, and what could help you do that?
And then see how it feels and start slowly at any time, it starts to feel like work back off a little bit, because it’s not supposed to feel like work. This is not about putting pressure on yourself or feeling like you’re failing because you’re not having enough fun. That is the opposite of what we want.
You know, it’s just. Bit by bit giving your permit. I think about it as giving yourself permission to get a kick out of your own life. And they can come in really small. Like one thing I love there. When you said you had a favorite chapter title, I thought perhaps you were going to talk about the one about rebellion.
Cause that’s my favorite is this theme of rebellion that came up in a lot of people’s stories and it wasn’t like James Dean rebellion, like, you know, weren’t doing anything dangerous or particular. Jeopardy. You’re not trying to jeopardize anything, but just little things like breaking the rules of responsible adulthood, just a teensy bit, staying up a little bit too late, you know, like, I don’t know.
One of my favorite things to do is when I feel like I’m supposed to be listening to the news, quote, unquote, instead turning the news off, like in the car and putting on a song I love and just like singing really loudly and having the volume up a little bit too loud and just feeling like I’m just indulging myself for a second.
I think that even tiny little doses like that. Can then lead to unlocking our kind of clenched up adult selves, just a teensy bed and the, and then once they start to get unlocked, they’ll start to open up. It’s just that initial unlocking that takes takes a bit, you know, but we can do it and it’s so worth it.
Monica: It Seems like it takes some openness as well as some curiosity to encourage, to, to just be willing to explore what fun can look like.
Catherine: I think so I’m not worried about looking dumb. Like I have a personal example. I was just my first trip in two years on a plane and I was in Vancouver and, at the end of this conference, there’s like a free afternoon and this like new friend that I’d made at the conference and I, we snuck away and went snowboarding.
Cause there was a mountain anyway, I had never been to Vancouver, but you can like sneak out. There’s like a mountain, 15 minutes away. And I, in my mind had convinced myself I knew how to snowboard. No, this is not true. I don’t know what I was thinking. I do not know how to snowboard and what what’s more like I’m pretty coordinated.
This, I felt like I did not have, I didn’t even, I didn’t know what foot to put for it. Like I was so. Bad. And at first I was like, I feel like such an idiot. Like here I am with this person, like sorta knows how to snowboard and I can’t even stand up. And then I thought, who cares? This is just absurd.
Of course I can’t snowboard when I really reflected on it. The only time I’d gone snowboarding was in 1998, like that’s a long time ago. And I, I just was thinking about how in previous iterations of my own self, I would have beaten myself up for that. I would have been embarrassed, you know, I would have just flagellated myself and felt so dumb that I wouldn’t have wanted to do it. And I felt that coming up a little bit. And then I thought, no, like whatever, who cares. My main goal is just not getting killed. Like that’s the success. As long as I don’t end up in the hospital, this is successful. And it was so freeing.
So I think. Whatever we all can do to let go or quiet that little voice that cares about how we look and that voice is even louder. I mean, I think then it has been ever because of stuff like social media, where life is a performance, you know, but try to live your life instead of performing it. And if you do something and feel dumb, like respond by laughing gently at yourself, like I was just cracking up.
I was laughing, like, thinking about how. Like I knocked over my friend, getting of. tHe ski lift, like landed on top. I’m like, I couldn’t, I just, it was not not my high point in terms of the actual, you know, ability to do it, but who cares? Like. Delightful experience. It was playful, connected flow. Like I let go of caring and I just think, yeah, it’s hard to, it’s hard to do that as grownups, but it’s a gift to ourselves.
And I also think it’s an important role modeling thing to do for our kids because they’re being trained to be perfectionist. And there’s a lot of research about how devastatingly bad that is for us.
Monica: That’s the whole reason my podcast exists. I don’t even know if you know that called about progress because I was trying to learn what life was like outside of perfectionism.
Catherine: I did see that, Yeah.
Monica: oh, you did Yeah. So that’s, you know, that’s what we’re here for. It’s. It is a huge trap and alone to just living life and actually having a real life to me, I think is life giving weirdly, like once you learn how to actually show up as yourself and to get into those, those three zones of playfulness connection and flow, I think women are missing out on just how powerful that. really is.
So I’d love. I would love to hear from you personally, you said it’s changed her life. Like. What’s different.
Catherine: Oh, I experienced this life affirming joy on a regular basis. Now, you know, I, I, I knew something was missing before I started working on this book and I couldn’t put my finger on what it was and. Once I realized it was fun. And once I really started to focus on and prioritize it, I just found myself like it led to all these things.
I never would have anticipated that. I like, for example, I was just feeling lonely. I have great friends. I have a wonderful network of friends where they’re not physically nearby and I’m an only child. And you know, our daughter is an only child. I don’t have any aunts, uncles or cousins. So I don’t really have a big family.
I mean, I don’t, and I don’t have a professional community because I’m a freelancer and I, we moved to Philadelphia where we didn’t know anybody. It’s been really hard to build up any feeling of community. And once I started to prioritize fun. And I started getting involved in this music stuff. It blossomed into a genuine community.
I have this group of people I think of as my playmates, if you will, because we get together as grownups and we get together to play. And the feeling that creates is magical and you know, it can’t happen every single time. Cause again, fun, can’t be guaranteed, but I regularly like several times a month have a euphoric experience where everyone in the group, like you can feel it, you know, like you can feel when something, when everything gels and clicks together and you’re connected.
People, and I’m a particular spiritual, but it feels spiritual and it just feels joyful. And so to recognize that that’s accessible as an adult has been life-changing for me. Cause I didn’t know that before. I don’t know. I don’t have like a religious community, anything. It’s made me a better parent.
Definitely. You know, I can tell a difference when I am not having enough fun for myself. Like for example, during the Omicron surge, I’ve got type one diabetes. I’m very cautious about COVID and I stopped going to my, my music classes and I start getting together with people at all in person. And my husband, we could tell, you know, I was just felt depleted and I felt impatient and I felt not resilient.
And I was short tempered with our daughter and I was just grumpy. And it’s interesting to think that by taking care of ourselves in this way and giving ourselves the opportunity to let go and, you know, have fun, it, it makes us better at our responsibilities. I’m certainly a better partner to my husband when I’m going to have fun.
So that’s. Those are the most powerful things I think, I mean, it’s really made me feel more alive and it’s also made me realize that it is, I’m actually realizing this in our conversation. I hadn’t really thought about this before that it is a gift to be able to bring that energy to other people because everyone wants that feeling.
But it’s so hard to break out of our adult selves. And if you are able to become a person who can make other people feel comfortable and provide them with this ability to let go of themselves, that’s an enormous. And I think it redefines what we typically think of when we think of someone as being a quote, fun person, you know, we think, oh, they’re the life of the party, or they’re like a clown, or they’re good at telling stories or whatever.
And even I actually asked people in. Research. I said, tell me about someone who’s fun in your life. Like what makes them fun? And even at that point, I was like, isn’t this interesting? None of it was about, I mean, certainly some people told good stories, but a lot of it was about, they make people feel comfortable in their presence or, you know, they go along with, with things or they just feel like I’m able to be myself or they laugh easily.
These things that if you think about it, we all can do. And then the more fun that we have for ourselves, the easier it becomes to bring that energy to other people. I think you feel that when you connect with someone immediately and then to be someone who is able to bring that energy, like, I it’s changed my life to recognize that I could bring that to other people and it certainly makes my own interactions more rewarding.
But yeah, until this conversation, I hadn’t really occurred to me that that is a gift to give to other people as well. So it’s really changed my life on a lot of different levels and. I mean, th and I also think there’s a lot of just unexpected benefits of fun. Like it’s good for our health because it reduces our stress levels and stress and anxiety and feeling lonely are horrible for us on a deeply physiological level, the depth at which I think most of us don’t recognize it all in our daily lives.
We know they feel bad, but it really is bad for us. And having fun reduces stress, reduces the stress hormones in our body, connects us to other people. And I mean, it actually is a health interventions. Yeah, it’s, it’s been amazing. And it just, I think the leap just take a leap of faith and give yourself permission to experiment with what it would be like to enjoy your life and allow yourself to play around with the idea of fun and just see what happens.
It’s really, I don’t know. I feel like I’m losing my ability to be articulate, but it’s. Life-changing and life affirming for me. And I’m so happy to get to connect with you and talk about this and, and yeah, I think you’re right. We’re completely aligned.
Monica: you said. I know it’s so it’s so weird. It’s this is one of those big magic phenomenons, you know, from Elizabeth Gilbert. Yeah.
You know, just like, wow. Everything you said totally mirrors my own experience. It’s just kind of a different language or a different lens on the same kind of outcome.
You know, that, that time spent away from our responsibilities helps us actually show up to them better, which is what to me, one of the biggest benefits, but not intentionally. So
Catherine: Yes, I think that’s a great way to put it. I think it’s a great way to put it. It’s a benefit, but it’s not like you’re trying to, cause I was going to say like, it’s made me more productive and more creative, but that’s not why I’m trying to have fun. I’m trying to have fun because having fun feels amazing and wonderful and brings me to life.
But then it also has all these other. You know, kind of butterfly effects that you never would have seen that I don’t, I don’t want to aim for direct, like it’s not using a tool to be more productive, but it’s like, that’s just amazing. How is this one thing leading to all these other positive effects in my life and feeling really good.
It’s like finding some warp hole, like a hole in the fabric of the universe where it’s like, oh, wait, I get to do more of this thing that makes me feel alive and joyful and radiant and just amazing. And then it helps other people and it has all these other positive. So, yeah, but I love what you’re saying. If it’s an unintentional result.
Monica: Yeah, I really want women learn how to do this. And I, would say for those who are trying to figure out, well, how do I start one, read the power of fun. I mean, you really do lay it out there for, for women on how they can figure this out for themselves. if you could advise them one thing, even outside of reading that book that you would suggest like one way for them to get started on this, what would that be?
Catherine: I, the first thing that comes to mind sounds heretical, but like prioritize, spending some time away from your kids. We spend so much time trying to bring fun to our kids. Although at the same time, we also like inadvertently put pressure on our kids to perform. It’d be perfect, but that’s a different conversation, but you know, but like
when we,
Monica: I did for you too.
Catherine: yeah, exactly.
Monica: Like I took this for you.
Catherine: Exactly or like, you know, get good grades so you can get into a good high school, so you can get to a good college, so you can have a successful career. And it’s like, well, what, and then you die. So like, I don’t know, then I get bored. But, but, you know, I think a lot of times when women talk about the things we do, quote for ourselves, it’s the nourishment, as it’s like, mentioned some there’s the oh my goodness.
You had a better word for it. That just basically like I’m getting a manicure or like I’m taking a bubble bath or like that kind of stuff, which I think is a reflection of the fact that many of us. So burned out. We actually are at a stage where we can’t do anything, but now I’m out for a while because we are so depleted.
I think the work of Eve Rodsky who wrote Fairplay and this new book, unicorn space really is very valuable. It’s just the idea that we need to put ourselves first, once in a while.
And it might take a bit to get to the point where you do have enough energy to motivate, to get off the couch. So I do want to acknowledge that because we are so worn down, especially if they’re past two years. But I also think that we, even, if we do have a bit of energy, our tendency is still to do things.
Get a pedicure or something and that’s fine, but it’s not going to be life affirming. I think that requires a little bit more separation and, and being what I mean, honestly, would be selfish. But I think selfish in a really important way is like what actually makes you feel alive, not your
Monica: Hmm.
Catherine: not your kids, you know, you and.
That you have permission to do that. And in fact, you should do that. You deserve it. So I think that’s the number one thing I would say it’s the first step is to think that you deserve to enjoy your own life.
Monica: One thing we’ve, we’ve said in this community a few times is you have to be selfish in order to be selfless. And that to me, totally connects to what you just said, as well as other things you’ve mentioned throughout this interview together about starting small and then not having to be big and not having to be adventurous.
It doesn’t mean you have to be a different person to have fun. You don’t have to take on a whole new personality to have fun. Like this podcast, that’s it for me, I have fun learning. I have fun learning from other people and sharing what I learned and getting in the flow there. And I have to be playful about how I do it.
And the present in the moment to me is a huge part of it. So, Catherine, I want to keep talking to you, but I do want to make sure that we allow you time to have fun and to be able to do the things you need to do today too. But let’s tell people where they should go. If they’re ready to learn more from you on a more consistent.
Catherine: Yeah, I would say the number one thing to do would be sign up for my newsletter, which is at screenlifebalanced.com because that’s the main way I would communicate with people. There’s also the, a screen life balance.com also has a lot of other resources for both related to phones and fun. You can also find me on social media.
I’m not as active on that, but But yeah, those are the two main things. And then my two books that are the most relevant here are how to break up with your phone and the power of fun. And if anyone does, you know, read those and try the ideas in them and find them to be useful, I would love to hear your stories.
I always really, I mean, it means a lot to me to hear from people about, you know, because writing is so isolating. And so anytime someone actually reads something I wrote or like listens to a conversation, then it has a positive impact that is so meaningful to me. So I encourage people to reach out through the form on that site and like, let me know.
Cause I really love that, but that would be the main thing to sign up for the newsletter.
Monica: Okay, great. We will link to that as well as everything else you just mentioned in our show notes. thank you for writing this book, as well as your other one, too. How to, how to break up with your phone. You’ve done so much for me and for so many different other women and I’m, I’m grateful for you leaning into it.
We need you.
Catherine: Thank you so much. And it’s been a true pleasure and fun to get to speak to you. So I, I hope to have more conversations going forward. I think the work you’re doing is just so important. So.
Monica: Thank you.
And my favorite chapter in your book was titled where you home? Sorry, let me read you that. My favorite child.
