Welcome back to the Simplicity Diaries with me, Kim John Payne. So glad you could make another 10 or 15 minutes this week. It seems like such a small thing, doesn't it? But actually it's really not.
So well done us, here we are. I wanted to talk this week about a little bit of an image that came up from me. Because an old friend now contacted me who I used to coach in volleyball.
I was a volleyball coach and basketball coach in my little high school for years, where I was a teacher but primarily a school counselor. And we were chatting away and he reminded me of when, of how, you know, he wasn't one of the stronger players on the team. And how he would often get, in volleyball, hit on, he would get hit at, you know.
So they would single him out, they would serve on him, the opposition team, and they would hit at him because he was a taller player, moved a little bit more slowly. He was great on the, you know, at the net, but in the backcourt, you know, not so skilled. And our philosophy as a team was that we all learned to play all positions.
So he wasn't subbed out when he was on the backcourt. He was left in, you know. And we were laughing about this and we were reminiscing about how when that happens, when you get hit at and served at, the conversation really went to a life skill.
And we chatted on until the wee hours about this. Because when you're being hit at, when you're being served at, when life is coming at you really hard, really fast, the life lesson that he was very sure that he learned as a result of the way we handled it was that you gather around, you gather closer to someone who is suffering. You gather closer to someone who is vulnerable.
You move in close. And we had that saying on our team. OK, let's move in close to James.
James was the name of this now older, he's in his 30s now, but move in close. Protection, protection. And he was reminding me of that core philosophy of our team is you don't remove someone if they're feeling vulnerable.
You move in closer and you give protection. And this meant that there were other parts of the court that whoever was looking out for that had to actually take care of more because there'd be others who would move in closer to James to offer protection or whoever it was that was being hit at. I find that part of volleyball particularly kind of, I don't know, Darwinistic that you hit at someone who's not such a strong player.
And but anyway, that that's a part of the game. And so we had to sort of cope with it. Many teams use that strategy.
And we were talking about now as how that manifested in his life and how as a dad now with two little ones, well, a middle schooler and a younger one, a kindergartner, how that that really manifested for him as a life skill, as a complete expectation in his family that when someone was feeling vulnerable, we call a time out and we move in and we protect them. And I was so touched by what he what he told me that and it was now that his wife was everyone was moving in close to her because she was pregnant, heavily pregnant with their third child and how the children were moving in close, offering extra help, protecting, offering and drawing in around her on a day to day level because he had coached them up. And I had to smile at that term because it's a term I'd use all the time.
Actually, you know, we're all coaching each other up here. I'm yes, I've you know, I'm I'm the coach, so-called coach, quote unquote. But we're all coaching each other up here.
And how he had maintained that quality all through raising his children, that when a sibling was suffering, they would move in close and protect each other. When mummy was heavily pregnant and needed a lot of extra help just to do the practical things around the house, we'd call time out. And he he would say I would call time like time out and we would figure out how we're going to get through the next day with with mummy, you know, unable to do certain things and how they would offer protection to her vulnerability.
And then he made another point. He said that now his older boy was was, you know, stepping more a little bit more out into the world, that he just very naturally started realizing there were people suffering in the world and he needed to draw close to them. And so they were figuring out ways, particularly in times of celebration, particularly in holiday seasons, other times of the special times of the year where many people felt vulnerabilities.
The the the unhoused, the people living without homes, the people who had much less than this family did, they would draw close to them. And it wasn't just in in the the the the holy season. It was at other times.
But it was particularly at that time they gave particular thought to it. It was also played out at times when his oldest boy had very, very much now become more conscious of drawing in and offering protection to kids in his class that weren't doing so well, kids in his class that were sad, kids in his class that weren't being included in games. And that was being offered, you know, over and over to in that setting and how his child had become one of the go to kids in the class that that, you know, that offered fairness, that offered that kind of empathy.
And so the dad and I were reflecting back on how those lessons, how interesting it was that those lessons had been absorbed in a way, you know, in a highly competitive situation. We're a pretty good volleyball team and we're in often quite competitive situations. And how that lesson had been learned and had been made manifest where it really counted.
Because we think like highly competitive volleyball games and basketball games and such like the peak of when you're under pressure. But that's nothing compared to being a dad or a mom, right? We all know that. And that had manifested in his family, but now is manifesting in his children.
So when we hear about generational abuse, the tragedies of generational alcoholism, generational trauma, there can also be this generational empathy, this drawing in close. And we don't have to play volleyball to understand that and have that as a core family value. That when someone is hurting, we draw in close to them.
And we are going to get through this together as a family. And we offer protection to each other when those inevitable moments come up when we're feeling vulnerable. And if a child's struggling to understand that, that's okay too.
It's a slow thing. It just builds up over time. We don't have to get sanctimonious about it.
Of course, that's very off-putting to a child. But this core message that when someone is suffering, we don't move away from them. We can, if at all possible, move closer to them subtly, practically, even in our thoughts and prayers, perhaps.
But we don't move away and reject people who are vulnerable and suffering. What a beautiful life lesson that was. And that evening with my former student was really, you know, one to remember and one that was actually, I must confess, quite moving.
All right, I hope that helps in terms of what are our core values raising our family. We all make our decisions, but that was a beautiful one. Okay, that's it for now.
Bye-bye.
