Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Have you ever felt a desire to connect with the people around you, but also felt at a loss of how to go about doing that? I remember a few years ago, Teresa and I were in a stage of our marriage where just the busyness of life was getting in the way. We had had several kids at that point, three or four.
[00:00:20] I was working full time. I was in school almost full time. We were also a part of local ministry. And so a lot of things just pulling at our attention and it fel felt hard to really know how to connect. If we had any time to talk, it was usually like talking about logistical things and like, how do we, you know, take care of this? How do we get this child here to where they need to go and how do we, you know, have this meeting and so forth and just felt like we would collapse on our beds at night, just exhausted and tired and today I am going to be reviewing Pathos, the emotional card game which was sent to me. Yes, this is a paid review, full disclosure there.
[00:01:05] But I'm really excited about this review and I'm excited about these kinds of games. I'm going to get into all of that and more in today's episode.
[00:01:15] My name is Asher Whitmer. If you're new here, this is Unfeigned Christianity where we are on a journey of becoming a people who are theologically anchored in Jesus and emotionally healthy so we can love and disciple others. Well, obviously today we're focusing on emotional health. What does it look like to connect with people?
[00:01:37] And it's interesting, it says the emotional card game. This gets you to talk about your emotions. And that's what this is all about. There's other games out there. The Circle has put out table conversations. That's a fantastic way to get to know people in your community. But it doesn't necessarily talk about emotions.
[00:01:57] Sometimes it does, but the pathos, the emotional card game does talk about emotions. And so I'm going to take some time to not only explain how the game works and then I'll talk about some of the cards and then I'll talk about what our experience was like as a family. Now I open this by talking about the desire to connect with my wife.
[00:02:22] That's you don't have to be a couple in order to benefit from this game. This, this game is for anybod.
[00:02:30] It says ages eight plus. We played it as a family. We have two, two year old. Our two year old, she didn't really answer the questions, but she played the game. So ages 8 plus 2 to 10 players. And we also didn't quite play the way the instructions say to play.
[00:02:46] And some of that was because of the ages of our kids and so forth. But we did really enjoy it. And one of the things that I really like about it is it just gives a very quick, simple, easy question to ask that gets people going. And the thing about these kinds of games, there's also tails, there's a tales for couple and tales for family. It's. It's a similar style of game. But the thing about all of these games is no matter how much you think you know somebody when you play it and they're answering the questions, it's like, oh, I didn't know that about you. And when they're answering the questions, often follow up questions arise in your mind and it begins all of a sudden, before you know it, you're having conversation is deep and meaningful and it's not even the game. And I think that's the point of all of these games is to get people to connect. And specifically for pathos, we're connecting about our emotions. Emotions are one of those things that's hard to talk about. You feel them.
[00:03:46] And even we as guys, we begin to start paying attention to. And the reason I say it like that is because guys are given this rap of not being very emotional or in touch with their emotions, whatever. In our family, we've got three boys and three girls. As far as our kids, yeah, the girls are fairly emotional, but our boys are fairly emotional too. And I am a fairly emotional guy.
[00:04:11] My wife, we're honestly, we're just kind of a really emotional family. We can, if you've ever hung out with us, we can be high as high and then boosh down as low. And I'm not, I don't know that that's necessarily healthy. We have our work cut out for us, my wife and I, and learning how to process our own emotions and then helping our children identify, put words to what they're feeling and how to process their emotions. But that gets us back to the subject at hand at the game and just being able to talk about our emotions. So let me just kind of read through the instructions.
[00:04:49] How, how interesting is that, huh? To read through the instructions. They're. They're not that long. They're fairly simple. The game set up, the rules are, it's designed for two to 10 players, ages eight and up. The deck of cards should be well shuffled. You mix them up, deal six cards to each player. Now there are. I should have double checked this before 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. There are five different emotions that are talked about and they're, they're all color coded.
[00:05:20] You have pink. All the pink cards are for love.
[00:05:24] All the blue cards. I'm. For those of you listening, I'm trying to hold up cards to the YouTube audience. All the blue cards are for sadness.
[00:05:34] You have orange for anxiety, red for angry and then green for feeling happy. And then you have some, some additional cards, question cards that can be played out of turn. So anyways, let me get back into deal six cards to each player. Place the remaining cards in the center for a draw draw pile. Flip the top card of the draw pile over and face it up to start the discard pile. So that's, you know your typical card game.
[00:06:04] And then here's the gameplay. Starting with the player to the dealer's left and going clockwise, the players take turns. Note, the dealer is considered previous player if a switch places card is the first card played.
[00:06:18] So you have various, you have question cards and then the switch places cards. The switch places cards are within each of the different emotions, starting with the player to the. I read that already. On your turn, you may play one from your hand that matches either the color or the symbol of the top card on the discard pile. Once the card is played onto the discard pile, you will follow the card's directions by answering questions, sharing thoughts or finishing sentences.
[00:06:50] This action will complete your turn. So for example, we have a card on sad. Share a time when you felt sad so you would respond to that or you could.
[00:07:05] Here is a. Finish the sentence. My body reacts to anxiety by.
[00:07:11] How does your body react to anxiety? If you don't have a playable card in your hand, you must draw a card from the draw pile. If the drawn card is playable, you may play it. Otherwise your turn ends. So this is like your basic card game like Uno. You play what color or symbol it matches.
[00:07:31] Now for the, for those of you that can see, the symbols are this, this one is a, a question on anxiety that has a tree as a symbol. And then here is a, a question on anxiety that has a butterfly as a symbol. This is a switch places card. So it, it has a little extra. And then it says the next player draws two cards. So it's, it's also sort of like Uno in that way. You have the draw two card. Although now that I'm looking at it, I wonder if that's. I'm not sure that that's the right symbol because the pictures up here are changing as well. Number six or number five. Cards labeled Switch places are meant to shuffle the player's seating arrangements.
[00:08:15] As players find common ground and complement different individuals, the next player will draw two cards and proceed with their turn. Cards labeled reverse turn direction are meant to change the turn taking direction. If turn rotation was going clockwise, this will now be counterclockwise, so on and so forth. Question cards must be played out of turn. They should be used as follow up questions for clarification or for deeper understanding of another player's response.
[00:08:43] That is in a, an interesting aspect to the pathos game that are not in some of the other games because sometimes they're like the table conversations. You're supposed to let everybody go out and you're specifically not supposed to speak out of turn. Well then somebody has a question that you really want to follow up on. Like by the time it gets back around to me or something like the conversation's moved on from that question. And so I like the thought of having a question card. Obviously it's randomly shuffled so I may not get one, but if I have one in my hand I, I could throw a question card and follow up to something that somebody else responded. Once played, question cards should be placed under the card that was the subject of the follow up question. Gameplay should continue as normal after the question card has been answered. Only one question card can be used for each played card. Two or more question cards cannot be played as follow up questions. The player who first lays a question card out of turn is the only follow up question on allowed for that game interaction. Once a player is out of cards, they win and the game ends.
[00:09:56] So a couple things. First of all we, we did not play this specific way. We try to and in full transparency. This was the first time since our baby had been born in December that we had done this. But we try to once a week we have what we call the family conversation. It started a couple of years ago. One of my sons would lay in bed at night and he'd, you know, as we're trying to wrap up the night and get people to sleep, he would say can we have a conversation? And so we just started. Different ones of our kids wanted to have these conversations. And so we started asking each other.
[00:10:35] We said, well a couple times we did it everybody. And then that just took way too long. So we, we divided it up. There were three of us who were or six of us who were old enough to, to participate in this activity. And so three would go one week, three would go the next week alternating. But you could ask A question that everybody has to answer and then other people could ask a question that everybody has to answer. So this, we sort of played it as a variant of what we were already doing as a family. Instead of thinking of questions that everybody had to answer, I pulled out some questions that we went around to answering and that was very fitting. Our family had fun with them.
[00:11:14] It wasn't, we didn't play a whole game. I'm not sure what it would look like. I could imagine for us the, the ages of our kids, some of them would get tired. I think I did maybe four or five questions. I think they'd get tired after doing a whole game of it. So it probably is designed for eight and older in that way to last the whole, the whole round.
[00:11:37] So these cards are helpful in that way though, even if you're not wanting to play a game with it. But it is a way to gamify. I especially think of my wife and I on anniversary getaways or even date nights, you know, just doing a shuffle. Obviously it would be a little odd to some of these rules if it's just a two player game, you know, to switch places or your turn, the turn, the, the rotation which you're taking turns, changes. Even the question cards might, might not have as much meaning or impact if it's just a two player game, which is pretty standard for any card game. If just two of you are playing it, you're going to have to have some variance. And they do suggest a couple play variations.
[00:12:23] But one of the things that I really liked, I'll just. It's very simple for all of these kinds of games. I love the fact that they, somebody took time to like think through questions that get people talking. And obviously if you're in the middle of conflict interpersonally, if you're playing as a family or in a group where there's people that are having conflict, it could be hard to be honest and transparent with them. But even, even as I think as a couple now, we try to, when we've got issues, we try to talk through it faster. If we're waiting around for like, oh, we should play a game, well, let's play this game and get us talking. But even so, even if we're not playing a game, if there is some conflict going on or specifically my wife and I, we were recently talking about housing and we've been blessed with the house that we're in. We love the house and we've loved fixing it up and making it our own.
[00:13:29] But there was another house that came on the market that was kind of intriguing to my wife and so forth. And one of the questions, I can't find it right now but said, describe happiness as a house.
[00:13:43] And so I was like, oh, I'm going to ask this one because I wanted to hear how my wife would describe happiness as a house. This house that popped up on the market was intriguing to her. I like, rationally I understand why some of the things were intriguing. It has different pieces that we wanted in a next house whenever, whenever we'd move to another house.
[00:14:07] But there were also some parts that didn't necessarily, as I looked at it, didn't necessarily jump out to me about it. But I was really intrigued. Like what about this house yet? I don't know how to dig deeper to understand. Like just, I mean we did, we did. My wife and I did talk about it. It's like, what about that? How she shared some things. But when I saw that night we played this game and when I saw that question, I was like, oh, I want to hear that from my wife. It would. It's this whole different angle about a topic that gives me insight into my wife and it gives me insight into the environment that she pictures when she's feeling happy or that would make her happy. And those are the kinds of things I want to know. So that's, that's the kind of thing like I. That's to summarize my point is that I love these kinds of games because they give you the pre thought, predetermined question that you just gotta ask. Then sometimes the biggest obstacle to deep meaningful connection is trying to think of how do I ask it or what do I ask? And so we just settle for this small talk sort of thing. The other thing that I like about this game that differentiates itself from some of the other games that are out there is that it's all about emotions.
[00:15:28] And so you have five different emotions that are talked about.
[00:15:32] But there's maybe it's listed somewhere in the, the instructions here.
[00:15:40] There's like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, maybe 20 different ways of asking about or talking about that emotion. Share time. You felt sad. Oh, I guess it's not 20 different ways. Sorry, it looks like there's maybe bunches of questions.
[00:16:07] What is one lie about sadness?
[00:16:09] What is one negative of sadness? What is one positive of sadness? Describe sadness as a landscape. Describe sadness as a house. And now as I'm looking through all of these, I'm like oh, I think these questions are similar just because Describe happiness as a house was also a question that we bumped into but I liked My body reacts to anxiety by da da da da. What helps when you feel anxiety? Switch players, switch places and pick one attribute for the previous Grace, courage, kindness, curiosity. What attribute of the previous player? What does one lie about anxiety? What is one positive of anxiety?
[00:16:56] So they do kind of resemble each other. So I think some questions that I find myself left with in terms of this game are which symbol? Because I'm reading here through which symbol when it says or maybe it's meaning both because I don't see any place that clarifies it says the same color or symbol. On your turn you may play one card from your hand that matches either the color or the symbol of the top card on the discard pile. And so that's a question that I have. And then another question I have is what is it a kind of game? Because because it's only five emotions and because the the type of question being asked about that emotion overlap. I'm curious how as you play a game once or you play it multiple times, will it maintain its Obviously if you're playing it with new people every time, then it will be a fun game, but as a family or a couple, you might play it through and then you've done the questions and it may not maintain its freshness or a pull to dig deeper. It's like, oh, we've answered these questions before, but I still find this sort of game really valuable and really helpful in building connection.
[00:18:27] And if you are someone who longs to be able to talk about and process your emotions in a healthier way, maybe you feel you feel a lot of stuff. Maybe you're struggling with certain things and you're not quite sure why, then I want to invite you to join the Formation Circle as a part of the Unfeigned Christianity Patreon membership. The Formation Circle is a place. You don't have to start there. Formation circle is 30 bucks a month.
[00:18:56] You can start at the Inquirer and dip your toes in. That's $5 a month. But the Formation Circle is a mentorship program where I don't act as a counselor, but I facilitate digging deeper in all all areas theolog being theologically anchored, emotionally healthy, and then loving and discipling. Well, one of the things we recently looked at in our monthly mentorship call was how it's impossible to be spiritually mature while remaining emotionally immature. If we are emotionally immature people, it's difficult to actually become spiritually mature because we're needing people, we're even needing spirituality to solve something in us, to calm something inside of our soul. And I think the two, the three theologically anchored, emotional, spiritual, health, loving, wealth, like all of that, is so intertwined. We cannot be truly emotionally healthy without being theologically anchored. We cannot be theologically anchored if we're not emotionally and spiritually healthy. We can't love well if we're not theologically anchored and emotionally healthy. So if you'd like to check that out, I have a link in the description below. You can learn more about it. And if you would like to purchase pathos for yourself and have it on hand so that you can play it with your friends, I have a link for that also in the description. You can purchase it on Amazon for 30 bucks or little secret here you can go directly to their website and purchase it for $24, which is what I've linked below. Thanks for letting me review this game with you and I hope that it is helpful to you, to your family, to your community in being able to better put to words the things that you're feeling and experiencing. Grace and peace.
