CR spoke with Jo Swinney

Jo: That was a really big challenge. I looked at it in different categories. On the material front we were in the middle of doing a really big de-clutter ahead of moving house and I just thought about it more as a spiritual exercise as I was doing it and considered the place that my possessions had in my life and tried to work out what was really necessary and what I should and could let go of. Then I also thought about my time schedule and the way I tended to pack my days full. While I was thinking about that the girls both got ill, so I was forced to stay at home and realised that I could manage with less plans in place. I think we do run ourselves ragged and fill up every square inch of time and there's a loss that happens because of that; you just lose touch with yourself and with God and everything becomes externalised and a bit driven. I've still got a long way to go thinking and putting that into practice. I thought about simplifying relationships.

I think a lot of what underpins a simple life is your inner attitude towards things and cultivating gratitude, so that whatever your circumstances, there's a peace underneath it and a sense of calm and of deliberateness.

Rebecca: Do you think that sometimes we can be a bit hard on ourselves when we don't reach up to the standards that we want to when trying to live out spiritual disciplines?

Jo: I think there's so much guilt around! I know I feel it. Yet really what they're about is a relationship with God and I know he wants to know us and he wants to be known. When we're beating ourselves up about failing I think that's really missing the point. They're there to help us; they're there to enable us to know God better, but yes, we add it in to our to do list and we add them in to our sense of achievement or failure. I don't think that's what they're about at all.

Rebecca: So how should we be implementing them and what place should they have in our lives?

Jo: I think that investing in our relationship with God is the most important thing that we could ever do. These spiritual disciplines are a way of enabling that. There is a certain amount of discipline to it, but partly it's just your intention and your heart deciding that it's important enough that you're going to find ways of fitting these practices in and making them a part of your daily life, however your life looks at the time.

A lot of us are so busy and stressed that they're going to need to be in smaller pieces and you are then going to have to be creative about making it happen. I do think a lot of it is to do with having an attitude that shows you want to seek after God and then doing whatever helps you to do that.

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