The Courage of Play: Sophie Austin

By Sandy Glanfield

Listening back to our recent podcast with Sophie Austin, I keep returning to one thing: her energy.

Not the loud kind. Not the performative kind. More like the bright, elemental energy that comes from someone who has learned how to stay open to life.

There was a moment when she spoke about playing ‘above the chalk and flint and below the massive blue sky’ in Norfolk as a child. I wish everyone could have seen her face. Her smile lifted the whole screen. It was not just nostalgia. It felt like she had briefly stepped back into that childhood state of play where the world feels huge and inviting and full of possibility.

That energy never really left her.

It is the same energy that takes her into unfamiliar places.
The same energy that carries her toward people whose actions made her nervous.
The same energy that helps her stay open long enough to hear the stories that sit beneath the surface.

That feels rare.
And incredibly moving.

Because meeting people across difference is not easy, especially now. It can feel safer to retreat into our own beliefs, our own certainties, our own echo chambers. It is tempting to close the door, to fold inward, to rely on our own sense of what is right.

Sophie shows us another path.
A braver one.
A more playful one.

She spoke about the importance of play, not as something frivolous, but as a source of courage. It is that wild inner spark that says: try this, stay curious, explore, see what happens. It is the same spark that helps children climb trees or ask strange questions or wander down unmarked paths. Many of us lose that spark somewhere along the way.

Sophie has not.

What struck me is that this playfulness does not make her naïve. It makes her bold.
It gives her the courage to cross thresholds that most of us would avoid.
To sit with people she once feared.
To listen long enough to understand what sits underneath their actions.
To keep seeking connection even when the differences feel sharp.

This is where the Golden Rule sits for me.

Treat others as you wish to be treated can sound simple. Almost too simple. Yet Sophie shows how it becomes a way of approaching the world. A way of staying open enough to recognise someone’s humanity before reacting to their behaviour. A way of choosing curiosity in moments that could easily be met with defensiveness.

In her story, the Golden Rule becomes an act of relational courage.
A way of reaching for wonder.
A belief that connection, even difficult connection, is still possible.

Perhaps this is the invitation her story leaves for all of us.

To find again the energy that once made us playful.
To let that energy make us bold enough to meet what we do not yet understand.
To resist the pull of certainty and retreat.
To stay open to life, including the parts that unsettle us.

Because when we do, we might discover what Sophie finds again and again.
That beyond fear there is often understanding.
And beyond understanding there is often love, not the tidy kind, but the expansive human kind that keeps us connected to each other and to the world we share.

*You can watch Sophie’s film ‘Climate Criminals?’ here