Art Therapy for Broads Abroad : Post Cards From The Edge : Exercise #9

:: Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat. ::

― W. Paul Young, The Shack

Broads Abroad, I'll share a secret with you.  The more centered I become in my own heart, the better the alignment between my thoughts and actions.  I have less need to ruminate on the transgressions of others - freaking bastards!  LOL!  It's fantastic really - a time is approaching when the worst in life will come flying into my face and I will not bat an eyelash.  Things will happen.  I'm not going to give them energy by naming them.  We all know that life is chaordic, bringing sublime moments as well as the unthinkable.  

What we don't generally practice is finding peace within this rhythm.  I mean PEACE OUT sisters!  Peace in all it's many facets begins with forgiveness.  Accepting ourselves as being perfect within an impermanent frame, acknowledging that damaging moments and people were set in our paths for a reason, and being solidly grounded in the thought that we are being taken care of despite ourselves.

When you are moving through this exercise, consider correcting all the assumptions associated with the acts you wish to forgive.  Did you allow someone to assume something about you, only to watch it snowball?  Did you assume someone had a skill set like your own, only to discover they are in no way from your tribe?  

For this exercise, you must only consider your own actions and thoughts.  Haven't you spent enough time fretting over the fray of others?  If you aren't self-interested now, when will you be?  Stop being so fey my Loud Sisters!   

Mattel™ never made a Magical Thinking Barbie.  You are after all, the producer, director, and movie star of your own life story.  Bring it on home!

Today's Secret Message of Love: I will correct assumptions!

Post Cards From The Edge © News From A Broad, 2012
*An excellent tutorial can be found on Home Abroad.

Materials:

• Scissors
• Magazines, newspapers, beautiful paper bags
• Glue Stick
• Card stock, construction paper, and/or vellum 
• A piece of paper for practicing the message on your postcard
• Pen, pencil, Sharpie, and/or rub-on letters

NOTE: I like vellum as it has a revealing property that allows you to work on both sides.  However, it is very difficult to write on with anything but a Sharpie or rub-on letters.

 

Process:

• Compile collage elements for your postcards. The cleaner the cuts, the more integrated the images will appear in the new composition. 
• Cut the card stock, construction paper, or vellum to meet the postcard standard in case you want to mail it to yourself.  Minimum postcard dimensions 3 ½” x 5”.  Maximum postcard dimensions 4 ¼” x 6”. 
• Before gluing the images, shift them around on the postcard while thinking about the text associated with the act you are willing to forgive.
• Glue the images in place.    
• Compose the text.

Options:

• Glue a piece of vellum over the whole image to create a misty feel.
• Go crazy!  Instead of a postcard, create a pop-up note card. 

Conclusions:
Forgiveness begins with letting go of our own throats.  It takes time, conscious effort, and great care to know that the path towards forgiveness begins with examining our own actions.  Use the Broad Dream Notes as a guide for processing this exercise.

Create the life you want!

The Broad  
 

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad : Guts Are Beautiful : Exercise #5

:: What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.::

 - Pericles

Today I was reminded of the Russian fairytale, Vasalisa.  In one version it begins with, "Once there was, and once there was not."  Vasalisa is about to become an orphan.  Just as her mother is taking her last breath, she gifts Vasalisa a small doll to place in her apron pocket.  Vasalisa is told to bring the doll out whenever she has an important decision to make, for the doll symbolizes the instinctual lessons acquired over a lifetime.

The first year of living abroad messes with your gut.  Obviously, the food is different, as are the people, the language, the systems, the process, and the roads.  Expectations are in constant flux as you make minute shifts, adjusting to all the new in your life abroad.  The one foot in each country, makes a great deal of sense during this first year.  You need those reminders from your life back home to guide your daily movements abroad.    

Today's exercise is an opportunity to honor what you know and can trust - yourself.

Guts Are Beautiful © News From A Broad, 2012

Materials:

• 1/2 meter of clear heavy vinyl - think about reusing something you packed your items in for your move.  I used one of my Space Bags to avoid creating more plastic waste.
  
• 1/2 meter of craft paper - paper bag opened can serve your purpose.  This is sometimes difficult to find in countries dependent upon single use plastic bags.
  
• Sewing machine or needle & thread
  
• Stuffing - this list is intended to help you generate ideas: firecrackers, buttons, bones, beads, feathers, leaves, lace, plastic farm animals, magnetic alphabet, fake flowers, peacock feathers, stones, etc..
• A pattern used for a simple cloth doll. 

•  

Process:

• Take a few moments to write a list of potential stuffing materials.  Assign symbolic meaning to each item.  Does a feather suggest flight, a sense of being flighty, or both.  
• Gather your stuffing materials.  I didn't bring much in terms of detritus with me when I moved abroad.  However, over the last year, I've collected natural objects during my walks along the beach, and in the woods.
• The example pattern of a doll is in pieces, but it is better to cut a solid pattern as you will sew only the edges. The image is a suggested shape.  Please design your own outline.  The easiest way to do this is to fold your piece of paper in half, outlining only half of a doll shape.  Cut along that line, open, and you have a full figure.
• Trace the figure onto the folded clear vinyl.  You now have the front and back of the figure.
• Sew the edges, leaving an opening at the head large enough that allows you to slip your stuffing objects into the doll.  You may find it easier to sew the sides, leaving the top half of the figure open until you have fitted items for the lower half into the form. 

Options:
Added touches:

• Use a Sharpie or similar permanent pen to write on the outside or inside of the vinyl.
• Use silk thread strings, as wisps of accent along the edge.
• Incorporate embroidery stitches
• Add leaves of gold, silver or copper leaf to the inside of one of the vinyl pieces.
• Have words tumble from the areas where the mouth and ears would be. 

Conclusions:

• Are your guts organized or chaotic?
• How well are you paying attention to your instincts?

Create the life you want!

The Broad

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad :: Sand Tray In A Saucer :: Exercise #15

 :: In play a child always behaves beyond his average age, above his daily behavior.  In play it is as though he were a head taller than himself. ::

- Lev Vygotsky,Russian psychologist, 1896–1934

When Mamère, my grandmother, passed away I inherited all of her gardening gear.  Her zebra striped overalls, once worn as a Mardi Gras costume, hung loosely on a bent nail in her gardening shed.  Her shed was a moss and ivy covered structure made from old storm shutters.  Art deco designs were embossed along the edges of lovely white clay pots of many sizes.  The smallest held a handful of dirt, another a tiny rake. Under a group of cupped seedling pots, a copper penny flattened by a trolly somewhere along the New Orleans' Carrollton-St.Charles streetcar line.  Buried under a two legged table screwed to the wall were her strawberry pot, and two nested and badly chipped bird bath bowls leaning against a single stand.  Everything was where it had always been.  MaMere's own scent clung to the walls.

I brought all of these things to my home in Austin, with only the strawberry pot making the journey to Merida.  The best of the bird bath bowls I once filled with birdseed.  Set atop a library card catalogue, the drawers were filled with many small objects, representing nature, the modern world and fantasy.  In this way, my family and friends curated scenes of their inner life in miniature.

Sand Tray Therapy holds very specific dimensions for the container, rectangular in shape, used by practitioners trained in this approach.  This exercise is an adaptation based upon my own practice.  The overarching goal in traditional Sand Tray Therapy is that the play leads one to individuation, or balance.  The use of circular trays serve to imprint an image of wholeness for each individual scene offering a comforting container.  In a circular environment you may play with the objects and regroup the individual traits, much as my grandmother did moving through the seasons in her garden.


Today's Secret Message of Love
Play!

Sand Tray In A Saucer ©  News From A Broad

Materials

• *A notebook for recording the completed scene during the process. (See Options)
• You'll need a container at least 16" in diameter.  A catch tray for a potted plant or a deep dish pizza pan work well.  Make sure you like it or you won't be inclined towards play.
• Fill for the tray can be sand, bird seed, or small dried peas.  Any fill that will hold the scene objects securely will work 
• A shelf, dresser, or storage tote with drawers to hold your collection of objects for scenes.
• A collection of objects, without consideration of size is best.  The natural world objects include shells, sticks, dried flowers, and any other item you find appealing.  The modern world objects are traditionally things found in a doll house, including human and animal figures.  The fantasy world objects are just that, fantasy.   
• Here is a short list: feathers, rocks, marbles, a string of beads, bottle caps, Christmas ornaments, wooden matches, fabric scraps,etc..

Process

• Create a scene in the tray.
• Use the Broad Dream Notes to process the scene.

Options

• *Use the journal from the Without Conclusion or Siesta Dreaming exercises.
•  Take a digital image of the scene in the tray.  Copy and paste it at the top of a word document, using the Broad Dream Notes outline for processing the scene.

Conclusion
This is a great family activity.  If the tray and collection of objects are to be shared, the creator of the scene needs to remove the objects and place them back where they are stored. Talk about teaching children to put away their things!

All the objects you collect, and the arrangements you create for your scenes are always right on.
Perfect!

Create the life you want!
The Broad

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad : Love Circles : Exercise #8

::If your sister hits you, don't hit her back.  Parents always catch the second person.:: 
- Michael, age 10

As odd as it may sound, Michael's parents have taught him a very important resiliency skill.  The last six years in Texas, I worked exclusively with very high risk kids in extremely tough home situations.  The laws that we all believe are meant to protect children, unfortunately leave them vulnerable to some very distorted dynamics.  In twenty-five years of counseling, only four children, who were being physically and/or sexually assaulted in their homes, were ever fully protected. 

Acknowledging this fact, that legally we protect families, i.e., especially adult males, over children's welfare, was desperately heartbreaking for me.  With limited alternatives, The Little Level 5 Tornadoes that came to the alternative elementary school where I counseled, helped me create some very fun projects that taught them how to survive their experiences.  

Today's Secret Message of Love: I trust myself!

Love Circles © News From A Broad, 2012

with special thanks to the Super Heroes Power Club founders : Kenny, Karen, Jessie, Sam, and Alli, the bravest kids in The Universe!

Materials:

• Scissors
• Any circle form, from a Hula Hoop to a large embroidery hoop (interior portion only)
• Fabric : For a Hula Hoop, 12 t-shirts : For embroidery hoop, 12 large fabric napkins, bandanas, or 2 t-shirts.  

NOTE: Different colors and textures will make the Love Circles POP!

 

Process:

Create the Warp

• For a Hula Hoop, using a large t-shirt, cut just under the arm pits.  Cut the tube into 1" strips.  These will be stretched over the hoop.  For an embroidery hoop, cut a large bandana into 1" strips.  These will be tied onto the embroidery hoop.
• For a Hula Hoop, begin stretching the tube 1" strips over the hoop, creating a cross initially, continuing until approximately 10-12 tubes are stretched evenly around the hoop.  For an embroidery hoop, tie each end of each 1" strip, end-to-end until you have 10-12 strips tied to the hoop.  
• Make sure the strips are tight.  In both cases, your warp will look like spokes on a bicycle tire.

Create the Weft

• For a Hula Hoop, cut the rest of your t-shirts under the arm pits, open up one seam, and cut 1" strips.  For an embroidery hoop, cut the remaining napkins or bandanas into 1" strips.
• Gathering any two warp loops in the center, tie one end of a 1" strip onto this point.
• Weave into a tight spiral.
• Overlap the next strip, and continue until the spiral is complete.

Options:
Added touches:

• Use beautiful yarns as the warp or weft
• Tie trinkets, like sea shells or beads, onto your Love Circle

Conclusions:
Our most sacred shape is the circle.  The are found in nature, in sacred spaces around the world, and as a mathematical function for understanding the chaotic order of the Universe.  Use the Broad Dream Notes as a guide for processing this exercise.

Create the life you want!

The Broad  
 

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad : Transitional Portraits : Exercise #3

:: Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.::  

- John W. Gardner @ Skinny Artist

Labeling yourself as an artist, doesn't make you an artist.  Exhibiting paintings, sculptures, photographs, or authoring books and poems, doesn't make you an artist.  Creating the life you want does.  Art Therapy is all about the process, and that is why there are no mistakes, in the work you create or in the life you lead.   There is a difference between an intervention, which requires an active therapeutic witness to your process, and an excise that allows you to express yourself without censorship. 

Whether you are facing the beginning grief stages of leaving family, friends, and belongings behind, or have adopted the lifestyle of your host country after many years abroad, all phases of the expat process have presented transitional moments.  For this exercise, be in the moment.  For inspiration, visit the site of Austin, Texas artist Virginia Fleck.  After completing your first piece, explore previous transitions in your life.  

Transitional Portraits © News From A Broad, 2012

Materials:

• a printed black & white photograph of yourself on an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper.
• 2 tapes - 1 matt, and the other 2 sided double stick
• scissors
• colored plastic shopping bags, one transparent or white
• a sharpie
• *OPTIONAL : sewing machine, or needle and thread/embroidery floss.

Process:

• Cut one of the transparent or white bags two inches larger than your printed photograph.  This will serve as your canvas. 
• Place your photograph under this piece of plastic, and trace, with a Sharpie, the basic outlines.  Do not draw or sketch.
• Cut the paper copy of your portrait into similar pattern shapes.
• Using the other plastic bags, begin to cut the basic shapes for your transitional portrait, by using the pattern shapes from your paper portrait.  Save your scraps for future exercises! 
• On top of the transparent or white plastic canvas, use the matt tape to "quilt" the pattern pieces together.
• Once you have your basic plastic portrait, use the 2 sided double stick tape to adhere the portrait to the canvas. 
•  Suspend the portrait in a well lit window.

Options:

• Use lettering from the plastic bags to add words or phrases
• Cut optional shapes, such as stars or lightning bolts
• Stitch, with a machine or by hand, and overall design such as those used in quilting, or grid the overall piece, or follow the outlines of each portion of your face.

Conclusions:

• Did you choose a single family of colors?
• What do your added words mean to you?
• How did your impressions change once you hung the work in a window? 

Creating the life you want!

The Broad

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad :: Recycle Youself DIY Style :: #10

:: What we are living with is the result of human choices and it can change by making better, wiser choices.::  - Robert Redford

One of the more beautiful aspects of life are the  opportunities to do our best, again!  On a daily basis, we are met with challenges, wearing many disguises, and yet, they can all be evaluated with one simple question - did I do my best?

I have a lovely friend that faced death many times.  Once diagnosed with breast cancer, each re-occurrence introduced trauma, bringing fear into the forefront of her life.  This woman is not fear based, and in fact, she is one of the most positive women I have ever known.  Like many of us in the service field, the last person she was giving to was herself.  She put so much out there for other people she was being sucked dry.  Over a few months, she fought back the beast of fear, did a 360 make-over, and saved her own life.  Pumped full of laughter, images of herself as healthy, and dropping the persona that needed to please others, she reinvented herself and boosted her immune system.   Cancer was the alert, but she was the agent of mindful change.  As grateful as the world was for her devotion, her inner world needed her to do her best for herself.

Doing our best, every moment, is one variable within our control.

This one is for you Sis!  BIG LOVE!  

Today's Secret Message of Love: I am doing my best, only better!

Recycle Yourself DIY Style © News From A Broad, 2012

Materials:

• One beautiful clear glass tumbler (Highball style), 4 oz, or larger
• A cup of dirt
  
• A handful of organic brown stuff
• A handful of organic green stuff
• 2 tbls. water
• Chop Sticks

NOTE: Just like the revealing property of vellum mentioned in Exercise #9, the clear glass tumbler is going to help you see your progress.  You can use any glassware, from a bowl to a vase, just as long as it is transparent. 

 

Process:

• Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl
• Add mixture to the clear glass tumbler
• Add water to the mixture
• Pick-up sections of the mixture with your chop sticks     
• Do that again!

Options:

• .None! 

Conclusions:
Doing your best is a mindful process.  Every day, give the ingredients a toss about.  Every other day, add a new organic scrap or two and a tbls of water to your lovely compost pile.  As long as you balance the green/brown organic matter, add a bit of water, and stir it up with your chop sticks, your compost pile won't stink!  What do you think of that magic trick?  You will be monitoring your own growth, going from the lovely that you are now, to an bountiful handful!  Use the Broad Dream Notes as a guide for processing this exercise.

Create the life you want!

The Broad 

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad : Love Wands for Thrid Culture Kids : Exercise #11

::The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.:: ― J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

With the advent of another school year, I am filled with thoughts of the Little Level 5 Tornadoes I counseled in an alternative school in Austin. Life was not filled with magic or love for these wee ones. Children require mastery, and magic, or make-believe if you prefer, is one of the developmental practices that leads to a sense competence, as it supports hope. Love Wands were used by the Superheroes Power Club students to promote their ability to self-sooth and reinforce a loving self-image. A little extra something never hurts!

Today's Secret Message of Love:

I LOVE MYSELF! (SHOUT!) I love myself. (whisper)

Love Wand © News From A Broad, 2012

Materials:

• One super cool gnarly stick, 1' in length, as straight as possible, but not too straight! 

• A handful of shiny things,like bells and big sequence 

• A handful of natural things, like shells and acorns 

• A handful of soft things, like pompoms and feathers 

• A bundle of colorful fat and fuzzy pipe cleaners; at least 12 

• Three, two foot sections of 1/4"-1/2" ribbon in various colors 

• Scissor 

• Glue gun & glue sticks. 

NOTE: Remember, the hottest part of the glue gun is the metal tip! If the hot glue gets on your skin, immediate go to the sink, and allow cold water to run over the glue.

Process:

• Set the pompoms aside. You will use them last. 

• Determine which end of your gnarly stick will be the handle. 

• At the bottom of the handle, add a small dot of glue, place the end of your ribbon on that dot, allow to dry, and twirl the gnarly stick until the ribbon reaches the half-way mark. 

• Glue in place. Leaving a 5-6" tail, cut the ribbon. 

• Add as many ribbons as you wish, crisscrossing each new ribbon. 

• Bend a dozen or so pipe cleaners in half. 

• Tie and/or glue any of your collected objects along the pipe cleaners. Leave the ends of each pipe cleaner free of objects. 

• To the tip of each end of the pipe cleaner, add one to several pompoms. 

• From the top of the Love Wand, twist, one at a time, a series of fuzzy pipe cleaners, until it looks as though you have a flowering sparkler. 

Conclusions:

Love Wands are for love! The magic is in the tip, a soft cushion of pompoms, The Little Level 5 Tornadoes would repeat this phrase: "I love myself" while brushing their Love Wand along the length of their arm, brow, cheek, or legs. The more you use your Love Wand, you will notice that a sequence or two, a feather or bell, will fall off. It's Working! You are sharing your magic with the rest of us! Use the Broad Dream Notes as a guide for processing this exercise.

Create the life you want!

The Broad

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad :: Without Conclusion :: Exercise #14

:: The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. ::

- William Faulkner

Have you ever noticed that when a fairytale finishes with "The End", you have this stinking feeling that it isn't the end at all?  One of my all time favorite tales is of The Red Shoes.  An orphaned girl finds herself without shoes.  She collects scraps of various pieces of red cloth, stitching together a crazy quilt pair of shoes.  One day while journeying back to her hovel, a wealthy woman riding in a fine coach decides to adopt her.  The woman, disgusted by the handmade life of the girl, discards her clothes and her crazy quilt shoes.  On a fun little retail therapy trip, the girl spies a pair of red shoes.  The candy-apple-fire-engine-blood-rose-red shoes scream, 'Hey Biatch!  You NEED me!'

Though anything colored red has been forbidden, knowing the wealthy woman's eye sight is poor, the girl selects the shoes anyway and has the wealthy woman pay for them.  "Brilliant manipulation!" you may think.  However, the following day, as the girl attempts to leave a church, where the candy-apple-fire-engine-blood-rose-red shoes are proclaimed scandalous, the girl finds she has lost all control over her own movements.  The Red Shoes dance her nearly to death.  For years she has no way of determining her own fate.  Finally, in a fit of desperation, she instructs an ax-man to remove the shoes.  The shoes he cannot remove, but her feet fly off like the wings of Icarus.  

Now, if you have read the Handless Maiden, you know that this is not the end of the girl with The Red Shoes.  She may start out on a little board, wheeling around town begging for red fabric scraps, but in the next chapter, she will be recognized as the greatest red shoe cobbler in all the lands.  In a fairytale, hands and feet grow back, from infant to adult size, in the span of seven years.  Not unlike our own cells, the thrust towards the wholeness of living does not stop with an assault upon our bodies or our spirits.  

Today's Secret Message of Love
Allow the unexpected!

Without Conclusion © News From A Broad

Materials

• A beautiful blank paged journal.
• A pen molded to your hand.
• A few magazines.
• Scissors
• Clue Stick
• A desk placed near a window, preferably with a scene of your garden.  *See Options

Process
During the writing process, attempt to have no beginning and no conclusion.  One of the simplest ways to accomplish this is to not write the first and last sentences to come into your head.

• If you do not already have a collection of images for collage, you can begin one during this exercise.
• Select 2 images and glue them to the top of a blank page in your journal.
• Sit with the images.  Allow them to guide the process for a title to the piece you will write.
• Begin writing with the title as your opening line.  
• Attempt to complete 500 words.  This is of course easier to gauge if you are typing, but what fun would that be?
• No matter what the last line, do not commit it to the page.

Options

• Most of us do not have our desk and window with a beautiful view in the same room.  Find an image, as full page as possible, and tape this on the wall over your desk.  This serves as your inspirational view when you need a break from writing.

Conclusions
We are in the glorious middle of our stories and cannot be sure how they will end.  Narratives are dynamic, partial, fragmented and context dependent.  We are bound by discourse structures to a limited range of expression and understanding.  The stories that we form and that we share are created with other people and are told and retold in our everyday life.

Create the life you want!

The Broad 

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Art Therapy for Broads Abroad :: Siesta Dreaming :: Exercise #12

No, really, I'm listening.

:: Effective listeners remember that 'words have no meaning - people have meaning.'  The assignment of meaning to a term is an internal process; meaning comes from inside us.  And although our experiences, knowledge and attitudes differ, we often misinterpret each others' messages while under the illusion that a common understanding has been achieved :: - Larry Baker

This week was filled with many words and many sounds.  I heard the strength as well as the anxiety of my New Orleans friends through their status updates as Hurricane Isaac roared closer and closer.  I heard encouragement as Team Rokit soothed me back into non-smoking mode.  I heard myself described as someone I didn't recognize, and heard myself perseverating on those words, wondering if I understood their intent correctly. 

Today, I took a rest from listening.  That's a huge struggle for a professional listener, and quiet is not a word that exist in my Mexico.  Yet, Saturdays in Merida, during siesta, if one takes full advantage, it is possible to cocoon, and spoon if you have a lover, into the folds of a hammock.

Today's Secret Message of Love : 

Make a space to rest.

Siesta Dreaming © News From A Broad

Materials:

• You
• A comfortable bed, hammock, sofa, or reclining chair.
• A drawstring bag, large enough to accommodate a bottle of wine.
• A cup of various herbs. See Process below.
• Pen or pencil.
• A beautiful journal.

Process:

• There are many websites that offer herbal blends for sleeping pillows.  This list is best for stress reduction:  a 1/4 c rose petals, a 1/4 c lavender flowers, a 1/4 c of rosemary, and a 1/4 c of peppermint or spearmint leaves.
• If you can't find these already dry, select fresh herbs for drying from your garden or local grocery.  You will need at least two bundles of each herb.
• Fresh herbs from the grocer come tied in a bundle.  Place each bundle, upside down, into individual paper sacks.  Secure the papered stems to a hanger, and place in a dark closet.  Your herbs should be dry between 4-7 days depending upon climate.
• Remove the leaves and flowers from their stems.
• Place the herbs inside the drawstring bag and secure.

Options:

• If you prefer non-synthetic fabric, make a drawstring bag from a well worn piece of cloth, such as a tea towel.
• Embroider a word on the drawstring bag that invokes a sense of peace.

Conclusions:

You deserve to set time aside to rejuvenate.  Listening to your inner voice is easier when you feel calm and rested.  Use the Broad Dream Notes as a guide for processing any sounds and images that accompanied your rest.

Create the life you want!

The Broad

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