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Get outside yourself...

a creative prompt & coaching tool
from Kara L.C. Jones

St. Paddy's Day. Why not celebrate today by getting outside yourself!? This is a poetry therapy prompt that comes from works shared by Shelley Tucker in Write From the Source series, by John Fox in Poetic Medicine, and by Julia Cameron in her creativity books.

So pick anything in your life or any topic you want to explore. In particular it might be something that seems too overwhelming to wrap your head around it. Or something that you just can't seem to see clearly.

Consider how you might represent that thing, take it outside your endless thoughts, and give it shape. Maybe you decide this thing is like a thunder storm. Or maybe it is like carrying around a heavy suitcase. Or maybe it like a shaking, cold, wet dog that's just come in from the rain. You get the idea. Assign that troublesome or overwhelming area, idea, topic to a particular thing/representation that is totally outside your head.

Once you've picked the representation, make a list of words and phrases that describe that thing.

Then write about the troublesome issue using those words and phrases to describe it.

Example

Recently, on my son's 11th birth/deathday, I woke up considering grief and how people try to contain it, clean it up, clear it out. And yet, when you feel grief, the last thing that is truly helpful is to deny it. I decided that the implicit and explicit messages about cleaning up the grief could be represented by a medical waste container. I made a list of words and phrase about a medical waste container. And then I wrote up this piece about my experiences.

____________________

Ghost Story I
by Kara LC Jones, Kota's mum

They gave her a medical waste container.
Bright red, with a big “X” indicating danger.

This was to be used to haul her grief around.

Sanitized.
a barrier no one would miss,
let alone consider touching without proper
protective gear.

Hazardous waste.
The wreckage of her heart.

A dead baby too toxic
to be retrieved from the morgue,
too toxic to allow her to hold,
afterall he’d been dead two whole days.

Instead they handed her a medical waste container.
Tuck the grief inside,
snap the plastic lid shut,
dispose of properly.

They gave her a medical waste container
for hauling around her grief.

______________________

You get the idea? So what is there weighing on your heart and mind that you might get a better persective on by getting it outside yourself?

Just try it out this week. Just see what happens, how it feels to do this process. Does it help shift your perspective at all?

Feel free to share your experiments over on the MotherHenna.blogspot.com or Kotapress.blogspot.com or over at the MISS Creation Station forum!

_____________________________

Blessing to Each of You!

Reiki to you:
HON SHA ZE SHO NEN
HON SHA ZE SHO NEN
HON SHA ZE SHO NEN

_____________________________

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Take a Home Workshop

The chaos of grief can be disorienting. Even when others try to be helpful, we may feel implicitly or explicitly pressured to grieve in a certain way. But these experiences are unique to each of us. In our "Finding Our Way" home workshop, you'll discover lots of creative tools for experimenting as you learn to live again in the face of loss. For full information, click here...

Treat Yourself

Only offered through our Mother Henna Etsy shop! Madame Zelda does card readings using the 1,000 Faces of Mother Henna deck of cards created by heARTist Kara LC Jones. Madame does a Reiki meditation as she considers your questions or issues. Then she picks cards from the deck and reads them for you. You get a PDF file with scanned images of your cards plus the write up of Madame's reading.

To schedule your reading today, click here...

You Have Permission
Only three more day to register!

Spots are still open for the You Have Permission session. We'll be working small group, meeting on the phone, so you can join from anywhere. We'll also host a private blog available 24/7, and all participants will have access to download all session materials to use locally any time. Join as we practice the art of Permission! Click here for full information...

Woodmont Ave

A new poetry collection from Kara L.C. Jones is now available via Lulu. The Woodmont Ave book is a collection of short, visually oriented poetry, musing on life at Woodmont Ave in the 1920s, 1940s, and 1980s. Click here for full information...

PLUS 10% off your purchase of the book Woodmont Ave!

Thru March 31st, Lulu is offering my readers 10% off your purchase of the title Woodmont Ave! Use the code IDES when you check out, and you'll get 10% off your purchase. Click here for full information about the Woodmont Ave book...

And if by chance we happen to sell more copies of Woodmont Ave in the month of March than any other author sells of their book on Lulu, we win the Lulu prize for big exposure on the book! So many thanks to each of you now for your March purchase of the Woodmont Ave book!!