Self Help

Let’s Play (published in The Rag 1998)

By Gwynne Hunt

Have you forgotten how to play? Spend time with yourself?  If you are always wrapped up in work, family, obligations, social engagements and don’t take time for your self you will suffer from what psychologists call ‘privacy deprivation syndrome’.

I’m not joking. This is a diagnosed condition and symptoms include mood swings, fatigue, depression and even resentment. I know a few people who are suffering from this.  Their lives are so busy they forget to take time for themselves; to play, think and just be.

I try to spend at least an hour a day in some kind of reflection; journal writing, sitting and gazing out at the lake alone, reading or meditating.  When I don’t take time to this, after a few days I am crabby and resentful at everyone who is stealing my time.  I’m so lucky that I am able to spend this time every day, because I know a lot of women can’t.  So what can they do, if they don’t have an hour a day?

Start small; take ten minutes.  On your lunch break instead of catching up on office gossip go for a walk alone, bird watch.  Make a promise to yourself that your lunch break will not be a time to run errands.  Try to organize your life on your days off so you don’t have to run around during your lunch time.

Learn to say no when people ask you to this party or that gathering. Do your children really have to go to someone’s birthday party every week, do you have to visit your mother every Sunday and so on . . . make your alone time a priority. When your girlfriend phones and begs you to come to her candle party and you’ve already have been to four and have enough candles to start a monastery, say, “no, thanks’.  Play isn’t about being sociable and filling your time off with racing from event to event.

Solitude and play are about being good to you.  Once you find the alone time and have a routine of journaling, meditating and just relaxing you can move on to other fun things to do alone, like play.  Start by making a list of the ten things you liked to do when you were little.  I tried that and came up with some cool stuff I had forgotten about; like I loved to play marbles, collect rocks, play with cut outs and run or just go for a walk.

I guess that’s why collecting stones and crystals is one of the things I love now, and cutting out magazine pictures for collage work, or going for a walk.  I even run once in awhile when I’m with the grandkids.  After you have your list of ten, dig a little deeper.  What were your favorite games, books, movies, singer or musical group? Spend an afternoon watching old movies or listening to flashbacks from your teen years, painting your toenails and drinking pop.

Another list you should work on is the things you have not done in your life that you always wanted to do.  Do you dream of being a stand-up comic, go sky diving?

It doesn’t mean you have to rush out and jump from an airplane to feel fulfilled but identifying lost dreams will help you focus on where you are going with your life now.   Are there art projects you want to do?  Writing you’ve dreamed of working on?  For some women, home is more of a hobby then a place to live.  You recognize that the minute you walk in.  They are the ones who have cool framed photographs, they took.  They have great wall hangings, they made.

Even if you are not good with your hands you can still have an artsy home that is a reflection of yourself. Display your collections, don’t hide them in boxes.  Set your table with interesting, creative items you find at flea markets.

Whatever you discover when you start making your lists, don’t just make the lists, sigh and go back to work.  It is never too late to be a kid and to play.  If you loved the sand box, turn your coffee table into a Zen Garden-bring in white sand and use little rakes to play in the sand.  Buy your favorite fruit and pack a picnic basket of cheese, fruit and sparkling water and head out for an hour’s walk. Leave the supper dishes; get up five minutes early to iron your suit in the morning . . . just go, by yourself to the nearest park.

Don’t wait to get sick to have time-out.  That’s a lousy way to spend time alone.  When you connect with yourself you won’t feel weepy or react in anger.  You will be filled with peace.

An altered book is what it says it is . . . a book that is altered.  They can be many reasons to make an altered book; self-discovery, a healing journey or as a gift for someone.  In one of my workshops a mother made an altered book for her daughter expressing her daughter’s life’s journey inter-woven with expressions of poetry and love from the mom. It was a beautiful book complete with a shadow box in which mom placed a tiny cross.

Another workshop produced individual journeys and healing from abuse.  One woman did her whole book in black and white and at the end when she emerged from the cycle of healing there was an explosion of colour on the last few pages.  It was very powerful.

Another woman did a lovely little book celebrating her grandchildren and one of my favourites was a book full of nature clippings that offered serene and safe pages to visit. I’ve had people tell me that making the altered book actually changed their perception and had a huge impact on their lives.

It’s one of those projects that will take a long time and a lot of commitment to finish it-save it for Sunday afternoons.  Curl up on the couch with music or even the television playing quietly for company.  Cut out pages and pages of pictures at random-whatever jumps off the page at you.  Not just pictures but sayings as well. Once you have a huge pile of clippings the order seems to fall into place quite naturally. Don’t over think the project.  Let you spirit guide you.

Step by step:

1. Find a book that you won’t angst over if you rip out pages and mutilate-Reader’s Digest Condensed hard cover books work the best-they are the right size and have great leather-like covers and they are sturdy.
2. Every 10 pages, rip out 10 pages all the way through the book using a white glue (diluted works best)
3. starting at the front glue the pages together in groups of 200.  So at the end if you started with 100 pages you will now have a 20-page book.  Collaging both sides, you’ll have 40 pages to collage.
4. If you haven’t come up with a theme while you were clipping out the pictures look them over and see if there is a pattern.  Were all your pictures about being a strong woman? healing? growing in some way?  Once you decide find words that you have already cut out to be your title –for healing you might have found something like Scar Wars, Let Go, Take Time, A Work in Progress, Journaling Your Way to Sanity (these are all titles I found in women’s magazines)
5. Collage the hard cover in something that is a cool pattern-National Geographic is great for that with fold out pages of the same scene or pattern.
6. Work your way through the book covering every space-overlapping, adding personal things like photos, feathers, jewelry, poetry, whatever . . .
7. If you want a shadow box –glue at least 20 pages together at the back of the book and then using an exacto knife cut a hole in the pages (not all the way through) and put a treasure in the box
8. Your personal altered book will be something that will bring you peace and serenity every time you look at-when I look at mine, I remember the long hours of solitude gluing and cutting and the satisfaction felt when I was finished.