If you are going to go on a journey, it helps to know the terrain. Is it mountainous and cold? Better grab your hiking boots. Tropical and beachy? Don’t forget your sunscreen. And your flip-flops, too. Wherever you're going, you might want to consult a map as you plan your trip.
You don’t have a map, you say?
Then this activity is for you. It’s time to make a map of your own heart*. You’ll have to do some traveling around in there to make it, but that’s part of the fun. It’s time to focus on YOU, so this heart work is important.
How you choose to make this map is up to you. I’m going to give you some suggestions, some ways you might want to approach making your map—but since it’s your heart, only you will know what’s right for you.
Let’s start by thinking of some of the things we keep in our hearts. Some of the stuff that really matters—stuff that stays with us because it’s important to us.
Loved ones? Pets? Special places? Those are things that exist in our hearts. Some of them may not even be with us anymore, but they still can be found in the territory of our hearts. My pet rabbit, Pippin, will always be in my heart, even though he died fifteen years ago.
What about things we love to do? Special memories and experiences that we never want to forget? Those are part of the landscape of our hearts, as well.
Get a piece of paper and some colored pens or pencils. Draw a heart on a piece of paper. Sure, it can be as realistic as you want it to be (chambers and valves and aortas and veins. . .)—or as simple as you’d like. (Think “Valentine heart”. ) Start considering how you’d like to represent those things that can be found in your heart on paper. Will you draw them in? Write about them? Use a combination of words and pictures? You could even use magazine pictures to make a collage. It’s up to you!
Here’s a picture of some of the things that are part of my heart’s landscape. You’ll see that I’ve chosen to put my loved ones in the very center of my heart, all together. But you may choose to give each of your loved ones a special portion of your heart, all their own. Maybe you need to make a special heart for each one of your loved ones. There’s no rule that says you can’t have separate maps for as many portions of your heart as you’d like!
I’ve included things I love to do, trips I’ll never forget, and a general region for my friends, old and new. But there is a lot of blank space—be sure to leave some in your heart map, as well. Those are for some of the darker things that exist in your heart. We’ll add those in soon—in the next blog post.
Keep your heart map nearby—it will help guide you through many of the activities we do here. You may keep adding to it over time, or redraw it—because our heart’s boundaries are always changing.
I’m even thinking of re-mapping my heart sometime so that I have “warm climates” and “cold climates” to visit. Some of the things I put in the warm climates may also be found in the cold climates. My cat, Perry, might go in both places. I love how he’s such a cuddlebug, and how he’s sure that he’s “people” so he puts his two cents into everything that happens in the family. But I hate the fact that he keeps destroying things in our house—he knocks small things off shelves and counters on purpose to get our attention, and he rips and chews up our belongings if he likes their texture, so he makes me want to scream! I’d put “Cuddlebug Perry” in the warm climate of my heart, and “Perry the Destroyer” in the cold climate if I decide to re-map my heart that way.
Or maybe I’ll have beaches, swamps, and deserts. The swamps would be for all of the things that I have “complicated” feelings about. (I like swamps, but I prefer to explore them from those trails with the wooden walkways instead of mucking around in them too much. I’ve lost too many boots that way. . . Some of my memories are complicated like that—they only feel safe if I don't think about them too much, because they are both happy and painful at the same time. Some people are that way in my heart, too.) The beaches would be for all the stuff that makes me happy. And the deserts would be for the stuff that's really hard to think about much at all. Like some of the stuff that I’ll talk about in the next blog.
So, get started on your heart map—it’s a one-of-a-kind! Just like you! We’ll finish it up with the next blog post. And then we’ll use it to do some more exploring. Because if you’ve got a map, you really ought to use it!
*inspiration for this idea comes from the book Awakening the Heart: Exploring Poetry in Elementary and Middle School by Georgia Heard, copyright 1998, Heinemann Publishing
http://georgiaheard.com
