 Growing Down:
Tools for Healing the Inner Child
Body Movement for Growing Down
Content:
Movement
activities allow us to communicate with the whole of our being. We live in
bodies that want to move. There is a joy in moving through space, of exploring
the inner and outer worlds. Movement activities bring us more in harmony with
ourselves and others. Movement can be a path to deeper levels of experience.
Movement bridges mind and body and opens creative channels. These experiences
connect us with our inner sensations, feelings and needs. How we feel about
ourselves is grounded in our body image. Our innermost sense of being lives
through the body and movement nurtures it, keeping it alive and growing. We
explore who we are and how we feel about ourselves through our bodies and our
movement. The self-concept is as inevitably rooted in our bodies as it is in our
minds.
Space,
bubbles, balloons, feathers, stuffed animals, percussion instruments (drums).
There are no wrong movements, nor are
there any wrong answers when movement is explored. With most of the following
activities, appropriate music enhances the results.
Personal movement activities
Body Parts
With accompanying music, move different parts of your body in all the ways you
can think of, (shoulders, chin, arms, legs, etc.).
Bubbles
Using a bubble solution blow bubbles, follow them, be them.
Feeling
Let your body be a feeling machine. Let your arms and legs paint a feeling
inside of you. Possibilities for feelings: sadness, joy, anger, fear, etc.
Stuck and Unstuck
Try sticking a part of you to the floor. Explore all the ways you can to move
the part of you that is not stuck. Begin to become unstuck. Try sticking one
part of your body to another and move around the room with those parts stuck.
Feel the frustration of being stuck with a negative feeling. The activity can be
done with individuals being stuck in patterns of movement. Try to discover a way
to get unstuck. Try sticking parts of you to chairs.
Partner movement activities
Sculpture
Using a percussion instrument, beat four counts loudly and four counts softly.
On the loud beat freeze your body into a sculpture or a design. On the soft
beat, breathe and let your body melt and come unglued. Possibilities for
sculptures: people in the family, TV characters, fairy tales.
Feelings Free
Partners alternate holding and releasing positions. The first partner finds a
position. The second partner copies it. Then they both shake loose ready to
resume other positions. Possibilities for positions: feeling nervous, scared,
good, feeling at home, feeling like a race car in motion or frozen in the middle
of a turn, the way to meet someone, shyly, loudly, confidently, a position that
says, ``Right now I feel _____.''
Sculptor
Partners take turns sculpting each other into various situations (fairy tale
characters, flowers, animals, occupations, feelings, sports activities).
Group movement activities
Life moving
Find a comfortable space. Each member of the group when designated will move
from one spot to another: the way you see yourself moving through your life
right now, the way others see you moving through your life right now, and the
way you would like to be moving through your life.
Opposites
Have the group experience opposites. Start with huge and let the body and
movements develop huge. Once complete, then develop tiny. Straight lines versus
curved lines. Loud versus soft, lots of space versus very little space.
Balloon Volleyball
Play regulation volleyball using a balloon.
Obstacle course
Obstacles can be formed in our minds as well as those experienced physically.
Imagine something you want or a place to go and then imagine things in the way:
-
storms
-
winds
-
walls
-
dragons
-
canyons
-
moats
and
move through each of these obstacles to your goal.
From One Place to Another
Using the whole length of the room, experiment with different ways to go across
the room.
-
Eyes
open but looking over your shoulder
-
Next
to someone else
-
As
quietly as you can
-
Without
your feet touching the floor
-
Along
the edges of the room
-
Backwards
-
On
one foot
-
As
fast as you can
-
Using
neither your feet nor your hands
-
The
most direct route
-
The
longest way you can imagine
-
Shyly
and hesitantly
-
As
your favorite animal would
-
In
the silliest way you can.
Act Out
Group members are given the opportunity to explore movements using different
themes:
-
Types
of flowers
-
Cars
-
Animals
-
Verbs
-
Feelings
-
Dancing
-
Occupations.
Audio visual resources
The following three resources by
Richard Simmons are excellent tools for growing down body movement activities:
-
Sweatin' to the Oldies 1
-
Sweatin'
to the Oldies 2
-
Take A
Walk
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