Map out your feelings on a body template. Create a key by naming seven feelings, identify seven colours to go with those feelings and colour in your own unique body map.
What you’ll need: A partner to work with, body template on paper (or draw your own, if you can't print the one out below), coloured pens or pencils.
What’s it for?
Body Mapping is a great tool for improving awareness of our emotions and our bodies. This activity can offer you an opportunity to think about where in your body you might feel your emotions. This is a useful skills for dealing with feelings better. Some have called this kind of activity Body Mapping.
Check In:
Notice how you’re feeling right now. Close your eyes and notice what’s going on inside your mind and body.
How are you feeling?
What are you thinking?
How does your body feel?
Method:
The composition of everyone’s body map will be a bit different, and even yours might change over time! We’re going to make body maps using different colours to colour in our own unique body maps.
Print out two body map templates, you can also draw your own if necessary.
Gather your markers, pencils or felt tip pens.
With your partner, create a list of seven different feelings. Write this list next to your body template.
Discuss and decide which colours match the feelings you named in your list.
Create a key for the body map, by drawing a square of colour next to the feeling word. For example, if you associate the colour yellow with 'happy', draw a yellow square next to the word 'happy' on your key; if you associate the colour pink with 'love', draw a pink box next to the word 'love'. Carry on until you have associated all of the different feelings with different colours.
Using the key you have created, start colouring your own individual body template. Colour on the template where in your body you experience your feelings.
Once you have used included all seven emotions and colours, compare your body map with your partner discuss the similarities and differences together.
Extra Activity: Now that you both have your own unique body maps, as an extra activity you can use this template everyday as a way of checking in with yourself and comparing how you feel after different experiences. Would you colour in your template differently after spending time playing with a friend, or after watching a sad film?
When you’ve finished, spend a moment reflecting on the activity and ask yourself the following questions:
Did you learn anything new about yourself while you did this activity?
Did you discover any new feelings?
How resilient do you feel after completing this activity?
Were there any parts of your body that were challenging to think about?
Is there a part of your body where you feel the most positive sensations and feelings?
Conclusion: Using a body map can helps us identify where we locate feelings in our bodies such as anger, embarrassment, happiness, anxiety, excitement, and sadness. It is a good start
in developing emotional literacy which is useful for building resilience. The better we understand ourselves the better we can engage socially with others and our environments.
Take a moment to notice how you are feeling at the end of this activity. Did you
discover anything surprising? What can you take away to make you feel better about
yourself from this activity?
Reference:
This activity was adapted from the 'Where Do I Feel' worksheet from Therapist Aid. Please find a link below:
Therapist Aid (2021): Where Do I Feel? (Worksheet). Therapist Aid. [online] Available here.
If you would like to, share something about your experience with this activity with someone you live with! Ask the person who looks after you to send us an email if you have any questions or comments about the activity, or would like to send us any pictures (info@catcorner.co.uk). Don't forget to subscribe for more fun CAT activities!
Created by Kamala Roberts October 2021
Creative Arts Used: Art
Psychological Areas Explored: Resilience, Emotional Wellbeing, Self-Exploration
If you enjoyed this activity, you might also like: Brilliant Busy Bodies! Explore your own positive feelings about yourself and your body by doing this exciting and simple art activity.
These activities could be done by children of all ages, but some may need the support of their parent or carer to read the instructions or complete the activity safely.
This website was made by CAT Corner to help you explore your feelings through fun creative arts activities. The people using the website and the people responsible for them need to make sure they stay safe (full disclaimer on About page).
Comentarios