Wellness Calendar: Friday 25 April

3-island exercise

You are invited to draw three islands. The first, biggest island will go in the middle of the page. This is your island. The second island is smaller than the first island and is joined to the first island by some kind of drawbridge that allows you to control the movement of people from the smaller island to your island. The third island is smaller still and is far away from your island. It’s called Shark Island and is surrounded by sharks.

Once you have drawn these three islands, your task is to decide which people in your life are going on what island. Starting with yourself, you can either draw everyone as a stick person or you can write down their name or their initials. You can share your own island with whoever you want. They could be living or dead. They could be cats or dogs. They could be anyone or anything.

Now do the same for the second island. Please note that anyone who is placed on the smaller island can only come to your island when you say so, and they have to leave when you tell them it’s time to. When it comes to Shark Island, whoever you put here is never going to leave the island, because if they tried to they would be eaten alive by the sharks. So, whoever you put on this island will never, ever, be able to get to your island.

When you’ve completed this exercise, take some time to reflect on what you’ve done. What was it like doing it? Was it easy? Hard? Did it surprise you? How did it make you think and feel about the people in your life? If you haven’t put many people on your island, is that okay, or would you like to be able to welcome more people? If there are lots of people on your island, are you okay with that or would you prefer to have more independence? And what of the people on the smaller island? What do they mean to you? Do you wish some of them could be closer to you? And then there’s Shark Island… did you put anyone on this island? If you did, what was it like cutting them off from your world?

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