Career Vision Board

As I said in last week's post, while at Kripalu, I took several workshops; among them, one that was about following your dreams and another that included making a vision board. I have been all over working on the dream journal this week and decided to make a vision board about what I said I would do if I could do anything without the possibility of failure. What I said in that group was an idea that came to me as part of a project in my expressive therapy and social action class. It's funny, because it was my last class of grad school, an elective, so my main goal was getting my three credits and moving on with a shiny new degree. But the organization I made up, has stuck in the back of my brain, just kinda drifting around someplace near the occipital lobe. Just chillin', wandering to the front every now and then, saying hi. You know how it is.

So, what I imagined was a holistic center with office space for therapists, body workers, physical therapists, etc. who share a common goal of using the whole body and mind to create wellness. This place would be open to the community and offer yoga classes and expressive therapy groups of all kinds, depending on need, in addition to having individuals who do their own thing to help others, renting space in the upper floor or floors of the building. I want to create and work in that place someday.

So I made a vision board about it. It looks like this.

Making this has made me really excited about that idea. As I am driving to work, I imagine groups I would want to offer the community, exhibits we could have, benefits I would give people who were a part of the process. And I feel happy. In a way, this is not a plan that I ever considered impossible, because I invested my inheritance with this in mind someday. However, as I cut out words and images and simply collaged about it, it started to feel more real and possible. Although this idea has been with me for almost two years, I have officially transfer it to my seven-year career plan. This is what I am working toward.

For more about vision boards go here.

 

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Yoga Retreat

Last week I went to Kripalu for an R&R Yoga Retreat with Mallory. In addition to delicious organic vegetarian meals and plenty of yoga, we had a choice of several workshops each day and some of them felt like being in the best part of grad school again: drum circles, collage, medicine and movement... Good times.

One of the workshops we went to was called "Realize Your Dreams" (I think). First we were asked if we could do one thing and were guaranteed we would not fail, what would it be and we announced it to the room full of fellow traveler strangers on R&R retreats, which was super uncomfortable for me, but has gotten me thinking more about what I told everyone. Then we were given a handout with a list of categories for a dream journal and asked to think of goals for each area. The list is as follows:

physical

emotional

spiritual

material

creative

legacy

professional

intellectual

psychological

financial

adventure

character

A part of me was really excited about the idea and the other part of me was like, "Stop it! How many goals and projects can you juggle? You got enough going on already," but I just can't say no and couldn't stop thinking what I would do with dreams in a journal. I can even rationalize, because I have goals in most of this areas already. It's just organization and format really. Right? So after a couple of days of thinking about it and telling myself no and trying to thought block ideas for taking on another project, told myself yes and went to Michael's and bought a Smash Book to act as my dream journal/scrap book.

It has always surprised me that I am not a scrapbook person, because I love taking photos and I love working with paper. For the first page, I glued down an envelop and I am making simple cards with collage images and goals. I will work on each of the pages with details regarding each of the goals. This is what I have so far.

I am pretty stoked about it. And... I am still keeping up on my daily calendar modifications, so so far so good. This is a fun idea and it has created a sense of positivity and feeling like all I reach for is possible. Maybe so possible, I might someday tell you what I said I would do if I could not fail.

 

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The Week in Failure and Successes

My guys are split into two different groups. The first is my talkers. They like to work on problems, have discussions and set goals. At times, they are regular teen boys: disruptive, inappropriate, intensely silly or angry at the world, but overall they get stuff done to the best of their abilities. My second group struggles with most everything: sitting down, holding still, listening, following a single step direction and sometimes not punching people. I have tried mixing them, so my strugglers can see how a group runs and maybe manage to participate, but that mix tends to make my talkers into strugglers or cause them to gang up on the poor strugglers, who often just feel worse about themselves. Ideally, I would like my strugglers to be seen individually until they are able to manage behavior better, but that's the downside to not being in charge. I have to follow rules sometimes, even if it seems contraindicated. My strugglers are tough and often all I want is safety and for them to leave a little calmer than when they came in. We are working from the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs most of the time.

Snowflakes = Bad Idea of the Day

Both of my groups get some self-regulation with each group. Sometimes with my strugglers, it is an hour of self-regulation and attempts at group cohesion. I often use a book called Ready, Set, Relax. I highly recommend it. It has guided relaxation scripts for kids with discussion points and activities. I think the scripts could work for anyone and the activities could be modified. Anyway, for my failure of the week I read one of these scripts about changing weather and being unique. Then I asked the guys what makes them unique, which they were unwilling to discuss. Then I asked them to talk about what made each other unique, which resulted in insulting each other. We also attempted to cut out snowflakes, which somehow resulted in them wanting to murder me and not a single snowflake. I think the problem was in the mood of the day. Sometimes they enter the room in 5 different places, all of them mad and hating each other. It was that kind of day. These days overwhelm me and I feel hopeless as a therapist and they feel hopeless as little people in the world. It sucks for all of us. On the positive side, I saw one of them the following night for an individual session and he was making snowflakes and wanted to continue with what we started in group.

Bumparena = Success!

The success for this group was a game called Bumparena. We made teams of two and the guys took turns making decisions, asking for feedback from each other and planning how to get balls to fall into their goal. They loved it! They were focused, understood the rules, were respectful to each other and able to slow down and think things through -- all unusual skills for them to exhibit. I couldn't have been prouder. It wasn't a deep insightful group, but a great game to get them thinking about some basic cause and effect, get along and actually love being in group. We all left happy and they have been asking for me to bring the game back... although next time I may find a way to incorporate some new therapy goals (insert evil laugh).

And because one of my goals for the year is to create regularly and add to my posts...

I am still taking photos during my training runs and saving for art journal inspiration.

 And I completed a couple of monkeys. I am waiting for some natural lighting so I can take some decent photos and put them on etsy.

Next week, I hope to do more drawing.

Group Intervention and Other News

Successful intervention of the week is Play Doh Charades. Once a week I try to give my guys a group that is just about self regulation and integrates some sensory work. Last week's sensory group was a success. I brought a small Tibetan Singing Bowl from home and had the guys start by listening to me ring it 3 times and pay attention to the point they noticed the sound vibration stop. This "mediation" technique was a success. The guys were mellow, but alert, which is my favorite of their states. They were very interested in the bowl, so I allowed them to pass it around and have each person ring it once. To my surprise, they were appropriate with my bowl and passing it to their peers. They had lots of questions about it and I was impressed by their attention and interest in the new object.

Next I passed out small containers of Play Doh and had written random nouns on index cards which they took one at a time. I asked them to shape the clay into what was written on the card and the other guys had to guess. No prizes were offered, but they loved it. The only problem was they got a little too happy. Some of my guys are easily dysregulated and potentially dangerous and at one point one of them screamed with excitement and brought staff running, thinking something was wrong. It was good to see them all taking turns, enjoying group and feeling happy though. I had them settle down with some ending yoga postures and they all left feeling positive and saying they liked group, which makes me feel good.

And last weekend I finished my table.

Paper Mosaic Table

I am between projects now. I want to mosaic my dresser next, but feel a little overwhelmed with the thought of it. I may just revive my etsy site and make a few monkeys for a while between furniture projects.

I have been dealing with one of the stresses of being a rookie, which is cash. My student loans have started coming in and therapists really don't get paid so well when the cost of being one is factored in. It's freaking me out. So I have been exploring money-making options. I have a few ideas in mind to supplement my income, but I have one thing I can check off my list: I will be teaching yoga again. So far I have been offered one night a week, but my schedule may be rounding out over the next couple weeks as I am going into a large gym chain desperate for teachers and different locations are currently working on their spring schedules.

Lastly, my girlfriend and I have started a new blog about all of our adventures with some very cool stuff planned for this summer. If there is no chance you are a client past or present and would like to see it, email me or comment and I will send you a link.

INTENSE!

This week I had one of those days. You know, the kind where one wonders what the hell one was thinking when choosing a career path. I consider myself pretty tough, but an event in group shook me up pretty badly on Monday. Hello Rookie, this is your wake up call -- you're not as hardcore as you think and (bubble burst) your job is actually a little dangerous.

Often when my guys are less than perfect in group, I feel partially responsible. I think if only I could find the right directive, the right level of energy, the right pace, they would be too interested in group to act up and just maybe they would learn something. So, today I came with a racing heart, shortness of breath, sense of terror, props to engage them and a bag of prizes to bribe them. I hoped for the best, but had a big male staff, an intern and new respect for the paging system to back me up in preparation for the worst.

I started with the warning of prizes: participation, respect and safety would result in a prize at the end of group. The guys know my basket of prizes. Hot Wheels and notebooks are big motivators for short term good behavior. I don't use bribery often, but you know what they say about desperate times. Then I showed the guys a modified version of an old mindfulness group. They named off the five senses and I had a prop and activity for every one.

Touch - One object for each kid (stress balls, Play Doh, beads, Slinky, for example) and asked them to spend a few seconds with each one and share what they notice. They passed all the objects around so everyone had a turn with each object and could name their favorite.
Taste - One Swedish Fish (Thank you Mallory). They were asked to become connoisseurs and smell, feel, describe before eating in one minute or more. Then say something about the taste.
Smell - A small drop of lotion on their hands. What does it smell like? Does it remind them of anything?
Sound - I had them draw abstractly to music and then discuss what they noticed in the sound.
Sight - They held up images and had to say what they noticed about their own and what they noticed about each others.

Every kid was fantastic in group today. I don't know if it was the prizes or the engagement of their senses, but today was better. Something worked and they noted improvement to their moods and learned a little about using their bodies to pay attention and be connected to themselves and their environments.

In personal art news, my art life has been very slacky and that makes me feel a little brain dead, disconnected from myself and like a craptastic art therapist. Life is busy! But, I have been working on the long term project of paper mosaicing my bedroom furniture. This is great for someone with small moments for art making, because I have slivers of paper and everyday I sit down and glue a few onto my nightstand. It makes me happy. My mind wanders to combining this with sewn papers... quilted furniture... hmmmm....

The top of my nightstand, in progress.

Rapping with Teens

This past week was rather casual around my workplace, because my guys were on "vacation." Since I work for a residential treatment program, that means they were at the residence, rather than the school where I have an office. Although I went to the residence as usual during the week, I gave my guys the freedom to meet with me or not, work on something or not and since there was no school, we didn't have any groups. 

When I arrived one day, one of my guys had created a positive rap about himself and the program to share with me. Since we have started working on a video for groups, I gave my guys the option of filming something during their vacation and I encouraged this boy to use his rap as his video to share with the group. The guys I work with have "developmental delays."  This translates into several difficulties, including being a few years behind grade level. Reading and writing is often a big struggle for many of my guys. Writing a rap is an advanced skill with my kids; reading, memorizing, presenting it could be even more tricky. So, here's what we did: we went over each line and I had him practice and repeat, choose an appropriate space, camera angle and movement and we filmed it one line at a time, so he sounded his best with each line. I think we created something he can be proud of. Plus, it is a positive reminder to stay on track in his own words.

Coincidentally, one of my other guys wanted to write a rap with me. He rapped and I wrote. He was so proud of his work and showed all of the staff his rap collection. I photocopied his work and I am thinking about helping him make something with his rap hits like a book or c.d. Any creative ideas for translating written word to another art form?

As for my own goals and self-care. My book of the week is Art and Yoga by Hari Kirin Kaur Khalsa and I have been doing a simple DVD practice at home from Deepak Chopra's The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga along with listening to the lecture. Both are highly recommended. Here is some fast art in response to my practice.

Chakras, watercolor

 

Silence, watercolor

Adolescent Group: Failure and Success of the Week

The way groups at my new place of employment work are like this: we have a curriculum that lasts two weeks which covers a single concept. We have groups completely written out for us, but nobody uses them, because we are allowed to wander away from recommendations as long as the kids somehow know how to define the concept at the end of two weeks. At first, I thought two weeks (four groups) for each kid was way too much time to cover a single idea, but I am seeing that my guys do better with repetition, so I am learning to slow down with them.

This past week we started "red flag warning signs." The goal is that the guys will know internal versus external warning signs that precede acting out behavior. I wrote up activities to cover the topic, such as artistic representation of internal warming signs, making comic books of external warning signs, dramatic reenactment and a new version of red light green light. We started with a discussion and artistic representation of internal warning signs... epic failure. I don't know if this is true, but whenever we touch on bodily sensations, my guys claim to have none and give me the blank stare. This could be teens being teens or an honest part of the problem. Bottom line, this was a NO GO. The red light green light was a success with my older guys and okay with the younger group. We took turns naming an internal or external warning sign or neutral experience, not moving if it's a warning or trigger and taking a step forward if it's no problem. Example: "I ride my bike"... everyone who is not triggered by bike-riding steps forward. "Staff yells at me"... nobody moves.

I realized when the guys used my first artistic representation to do something else, look confused and/or refuse all together that I needed to go back and re-plan the rest of my red flag groups. I remembered rule number one about working with teens and realized the problem may have been that I broke it: never ask a teen about himself, especially in a group. Ask about someone else and they'll tell you all you need to know. So, for our next group, we made red flags, gluing red triangles onto sticks and decorating however kids liked (and some of them decorated with actual internal/external triggers, so they did get something from the first group). Then we watched the beginning of Hulk (and will continue to watch for the next week) and held up flags when guys noticed Hulk getting triggered.

I've used The Hulk in therapy before, but this movie is especially great for red flag warnings because he wears a pulse monitor and uses relaxation techniques when he notices his pulse increasing, so the guys can notice internal and external signs in someone else. Most of my guys loved this and did a stellar job noticing and explaining Hulk's warning signs. Also, we talked about why the Hulk doesn't want to lose control (people can get hurt) and there is a great line from Hulk's coach while he is teaching him pranayama, "When we control our body, we control our mind." I think this movie could lead the guys into being more open to learning relaxation techniques beyond deep breathing. Yoga was first developed as a sitting practice for men meant to help one develop super powers and immortality. The guys have a modified yoga practice, but I think if they see Hulk sorta doing it and learn about the history, they might buy into it a little more.

An Adolescent Group Intervention One

Okay, back to our regular scheduled programming...

A couple of years ago when I was doing my internship with adolescents. My fellow intern and I were co-leading (unsupervised) and had a curriculum to follow (we didn't make it) and it was failing. The kids had been there long enough that many of them had already done it plus they were not ready for the work it involved in the first place or at least they weren't gonna play along on this with 1st year interns (talking about their behaviors, trauma, emotions...) It was pretty much a total nightmare and the rookies running the show (us) were getting eaten alive every single group.  We absolutely could not get to the information of the group, because following the curriculum resulted in chaos and power struggles from the first minute. It was a bad scene.

We talked about it with our supervisors and finally my supervisor (also the director of the program) said, "Drop it. Do something else until they are ready." So we did. This is what we came up with and it was AMAZING. My co-intern and I were doing high fives and body slams after this. (Okay, we didn't really do any body slamming, but I was feeling that Superbowl Sunday pumped and I think she was too.) It was the best group we had all year.

So, here's what happened: we decided we needed to talk about respect, because there wasn't a whole lot of that going on. So, we said it in song. We googled respect lyrics, looking for something other than R.E.S.P.E.C.T and got this from Train:

For reasons I don't know I treated you so cold
I wish I had those times again
Cause something that you said keeps ringing in my head
Someday you're gonna wanna come back and you're gonna wanna treat me fine

Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little

I watched me push you down in dreams I had of you
And all I remember about those days is I would run around thinking that you'd be alright
But you lost your light along the way
And oh you were right about the things I'd say
Cause if I had it back again I know I'd treat you kind

Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have somebody
Everybody got to have someone

And all I ever wanted from this play
Was someone to talk to when I get down
It seems you get the things you give along the way
Now all I need is one more chance to make you feel like hanging round

Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody needs a little respect
Everybody needs a little time
Everybody got to have someone

We gave them all double-sided photocopies. One side had this, the other side had some really simple sentence completion in a poetry format. It was just something we threw together like,

To me respect is ________________________.
I feel respected when people ________________________.
I wish everyone _______________________.
etc.

We read the lyrics together and then invited them to either write their own lyrics/poem about respect or fill in the sentences. Then we had a little poetry open mic and discussion about how we all want to be treated. The gods smiled down upon the baby interns and their group that day, because the kids LOVED it. They. Loved. It. THEY LOVED IT! Words cannot express the beauty of this moment I swear to you. If it wouldn't have been poor boundaries, I would have kissed the forehead of every person in the room that day. I got so excited I said, "I am so amazed by how well you guys write (TRUE!). I think we need to make a book with this stuff!" and they thought so too and wanted to bring in more poetry, create art for the book on their own time etc... they lost interest in this later, but I think if we leaders had been a little less rookie and a little more creative, we might have been able to maintain a sense of excitement about that project and worked the curriculum we were supposed to follow into this... maybe.

After reading Contemporary Art Therapy with Adolescents, I think part of the success of this had to do with not only appealing to their interests (they like to write), but also we were not directing this at them. This wasn't about "tell me how you should be respectful and lets review group rules (snore)" but more like, "hey what do you think about respect?" According to Shirley Riley, teens do better when asked about a topic in general terms and don't do so well if asked about their own weaknesses and thoughts due to the natural narcissistic developmental stage.

The kids also noted how great the group had been which allowed us to discuss what they thought had made that happen and how we could have more awesome groups.

Gratitude Journal

One of the things I am discovering about myself is that I care about what inspires people. The technicalities of good mental health (think CBT and DBT skills) are great, but there is a part of me that wonders if it is sustainable if one isn't excited about his/her own environment, I mean radically excited. Body mind and soul excited. One thing that has surprised me throughout life is that there are so many people who wander around without passion about things: just having jobs, paying bills and doing the same inactivity every night. I partly blame this on television, but that's a discussion for another time.

"I am having trouble finding my purpose," seems like a common complaint among people I know and I'm not talking about people diagnosed with mental illness either. But what I have also noticed, is not many people go out of their way to foster excitement, opting instead for routine and what is comfortable.

This directive speaks to the ho-hum issue: the gratitude journal. Evidence also suggests keeping such a journal is good for you... look it up...

Cover of little gratitude journal

Inside pages

If you click on this image, you'll see a slightly larger version.

This sample is not a typical gratitude journal. A typical gratitude journal involves mindfully noting things you enjoy throughout the day, creating lists and ranking your overall day. After two or three weeks, one can go back and examine the higher ranked days and find ways to incorporate what inspired them into future days. So, for example, one might notice happier days involved taking a morning walk, soooo... perhaps more morning walks are in order. There are several recommendations for getting the most out of a gratitude journal, such as notice the details and aim for variety.

Anyway, this journal was made using the accordion binding technique. Here's an instructional video about simple accordion book making. I make mine a little differently, using individual pages, stuck together end to end with medical tape, so my book size, page amount and paper stock options are limitless.

I also have a gratitude lecture that can stand alone about the how and why this matters.

In the meantime, I hate to over-stuff a blog post, but I love these videos and they fit the gratitude topic perfectly.

Here is my ideal patient at termination. This is what I would love to see when our work is done. (P.S. I don't know this kid, but oddly this sorta looks like my bathroom!)



And on a slightly more serious note, watch this guy...

Grief Flags

I may have made up the title, "Grief Flags" just now. In reality, these are called "Prayer Flags" if you're sorta religious and "Peace Flags" if you are not. My flags are not about prayer or peace, but about loss, so I'm renaming them.

The original Tibetan concept of these things is that you hang the flags out at a certain time of the year (I think February, but I'm not really sure) and they blow around and fall apart for a year or so. The flags have prayers written on them and as they fall apart the words are released into the air where the gods can hear them. If you want to know more about Prayer Flags go here. It makes a lot of sense to apply this to writing to someone lost.

I made some of these to my mom, which is probably a really sacrilegious thing to do, but since I am sorta sacrilegious anyway, it worked out well. For my process, I did pay attention to the color symbolism and order, making something about the writing or design apply to space, wind, fire, water, earth, but otherwise was pretty liberal in how I made and used these.

I felt it was important to sew these a little, since my mom was a quilter, but also important that they be able to shred in the breeze, so there are no knots or hems. I used fabric paint and markers and transferred photographs in places. Everything was done by hand, so this project took awhile.

Fire Flag
This is a picture of my mom in high school.
The music is hand drawn and a copy of Friedrich Kuhlau's Sonatina in C, Op. 20 No.1
My mom used to play this.

(This is not my mom! But, the music sounds like this.)

Through doing this I felt like I was honoring my mother, but also realized two important things that were good for my grief process. The first was that I didn't have any unfinished business with my mother. Everything I wanted to write on these, were things we had already discussed before she died. Secondly, I became aware that even though my mother's death was unfair on many levels: most people don't lose parents at my age and the cause of her death was not supposed to happen and therefore extremely torturous for everyone, I wouldn't have traded my experiences of daughterhood for anyone else's. This helped me move into a place of greater acceptance. It is really difficult not to accept even the worst of circumstances when you realize you don't want to live in another person's shoes.

On a technical note. These flags are holding up AMAZING! There was some discolored dripping from the rain, but not a lot. Very little fading. And they're not falling apart all that much either.

Last Flag and a moment of awareness for me.

Meditation "Cigar" Box

Box Lid
Wood Burning and Watercolor

Last summer a somewhat local yoga studio was offering a 40 day yoga workshop based on Baron Baptiste's 40 Days to Personal Revolution. It involved daily yoga practice at the studio and weekly meetings and trainings with fellow yogis and yoginis. The theory behind the 40 days part is that it takes 40 days to create a new habit, so if one were to practice yoga and meditation for 40 days, a new healthy habit has been created. I wanted to attend this workshop, because I had been a poor yogini for months.

The problem was the yoga studio was only somewhat local, which meant driving 45 minutes to an hour or more (traffic depending) each way for 40 days in a row. If part of being a yogini is environmental consciousness, as I like to believe it is, then that was pretty counterproductive to yoganess. So, instead I invited a friend and a couple of pre-adolescent and adolescent local people to do 40 days of meditation and yoga on our own and meet once a week at my house.

In an attempt to keep the younger members into it, we made boxes and tools for our practice. The boxes were made from wooden cigar boxes and included mala beads, journal (the program includes reflective questions), candle, origami crane and polished stone. We made each of these things, candle excluded, although it would have been easy to do as well. No cigars were smoked in the obtaining of this box! These boxes are available through your local Michaels.

 The Open Box with Supplies

We used a wood burning kit to heat transfer photocopies from design and/or mandala coloring books onto the wood and then burned in outlines. I used watercolor pencils to color in designs and then painted the remainder of the box with stain and finished the whole thing with enamel. The kids were able to use all of these techniques as well.

Inside Bottom of Box

Inside Top of Box

Since being in grad school, I have continued to be a rather crappy yogini (notice the judgment?), but this is a habit I need to continue to try to redevelop. Hence, I just pulled this box out again today, hoping for some motivation.

In other blog news, I think the blog may go down to a post a week for awhile so I can focus on my final semester. We'll see.

Distress Tolerance A.T. Directive

I just started using a new A.T. directive that can tack onto groups about self care, distress tolerance and/or grounding skills. It's based on something someone from my supervision class last year was doing with nurses in hospice work. (Thank you Jackie, if you happen upon this.)

Often in these groups the how-to of using the five senses to stay present seems to come up. I talk about how engagement in the moment (and distraction from a stressor) is easiest if it isn't forced and is something enjoyable. Then we go over the five senses and name things that people find a pleasure to see, smell, taste, hear and touch. The list often includes things like a fire, fresh cut grass, fresh fruit, laughter and hugs, for example... the group comes up with their own, whatever it may be for each individual.

A common response to this list is, "Yeah, but who can think of that when feeling triggered?" And the next logical answers are, in my opinion: 1. It takes regular practice when one is not being triggered and 2. Start small. What is the absolutely minimum most simple thing we can do?

Enter sense of smell and small pocket-sized item: the little smelly bag thing... registered technical term.

I wanted to purchase bags to do this, but I could only find clear mesh bags that people use as party favors at weddings in the local Michael's and Joann's where I spend most of my time and money.  I wanted people to decorate their own, so that fabric didn't work. However, you can find muslin bags that would be ideal online here. I just bought some white cotton scrap for a dollar and made a bunch myself, which is simple, but dull work.

Supplies You'll Need

1. Fabric and string (or the aforementioned muslin/cotton sacks).
2. Stamps (optional)
3. Fabric Markers
4. Smelly stuff like dried flowers or potpourri
5. Safety pins or paperclips
(This was all from Joann Fabric dollar bins, by the way. No great expense.)

I thought it would be great to let everyone choose and stamp their own bags, but because I have a massive stamp collection and don't want to carry it around, I decided to prestamp. Also, since I made the bags myself and found it fun like factory work, I knew if someone smeared a stamp or something and wanted another bag, a little piece of me deep inside would be a teensy bit irritated and that's a good emotion to avoid when leading groups for the most part.

Some Prepped Bags (with dollar bin stampage.)

I left some blank, stamped some with an image or word on one side and stamped some with an image on one side and a word or phrase on the other, so there are several options.

I also cut a bunch of the string to the right size and burned the ends to keep it from fraying. 

I think it is valuable to finish a directive with A.T. materials and supplies oneself if at all possible before experimenting with others, so one knows if additional technical directions are needed or if there are any potential pitfalls.

That being said, here are directions that work.

1. Select a bag
2. Place folded piece of paper flat inside bag to keep marker from bleeding through to other side.
3. Use fabric markers to color and decorate. Keep in mind markers that touch another area wet with marker will bleed together. That can be a tad cool, but if you're looking for a sharp line, allow one color to dry before touching it with another marker.
4. Select string and use safety pin or paperclip to thread through drawstring opening (which you need to leave if you make these yourself. You don't need this step at all if you bought the bags with strings and you'll probably need to thread bags yourself with small breakable strands if safety is an issue with your population.)
5. Place a spoonful of perfumed stench, a.k.a. potpourri, in bag.
6. Tie up bag. Place in pocket and give good squeeze and whiff when practicing grounding skill.

This is a completed bag. The other side of this one says "It gets better."