A Creative Journal

Act of Expression

by Heather Goldsmith on April 4th, 2006

The family played Charades last night after dinner. Apart from being a whole lot of fun Charades is a game about non-verbal, non-audio communication and expression. It’s a full-body experience. In case you’ve never played before here’s a quick run down. Charades cards are dealt and players take turns, according to the roll of the die, to act out or mime the titles of films, novels, plays, songs, TV shows and popular sayings. Of course you don’t need these cards; they just help by supplying the titles for you. The fun is in watching others try and convey their message and listening to others try to guess their meaning.

While I tried to guess and awaited my turn to play it struck me what a creative tool bodily expression and mime is. I also realised that using non-verbal or non-written means of expression is a good thing for your journal. We always feel uplifted and any bad mood is dispelled by playing Charades. The very fact that words and sounds are not allowed forces you to dig into another part of your consciousness. You must find another way to put across your idea. This leads to creative expression and for some reason this helps with verbal expression, too.

Any time our family plays Charades my son, a 15 year old, who has a terrible time communicating with us, always comes out with something deep that’s been troubling him. I know the game and his sudden ability to speak his mind are related. It got me thinking as journal writers we should occasionally use other medium, such as collage, photography and drawing, because we can access other parts of ourselves and find new and creative ways to express the thoughts going through our minds.

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POSTED IN: General: Journal Writing