B a r b a r a s h e r I l L u s t r a t I o n s b y r a L p h

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Attention Games
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As the star, your teen will feel the emotions that the main character is
going through—the sadness, the anger, the sense of being abandoned and
rejected.
As the director, she can have great sympathy for the heroine and want
the audience to feel her plight. Being the maker of many tales, however, she
also knows that there is growth in even the most dire circumstances, and
she starts planning the scenes that will show the audience how the heroine
is able to move on and go forward.
Have your teen sketch out, in her mind or on paper, a storyboard of
different possible scenes that could follow the break-up scene (including
time for the heroine to experience her appropriate sad feelings).
V
A R I A T I O N
Act the parts out! Your director-screenwriter can play all the parts or give
out parts for others to do.
W
H A T
’
S
B
E I N G
L
E A R N E D
By seeing their experience from a wider perspective, teens can both have
compassion for themselves and come to accept their situation as just a part
of life, like a scene in a movie. They can also influence the next, more posi-
tive scene through their focused intention.
This game also helps give teens a sense of connection with the human
dilemma and the experiences we all have in common. The feeling of aban-
donment, for example, can come in different story lines, but we all know
it. If we don’t accept the naturalness of our feelings in this situation,
we might spend our time thinking, “How could he leave me? There
must be something wrong with me.” When we take that route, we can’t
begin to notice anything else around us; we’re too busy spiraling down in
our thoughts. If instead we were to say to ourselves something like,
“Ouch—that hurt. No wonder I feel bad. I wonder what will happen
next?” we are going to be more able to deal with what is. Developing this
kind of acceptance makes it easier to deal with what is and stay attentive
to what is happening.