Product Description

With The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself, the creativity coach Roberta Allen at last reveals a practical method for changing, or simply enhancing, the way you look at yourself -- and others. Employing her signature combination of verbal directives and visual cues, Allen has created a dynamic workbook that prompts you to look at yourself from angles and perspectives you would not otherwise see. When traditional barriers are broken down through these refreshing, unpretentious, and gently probing exercises, the results can range from subtle to astonishing. At the very least, you will get surprising glimpses of yourself. At best, you will have deep insights that lead you to action or to accepting yourself just as you are.

Allen's "playful way" approach has elicited praise from all corners -- from graduate school professors to best-selling authors to therapists to high school teachers to hundreds of former students. Whether used as a journal or a keepsake or a serious self-help tool, The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself will take you on a delightful, illuminating, and inevitably fulfilling personal journey. In the end you will know yourself better than ever before.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #208364 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780618269242
• Condition: USED - VERY GOOD
• Notes:
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
One day as I walked along a beautiful beach under a bright blue sky, I
glanced at a woman in a chaise longue—a tourist like myself—and
wondered, when she looked at the sky, if we saw the same blue. Was the
shade she saw determined by the margarita she was drinking or by an
argument she had had with her husband? Was the blue I saw determined
by the elation I felt over giving myself this vacation?

Who was I here on this tropical isle? Was I the writer who had just finished
a book? Was I the artist who drew pictures and took photographs? Who was
I with my boyfriend? My family? My friends? My colleagues? My students?
There are so many different parts of me, I mused. Are some parts more real
than others?

The day I was thinking these thoughts I could have chosen to explore more
of the island. But, instead, I sat in a chair by my cottage on the beach and
opened a sketchbook I had brought just in case I felt the impulse to write or
draw. I began jotting down ideas that became the basis for this book.

As an artist, I"ve always been interested in how we see ourselves and the
world. I"ve always been interested in breaking down barriers of rational
thinking so we may see beyond our usual limits, beyond the demands of
our everyday lives, into our spirit, our soul.

Our views of ourselves are limited by our experience and by what we"ve
been taught. My aim here is to redirect your focus instantly so you see
yourself and the world in ways that not only ring true, but surprise you.

As a writer, I"ve always been impressed by the power of words: how writing
things down helps us find what is true. As a teacher, I"ve seen how a single
word, such as "envy" or "leaf," triggers a different response when each
student is asked to write about it.

Sometimes when I see my students writing with great intensity, I am
reminded of the faces I drew with that same intensity when I was a child.
Those faces were my companions, my friends. They kept me company in
my loneliest hours. Since I was not allowed by my mother and grandmother
to play or get dirty, all my pent-up energy—my "aliveness"—went into my
drawing.

I put so much pressure on the pencil when I drew that I deformed my middle
finger. But that still seems to me a small price to pay. Years later, I would
realize that pressure brings energy to the surface. Years later, I would call
that "aliveness" energy.

I remember how afraid I was the day before I left on my journey alone to the
Peruvian Amazon, and how alive I felt when, two days later, I walked the
streets of Iquitos, Peru"s largest Amazonian town. All my senses felt
heightened. The hot, sweet-smelling air made me feel as though I were in a
greenhouse.

I felt present, connected. I saw myself and the world from a state
of "aliveness," in which I was no longer separate and alone but part of
something much greater than myself.

I did not realize until later the tremendous energy that had been locked
inside my fear. Living my childhood dream of going to the Amazon (where I
could play and get dirty) allowed me to release that energy and let
the "aliveness" out.

Though each one of us is unique, I believe we are all connected. We are all
part of a much larger picture. What we see is a very small part. This book is
my attempt to help you see more of yourself and others.

There are no right or wrong answers to the exercises in this book. There are
only your answers. Your answers are unique to you. No one else sees life
exactly the way you see it.

This book offers a unique approach that allows you to see yourself from
angles and perspectives you would not otherwise see. All you need to do is
be open-minded, curious, and willing to respond instantly and imaginatively
to exercises that invite you to explore your memories and beliefs, your
desires and dreams, your secrets and fears, and how you relate to others.

The process is simple, easy, and fun. At the very least, you will get
surprising glimpses of yourself. At best, you will have deep insights that
lead you to action or to accepting yourself just as you are.

Do the exercises quickly and spontaneously. If you are someone who tends
to pause and think, use a timer. As soon as you read the question and look
at the picture, set it for two, three, or four minutes and go! The time limit
you choose will depend upon the amount of space provided and how fast you
write. Experiment to find out. By using this method, you bypass the judge
inside you who might censor your response.

When you do each exercise, notice whether or not it has energy for you;
notice whether or not it makes you feel more alive. Energy is the spark that
ignites when you connect with a place, a creature, a work of art, a sunset,
a symphony, another human being. Energy is the invisible force behind the
words. That invisible force is often locked inside a shell of fear and bursts
forth when you break that shell.

An exercise with energy makes you feel something—even if it is just for a
moment. The feeling may be faint or intense: you may feel sad or happy,
excited or distressed. Feeling more alive is not always feeling good. Give
yourself permission to feel whatever comes up. Your emotions are part of
you and part of this process.

You know you"ve tapped something important in yourself when your
exercise has a lot of energy. In order for that to happen, allow yourself to
write whatever comes to mind, no matter how silly it may sound to you, how
nonsensical, foolish, or even scary! Follow your energy wherever it leads
you. Allow yourself to be who you are.

Be brief. Use the space provided for each exercise. Get to the heart of what
you"re saying as soon as you can. This will keep you from writing
endlessly, straying off course, and losing your initial energy. Your exercises
should be the verbal equivalent of quick artist sketches, in which a model is
captured with just a few strokes.

As you go through this book, you will have opportunities to pause and
reflect on previous exercises and to continue the ones that are most charged
or that feel incomplete. Keep a notebook handy for this purpose.

Not every exercise will have energy for you. When you draw a blank on one
exercise, go on to the next. If you find yourself resisting an exercise, come
back to it later. Do the ones that come easily.

Years ago I had a masseur who started each session with the words "It "s
not serious." As he worked on my tense back, relaxing all the muscles, he
continued saying "It "s not serious" till it became a kind of chant. Eventually
my back problems disappeared, but the words "It "s not serious" stayed in
my mind.

The things that made me so tense seem laughable now. At the time, I was
the freelance art director of a French food company, overwhelmed by
deadlines. Joel, my masseur, was right. It wasn"t serious. Remember those
words when doing the exercises in this book.

Copyright © 2003 by Roberta Allen. Reprinted by permission of Houghton
Mifflin Company.

Customer Reviews

A Whole World of Self-Discovery
At first glance, The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself appears to be a book you could breeze through in an afternoon. But after spending a few minutes with author Roberta Allen's format, one soon discovers that there is a whole world of self-discovery packed into these 213 pages.

The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself is "A Creative Workbook to Inspire Self-Discovery." Allen's book is unlike any workbook I have ever used or read in the past. Writing prompts paired with photographs coax creativity through verbal and visual pathways.

Allen's prompts encourage us to go deep within: "Imagine this woman seeing you exactly the way you want to be seen. What does she see?" She encourages us to be reflective: "What keeps you from being still?" And, she brings us to a point of making dreams realities: "Imagine yourself floating among these clouds in harmony with everyone and everything. What can you do to make that happen?"

The writing prompts have much greater impact because Allen has carefully paired them with photographic images that draw us in or push us further in our dreaming, our thinking and our writing.

Roberta Allen is a creativity coach, writing instructor, and author of several fiction and non-fiction books. After reading The Playful Way to Knowing Yourself--and working through the activities therein--I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy of her book The Playful Way to Serious Writing.

by Lee Ambrose
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

Inviting a Deeper Connection to Ourselves and to the World
"Robert Allen's creative and evocative synthesis of photo art and writing is a wonderful invitation to increasing self-awareness. The book not only engages, but includes readers in its process of completion on blank pages upon which to write ourselves into her book. Through photographs and evocative questions, Allen shows the way to a deeper connection to ourselves as well as the world around us. THE PLAYFUL WAY TO KNOWING YOURSELF provides us with a highly individual process in which we get out of it as much as we give."

From a review by Heidi Rain appearing in the May-June issue of SPIRIT OF CHANGE magazine.