Activity: Emotion Jenga
Objective:
Emotion Jenga is a great game for groups of youth or a family that is ready to talk about addiction or grief. This game encourages communication about the emotions you feel during your personal experiences with grief or addiction. Get a group of at least two people together and talk through the long list of emotions that have come up for each person.
Supplies:
- Jenga Blocks
- Marker
Instructions:
- As a group brainstorm a long list of emotions associated with addiction or grief. Examples may include: Anger, Fear, Loneliness, Stress, Sadness, Pain, Helpless, Hopeless, Guilt, Shame. You can also list positive feelings!
- Write down these emotions on most of the Jenga blocks.
- Take turns pulling out a block and reading off the emotion listed.
- The participant will then describe a time that they felt that emotion.
- Pull blocks until the tower falls and talk about all of the emotions that can make us fall apart like the tower when overwhelmed. Exploring and expressing our feelings allows us to better understand and process our emotions.
Additional Ideas:
Youth may need some time before they talk openly about their feelings related to grief or addiction. One alternative is to use the Jenga blocks as a journal prompt instead. Youth can take turns pulling a jenga block that will be a journal prompt for the group. Children can then choose whether or not they want to share their journal prompt with the group.
