I Have a Dream...You Fill in the Rest!

The psychiatric groups I sometimes get to work with were planning to have an event to celebrate Martin Luther King.  I was not going to be at the event, but all the activity therapists were doing projects during group time that went along with the theme or created a product that could be shared at the meeting.  I had already planned to use Natasha Bedingfield's song, Unwritten, for a group and this ended up being the perfect time.

The lyrics to her song work perfectly into the theme of, "I have a dream...."

I am unwritten
Can't read my mind
I'm undefined

I'm just beginning
The pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, oh

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries
Are outside the lines

We've been conditioned
To not make mistakes
But I can't live that way, no

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words
That you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
Feel the rain on your skin

No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
To the years where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten


I passed out the lyrics to each participant and then played the song for my group of eight psychiatric consumers.  I had them use highlighters to mark words in the song that they liked or seemed important to them.  Each person then shared the words that he or she had highlighted and why they chose those words.  We had a good discussion about making your own future and how it can be better.  I related the song to MLK and asked the group about their dreams.  I prompted them to think of words that would describe their dreams for themselves for when they left the hospital.

In order to facilitate the experience I had brought stacks of magazines they could tear up, markers, oil pastels, stencils and word stamps.  I proposed to the consumers that we make word collages of the words they had developed to describe their dreams.  I hoped that they would be able to share their collages at the special MLK celebration meeting.  I really wish I was able to share examples of some of the word collages!  They were very creative.  Some of them used letter stencils to connect words up and down with common letters.  Other patients found inspiring words in magazines to tear out and paste onto their pictures.  Thank you Natasha for writing such an inspiring song!  Thanks to the human spirit that can rise up in the most difficult circumstances!