Heart’s Fire Week
Once upon a time, there was a four-year-old struggling with separation anxiety (after a prolonged absence of Dad due to medical issues) and a magic mama trying her best to keep it together herself and support her little one. The idea for weeks themed around all of their socio-emotional needs and the fantasy movies they all loved was born.
As per four-year-old’s request… Disney’s Onward was the inspiration for the inaugural week!
** Please note: This journey is woven with wonder and inspiration, but it is not a potion for medical advice. Please seek a trusted healer (healthcare professional) for any real-world ailments or concerns.**
I am not sure how in tune my little guy is with just how perfect this movie was for our exact situation and to help with separation anxiety but I’m sure somewhere in his brain he chose it for a reason! We had SO MUCH FUN with this one and it has absolutely helped facilitate a conversation about being connected to family by love and magic no matter how far away any of us may be from each other even if that distance can only be closed momentarily by a very strong spell spoken from your heart’s fire.
These themed weeks will usually include:
- An empowering craft project for kids and adults with examples of how I guided my kids and myself through them.
- A sensory activity.
- Kid-friendly dinner & dessert inspiration!
PLUS humor only motherhood has to offer and plenty of fan excitement and magic!
Here’s the line-up for heart’s fire week:
- Empowering craft: Phoenix Gem Geode & Heart’s Fire Spells Canvas Paintings AND My Heart’s Fire Gem Creations
- Sensory Activity: Family Connection Sensory Bottles
- Dinner & Dessert: Mannachos & “Hidden” Heart Cake
We started the week watching small chunks of Onward over several days. It’s SO GOOD! I just have to say, I don’t think this Disney movie gets enough credit. I realized this time around watching it… there are no songs… and it’s still amazing! A HUGE plus (for me) is that it offers one of the only mom heroines within Disney cannon: Laurel Lightfoot and ya’ll … she’s a mighty warrior! There were many mom humor moments I chuckled to myself again because the movie captures them well. It’s so nice to see the struggles and hilarities of motherhood being validated in fantasy media! MORE PLEASE, is really all I can say.
Next, because I was searching for something pretty immediately to help my little’s with post-school melt-downs, we turned to Family Connection Sensory Bottles. I went to Michael’s and got all kinds of heart glitter and beads to put in the bottles so that I could make the point, especially to my four-year-old, that our love connects us, even when we are very far apart. I used this recipe and they turned out so great. I would caution to definitely put in the 3/4 cup water. I did not put enough in my bottle and the soap kind of sticks to the glitter and beads in a not-so aesthetically pleasing way. Oh well, I still love it AND most importantly, my littles love shaking them on the way to (separation anxiety prime-time) and from school.
Again, out of necessity, we next turned to My Heart’s Fire Gem Creations. My two-year-old stayed home sick one day and I still needed to walk our adorable Best Friend’s Rescue pup, Maynard. Little one and I headed into the woods and to keep things fun, we looked for wizard staffs, just like Ians’! We found some really good ones and that lended itself to making personalized Heart’s Fire Gems for each of the kids to go atop the staffs. The idea of each of us having a unique heart’s fire is SO powerful. I wanted to use it as a way to help my kids (and me) explore each of our beautiful, unique, empowering magic. I asked:
- “What helps you feel brave?”
- “What do you love?”
- “What is so special about you?!”
I got some fabulous answers, only a two and four-year-old could think of. My two-year-olds answers were mostly about unicorns naturally. My four-year-old is a big Halloween fan so we talked a lot about bats and ghosts and all that fun stuff. I also offered many examples of all of the answers I could come up with to each of these questions for each of them: “you are so kind”, “you take such good care of your sister”, “you always make me laugh”, “you are so creative” etc. We used the materials we had to craft each of them a gem. For my four-year-old we used pipe cleaners and ribbon:
For my two-year-old we used intentionally chosen scraps of fabric:
Finally, I started to think about how I would answer these questions for myself. I did not make a Gem but I think I will someday. I did do our next craft and used a powerful visualization to help me answer the above questions plus more that I will share below.
As it was Valentine’s Day, we next turned to making our Mannachos and Hidden Heart Cake! Yum! The Mannachos were pretty basic sheet pan nachos, my littles are not adventurous eaters generally so, we stuck with chips, cheese, and beans… and even that didn’t really excite them ha! I am not sure about your two and four-year-old but for mine, I could make the same thing one day and have everyone LOVE it and then if I make it again in a week everyone’s smeegle comes out in force. BUT… we did all LOVE the hidden heart cake.
For the Hidden Heart Cake I was inspired by this recipe. I used two box cake mixes, one pink for the hearts (and heart’s fire shapes I asked each kid to choose from the bag of cookie cutters) and one yellow. We cooked the pink cake first, well rather, my husband and the kids cooked the pink cake while I suffered a migraine. My apologies to everyone else out there who suffers from them. They really are painful and no fun. I am working on enchanting ways to work with my migraines and I will share once I’ve come up with routines that really help me. Seeing the migraine as an invitation to self-care has been a good starting point so far. Anyways! Once the migraine had passed enough to come out of my cave, I used our chosen cookie cutters to cut out chunks of the pink cake. I then poured some of the yellow cake mixture in the bottom of a bundt tin and lined up the pink cake shapes enough to try to not get to of big of gaps between the pieces. I then poured the rest of the mixture over top of the cut out pieces and baked it per the instruction on the box. We chose some fun color and sprinkles that spoke to our heart’s fire for decoration. Voila, it worked!
To help with the separation anxiety, I really emphasized that the hidden heart was a lot like family love. We can’t always see each other but, the love it always there. My little four-year-old smiled a lot about the playful and sweet nature of this representation of being connected to family by love.
A caveat… although I LOVE Great British Baking Show… I am not by any means a high-quality baker. I love baking and it’s fun for me. Once in a while I make something look pretty… most the time we just enjoy eating it.
Finally, we did our Phoenix Gem Geode and Heart’s Fire Spell Canvas Paintings. This was so powerful for me as a mom and as an individual. After I asked (again):
- “What helps you feel brave?”
- “What do you love?”
- “What is so special about you?!”
my four-year-old said he wanted to write “I love myself!” and then gave a mighty roar that really felt like it came from the depths of his soul. I’ve been floating on magic mama cloud nine since.
The inspiration for these came from Geode Canvas Paintings. Ours are not exactly as pretty as the inspiration but they have been an amazing vehicle self-exploration and empowerment and I would 100% rather hang ours up than any others I have seen. My four-year-old immediately wanted to hang his up too!
I got “kid-freindly” Crayola acrylic paint. The consistency is different than regular acrylic I think because we could not move the paint around as easily as videos of regular acrylic looked. We did still manage some cool marbling that we then, of course, all joyously covered with glitter! We used paint pens to write our Heart’s Fire Spells and/or doodle.
After bedtime, I guided myself on a visualization that went like this:
You are on a quest to wield your unique, beautiful, magic and enchant your life. While walking through a peaceful woods, you come across a cave (like Barley and Ian do in Onward). There is water entering the cave and you stop to listen to the sound it makes as it trickles down the smooth rock, out of sight, into the darkness. You feel your heart’s fire, those thoughts and inner truths that empower you pull at you from deep within. You enter the cave. At first, you walk slowly feeling for footing and things to hold on to on a path next to the water. You walk in darkness for some time but you are warmed by your heart’s fire within which grows each step you take closer to their source. Finally, you start to see light ahead of you. You step into a cavern deep within the cave. There is a source of almost blinding light coalescing in the middle of the room. As your eyes adjust, you see your Heart’s Fire Gem spinning in the center of the cavern. What does it look like? What color is it? What shape is it? What is it surrounded by? What else do you notice about it? You move closer with joy. The closer you look you see thoughts and inner truths as words or images imprinted on the gem. What do they say? You welcome your power in and your Heart’s Fire Gem settles in your body, where does it settle? How does it feel? Here’s a link to audio of this visualization with some adlib.
I then added the words, heart’s fire spells, I saw through my visualization, a few further colors, and finally quotes I LOVE from Onward because I LOVE them to my canvas and that brought our Heart’s Fire Week to a close!
I have been shocked with how much theming weeks has helped me organize my thoughts and actions for supporting all of our needs. There is power in using the fantasy media we love as a vehicle for positive mental health, in fact, that is exactly what I do in my life coaching programs. Reach out and we can come up with one just for you based on your unique fandoms and dreams.
Please join us for the next chapter of our perfect fairy tale … Love is Like the Ocean Week which is a big happy mash-up of Disney’s Finding Nemo and Finding Dory as well as Moana! I am very excited to use these amazing movies as a way to talk with my littles again about separation anxiety, home sickness, and adventure as we prepare to go on vacation to Disneyland!
