Animal Adventure!
This is a solitaire journaling roleplaying game to help with regular self-care. By taking care of yourself, you take care of your Animal Adventurer! They won't ever get in too much trouble, but when you take care of yourself, they can have more fun adventures, see more new sights, and feel a lot better while they do.
To start, imagine your Animal Adventurer that you'll take care of, by taking care of yourself! It could be a stray kitten, a fledgling bird, a little lizard with a kinked tail, a small and vulnerable creature that needs care and nurturing, which is what you'll do.
You can start your journal with a description of your Animal Adventurer (make sure to give them a name!), or if you like, you can start with their first little adventure, if you feel like you and they are ready! These short adventures start with you checking the time, on any watch, clock, or other timepiece, at the start of your journaling. Look only at the 'minute hand', and use the tens-place to find which column, and the ones-place to find the entry for what your Animal Adventurer first encounters.
| # | 0 | 1 | 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | hollow tree | thick shrub | cleared path |
| 1 | fallen tree | hollow bush | scraggly tree |
| 2 | viney tree | itchy nettles | twisty shrub |
| 3 | hollow log | spiky nettles | tangley vines |
| 4 | log bridge | cozy shade | piled leaves |
| 5 | strange stump | strange hole | muddy hollow |
| 6 | treetop view | big rock | steep creek |
| 7 | mossy patch | funny seeds | wide stream |
| 8 | plain tree | spiky seeds | muddy dugout |
| 9 | occupied tree | loose vines | patchy glen |
| # | 3 | 4 | 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | tall grass | tall grass | river's edge |
| 1 | short grass | short grass | rocky shoal |
| 2 | clumpy tuft | sandy hill | small lagoon |
| 3 | springy bush | sandy gully | silty marsh |
| 4 | tall grass | sandy plain | deep lake |
| 5 | strange hole | big rock | grassy island |
| 6 | big hill | trickly creek | rushing rapid |
| 7 | deep hollow | grassy plain | quiet stream |
| 8 | short grass | loamy slope | boggy marsh |
| 9 | tall grass | muddy bank | fallen log |
So for an example, if you start your journaling at 5:18 PM, you would look at the '1' column (top row and center), and the '8' row, to get 'spiky seeds'! Can your Animal Adventurer do anything with these, or use them for something, or just carefully get through or around them?
You can and should doodle some illustrations along with your writing! It doesn't have to be pretty or 'artistic', your Animal Adventurer won't mind, you're drawing art of them, and the adventures they have, that's what counts.
During these little adventures, this checklist gives your Animal Adventurer more things they can do, for the places they go or trouble they get into! Take good care of yourself, and your Animal Adventurer can go a lot farther, and do a lot more!
Did you drink enough water? If so, they can:
- find a polished piece of glass
- find a pretty shiny rock
- combine some things they found
- find a puddle to wash something
One if you did yesterday, plus one if you did today.
Did you stretch slowly and thoroughly? If so, they can:
- climb for a better vantage point
- wriggle through a barrier or gap
- jump, swing, or spring across a gap
- hopscotch across rocks or mud
One if you did yesterday, plus one if you did today.
Did you eat something healthy, and savor and enjoy it slowly? If so, they can:
- hike to a different table column
- style their hair/plumage really nicely
- combine some things they found
- find some useful twigs and leaves
One if it was healthy, plus one if you savored it.
Did you practice calming yourself down from overwhelming emotions? If so, they can:
- balance across a narrow thing
- find a nice sturdy vine to use
- hike to a different table column
- combine some things they found
Two, if you did today.
Did you take your medications on time? If so, they can:
- balance across a narrow thing
- find a nice sturdy vine to use
- hike to a different table column
- combine some things they found
One if you did yesterday, plus one if you did today.
Did you go to bed on time, with a good wind-down ritual last night? If so, they can:
- talk with a forest creature
- style their hair/plumage really nicely
- find some useful twigs and leaves
- combine some things they found
One if you did last night, plus one if you will tonight.
Did you resist doomscrolling? If so, they can:
- make a really nice hat out of leaves
- have a nice look at the moon
- talk with a forest creature
- combine some things they found
Two, if you didn't doomscroll at all today.
Each of these self-care items helps you stay healthy, mentally and physically. Making them into regular habits helps a lot! That's why a lot of them ask if you took care of yourself yesterday as well as today, because your health from yesterday will have a strong effect today. Other items have less of an effect from one day to the next, but might have a strong effect on any given day, so they only ask about today, but could count double.
If these specific self-care items don't fit your own needs, please, change them to something that will! The important thing is that you take good care of yourself. And if the goodies that your Animal Adventurer gets don't fit their needs, you can change those too. You might ask how any of this could help, why any of it would matter, if you can just change it? That's a very good question for better philosophers.
How it might help you is by giving you a structure to form a narrative, centering a small, vulnerable, blameless creature, giving it your help, and imagining some of your problems, through its simpler and sweeter eyes. By tying your self-care to its story, you might find a little more motivation and dedication than you had before, and take better care of yourself, for this animal's sake.
So put a copy of the encounters they can find, and your checklist for helping them, on the inside of your journal! That way you can refer to it easily. It might help to put them on sticky notes or something that you can remove easily later, in case you want to change some of these self-help items, or add new ones, or change some of the things your Animal Adventurer can find. After all, as long as you keep taking care of yourself, your Animal Adventurer will always have new adventures!