Arn Mountain & The Glass Globes

When emotions are too heavy or precious to carry, it makes sense to store them somewhere safe. For this, you can trek the winding road to Arn Mountain, a magical and infinite place with security only able to be penetrated by you, its rightful owner. Within the walls of this cavernous place, you can store memories, experiences, and feelings with the help of your Staff, who care only for you and your wellbeing. However you choose to keep your emotions and memories, no matter the nature of them, you can keep them safe inside the Mountain. 

Decide how you will store them and catalogue them, and how you secure them, knowing that no one will ever access the Mountain without you. Best of all, you can return at any time to delve more deeply into the feelings and process them as works best for you, even those memories so precious or so delicate as those stored in the Glass Globes. These impactful memories can be looked into with the safety of the glass between you and anything that could overwhelm or harm you, and are treated with the utmost of care by the Staff. When you leave the Mountain, the memories are there, not forgotten, not lost, but safe, and ready for your return.

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Containment exercises are common in therapeutic spaces, and this specific narrative exercise is intended to allow for the user to either engage with their real life emotions and experiences through the Mountain, or to help flesh out complex memories and feelings for a character in a game or story. What do you need to keep contained, to process slowly and thoughtfully, and protect until you are ready to dive in and move forward? What would your character have to hold inside these deep caverns? Treasure the memories and emotions, and approach them at your own pace, knowing they're safe.

Beau is not a psychologist or therapist, and recommends that you seek licensed therapeutic and psychiatric services where available for any mental health needs. This tool is simply meant to allow both real and fictional exploration and meditation in a way that may be more approachable for some people. Arn Mountain & The Glass Globes was developed with Beau's experience in therapeutic treatment, tabletop game design, and leadership education during a partial intake program under the care and treatment of Dr. Katie Hinzman of Allegheny Health Network in 2023. It is released here under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license for personal or commercial use with correct attribution to Beau Jágr Sheldon/Thoughty.