Mandalas help us to regain balance by coloring. Lately there has been a lot of talk about it but mandalas and the art of making them are part of a very ancient tradition.
I mandala they help us to regain balance by coloring: here it is Mandala Therapy. Lately we talk about it a lot because in newsstands and in bookstores you can find more and more albums of drawings and mandalas to color. Yet mandalas and the art of making them are part of a very ancient tradition.
I mandala they are 'living' symbols that represent the whole universe and our inner world. THE Tibetan monks they make traditional mandalas with thousands of colored sand grains and once the work is finished they destroy them to remember that nothing in the world lasts forever.
Coloring mandalas is part of arts-therapies. Today we talk about Mandala Therapy but already in the last century Carl Gustav Jung had explored the use of mandalas in psychology and psychoanalysis. In any case, in our small way we can simply decide to draw and / or color a mandala to relax.
Index
Mandala Therapy: the benefits of mandalas
Starting to color mandalas really has many benefits that reflect on our mind, our lifestyle and our mood. Artistic activities first of all help our brain to activate the right hemisphere, the most creative, which risks being dormant due to our work duties, social conventions and the typical school education that tends to give space to logic rather than to the arts.
Focus on the activity of coloring lightens the mind and brings us back into balance. Above all, it helps us to put aside our worries for a few moments. This does not mean neglecting or ignoring problems but indulging in some moment of relaxation to calm the mind so that we can reconsider our situation later from a different perspective.
Is exactly when the mind calms down and gets distracted from the repetitiveness of everyday life that the human being can find new insights, ideas and solutions for your own problems. Starting to color mandalas can also represent an introductory activity to meditation, since with the mandalas the ability to concentrate and attention is exercised, while at the same time one begins to explore one's soul.
Mandala Therapy: what to do before coloring mandalas
Before we start coloring the mandalas we can create a relaxing atmosphere in the room where we will dedicate ourselves to this activity. Let's choose some calming music and maybe light some scented candles. However, we can decide to color the mandalas in silence and without other distractions if we really want to focus only on this practice.
We prepare the sheets or albums with the mandalas to color and the colors that we prefer to use for our Mandala Therapy. If we want we can write down the emotions on a sheet of paper that we feel before starting to color or the thoughts that are weighing down our mind. Then we will be able to reread everything at the end of our Mandala Therapy work to understand if something has changed.
Mandala Therapy: how to color mandalas
We can color (but also draw) the mandalas with the techniques we prefer. The very normal ones are fine pastels, but also markers, wax crayons, watercolors, tempera or acrylic colors are suitable depending on the artistic medium that we feel most akin to our way of being and our abilities. In the mandalas there should be no non-colored empty spaces. Black and white are not used.
Both adults and children can color mandalas. Coloring mandalas together for parents and children is a great activity for strengthen the bonds and for spend time together with tranquility.
We can decide to color the mandalas without following precise rules on the starting point of our work. But usually mandalas they start coloring from the center. Coloring mandalas from the inside out promotes openness to others, while coloring mandalas from the outside in encourages introspection and self-understanding. These simple tips apply to everyone, both adults and children.
Mandala Therapy: what to do after coloring the mandalas
What can we do when we are done coloring our mandala? If we want to imitate the intentions of the Tibetan monks, we can destroy our mandala tearing it into pieces of paper or burning it (obviously with the utmost attention): this action helps us to learn non-attachment and to remember that nothing lasts forever. It also helps us to overcome and leave behind the emotions we poured into the act of coloring our mandala.
Alternatively we can decide to keep our mandalas colored and maybe hang them at home for a few days, look at them every now and try to understand if their shapes and colors still have something to communicate to us. In a certain sense, in fact mandalas 'speak' and tell us something about ourselves and our emotions.
From the point of view of Mandala Therapy, for example, we can try to write down in a notebook or on a sheet of paper the emotions we feel while coloring a mandala and when we observe it, both after completing it and after a few days. There choice of colors or the simple act of coloring - which perhaps we were no longer used to - perhaps brought back memories or helped us to have a new vision of the future.
We can decide to give a title to our mandala and to explain to those who are coloring with us the motivation for this choice. It is always very interesting to open the comparison between several people who decide to color mandalas at the same time, perhaps forming a small group of Mandala Therapy.
If we want to better observe our mandala just finished, let's hang it on a wall and let's watch it from a distance of a couple of meters. It will be like looking at ourselves and our world from a new perspective.
Everyone in his mandala can recognize a part of himself and can identify what he would like to leave in the past and what he would like to take with him in the present and in the future. This is why when we finish coloring a mandala and while we color it our mind gradually becomes free and feels lighter.
Have you ever tried to color a mandala? Did this technique help you feel better?
Discover and download Thu 10 mandalas to color.
Read also:
- MANDALA: MEANING AND 10 COLORING PAGES
- COLORING: ALL THE ADVANTAGES AND BENEFITS FOR ADULTS AND CHILDREN
- THE IMPORTANCE AND BENEFITS OF ART IN THE GROWTH OF CHILDREN
