The HeART Of Being-Home Mini Course
Thank you for joining me on this mini home course: HeART of Being - Mandala Adventure.
I have been creating these mandalas for about 2 years now. I do not see myself as an art teacher or professional artist I just love creating, mixing and smudging colours together. It's a challenge that allows me meditative and fun reflection time. This is not an art class it is an energetic process that maps you from the inside out using paints on canvas to create the mandala that is your life (as it is today...).
My work as an acupuncturist is all about freeing energy flow (Qi) in the body to allow re-balancing and healing. This is my intention when I paint too and this is what I wish to pass on to you: Painting healing meditation. I have developed this course based on work by Whitney Freya combining my experience over the years as a healer, dancer, meditator and yogini. It helped me through difficult times to find my flow, direction, centre, ground, connection and creativity. Creativity relates not only to making things, it relates to all aspects of our life from cooking, talking/communicating, solving problems, moving with our emotions, decision making etc.. My hope is that you will be inspired by it too and find your flow from the centre within in these extraordinary times.
Here are few things you need to do and know before we start:
- Create a space where you can paint today or for the next few days.
- Visualise each layer from beginning to end before you start creating it.
- You can create a mandala from start to finish in a day or few weeks, whatever works for you.
- Spend as long/short as you need on each layer. From my experience, spending more time then you think you need, takes you deeper into discovering what each layer holds for you.
- The difficult part in it could be to start. Make a commitment to yourself to start the first layer today no matter what! What is your resistance to be getting on with it?..... What do you need in order to overcome it?
- Share it with friends and do it with your children.
- Have fun, and when you finish start a another one.
Now, lets begin...
Close your eyes placing one hand on you lower abdomen and the other on your heart. Take few deep breaths, inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth.
Ask yourself: What is my intention for this painting meditation? What would I like to bring more of into my life?
Is it love? Self love? Renewal? Freedom? Courage? Support? Lightness?.....
Choose one word then describe it, two if you must and write it down on the back of your canvas
First Layer: Freedom
In this layer you are invited to cover the whole canvas with paint. Use your brushes, fingers, spatulas, the back of your brush, extra water (spray bottle is good to have around) to create shapes, textures, colours. Play! There are no rules.
Remember this, 2-3 year old you with a piece of paper and paints, no inhibitions, self judgments. No "I can't do it", "I am not good at it", "this needs to go to the bin".....just play, find freedom and replace all negative statements coming up in you with positive ones: "I can do it!", "this is actually all right", "who said I can't"....listen to your inner dialogue and turn it into a positive one as if you are encouraging your child or a friend.
''If our best friend talks to us as we talk to ourselves, we will not be their friend''. Right?
Tip: If you get stuck or just feel like it, you can work with music. Put some tunes that inspire movement and you can also stand up and dance. Shake it all out, break your own rules. Surprise yourself!
Take your time with this layer, keep adding to it, going back to it, when you think you are done, go and have a cuppa, a dance and look at it again. Would you like to add anything? Do not be afraid to be messy, remember the perfect imperfect from the meditation on Monday.
Second Layer: Your Prayer/Manifestation
Now, use a felt/acrylic pen, pencil or use your brushes to write down in as many words that come to you: What do I need in order to manifest what I desire? (remember what you wrote at the back of your canvas)
Close your eyes, see it, feel it and then write it down on your canvas, on top of the first layer (you can change the order of the layers too, as I did with the mandala in the photo). It can be in words, sentences, a reflection, a letter to yourself. You can use the meditation from Monday to guide you.
What will support you on your way to get to where you want or manifest what your heart is longing for?
Community, friendships, grace, time and space, abundance, money, kindness, love, belief.....what is it? Put it all down on your canvas.
Layer Three: From The Centre - Expression
Standing up with eyes closed connect to the centre in your heart. Ask yourself, if you can, out-load:
Who am I when I stand in my centre?
Who am I when I stand in my power?
Listen to the answer that come back to you and turn words into shapes that reflect the energy in them.
In your mind's eye follow these shapes around you with the centre in your heart: petals, hearts, wavy lines or geometrical shapes, strait lines.....it is all perfect for you in this moment. Go with it and allow it to show you the unfolding of your energy, of your HeARTs desires.
When you are ready, go to your canvas, using a felt tip pen in any colour that calls you, find the centre of your canvas, and free handed, no need for exact measures, start drawing the outlines of your mandala.
Layer Four: Creativity
In this layer, you are going to decorate your Mandala, decorate yourself.
Fill in the shapes that you created with colours, make your mandala pretty. One brush stroke at the time, tenderly and patiently. As if you where stroking yourself with the brush.
Again, watch your inner dialogue, observe it and fine tune it to be kind to you, loving, patient, encouraging and forgiving.
Practice non attachment to the layers under as they partially get covered, they are all there if you see them or not. It is with these layers that you create interest, texture and depth in your painting.
When you finish decorating, use your felt tip pen to go over some of the outlines. Black and white give good contrast to all the other colours and bring light to your mandala.
You are done!
Put your mandala painting somewhere you can see every day. It is your healing medicine for as long as you need it. It might be for a long time or short, when you feel it has done its healing, use the canvas again, start the process again to create your next healing mandala.
I hope that was fun and gave you a another tool to work with when things do not seem to go your way. And PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, send me a photo of your mandala with few words of how this process was for you. I would love to see and hear it.
Join me for the full course when we can meet again in person to go through this process together with new and exciting exercises that will take you even deeper to a revealing journey within.
Love to you all,
Galit X
