Browse Tag: mandala art for patients healing

Mandala art for healing and insights!

Mandala is a Sanskrit word that loosely translates to mean “circle” or “center.”

We often associate the word mandala with the circular designs that have repeating colors, shapes, and patterns radiating from the center. Mandalas can be precise, carefully measured, geometric, and perfectly symmetrical, or in contrast, free flowing, organic, and asymmetrical. Mandalas are often drawn in circles but they can also be drawn in squares.

Hindu and Buddhist Traditions

In the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, mandalas are an object of meditation to aid in one’s spiritual development. The imagery depicts the universe and the symbols represent one’s spiritual journey, the cycles of birth-life-death, and the interconnectedness of all living things.

The Hindu tradition focuses on the realization of the self as one with the divine. Whereas in the Buddhist tradition, the emphasis is on the potential for enlightenment (Buddha-nature) and the pictures within the mandalas illustrate the obstacles that one has to overcome in order to cultivate compassion and wisdom. Drawing mandalas in this tradition follows strict rules.

Mandalas help you to reconnect to your nature and the earth & cosmic nature. Perhaps the most important thing is that mandalas are a communication vehicle or tool for connecting to GOD,your higher self or your inner voice or the source-in other words that which is greater than yourself.

Several people use mandalas for meditation and contemplation , others use them for therapy and healing. Some people color in mandalas in order to feel relaxed and centre themselves and bring order within the chaos.

Mandala art for therapy and healing

Carl Jung – The renowned swiss psychologist extensively used mandalas with his patients,who would create them as a means to connect with their subconscious , enabling them to work through their issues. For a period , Jung created a mandala every day – an activity that he credits with his personal transformation and healing. Many psychologists like me and therapists in cancer centres today use mandalas as preventive healthcare and form of palliative therapy.

Exhibitions and Art for Cancer Care patients

This is me participating as a Mandala Artist during the ArtforCan Care exhibition exhibiting my healing mandalas. Both of them got sold and went to lovely souls.

Womb cellular healing mandala
Me at ArtforCancare exhibition

Content source: 100Mandalas.com

Images :Own Photography

Mandala Art: An alternative for Addiction treatment -Part 1

Addiction of drugs or alcohol is not only a crisis globally found but is less talked about too. But not many people are able to resist the urge of consuming addictive stuff after they have been discharged from the facilities. Reason, they are not accepted easily back in their old lives and they are beings that have already lost hope and positivity from their life. Thus, it becomes necessary that we establish a new way to not only help individuals fighting their way back to a normal life, but also inspire them for positive thinking and betterment in life. 

A couple of new treatments have emerged, today the addiction rehab centres have individual & group therapy sessions and a wide range of other therapeutic methods to treat it as well. These other therapeutic methods include, Mandala Art which is found to be very helpful and has proven effective in helping people in recovery process from addiction and substance abuse. Let’s see how it works in the different phases of treatment. 

Mandala Sessions in Rehab Centres 

Image Credits : Captured at an Event with Partner Lahe Lahe and OncoHappy together with www.facebook.com/SrishtiVataa Healing Arts Artist at a Cancer Hospital centre

Mandala art is now becoming popular in many rehab facilities. Mandala is a non-addictive self-soothing technique that can work wonders in inculcating positive self-image and build confidence in person fighting addiction. It helps in augmenting self-image which is necessary for someone who has lost their own-self overtime due to addiction. It is a way to find yourself back and mending the severed strings with yourself over time. 

A mental collapse in adulthood leaves more deeper scares than we can think off. A person is caged in depression and not to forget the withdrawal symptoms that do not leave the person alone for a very long time. The calmness that comes from mandala art can help a person that away those negative thoughts about themselves and pick up their life with new energy and positivity, Mandala art in short delivers a person a will to continue on the path of getting riddance from addiction. 

It is necessary to understand that a person is not only fighting a battle of strong urge that has been gripping them for years, but also a mental battle to gather the strength to fight the distress that comes along. “Will the world take me back?”, a person continues to ask itself that echoes the answer, “Why to change, if nothing is going to fall into place”. We can change that answer into positive one by seeding hope and courage through mandala art form. It is a self-healing procedure which works magic, in finding the answers yourself. It works as meditation, an important medicine to mend yourself on inside. 

So if you are dealing with addictions for which you do not know the cause , you can reach out to [email protected] and we can help you!

Mandala Art: An alternative for Addiction or Palliative treatment -Part 2

How Mandala Art Therapy Blends in with Other therapeutic treatments? 

Mandala Art therapy can serve as an additional therapy for the residential treatment. The parts that are affected by the brain during any art therapy are different from other therapeutic methods. It opens up the creative lobe in the brain. Which is relaxing, fun, and soothes you from inside. It can be an excellent end-of-the-day activity, where patients can positively construct and embrace things they learned from other activities. It will speed up their recovery. 

It is very effective in easing of the mental and emotional exertion that is common to happen during the psychoeducational and process group sessions. This can keep them engaged in a constructive manner and will help them go forward in their quest. 

Photography Credits : Oncohappy event in collaboration with Srishti Vataa Arts and Lahe Lahe *event partner

How does it work? 

Mandala therapy uses patterns and different coloring methods that opens up the creative side of the brain and provides them a new dimension to grow. But most importantly, the colors and patterns help them understand their biggest fears and prepares them to creatively work on them to restart their life with new energy and positivity. 

A person drained out of positivity finds it difficult to cope with the fast-coming changes that come along addiction rehabilitation or palliative care. There are physical and mental both challenges. They fear change and this decreases their efficiency to work with the therapy. Self-motivation comes from the art therapy. 

Also, for people, specially, the difficult patients with real issues and problems can have separate sessions with mandala art therapist that uses color psychology to understand their problems and reach out for help in their coping process.

Art therapy sessions become their safe space to cocoon in and find their way back to the world of hope. It soothes them and encourages them to work on their issues themselves. Not many people are open up, this challenge is easily fought by art therapy and has proven effective. 

Mandala making connects them to spirituality. Even for a general population, meditation and spiritualism can make things positive and wonderful. It teaches self-love and to spread light around you. Someone in darkness, like people in rehabilitation process need it the most. It doesn’t need hours, plus helps them meet the wholeness, or cosmos. It balances them with the nature, promotes mental health and self-development. They can make their own mandala or they can use online mandala designs available online to color it and talk about their experiences. 

Post-rehab or palliative care art therapy sessions and their effects

Keeping up the process and curbing the urge to again leap on to the darker side is what the addition fighters fear all the time. The process of self-healing doesn’t end as they walk out of the rehabilitation center. It is actually start of the actual problems, like acceptance. 

Mandala art strengthens them from within and prepares them for the harsh world and unacceptance. But most importantly, it makes accept themselves first. To meet with the wholeness is a joyful experience, it completes you in many ways. It generates a new perspective towards life. It helps you understanding your priorities and keeps you on track. Patients are needed to be encouraged to keep on going with post-rehab mandala art therapy. It calms people down after they have had a hard day, rather then going back to drugs or alcohol, it is something which is constructive, positive and full of life.