Intuitive Drawing
The act of creating a mandala can be a tool used to develop a deeper level of self-awareness when the act of creating it is done on an intuitive level. To draw or paint intuitively is to make marks while both sides of the brain work in harmony and without the analytical mind working to control what happens. It is letting the subconscious have a voice and because the subconscious does not use words or written language, the messages are relayed through imagery in the form of color and symbols and metaphors. But the subconscious is shy and longs for permission or invitation to share what it wants to express. The intention of creating a mandala is a safe invitation.
When the conscious mind and the subconscious mind work in unison, a flow of emotional expression can yield surprising and helpful information about our underlying beliefs. In Making Marks, Elaine Clayton describes the process of drawing intuitively.
Drawing fearlessly, with a sense of playfulness and pleasure in expression, widens the possibility for us to think and to feel harmoniously as both hemispheres become fully activated. Unconscious or unknown truths come into our awareness as ideas, solutions, and realizations. Through drawing, we realize what ideas or beliefs we were not aware of having. The conscious and unconscious—logic and intuition—are linked by the act of drawing.
Every line and mark made from our own hand has an energy and a message. Some marks may appear abstract and with no recognizable form, a “scribble” as it were, but those marks are still a reflection of the emotion that was present when we made them. If you make a mark and then ask your subconscious what it means, if you listen openly you can be surprised what is revealed! When analyzing our mandalas, it’s helpful to keep in mind that just as with dream analysis, while some colors and symbols may repeatedly mean similar things to large groups of people, we are really the most qualified to analyze our own creations and should not automatically assume our subconscious agrees with any list of published meanings.
Some marks come together in recognizable symbols—symbols that are personal and unique to us as individuals and symbols that are part of a collective conscious. And still more times, a collection of symbols (and the use of color as symbols) present in a completed mandala can express a metaphor as an answer to a question we have or as a message from our deeper selves it feels we need to hear.
Symbols
The soul never thinks without an image.—Aristotle
Symbols are a nonverbal language. As Sandy Forty puts it in her book Symbols, “In our everyday lives, symbols function as signposts; they are glimpsed at and understood on an almost subconscious level.” But beyond symbols we use to navigate our way in the world (road signs, restroom signs, arrows for direction and so on), Jung believed that symbols possessed specific connotations that often went deeper than their conventional meanings.
The symbols created in a mandala reveal who we are in the moment we are creating it. Symbols repeated from one mandala to another can reveal patterns in our thinking.
When we let go of the need to express what we are feeling in words, we give our subconscious permission to express itself. By drawing whatever shapes and designs float into our minds and using whichever colors we are drawn to, without overthinking things, incredibly helpful information about our inner state emerges.
Colors
The psychology of color is visceral and direct. Colors can be seen as symbols in that they can say a plethora of things at once without any words. As with symbols, for any individual, the meaning attached to a color may be in alignment with how the color is seen by that individual’s culture, but the meaning can also be unique and different to each individual. Also, what a color means to you today—how it feels—may differ slightly to how it makes you feel tomorrow. For example, white may be seen as representing purity most days, but on a particular day, white may represent a feeling of being exposed and feeling vulnerable because a light is being shone on something. We should let our intuition be our guide.
Creation as a Meditation
Any enjoyable activity that requires a specific focus (running, walking, knitting, beading, doodling etc.) not only keeps the brain from aging, it reduces stress and can increase happiness as well. It’s no secret that the process of making art (such as creating a mandala) has long been known to have healthy and even healing effects on our inner states of being. Adopting a regular mandala practice cannot only increase our levels of self-awareness, it can promote long-term wellbeing.
Flow and Mindfulness
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi was the first to refer to the state one finds herself in when she looses all track of time and is fully engaged in what she’s doing as flow. Creating a mandala encourages such a space. Occupational therapist Victoria Schindler explains that the effects of flow are similar to that of mediation and engaging in activities that encourage flow can regulate strong emotion and calm inner chaos.
Application for Personal Development
Asking Yourself Questions
While it’s not important to have a specific question or a desire for support on a particular issue to enjoy mandala creation and reap the insights that follow from conducting a reading or analysis of the mandala, as a tool, mandala creation can be very helpful for gaining insight into any area of our lives.