Have you wondered what’s up with all the grownups grabbing crayons and coloured pencils and setting to work on colouring books lately? It’s very en vogue and it’s not as silly as it might seem. Like a many of the things that kids do, there’s a lot of wisdom in it.
Short story: colouring makes mindfulness super accessible. It’s a way of integrating mindfulness into your life that might feel less intimidating than sitting in stillness for 20 minutes. Even if you’re a devout meditator, colouring can be a beautiful way of inserting more moments of mindfulness into your day.
Here’s how it works and why you should give colouring for mindfulness a go:
- Colouring builds focus and concentration. It’s rehab for the multi-tasking mind, allowing us to take a swan dive into presence.
- The repetitive, quiet, gentle action of colouring has a calming effect on the nervous system and creates a sense of peace, while erasing stress and anxiety and allowing you to reset negative thought patterns.
- It’s a mini-digital detox. By getting off of our digital devices and single tasking with actual paper and writing utensils (shock, horror!) we’re giving our brains a much needed analog break from the constant game of pixel pin-ball we play all day.
And that’s just if you’re colouring in anything at all (shout out to all the mamas colouring in Peppa Pig or Bob The Builder like. a. boss). But if what you’re colouring in also has some symbolic meaning, that’s a big bonus. Take a mandala for example. Mandalas are cosmic diagrams that represent wholeness and remind us of our relationship to the infinite. The making of a mandala is contemplative by nature and often infused with meaning. So, when we colour in a mandala, we are tapping into that energetic vibration, that higher consciousness. It’s like a roadmap to feeling unified and whole. One with the world. One coloured pencil at a time. Click here for a mandala colouring sheet.
