Is it possible to heal through doodling?
In short, yes! Neurographic Art gives everyone – artistic or not - the opportunity to create something as simple or as complex as you like. It can take 5 minutes or 5 hours, allowing you to be in control of your creation.
I stumbled across Neurographic Art about a month ago and have been hooked ever since. Why? Because of its simplicity. At the heart of it is a piece of paper, a pen (fine liner or sharpie work best) and a bit of spare time. You can add to it from there… Once you get the hang of the few basic principles of it (see below), it is yours to discover.
For a long time I’ve been convinced that I’m just not artistic; it turns out that not being good at art at school (30 years ago) is quite different from not being able to create art. It’s about finding the right opportunity to express your creative side.
What’s the point of it?
There are different groups of thinking about Neurographic Art.
In its purest form, it is intentional meditation and processing of thoughts and feelings. To do this, focus in on what’s on your mind or what you are feeling in your body (it may be a good or bad thought or experience), you may want to write down a couple of words that link to this thought on the back of the paper and then keeping this in mind, start the process below.
For others, it’s an opportunity to just take some intentional time out to be, a creative form of meditation. Traditional meditation doesn’t work for everyone; this gives you the opportunity to focus, take some time out for yourself, slow your thinking down and create something individual and authentic.
Whichever focus you go for, there are so many benefits to bringing a little creativity into your life. It offers a chance to move away from reaching for perfection, away from the fear of getting something wrong and towards a more flexible mindset. Perfectionism can stop us from taking risks, from learning from our mistakes, from challenging the norm. In essence a drive towards perfectionism can stifle our ability to live in the moment. When we practice flexibility in one area of life, it opens up our minds to flexible thinking in other areas therefore opening up the opportunity to enjoy the experiences that life offers us.
How do I get started?
Get your piece of paper, starting at one side create a line with swoops, loops and waves in it. Remember with this process perfection doesn’t exist – you can’t get it wrong! Add more lines to create more complexity.
If you want to focus in more on your experiences, focus on changing the direction of your line each time you become aware of the direction you are going in, allow your pen to create smaller movements in the line so it becomes less of a straight line and more of a wiggle.
You can add circles and other shapes into your drawing where it feels right
Using your sharpie or fine liner begin to round the sharp corners.
Add colour (felt tip pens, colouring pencils, watercolour pencils, acrylic or water colour paints) – see where your imagination takes you. Maybe you want to use shades of the same colour, or instead you might want to make it busy with lots of colours. The key is to not over think it, see where the drawing takes you.
I've put an example below of what you can create with just 6 lines. It would be great to see any creations you make in the comments.
If you learn visually, there are lots of tutorials on youtube. Here are a couple of recommendations:
If you would like to take the next step to understanding how your life experiences have shaped you as a person, please take a look at my website for information on how I work and how you can get in touch.
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