Accessible Therapy

In a conversation with my students one day, they asked me what my favorite gift was on Christmas morning as a child.  I told them about the dollhouse my mom and dad made for me from scratch . . . right down to a little carpet for the bathroom, a wreath on the front door, and pillows on all the beds!  And my red wagon.  I remember the excitement when I saw that gem sitting under our tree!  But then I told them how just about every single Christmas, I would receive a new box of 64 Crayola crayons and a coloring book.  Oh my goodness the joy I felt when I saw that new box of crayons!  Honestly, I think I would have been perfectly happy if every year that was the only gift I received.  I loved coloring!  As a babysitter, I often tried to coerce my rambunctious charge with some coloring.  As an elementary school teacher, Friday afternoons were very often reading or coloring time.  And I am not embarrassed to say that if my students asked me to color with them, I did!

So in October, when I started my second round of dialysis treatments, one of my students gifted me with a Mandala coloring book and a brand new set of markers.  All those childhood memories came rushing back and I felt the same joy I used to feel every Christmas morning.  I could not wait to sit down and start coloring!

        

These mandalas have made those long hours in a dialysis chair so much more bearable!  They have become my therapy.  My meditation.  My time to relax and really gather my thoughts.  They have made a pretty miserable situation quite enjoyable. I actually might dare to say that in a sense, they have made me look forward to my time in that chair.

      

These mandalas have brought me solutions to problems I thought were insurmountable.  They have given me the opportunity to organize steps I need to take to resolve conflicts.  They have afforded me the quiet and calm to redirect my thoughts and realize that situations I once thought were awful, really aren’t so bad.  They have made me like myself better.  They have made me happy!

    

For my birthday last month, a friend of mine gave me a mandala coloring book with affirmations accompanying each picture.  So now those positive mantras flow through my mind as I sit and color.  It’s cheap therapy and I highly recommend it to everyone!  🙂

    

What do you do to gather your thoughts and help yourself focus on what is necessary to resolve a conflict?

Advertisements