Lately, I’ve been suffering from anxiety pertaining to the future. I have been worrying about the oncoming disasters during this time of hurricane season. All I have been thinking lately were the lives lost during the massive floods in Texas. I couldn’t stop mentally lamenting about those girls they have lost at a summer camp during this disaster, especially when I found out that two sisters were found dead holding hands. It truly broke my heart.
To make myself overcome this grieving time, I decided to try something new.
I know about this adult coloring book trend. As I was browsing through Amazon, I had a sudden idea:
I decided to try coloring as a way to treat my anxiety and mental health.
So, I bought myself a set of 120 colored pencils and 3 coloring books. All mandalas. By the time they arrived at my home, I instantly started my first mandala.
To be honest, I’ve always been sloppy at coloring when I was a kid; I always colored outside of the lines, so I anticipated that something like this would happen again. Although, with a little more patience, I ended up coloring right inside the lines, just the way they were supposed to. I started off with the first mandala of this coloring book.
What I love about mandalas is that they are always unique. All mandala designs are always one of a kind. There are absolutely NO RULES when it comes to coloring mandalas. They can be any colors I want it to be. I can even come up with my own color themes as I color these mandalas. For instance, with this first one, I thought about the element of fire while reading this trilogy series from my kindle when I looked at this one. I then decided to make this mandala fiery with different shades of yellows, reds, and oranges. When I was done with my first one, I became elated about my hard work and I already love how it turned out.
I was ecstatic about my work even though I didn’t draw the design by hand. I then realized that this is something that I want to keep doing.
As I was coloring, I also realized something else. I realized how very therapeutic this activity is: it alleviated my anxiety and unwanted thoughts about the future natural disasters; I suddenly stopped thinking about those thoughts.
I noticed that it also taught me lessons when it comes to coloring mandalas. It taught me to be more patient as I meticulously and methodically colored inside the lines precisely. It taught me to overcome my OCD, despite the fact that I’m still in denial with having this mental disorder, although it treated my anxiety for imperfections. I may have some flaws when I colored my first mandala, though I easily overcame it by knowing that the flaws are not that noticeable and I then embrace my coloring flaws. As I mentioned before, there are no rules when it comes to coloring these particular designs; flaws or no flaws, I didn’t suffer any OCD anxieties over the imperfections. It truly helped me.
What I love the most about coloring mandalas is the elation I received after when it is done. By the time I finished with my first one, the sudden elation of accomplishing something without giving up appeared before my eyes. I normally gave up after multiple first tries when it comes to trying something new for me. I even easily get distracted from my activities due to my mania from having bipolar disorder, which led me to not finish something that I just started. Though, the beneficial and healthy addiction to coloring this from the start line to the finish line made me realize that I truly have what it takes to be more patient, calm, and more focused with my other favorite activities. It truly taught me a lot of things that I should be working on for the sake of my personality and mental health. That is what I truly love about this new activity I just tried out.
And it didn’t stop there.
This morning, parts of NYC and NJ got flooded from the thunderstorm last night. Even though my town is not affected and my family in New Jersey are safe and not affected as well, I still worried about those who are trapped and stranded in the flooded subways. I even thought about lives lost to this mild disaster. I honestly don’t want to bring any of this up any more out of respect for those who have been affected.
To ameliorate my sudden anxiety, worry, and negative thoughts, I went on to work on my second mandala.
I instantaneously fell in love with this next design. I decided to use my favorite colors for this one: purple, pink, and blue. When I finished it, I immediately became ardent with this mandala. I wanted to rip the page out of the book and hang it up on my bedroom wall. However, the OCD within me told me not to do that; I wanted all of my mandalas to stay in the coloring book for reminiscing my hard work. After accomplishing this mandala without any distractions or giving up, I decided to stay away from the news when it made me not think about those unwanted thoughts about NY and NJ. Instead, I hope that all the lives are safe and sound, and that there will be no ascending casualties to the flood aftermath.
As I moved on from the grief of the unwanted news about floods, I don’t want to stop there. I want to keep doing what I love to do to prevent myself from thinking about those negative thoughts pertaining to disasters. The last thing I wanted is to have anxiety attacks, followed by depression.
Honestly, I’m glad that I bought myself these adult coloring books and colored pencils. Not only it brought me nostalgia of myself coloring in coloring books during my childhood, but it also brought me enough elation to start thinking of the positive things that will happen next some time in the future.
It is very beneficial for my mental health. I will keep going until every last mandala is fully colored.