Finding Inner Harmony through Mandala Painting
“I am opening an art academy, and I want you to teach the first workshop there. I want you to teach people how to paint mandalas,” my friend Petia told me.
Well, this was exciting; there was just one problem. I could not paint or draw, and in fact, I had childhood trauma when it came to drawing anything.
As far as traumas go, it was not a big one, but it did haunt me into my 40s. When I was a child growing up in the Soviet Union, I got a C in art because I could not create a still-life drawing of a vase, while other kids could. I was about nine years old at the time, and I remember feeling really inadequate and stupid. I ended up labeling myself as someone who could not draw. Even thinking about picking up a colored pencil made me feel inadequate and gave me anxiety.
The feeling of inadequacy was uncomfortable, but it wouldn’t prevent me from teaching. There are many things I feel inadequate about. If I let all of them get to my head, I’d never leave the house. However, I saw no way that I could teach people how to draw when I didn’t know how to do it myself.
I shared this with Petia.
“Don’t worry, baby,” she said. She calls everyone “baby.” Coming from her, it’s very sweet and endearing, and I like when she calls me that.
“When you paint a mandala, you do not paint an object; you paint what is in your soul. I am not asking you to teach art, baby; I am asking you to take the students on a journey deep into their soul, which is where they will be painting from. I will introduce you to an amazing artist who will teach along with you. You do the energy part, and she will teach them how to draw. I don’t want this class to be about drawing a pretty picture. I want this to be a healing experience for people, and you two are perfect teachers to do this.”
She introduced me to a woman named Elora, who ended up becoming a good friend.
An effective healer does not work alone. Helping people heal and grow is a community effort. One person can help another to a degree. But when a community of people from many different professions comes together with an intention to help each other, everyone grows and benefits exponentially.
When the local artist community heard about a new art academy opening with a mandala workshop, Paul Heussenstamm, a world-famous mandala artist, an author of many books about mandalas, and a teacher of “Art as a Spiritual Path” workshops, got in touch with Petia.
He has been teaching people to paint mandalas for decades and was loving the idea of more people having this healing experience. He offered to come to the academy and give a lecture about mandalas and the spiritual experience that people go through when they paint mandalas.
He also invited us to come to his studio to paint mandalas together. He did not ask for anything in return; it was his gift to us from his heart; he loved what we were doing and wanted us to succeed.
The opening night at the academy was a great success. Many people from the local community came to show their support.
Our workshop was a series of four sessions. I helped the students connect with their soul; my partner Elora helped them show their soul on paper. It was a powerful journey for us and the students, and each one of us came out of this workshop a better person. And, it was really, really fun!
None of this would be possible without Petia dedicating her time, effort, and money to create a place for people to come, heal, and learn. Her generosity gave Elora and me an opportunity to contribute. Paul provided his inspiration, and the local community came to support us.
This experience taught us that when we come together and support each other, amazing things can happen, reminding us that healing and growth are all about our connections with others.
There’s one more part to this story; this one is about me and how I was cured of my fear of drawing.
Shortly before hosting our first session, I attended another event where I shared the story of how I was traumatized for the rest of my life because I couldn’t draw a proper vase when I was nine.
At the end of the evening, a little girl came up to me. She looked to be around nine or ten years old. “I drew something for you,” she said, looking up at me with her beautiful brown eyes while handing me a small piece of notebook paper folded in half.
Inside was an outline of a vase drawn with a blue pen.
I’m not sure if she actually said this, or if I just heard it in my head. But basically, the message was that she drew a vase for me because she knew I wanted one, and now I don’t have to be sad because I have a picture of a vase. She also showed me that drawing does not have to be complicated, does not have to be done in any specific way, and is not at all scary.
I felt something dark and heavy leave my body and fly up into the stars. All anxiety, all inadequacy, all fears related to drawing left my body, and I saw art for what it is: an expression of the soul, a journey of creativity, a source of inspiration that does not have to be done in any particular way. This magical child showed me that art is fun, anyone can do it, and that I should not care what anyone thinks.
It took that child 30 seconds to release 30 years’ worth of emotions.
My dad told me many times that the most important thing in life is the people you surround yourself with. He is right.
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