We have had many requests from our users to provide instructions on how to maximise the experience of mindful colouring.
You can find below instructions on how to do mindful colouring on your own and also instructions on how to run it as a group activity. Mindful colouring can be used, to name a few, in a wellness retreat, corporate wellness event, team building event, in a leadership program. It enables rich experience and conversations and is an extremely versatile tool.
As you colour, pay gentle attention to each pencil stroke, consider each time you touch the page, the uniqueness of each new movement you make. Consider that this particular movement has never been made before, nor will exactly the same movement ever be made again. The value here is in quietly observing the subtle differences, notice when your work flows, when it halts, how it changes moment to moment i.e. the pressure, the speed, your proximity to the paper, your choice of colour, your mental state, your physical state etc. Not analysing or judging this, just noticing how you are in the moment. Developing the capacity to see each moment as subtly new and emergent develops Beginner’s Mind and an increasingly open perspective.
This time, pay gentle attention to your reaction to the activity of colouring. Notice the way the mind may shift along the spectrum of liking, disliking, tuning out from the moment, engaging with the design, being clear without any mind activity. Notice the intensity of these thought patterns and their associated physical and emotional responses i.e. joy at finishing a particular part of the design, irritation if you make a ‘mistake’, lost in thought about the past or future and disengaged from the drawing, absorbed without thought. You are not analysing or judging the mind, you’re just being with these constant changes in the moment. Developing the capacity to see these movements of the mind develops awareness and a capacity to be with rather than get caught up in judgements.
To cultivate an attitude of letting go, begin by noticing the state of your mind as you approach the design i.e. is it agitated, calm, distracted, focused, on autopilot, aware? Decide how long you will spend on the colouring and set a timer accordingly. Notice what your attention is drawn to. Ask yourself whether what you see, is what others might see in the same design? As you embark on the colouring, consciously choose to keep your attention on the activity. When you notice your attention being drawn away by thoughts, ruminations, distractions, notice that and gently bring the attention back to the colouring. Do this every time you notice the attention wander. This will develop the capacity to Let Go. When the timer goes, stop what you are doing and sit with that feeling of having let go there and then. The more you do this the more you will be able to let go in the rest of life.
Before you begin to colour, tune in to how you are right now, do a simple body scan paying attention to any tightness or contraction around the shoulders, jaw, belly, thighs etc. Notice also where there is ease and comfort. Without trying to change anything accept this is how you are right now. As you embark upon the drawing, seek to accept whatever happens entirely. Notice any resistance, agitation that stands in the way of having a clear mind. i.e. thoughts, judgements, creative ideas, external distractions. If you need to take action seek to do so from a position of acceptance of ‘what is’ and a balanced mind. This way you will develop an increasing capacity to be with events as they are and increasingly respond to them from a place of balanced clarity, focus and awareness.
To start with, take an extended pause, simply sitting with the design in front of you and the pencils ready. Turn your attention inwards to your current state of mind. Just observe the mind as you are sitting quietly. When the mind wanders away, gently bring your attention back to the current moment of just sitting quietly. Stay with this pause until you begin to feel a sense of impatience to get started. Then be curious about how you know you are experiencing impatience i.e. has your heart rate increased, are there contractions in the throat, have the thighs tightened, brow and/or shoulders clenching, mind active. Notice the many ways there is a desire to pull away from this discomfort. This develops the capacity to become increasingly familiar with your felt sense of impatience. The longer you sit with discomfort the more you are developing patience. As you start the drawing each time you become aware of any subtle ‘impatience’ seek to spend a little time with it before moving on. In contrast also become increasingly familiar with the sensations of patience and the effects it has on your mind and body. Consider the link between patience and joy in what you are doing and life.
Open up the sheet and examine the whole design before doing any colouring. Take in the detail, appreciate it, be curious about it, become familiar with it. No need to judge or memorise anything, just be with the sheet and notice any thoughts or sensations that come up i.e. eagerness to begin, what looks familiar, what looks strange, concern about time, desire to do it well, relaxation etc Share what you notice with your colleague.
Notice when you feel ready to begin colouring and then take one more look and see if you can notice anything more, i.e. a piece of detail, a thought or emotion you’d not had before. You may or may not notice anything. Explain to your colleague how you knew you were ready to begin colouring and anything new you noticed.
Make a few summary notes about what you notice. Whatever you notice is valid, there is no right or wrong.
Gently be aware of what thoughts / insights flow through your mind i.e. completely new thoughts, habitual thoughts, no thoughts.
Tune in to any shift in your physical state as you do the colouring. Does it subtly change? Can you explain how? How does this differ each time you do the colouring? i.e. less tension in the shoulders, jaw, brow, respiration slows down, heart rate gently increase when you’ve had enough, fluctuations in warmth, coolness, physical posture.
Try out different approaches to colouring the sheet i.e. turn the sheet upside down, sideways, fold it in different ways, colour with the eyes closed, colour with the non dominant hand, colour outside in nature, colour first thing in the morning, invite someone else to colour some of it with you etc See how many simple ways you can vary your approach. When you believe you have exhausted every way, leave the colouring for a day or two. When you begin again, gaze at the picture to see if any additional fresh ideas emerge.
Share with a colleague the state of your mind and body when you notice something you’d not see before? How present did you feel in those moments?
Make a few notes on your experience. What you notice, what is surprising?
Consider in what ways your colouring evolved over time? In what ways will it continue to change? What range of emotions have you had, which stage did you enjoy most, least? Are there any aspects of this colouring / experience are permanent? In what ways can you continue developing beginner’s mind in other aspects of your work / life?
Make a few notes to summarise what is most noteworthy and helpful to you?
These questions have been designed to enhance the quality of noticing and awareness. We live in a world of continual change whether it is in our external environment or our physical and mental states. Nothing remains exactly the same from our own physical state, to our external environment. Developing the capacity to notice these subtle changes as they happen, enables us to adapt and align to change with greater agility and creativity. As this capacity is developed it automatically happens in the rest of our lives. I.e. we become more present and aware of a client’s reaction, a colleagues mood, a family member’s health, our own energy level etc Thus by being open to seeing more, it leads us to greater creativity and breath of perpsective.
Before you open up the sheet, tune in to how you feel about embarking on this colouring activity and rate that below:
| Love this | Like it | Neutral | Dislike it | Hate this |
Sit quietly and observe your mind and body for 2 minutes to see how you know that, what thoughts and sensations led you to make this judgement. Share what you notice.
Can you notice any correlation between the quality of your colouring with the degree to which you like, dislke or tune out to the activity? Observe this trend and share with another your observations.
What is your default way of being when you are working on something you actively dislike? What is your default way of being when you are working on something you actively love? In what ways does this show up in the colouring of this design?
Can you decribe 3 physical sensations of doing something you like? Describe 3 habitual thoughts associated with doing something you don’t enjoy doing? How would you describe your level of presence when you are involved in an activity that you have a neutral sense of interest towards?
Make a few notes on your experience. What you notice, what is surprising?
Take a moment to gaze on your completed picture. Tune in to the emotions, thoughts, sensations that are with you now. Describe these to a colleague. Then describe how it feels to just gaze on the completed picture without any judgement at all allowing it to be as it is? How easy or difficult is it to be free of judgement?
Make a few notes to summarise what is most noteworthy and helpful to you?
Generally we want more of what we like and less of what we dislike. We can tune out to many other aspects of life as irrelevant. Judgements about what we like or dislike are usually easy for us to make. Whilst it is useful to do this, if and when these preferences become intense we can find we live life in a state of constantly wanting to be somewhere other than where are are in the present moment. Developing the capacity to be more aware of these preferences, holding them more lightly, knowing that they all pass, enables us to see nothing is all good or all bad. We also tend to see that being able to be present, opens up greater balance to life experiences.
Draw a vertical line down the centre of the sheet.
On the left hand side begin colouring allowing the thoughts and emotions, as they are in the moment, to influence the way you colour the picture i.e. heavy or light touch, drawing over the lines, choice of colours, allow the mood to express itself in whatever way feels natural.
After 3 minutes, shift to the right side of the sheet and consciously shift your attention away from the emotion to the design.
Seek to rest the attention just on the colouring drawing it back to the activity from any thoughts.
Notice the degree of effort you are expending in colouring. Are you pushing to achieve something? Do you notice any subtle desire to impress, compete, prove something? See if you can explore what it feels like to just colour for the pure joy of colouring without any striving or additional effort. How do these two ways of being compare for you? What relevance do they have for the rest of your work / life?
When you feel you have had enough reflect on the contrast between the two sides of the paper. Reflect on whether your capacity to re engage with the emotive issue that was bothering you, has shifted at all. Can you sense a slightly lighter mood state. Has the colouring enabled you to shift perspective at all and see anything that wasn’t so evident before? Ask yourself what would be a more renewing emotion for you to adopt. What actions come to mind now that would be more appropriate for dealing with the situation?
To be able to let go, we first need to be aware that we are in the grip of a depleting emotion. The first colouring activity was designed to objectify the emotion on paper. Creating this gap and expressing the emotion enables us to see from more of a witnessing perspective. Then by shifting the attention from the emotion to the colouring, the mind naturally let’s go of the ruminative thought pattern. Each time we consciously choose to shift from thought, we are developing a stronger capacity to let go as we train the neural pathways. When we return to the problem we can frequently do so from a different and wider perspective.
Tune in to the dialogue in your head and your physical state as you sit down to start the colouring activity.
Make a written or mental note of what you notice. I.e. Thoughts such as ‘I am not very good at this’, ‘I wish I had longer to do this’, ‘I haven’t really got the right crayons’, ‘I don’t know where to start’, maybe you notice slight tension in the brow, jaw, shoulders, belly.
If the mind is quiet and the body relaxed notice that too and what sensations you are tuning in to that makes you aware of that.
The invitation at this stage is simply to notice whatever is happening with an attitude of inner ease, alert awareness and gentle acceptance.
Continue to gently observe the dialogue in your head and any associated emotions and physical sensations. In essense what you are seeking to do is offer no resistance whatsoever to what happens either internally or externally. i.e. You are colouring and you are interrupted by an intrusive noise, getting very hot or cold, thoughts about future or past events, a mistake you made in the colouring, judgements you make about your skills. If and when you need to take action do so after a moment of two of acceptance. I.e. turn on the aircon, shut the door, ask someone to turn down the noise etc
Now comment on the quality of your actions as a result of first having paused to accept them fully before taking action. Where they:
- More highly charged?
- Less highly charged?
- No different?
Can you comment on what it felt like to offer no resistance and complete acceptance to something that might have been uncomfortable?
The focus in this activity is on our capacity not to make a difficult situation worse. Acceptance is not about being apathetic and blindly accepting everything that happens. It is much more about noticing the subtle ways we resist situations and in doing so act from a place of reaction rather than response. By developing an accepting attitude to a mild or strong dissatisfactory situation, we are developing a certain resilience and non reactivity which enables us to take action from a more balanced place of inner ease. When we are in a state of inner ease the quality of our actions is generally far better, wiser and beneficial for all.
Notice your state of mind and body. Give yourself a silent score of between 1 to 5.
1=Focused and At Ease
5= Distracted and Tense
Now, take 3 slightly deeper, slower breaths focusing your attention in the area of the heart, imagine your breath flowing in and out of your heart area. With each breath, draw in a sense of gratitude and tranquility.
Again, tune in to your mental and physical state right now and give yourself a silent score of between 1 to 5.
1=Focused and At Ease
5= Distracted and Tense
What was the effect of that small exercise for you? Did the exercise help or hinder your capacity to be patient?
Try taking your time to do the colouring slowly. Notice the way you hold and use the crayons, the quality of the paper, the sound of the crayon as it moves on the paper. See if you can enjoy each movement. Notice the impact going more slowly has on you. Throughout this colouring activity don’t rush anything you do. See what impulses arises in terms of colours to use, where on the paper to colour. Observe your reaction to going more slowly than normal. If you start to get impatient notice how what physical sensations and thoughts arise. Become familiar with those habitual patterns around patience and impatience for you.
Can you describe your habitual patterns. What does it feel like to sit with them for a little longer than normal? Use the 3 breath pause above when the sensations maybe feel overwhelming and notice any shift that may or may not arise.
Notice how quickly your impulse is to move on to the next activity whatever that may be. Do you notice if your mind is ahead thinking of the next thing while you are physically still dealing with something else? See if you can mentally remain present to what you are physically doing and complete it fully before moving on to the next activity. What did that feel like?
Share your experience with someone else.
Noticing our tendancy to want life to move faster than it does in our minds is a useful insight when developing patience. It is far from comfortable to sit with and observe although it has a powerful developmental effect when we can. Little by little we harness the power to be patient with ourselves, others and life events. When we can achieve this we are physically and mentally more coherent and resilient. Observing this time and time again with a willingness to face impatience head on is what develops the mindfulness.