Meditation is described as a practice and technique to focus the mind. Generally, the objective is to clear your mind of any thought allowing your self to be completely still and calm.
Let’s be real, we all know what meditation is and it’s massively trendy at the moment. This is a great thing if people take it seriously cause we could all use a little peace, clarity and calmness in this world.
Meditation can be hard to achieve, your mind is processing thousands of thoughts every minute and as our lives get more complex and more stressful it’s pretty hard to just shut it all off and and be zen for 20 minutes.
As a painter of course I think the answer to everything is art but hear me out a minute. Did you ever sit in school and doodle in your notebook, zoning out and passing time? How many children have you seen colouring that look frustrated and angry? You might not be an artist, you might think you’re not very good at art but that is not the point. The point is to zone out and follow your pencil and not think.
Here’s three ways to destress and be zen AF:
Doodle meditation: take a piece of paper, it doesn’t matter if it’s a notebook, printer paper, or an old magazine and just doodle. Do not try and make any sort of picture just put your pen/pencil/crayon on the paper and move your hand. If you don’t know where to start try filling up half the page with circles, lots of circles, then try triangles… you get the picture. Just stare at the paper and let yourself doodle.
Colouring: buy a colouring book, they now have lot’s beautiful colouring books for adults but don’t allow yourself to get hung up on creating a beautiful picture. Just lose yourself in the act of colouring.
Paper folding: gather any old magazines, papers, letters, scrap paper and then just start to fold. If you know how to make paper aeroplanes or origami then you can do this as long as it’s something you can do without concentrating. Fold anything, just don’t think about it, just keep folding. Once you’ve folded everything you can try ripping it into tiny pieces. Don’t forget to recycle it all once you’ve finished.
Stay calm, concentrate on your breath and lose yourself in art.
