Anything that calms our mind and brings us into a state of relaxation is good for our mental and physical health. Anything that enables us to express our creativity is good for our soul, and even grown-ups need to play sometimes; we all need some fun.

I love coloring, I always did – since I was a little girl I would spend hours with my books and crayons, so I was delighted when I discovered that my own children love it too. I have 4 children from ages 5-14, we all can sit down together and color at the kitchen table, laugh and talk about our day and what is going on in our lives. Even one time my husband sat with us and colored too! Mindful coloring however, is a little bit different, and I’ll talk a bit about it here.

Flash sale! Until midnight on Friday 31 March 2017, Hay House UK is selling all adult colouring books for just £6 each. Click the image above to browse the sale.

Did you know that our brain thinks between 50-70,000 thoughts per day? It is designed to think, and think it does, primarily (and unfortunately for us) focusing on the thoughts about things that are the most stressful to us.  This does actually make sense, we are wired to survive and in society today survival means financial security, being accepted in our relationships and having a successful career. Anything that falls outside the lines of where we feel we should be in these areas is considered to be a threat, by our brain anyway.

Being mindful means only thinking about things that are happening in the present moment. So the best bit is that you are allowed to think, you don’t need to silence your mind (yay!) but the difficult bit is that you DO have to be aware of the thoughts that you are thinking and keep them in the present moment. And as far enough away from worrying about things as you can.

You can go for a mindful walk, you can do the washing up mindfully, but our mind does tend to wander away on tangents, bringing us back to our problems or forward to plans for the future, or to tasks we have not yet completed. This is where coloring as a tool for mindfulness can come in beautifully.

Choosing a picture you like, selecting colors you resonate with, then applying them thoughtfully on the page calms your mind, slows down your heart rate and brings you more into your body. Paying attention to the lines, the blending and shading, knowing nobody is judging you, you can relax and color to your hearts content. So keeping your thoughts on the colors, the image and how you are feeling is the essence of mindful coloring. Okay, you might wander off somewhere else in your mind at some point, but the act of coloring will always bring you back to it.

I’m part of a coloring group on Facebook, I’ve talked about it on Irish TV and I’ve had several articles published about coloring. People in the coloring group have noticed they’ve got more confidence, feel happier, they’ve stopped mindless evening snacking, feel more centered and even their levels of physical pain has diminished, just from spending time with books, crayons and pencils. So there are more benefits to mindful coloring perhaps than we yet know.

When Hay House asked me to review two new coloring books by Louise Hay and Mike Dooley I jumped at the chance! Most of the books I have been enjoying up to now have beautiful designs, but none of them had images set with a positive intention. To be mindful with a specific intention as you color – wow what a wonderful idea, and I truly enjoyed the experience.

As a Shamanic Psychotherapist and Energy Healer I regularly use mantras and affirmations with clients to anchor in high vibrational energies and remind them of things such as “I deserve to be happy” or “I am safe”. Sometimes I get them to write them down and pin them up in their house, in the car, in the office.

How great is it to be able to color in an affirmation and hang it on the wall? In fact, if you love your coloring picture so much, you could even frame it so every time you pass it by remind yourself that you resonate with this particular affirmation in this moment, and that everything you are attracting into your life also resonates with it. I love that both of these books are designed with perforated edges on each page so you can easily tear a page out. You can even color it on a clipboard if that is easier for you than coloring it in the actual book. 

This image is from Mike Dooley’s book, so fresh and open to so many different possibilities of placing color on the page. As an energy healer I resonated with “You are Pure Energy” right away, and chose chakra colors that flow into each other (see – there are no rules!). I believe that the Universe is listening, to our thoughts, words and deeds, so spending 20 minutes or so coloring and thinking peaceful, empowering thoughts can only do us good! There are lots of different images to chose from, and the book is also filled with some of Mike’s inimitable notes from the Universe, which you can also color in and tear out for your wall!

Louise Hay’s book has a different feel to it, the mandalas and artwork are very attractive and can be colored at different levels of complexity depending on what you fancy. I find that Louise’s affirmations can be challenging to some people. I always say “You’ve got to do your work”, by clearing limiting beliefs around how you feel about yourself enables you to resonate at a higher level. Mindfully coloring Louise’s affirmations is a good way to come into alignment with them, choosing one that is slightly uncomfortable for you to speak out loud could help you clear what is in the way of you truly embracing the energy behind it.

“My mind, body and spirit are a healthy team” is the one I chose, go with your gut feeling and you will find one you resonate with too. Once you’ve mindfully colored that one in, see if you can embody the energy of it, work with it for a while before coming back to choose another.

I think you realize by now that I highly recommend mindful coloring as a way to disconnect from the stresses of life and to give your mind, body and soul some time to recalibrate, reprioritize and relax. These books enhance the mindful experience with their unique energies which can bring healing as you work. And if you grow to really love coloring, you can invest in artistic grade pencils or markers so that even holding the pencil in your hand triggers the relaxation process.

Let’s put coloring up there on the list with other forms of therapeutic practice such as yoga, knitting, painting or dancing. A practice that you can do on a regular basis to help you relax.  Nothing formal, no pressure to perform, just doing for the sheer joy of it. And it’s wonderful to sit with beautiful coloring books and pencils and get lost in a peaceful coloring landscape.

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Abby Wynne is a Shamanic Psychotherapist, Energy Healer and Hay House Author. She runs a private practice in Dublin, Ireland and sees clients from all over the world. Abby empowers people in their healing process as she believes everyone has the power to heal themselves. Her book, Energy Healing Basics teaches the basics of healing, and her next book, How to Be Well will be published by Hay House in Spring 2016. You can visit Abby on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or sign up for her weekly energy tips emails on www.abby-wynne.com.

Abby coloring Louise Hay's Affirmations Coloring Book