Hopping On The Colouring Book Bandwagon

Like so many people, I have bought a few adult colouring books. Yes, I have been swept up into the adult colouring book fad. Colouring is a way of relaxing and de-stressing. In my mind, it's a form of meditation since you are focusing and concentrating on something and relaxing. However, it wasn't so easy for me to start. I know what you might be thinking: "But it's just colouring! Kids do it! It's so simple! Just colour the picture! That's all there is to it!" You're right. But for me, I wanted to use it to relax, de-stress, and meditate and that's what made it difficult for me.

I used to be a major perfectionist. I'm not as bad now but that perfectionist tendency is still there within me. When I'm colouring something or making any kind of art or craft, the perfectionist in me peeks out through my eyes and makes it a bit hard for me to do my work without worrying about the way that it looks. I actually kind of like it, though, because it often helps me make my arts and crafts look better. When I'm colouring, however, I want to relax and not necessarily worry so much about the way that it looks so I'd rather push the perfectionist aside and tell them to just shut up. I decided to start doing that and to just treat colouring as an experiment with colour and different colouring techniques. It isn't a place for me to be perfect, it's a place for me to just try things out that maybe I can use when I make my own drawings. I can worry about making my own drawings or paintings perfect but colouring will be a place to just have fun and practice.

Another thing that makes colouring a bit difficult for me is the fact that I sometimes (or maybe more often than sometimes) have trouble concentrating on things for long amounts of time. So trying to colour a picture became very stressful for me because I would get to a point where I wanted to move on to something else. I have since learned to simply try to relax while colouring and then move on to something else if I want to or if I start getting too stressed out.

A more minor reason for why I have trouble relaxing while colouring is the fact that I press hard when I write or colour with a pencil. I need to learn to just loosen up and relax my hand. This isn't as big a problem as my previous two but it still prevents me from relaxing while colouring so it's something that I just have to work on.

Colouring can be a really great tool for relaxing and, for me, it has been a lesson in life. It has taught me to face my challenges and try to solve them. It has taught me to approach things differently according to the way that I am. Most of all, it is teaching me not to take things too seriously all of the time and to just have fun.

Cheers,
Kay