Tag Archives: art therapy

Lotus Macramé

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The lotus flower is a symbol often associated with Buddhism or spirituality in general. One of the characteristics associated with this symbol is that of purity and the ability to maintain its beauty in the mud.

For me lotus symbolically represents inner growth and everything related to study and practice and the wall hanging you can see in photo it’s my special lotus.

What does inner growth mean to me?

It means looking inside me, discovering my vocation and my talents and bringing them to light with awareness and intentional actions in everyday life learning to “make a difference”.

The path of inner growth is a path that concerns all people (women and men) in different ways, none is excluded. There is always a moment in life that takes us on a journey deep within ourselves.  There are those who travel daily in their inner world , others who cyclically lose their way and then find it again, and others who realize the strength of the path of inner growth only when a tragedy happens. To each his own path, to each his own way.

Joy : a macramé tale

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Joy is a macramé wall hanging symbol of my “key word”. 

The story of this macramé concerns the integration between the way of awareness and the way of creativity and it is a coaching exercise about vision.

Having a keyword that can represent your direction means having a clear vision of your life.  Before choosing and formulating a goal it is fundamental to do a deeply work on oneself (better with a life coach) and discover the direction that guides our choices. In this way, the keyword becomes a reminder that helps us not to get lost on the path or that helps us to find the right way when we lost it.

It may be difficult to reduce one’s own direction to just one word, but the goal is to be able to refer to a fixed point. It is a matter of finding an evocative word that can represents for us a lifestyle and meaning. Obviously it is a word that can change with time and experience.

 I usually use collages for this practice, but this time I translated it with the macramé technique using cords and colors.

The wall hanging that you can see in photo is the representation of my key word JOY and the sentence you read below is the reminder that is hidden between the knots. 

The key to self-care is hidden in joy.

Sitting meditation

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In this article I will focus on the sitting position that is most frequently used to represent a person in meditation. I refer to the sitting position on the ground with the legs crossed and the lotus flower position.

Meditation sitting on the ground with legs crossed.

Sit on the floor without a pillow and cross your legs softly or one in front of the other. Watch what happens to your back: does it curve? Is there enough space for the diaphragm or does it feel crushed? Observe your knees: are they on the ground or not far from the ground or are they raised to the point of exceeding the height of the pelvis?

If your knees are significantly raised from the ground and your back tends to bend, this position to be held even for three minutes becomes very uncomfortable.How can you solve this problem?  Using the pillow to “lift” the seat and make sure that your knees unload the weight on the ground and do not exceed the height of your hips.

There are several pillows for meditation but you can create your own without much expense and with the right height for you, using the pillows you have at home or some folded blankets. The height of the pillow is the one that will allow you to stay in this position in a comfortable way and allow you to free your breath, keep your back straight but not rigid and relax your shoulders. The higher the cushion, the more your legs will drop to the ground and your back will be straight without effort. Drop your soft arms on your legs and choose the position you prefer for your hands.

Meditation in the lotus flower position

If it is tiring for you to stay in the cross-legged position do not continue reading, because the lotus flower position is even more complex. It consists in crossing the legs carrying the left foot on the right thigh near the groin and the right foot on the left thigh near the groin.This position is indicated for those who have good elasticity and are already trained. Also in this case, however, do not put yourself in this position without having done a minimum of warm-up, otherwise your joints in the long run may suffer.

For this time I stop here, the next article will be dedicated to meditation in the kneeling position. See you next friday !

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Meditation and posture

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Can posture during meditation make a difference? Absolutely yes! Posture in meditation has a purpose and should not be underestimated.

With this first article, I want to introduce a series of articles that will cover the meditation posture. For the next 3 weeks we will make a journey together in the discovery of positions in meditation and the differences between them.

Why should I write about it in a blog dedicated to creativity and fiber art? Because meditation is one of the doors to creativity and it is important to understand how to experience it better. My aim is to help you understand which sitting position is best for you and what you need to bring your attention.

Let’s start!

When you meditate your body helps you to connect with your center, if it is in a favorable condition, otherwise the greater the time you will have tingling, itching and pain!

When talking about meditation usually appears the image of a figure sitting cross-legged. If this is a comfortable position for you, there is no problem, but if it is unthinkable for you to sit in this position for more than three minutes, then you may think that meditation is not a practice for you. Nothing could be more wrong!

Everyone can approach meditation, but it is important to know the position before starting.

Meditation posture: the areas of the body.

Before going into the merits of each position, to which I will dedicate specific articles, I want to start to point out, on a general level, the areas of the body that you need to observe when you decide to sit down to meditate.

Keep these areas in mind as you read the next articles.

Back: You need to find a sitting position that allows you to keep your back straight (but not stiff) effortlessly. The diaphragm, muscle “elected” for breathing, must be free and not closed from the position.

Head, neck, chin: keep the chin away from the chest so as not to “close the throat”, similarly do not aim up the chin not to arch the neck. To find the right distance try to make some movement with your head up and down.

Eyes: you can choose to close your eyes to have a greater connection with yourself and less distractions, but you can also keep your eyes open while keeping your attention inside. Your eyes can be directed to a distant point on the floor or on the horizon.

Shoulders: shoulders should be away from the ears and sufficiently relaxed.

Arms and hands: The arms will adjust according to the sitting position you choose and the position of your hands. I will dedicate a specific article to this topic in which I will also talk about the use of the hand position in meditation.

For this time I will stop here, in the next article I will treat the sitting position with crossed legs.

P.S. In these articles I will refer to the practice of meditation in general without going into detail of the different styles and different schools of thought.  The focus is on the body and posture.

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Focus Catcher Macramé

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Focus catcher is a macramé wall hanging created to represent the process of concentration linked to meditation and body awareness.

“I often have many ideas but not enough time and energy to realize them all and this creates a feeling of confusion in my head and a particular agitation in the body. “

Now I’ve learned that when I find myself in an excess of creativity I must sit down, take a breath and have a Body Scan practice. One breath after another I put my ideas in order and select only one to be implemented. I write down in a notebook some of them that I will review later, others I let go, it will be someone else who will realize them.

It was nice to symbolize the “focus” process as I meditate and to find the analogies with the knotting work of macrame. Macrame and many other handicrafts are often referred to as forms of meditation. These statements find me in agreement even if I recognize specific characteristics to both meditation and crafting. But it’s also true that there are many similarities between the practices of body awareness and the practices that express our creative side.

I have often turned the creation of a wall hanging into a journey within myself. Sometimes I start to discover some places of my inner world through knots, weaves and new patterns, other times I symbolically transform an awareness without using words (as in the case of the wall hanging that you see in the picture).

Focus embodiment

What is the use of training focus during a body awareness practice (often called body scan)?

Among the many benefits that I find in everyday life thanks to the practice of body awareness there is also that of training the ability to intentionally direct attention. Intentionally bringing attention to the breath or to a part of the body means shifting the focus from one situation to another.

Specifically in body practice, the aim may be to find a place of silence in the body where you can contact a little peace or recover your energy from a heavy day. Body practice has cascading effects on our daily lives and the seemingly innocuous training of directing attention to one part of the body can lead you to become aware of the usefulness of shifting focus to recover energy.


Let me give you some examples of what it means to “shift the focus”:

Shifting the focus from the outside to the inside, to recover energy through silence.


Shifting the focus from the inside to the outside, to contact the world through empathy and compassion.


Shifting the focus from the big to the small, to address the sense of helplessness.


Shifting focus from small to large, to realize that even a small step is important and can make a difference.

I could go on like this for many more lines, but I’ll leave it to you to find the other ways.
  Body listening practice (whatever methodology you’ve chosen) has an important impact in your life and in managing emotions: don’t forget it!

You have great power and great wisdom within you: use your power with awareness and listen to your wisdom.

Listen to your creative body

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“Listen to your body, create your life” is my motto, it represents both my profession and my approach to life at the same time. All the changes I have gone through have respected this steps: first I work on being (listen to the body) and then on doing (create your life) in order to be able to live mindfully.

What do I mean by living mindfully? Living mindfully means (for me) listening to my body, paying attention to my present with kindness and making space for joy.

The body is my starting point, my inner guide on this journey. I am constantly evolving and changing.

Getting in touch with yourself through the body means allowing yourself to discover your own essence. This is how I discovered macramé and started knotting. One knot after another I realized the deeply connection between mindfulness meditation and macramé.

Listen to your body, free your creativity and transform your life.

The most important step, the one that allows you to create the life you want, is what concerns your creativity.

Most of the time (not always) that you feel dissatisfaction in your life is because you are not expressing yourself freely and you are not using your creativity. You are not aligned with your deepest direction.

When you connect with your inner world through the body you connect with your talents and your inner artist.

By first learning to recognize your potential and then to have the courage to express it, you will be able to make the change you want and feel more in tune with life.

Through dialogue with the body you discover yourself and free your potential.It takes confidence, courage and patience.

It’s a gradual path that leads you to express yourself in the world. It is a journey that sets you free.

If you want I can help you discover how to listen to your body and transform macramé in a mindfulness meditation practice. In the next days I will write new articles about it and you’ll find a free guided meditation. Stay tuned!

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Slow down

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This wall hanging is a reminder for me to Slow down and enjoy my time.

Snail and turtle are the animals I saw in this wood. It was starting from these two animals that I worked, one knot after another, reflecting on the ability to slow down.

Turtle

Snail

Learn to slow down: this is what you need to do to take care of yourself.

When you feel that you need to dedicate yourself you often feel the lack of time. Time is the most precious resource you have, but you are not always able to manage it in the best way.

However, lack of time is also one of the most used excuses for not getting involved and not taking care of yourself. It takes courage to put yourself first, I’m perfectly aware of that, but if you don’t do it, no one can do it for you.

If you feel that you have too many things to do, too many commitments and you can’t stop right now, you have to know that sometimes you just need to slow down.

Slow down means learning to manage your time and enjoy it, finding some space for your being to emerge.

Slow down means taking a breath between one task and another and becoming more aware of the choices you make.

If you feel that being productive is very important for your life please remember that productivity to be efficient also needs “time to be”. When you realize that being time is just as important as doing time or even more, you’ll probably feel the sensation of efficiency and tranquillity. You are efficient and at the same time you have time for yourself. It looks like a miracle!  

When you slow down, you balance your energy and realign yourself with the universe, and it is in this moment that miracles happen.

P.S.: Slow down can also means knotting !

Macramé Knotting

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Knotting macramé doesn’t mean to me just weaving threads to create objects or dedicating myself to a new hobby, it’s about being fully present in the act of creating, of “rooting myself in hands” and express, even in this way , my creative and healing energy. 

It is about getting in touch with the inner artist and listen to a sacred space inside of me: my inner world.

The creativity that appears to the outside world as spontaneous and guided by intuition actually has a lot to do with discipline, perseverance, patience and, in my specific case, with listening to the body.

Knotting with the macrame technique means for me going through different phases of a process, some very different from each other. Each phase brings out a nuance of my inner world and a characteristic of my personality.

You don’t create in a hurry, you have to respect the processing time.