In art therapy, they usually work with negative emotions. Fear, resentment, shame, guilt, anger - unpleasant experiences that require living and acceptance. But positive experiences also need to be realized and appropriated. Art therapy techniques will help you “anchor” positive experiences so that they serve as a resource and support for you in life.
Any positive experience is a valuable resource. When we are sad or anxious, we can recall those moments when we were joyful, when we felt tenderness or delight, gratitude or calmness. Art therapy helps to preserve these experiences in visible and tangible objects - products of our creativity - so that access to our treasury of positive things is easier.
In neuro-linguistic programming, this technique is called “anchoring”.
It is better to create such "anchors" when you are in a favorable, but calm state.
Proceed as follows.
- Allocate free time and place for your work.
- Prepare art materials in advance (paints, brushes, paper, pencils, plasticine, clay or others that you like best).
- Remember the events when you experienced a bright positive experience that can support you in difficult moments, plunge into it so that you can survive it here and now. Give yourself a few minutes for this.
- Once you fully experience the positive emotions, embody them in your art product. The quality of this product is completely irrelevant. The main thing is that he emotionally reflects what you feel.
- Put the product in a prominent place so that it catches your eye and supports you with the warmth of moments of happiness and peace when you need it.
Create yourself some of these positive anchors and place them in different places of your home. Let them serve as original charms from excess negative states. Enrich your collection and connect your family and friends to this. Creating common positive "anchors" with relatives, you will receive not only a valuable resource, but also strengthen your relationship.