Anchoring a mandala and why it can improve your life…
Let me start with a personal story. I’ve travelled a lot in my life (for work and for pleasure). Everywhere I’ve been, when I’ve felt overwhelmed or out of place, I unroll my yoga mat (I’ve been practising yoga for over a decade) and I sit on it. I don’t really need to practise, just sitting on it it makes me feel at home. I feel secure and at peace. All this years of practising have me make an association with the mat and the good feelings I have while I practise. This association is called, in psychology, anchoring. And it can be so powerful. Anchoring can be positive or negative, depending on what connection you’ve made. We use anchoring daily without even knowing it. For example, my anchoring with the mat was there before I knew about this concept. The same way that, smelling a perfume or a dish that bring us to our childhood happiness, is anchoring too. Or, in a negative way. When we associate a smell, an image or a gesture to a bad experience. Why is anchoring so important and why can it be so empowering to harness its power? So, this means that if […]
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Digital vs Handmade
Why I Choose to Draw Mandalas by Hand: In an ever more technological and AI based world, why do I choose to draw my mandalas by hand? So many beautiful ones are created (in a fraction of the time it takes me) with computers, so again, why? I think I want to start with a list of pros of each method and then explain my stance on it. Handmade Mandalas Digital Mandalas So, I understand people want to use digital mediums to draw but I like the traditional way. I like to feel the paper and pencil and I love not really knowing how it is going to finish. I feel the mandala is drawn by itself, I am just the hand that does it. And for the viewer there is something special when you look at something imperfect that has been handmade. You can feel the energy, the soul of who designed the art piece you are watching. There is something more humane about it. There is a connection between the artist and the viewer. In the end, both methods are valid. Both create beauty. But for me, hand-drawing mandalas is not just about the result, it’s about the […]
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Horizon Gazing Indoors
A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the concept of “horizon gazing” and it fascinated me. Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford, has discovered that stress narrows our field of vision. One thing is in laser sharp focus and the rest gets blurred. By contrast, when we “defocus” our gaze and we take in a wider panoramic view, we relax, we enter a state of calm. “If you keep your head still, you can dilate your gaze so you can see far into the periphery—above, below and to the sides of you. That mode of vision releases a mechanism in the brain stem involved in vigilance and arousal. We can actually turn off the stress response by changing the way that we are viewing our environment, regardless of what’s in that environment.” Dr Andrew Huberman If you thing about it, it makes sense. When our body/mind worries that there is a threat it will focus our gaze to the things closest to us to make sure no predator will jump on us. When our body/mind doesn’t feel threatened, we can allow ourselves to take in a view and to relax our eyes by defocusing… That is the idea with […]
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