Waking up with the image of a young seedling, a tender green shoot emerging from dark fertile soil, feels apt. It’s Springtime after all, and the day of April’s Monthly Mandala Workshop. We focus on the theme of ‘new’ and ‘old’, wrapped around Anais Nin’s quote, “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”.

One of the mantras of Monthly Mandala is taking a dot on a circular walk from a place of creative stillness. This is inspired from the artist Paul Klee who says art ‘is an active line on a walk, moving freely, without a goal.’ This equates to the Buddhist idea of ‘going nowhere’, the art of sitting still and letting go.

I am reminded of a story many years ago when I was on the first day of my NLP Trainers’ Training. As I sat in the class ready to begin, my attention was drawn to an image on the flipchart. There was a large black circle with the word ‘me’ written in red inside. Straightforward enough, yet there was more. Overlaid on the circle was a large X, crossing out the word ‘me’.

It takes time to create a relationship of trust, especially when life experience has taught us otherwise. In 2007 I started a four-year training in psychotherapy focusing on creativity and the imagination at The Institute of Arts in Therapy and Education (IATE) in London. I didn’t have any formal art qualifications and didn’t think then of myself as an artist.

Have you ever had the experience of wanting to learn something new, only to get stuck at the first hurdle? It’s as if you have to learn another language first.