Discover the why behind your drawing activity
Intention and yoga
When we practice yoga, the concept of intention is fundamental to our practice. First of all, we need to ask ourselves why we want to practice regularly. Is it initially out of curiosity? Is it because it is trendy? Or is it because deep inside us there is an almost naive and little-recognised belief that yoga is a magic pill or a simple box of magical tools that will – we hope very soon – solve a whole range of discomforts related to our existence?
If we practice yoga regularly, it is true that we concentrate and set in motion a lot of energy. It is a creative act. This energy can be consciously directed towards a more or less precise goal. Here are some examples:
- Maintaining, restoring or strengthening our physical body.
- To learn to calm our excessive mental activity or soothe our nervous system.
- In order to create an expansion of our consciousness.
- To adopt a more compassionate and benevolent attitude towards our lives, the other beings with whom we share existence on this planet and the world around us.
- Or to grow and develop and allow unsuspected aspects of our potential to blossom.
- To support our own healing or someone else’s.
- To live a life more grounded in our physical bodies.
Of course, this list is by no means exhaustive.
Just like asking yourself this question at the level of a regular practice, it is a good idea to choose a conscious intention at the beginning of each individual yoga session. To really get a grip on the reason behind your choice to sit on your mat for an hour, or even longer, instead of spending your time on another activity.
Intention and drawing
If you want to start drawing more regularly and consistently, it is also a good idea to ask yourself what you really want to do with this activity. Why am I drawing or creating? And what is my purpose?<:strong>
Is it to fill a void or dispel recurring boredom? Or to find more peace and relaxation in this creative flow of full presence that makes us forget any sense of the passage of time? Do we want to create images to brighten other people’s daily lives. Or do we have an activist goal to awaken people’s minds in the face of injustice, for instance? Is it to create objects of rare beauty? Or to touch deep emotional strings in our fellow humans? To come to terms with our own deeper emotions and feelings? Or to rediscover the joy and innocence of our childhood?
Whatever your reason and motivation, it is your intention – which you should examine carefully and remind yourself of regularly – that will help you sustain your creative activity through drawing in the long run.
Red envelope
As American designer Cat Bennett suggests in her book “Making Art a Practice – 30 Ways to Paint a Pipe”, you can write your intention on a sheet of paper, put it in a red envelope and tuck it under your bed’s mattress. In this way, we symbolically reinforce this written-down intention by keeping it in our body’s energy field during the night.
And it is a good idea to re-evaluate this original intention from time to time, because there may well be an evolution taking place that requires you to rephrase or clarify it. Nothing in this world is permanent except change.
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