Friends, greetings! Agree that in life it is sometimes difficult to independently cope with some negative emotions, such as fear or anxiety, hatred or despair, pain or resentment, anger or​ anger, etc. It’s good if you can turn to a specialist (from the helping professions: psychologist, psychotherapist, etc.) But, unfortunately, in our culture for quite a long time there was no understanding that it is normal to seek help to deal with with my problems, emotions, feelings: - Am I a wimp, can’t I handle it on my own? - Who needs my problems? - Well, yes, now someone will delve into my head! (etc., etc.) And so today I have prepared for you an interesting and effective exercise from art therapy, with which you can independently work through negative feelings, emotions and/or conditions. Art therapy is a projective method , which (like my favorite tool Metaphorical Association Maps) allows you to use images through visual creativity to influence the psycho-emotional state. With the help of this exercise you can work and transform: 1) a feeling/emotion towards any situation; 2) a feeling directed per person (parent, friend, life partner, child, colleague, etc.) Moreover, it does not matter whether this feeling arose recently, and you are in a relationship with the one to whom it is directed, or you are not currently communicating with this person. Prepare what you will need: any drawing supplies and A4 sheets. So, make yourself comfortable, choose a comfortable position. Think about what feeling/emotion is greatly bothering you at the moment. Take a deep breath and exhale slowly. Again. Repeat so many times to feel that the breathing rhythm has become uniform and calm. Close your eyes. Focus your attention inside your body.​ Feel your muscles relax. Breathe at a rhythm that is comfortable for you, imagining how with each new exhalation all unnecessary thoughts leave your head. Focus on the emotion you have chosen. Feel where it is in your body? (in the chest, stomach, head, throat, etc.) Follow your sensations. See what shape, color, size, consistency it is, what material it is made of? Maybe a specific image will come to you or it will be an abstraction. Maybe you can give it a name? As soon as you have described the feeling/emotion/state on these points and clearly imagined it, open your eyes and immediately start drawing. Do this without analyzing anything. There is no need to think, much less evaluate your artistic abilities: you are not doing this for an art gallery, there are no critics of your work and there will not be. Draw what you imagined or saw. Draw as best you can, as children naturally do. Let it be “scribbles”, it doesn’t matter, the main thing is that it reflects your feeling. If you have difficulties with visualization, then just ask yourself questions: if my (for example) anxiety were of some form, then what ?where in my body does it feel? what color is it? size? what does it look like? what material can it be made of? what density? etc. Just trust your hand and draw. When you feel that you have completed it, look at your drawing, as if from the outside. Describe the emotion you see. What is she like? Name 5-7 adjectives that describe what emotions this image evokes now? The effect will be better if you record. Also, without thinking too much, without analyzing: whatever comes to mind first. This may seem like nonsense. Don't evaluate, just write everything that goes. ​The next important stage is transformation. Feel what and how you can change in your drawing so that this emotion with a “minus” sign is transformed into an emotion with a “plus” sign. Or at least, it has ceased to be as sharp and significant as before drawing. Remember how the Hogwarts students in the novel about Harry Potter! 🤗