3 Art Therapy Techniques for Wish Fulfillment

“New Year’s Eve is the time when we somehow ask ourselves the question: “What do I really want?” says art therapist Polina Postelgina. “All year long, we can do whatever we want with our needs and dreams, but this New Year’s ritual helps to make our lives more conscious.”

Summing up and planning the next year, we reflect on the topics of desires, past and future, those people that surround us. We experience pure, sincere aspirations of the soul for peace, happiness, mutual understanding with loved ones, as if we are approaching a zero point.

“This time allows you to open up creatively: decorate a Christmas tree, come up with and decorate a New Year’s table, wrap gifts beautifully. Creativity is an essential attribute of rituals and holidays, and it can help intentions and dreams come true. How? There are art therapy techniques that will help wishes come true more easily,” the expert explains.

Technique #1: Current and Desired

You will need 3 A4 sheets, colored crayons, pencils or watercolor, glue or tape, scissors.

Step 1

On the first sheet, draw your current state: the state of your soul, your life, where you are now and how you feel. Draw spontaneously without thinking about the result. You can say out loud what kind of state it is, what it is like to be in it, how long it has been present in your life, what gives and what hinders.

Step 2

On the second sheet, draw the ideal, desired state. How would you like to feel, how to live, what to feel. It can be both a state of mind and material values. It is important that the drawing is also spontaneous – this will indicate true needs. Consider it: what are you experiencing? What you want can be unusual, unexpected: perhaps until now it seemed to you that you need something completely different!

Step 3

Lay out the two finished drawings in front of you and take a third blank sheet. Now the task is to create a single composition of them: the position of the sheets can be any, they can be glued together, but it must be a picture with a holistic plot. Draw what you want, paint over, transform the drawings, thinking about how the transition from the first state to the second will be.

Sometimes clients have a desire to create an installation, not a flat picture, or to lay sheets on top of each other and cut and paste something. Realize any creative solution. It is important that the work is complete. Throwing out unnecessary fragments is possible only when you know how to get rid of what they symbolize with the same ease in life. For example, write a letter of resignation tomorrow.

Your task is to create a single composition from two works and a blank sheet. Draw the details, thinking about how to move from the first state to the second.

Step 4

Now look what happened. Find answers to the questions in the picture: what specific steps in real life do I need to take to move into what I want? What will help me? What solution is shown here?

Technique number 2. Mandala of desire

The shape of the circle is a symbol of harmony and integrity. Having placed the desire in the mandala, we, firstly, explore and harmonize the attitude towards this desire. Secondly, we reflect on what will happen when it comes true, what resources we will need to fulfill it.

Take a thick A4 sheet, colored pencils, pens, felt-tip pens, compasses or a base in the shape of a circle. Let the process turn into meditation or a small ritual – turn on pleasant music, light incense or candles. Draw a circle on the sheet – the basis for the mandala. Imagine your desire and fill the space of the circle as you wish. It can be a spontaneous pattern or a specific plot.

Enjoy drawing, note the main insights that came in the process. Decide for yourself what you want to do with the mandala. There are many options, and each will be right for you. You can burn the drawing (sometimes called “transfer to the elements”), you can hang it in a conspicuous place, you can fold it from an origami sheet and create a Christmas tree toy.

Technique number 3. Tree of my desires

The symbol of the tree has been close to man since time immemorial and is associated with the body, life and the family system. Remember the ritual when wish ribbons are tied on branches? The very structure of the tree encourages us to see the connection between life processes.

You will need a thick A4 sheet (or other comfortable format) and soft multi-colored plasticine.

Think about your innermost desires and plans for the New Year. Using plasticine, “draw” a tree on paper, where:

• branches will symbolize desires;

• the trunk will become the basis: your values, character, life strategy;

• the roots will remind you of what you already have to fulfill your desire: some resources, support from loved ones, successful past experience, or simply faith in yourself and your desires.

A tree can turn out fantastic – do not limit yourself, feel free to realize your creative fantasies. Use the finished work as a talisman. You can frame it.