Colours chosen for Artwork 1

NOTE: The symbols used in these drawings are purely subjective. This is a personal journey and these are representations of MY feelings, emotions, and behaviors.

After doing research on the meanings and symbolism behind certain colors, I created my own list of colors and gave them meaning based on my personal experiences. I have chosen to create this list to represent my personal journey with anxiety. By understanding these colors, you will be able to "read" my mandalas and understand the behaviors, thoughts, and emotions going through me when I experience an anxious episode. These colors, the same as the symbols, are in no way to be used to generalize another person's experience. Behavioral issues and emotions are experienced differently by everyone. It is important to note that although I mainly use these colors mentioned here in my artwork, I use them in a variety of combinations and a variety of hues.

YELLOW

This color represents panic. When I panic I start to cry as a fear response. I cannot tell you why this yellow represents panic for me. The easiest way to explain this is by using a traffic light. When the traffic light turns yellow it means to take caution and slow down since the light will turn red in a few moments. The problem is that some people interpret the yellow light as a signal to accelerate, rather than to slow down. My anxiety is the same, when I start to panic it spirals into a whole panic episode rather than slowing down and thinking rationally.

ORANGE

This color represents my heart beating faster. This leads to me feeling faint and dizzy. Yellow and orange link together on many different levels. When I panic (yellow) my body reacts to that panic(orange). For that reason, I have used these two colors together in my designs.

PINK / RED

This color represents a regression to a younger self. My voice gets a higher pitch and I start to cry more. Due to the emotional value of red and pink to me, I opted to add them both. Once again using the analogy of a traffic light, red represents time stopping for me as cars stop for a red light. My mother has pointed out that I am regressing to a younger self. I hadn't noticed the change at first, but the more I got anxiety attacks the more obvious it got.

PURPLE

This color represents physical distress for me. My chest tightens and I get very claustrophobic. I chose purple to represent physical distress because when the body does not get enough blood flow to certain areas, the limbs start to turn purple. In the same way that the limb fails to function, I feel that I fail to function when I have anxiety attacks. When I have anxiety attacks, I feel as if I cannot function, similar to how the limb fails to function.

GREEN

This color represents my need for physical touch. By rubbing my hands together or having a hug, it helps me to ground myself. Touch has always been my love language. Over the years I have always associated green with growth and security. When I have some sort of physical touch I am able to ground myself and calm down a lot faster.

BLUE

In my description that is displayed next to my artwork, blue's explanation says "If you know, you know. If you do not, well then I guess you should get to know me a little better." I have decided to include this description because only those who know me or bother to get to know me will know that blue is my favorite color. Yet when I create art it is the color that I use the least because I feel that it is something sacred that people will not be able to critique if it is not included. the same way that I do not use blue, I also hide my anxiety for fear of critique from others.

BLACK & GOLD

I have also not included black and gold in the description because they add an additional element to the artwork and they are different mediums. (TRIGGER WARNING: self-harm)

Black: This color represents my struggle with self-harm. When I get anxious my emotion tend to get overwhelming and overpowering. When this happened I used to cut myself. It gave me something else, something psychical, to focus on. it gave me something that I could control when I could not control my emotions. In the same way that the pain blocks the emotions, black blocks out all the color.

Gold: This color represents hope. The saying goes that there is a silver lining around every dark cloud. In the same way, I have found hope through therapy in helping y deal with my anxiety before it spirals into depression. Throughout my artwork, there are bigger and smaller pieces of gold, this represents the days when I feel strong and confident and the days where the hope is barely enough to make it to dinner.