Reimagining Life with Art Mapping
Inside My Personal Art Therapy Sketchbook: Life Mapping
For this month’s Reimagine theme, I’m taking you on a journey through my therapeutic art sketchbook to discover the process of Life Mapping, and how I use it to make sense of life themes, and imagine into my future.
Foreman. C. Life Mapping: Art Therapy Course
I first discovered the concept of Life Mapping in one of my art therapy courses, several years ago. In class, we were asked to visually map our experience so far as art therapy students. Back then as an undiagnosed Autistic ADHD’er, I struggled a lot with study output, self-care systems, masking and burnout, which now as I look back, is quite clearly represented in my Life Maps.
The image above “Art Therapy Course” was my first life map, depicting how I felt as a uni student and single mother: terribly ungrounded, anxious, and not knowing where each step led … yet I new I really wanted to continue studying art therapy.
I enjoyed the process so much that I did another Life Map a few months later, when I learned that study for me can not be continuous output and that I need short bursts of learning, followed by regular time to rest and relax 🗺️👇✨
Foreman, C. Life Mapping: Accommodating Study Burnout
How Life Mapping Helps Us Externalise, to Know Ourselves
In Life Mapping, imagery and metaphor helped me capture key moments in my learning experience and emotional landscape, which felt deeply insightful and cathartic.
Finally, I could witness and make sense of my experiences across different roles, experiences and timelines all at once, rather than trying to map connections in my brain (which requires executive functioning - something I regularly struggle with!)
Externalising my internal experiences is one of the greatest therapeutic tools I have, as it naturally works well with my visual-feeling AuDHD body-mind-spirit.
External processing feels more intuitive and natural for me to make connections visually and kinaesthetically, as this is a way I can work within my strengths and see with more clarity and agency.
When I try to work things out in my head, it all feels like a fuzzy, overwhelming mess. When I externalise through Life Mapping, the imagery can hold my values, experiences, and wishes all in one expression.
Foreman, C. Life Mapping: How to stay grounded and supported
Many years on, Life Mapping continues to be a process I love returning to.
Whenever I notice a recurring theme emerging in my life, or even to inquire into some tacit knowing (aka ‘niggles’ of unformed understanding), it’s an incredible tool to see where I’m at right now, and visually reimagine how I’d like to move forward.
Foreman, C. Life Mapping: Understanding My Capacity Cycles
Foreman, C. Life Mapping: Dealing with chronic pain
Foreman, C. Life Mapping: Returning to My Centre.
Using Life Mapping for Practical Manifesting
Sometimes I use the process of Life Mapping to help me pave a new way forward. For me, this means checking in with my current needs and symbolising them first, then using art to reimagine possible ways to support and integrate my needs into everyday life.
I’ve found collage is a helpful medium for manifesting (living into) a values-led life, as I can sift through magazines and allow the imagery that feels values aligned to pop out at me, when I don’t logically know how to make changes in my life.
Metaphorical imagery is a powerful tool for bringing new forms into life.
Foreman, C. Embedding Aligned Values
In my Life Map above “Embedding Aligned Values,” I chose sacred imagery from magazines, printed papers and my old drawings, to help me depict how it might feel and look to live my values in an everyday, then I drew and painted them together in a cohesive and integrated way. The imagery I chose represents turning to ancient wisdom, aligning with the seasons and listening to the wisdom in nature as representations of aligning with safe environments and trusting my intuition.
Likewise in the Life Map below “Messy, Playful Living,” I’ve used collage and paint to depict contrasts between simplicity and mess, and help soften my outwardly perfectionistic ways to embrace more playful, messy, fun and chaotic fun.
Foreman, C. Life Mapping: Messy, Playful Living
Join My Online Workshop: Reimagining Life with Art Mapping
If you’re in mid-life and needing to reimagine new ways of being in perimenopause, I invite you to join us online on 16th September for our Peri-Women-Pause Reimagine therapeutic arts workshop.
Every month we gather online to explore a different theme, and in this online session, I’ll be guiding the process of Life Mapping as a tool to reimagine an area of change to identify supports for your newly defined needs and values.
With care and creativity,
Chrissy 💫
