journalprizeWelcome to another Manic Monday Post!

GIVEAWAY! For the month of September if you leave a comment on any Manic Monday post, or subscribe to my blog, or sign up for my newsletter, you are entered into a drawing for this lovely journal! Do all three and you are entered three times! (U.S.A/Canada residents only)

 

And now…

Manic Monday: The Coloring Book Craze

 

Have you heard about coloring books for adults?

They hit my radar about ten months ago when a client told me she’d gotten one for Christmas.

Coloring books? For adults?

How BRILLIANT!

In the fifteen (plus) years I’ve been a mental health therapist, many clients have told me how much they secretly enjoy coloring in their children’s cocoloringbookloring books. So what is it about coloring that people find so soothing?

When a person is coloring she is in the present moment. There is no future. No past. No anxiety. No regrets. Nothing exists beyond the color she is using and the picture she is working on. Peace.

And with adult coloring books is there is no pressure to create art (though it is art). It’s just coloring for the fun of coloring. No judgement.

(Some of the details have been changed to protect this person’s identity)

I have an elderly woman as a client. She constantly worries about paying for her husband’s nursing expenses, worries about there being money left when she needs a nursing home, and worries about how much longer she can afford to live in the apartment she loves before she has to move into extremely tiny and crowded senior housing. But then she found coloring books! All that worry and depression lifted. She no longer sits around worrying. She colors. Her mood has improved and she’s now getting out of her apartment and spending time with friends—having coloring get togethers!

And a funny little story about this lady… When she told her son about her adult coloring books, he was extremely shocked.

“Mom! Do you think that’s appropriate for someone your age?”

“Well… They are for adults.”

“But what would happen if your church friends stopped by and saw them?”

After a moment of total confusion, she realized he thought she meant adult coloring books as in she was sitting around coloring naked pictures.

coloringpageLol… That still cracks me up.

 

*Don’t forget to leave a comment to be entered to win the journal!

Have you caved to the coloring craze?

I admit, I have.

What do you love most about coloring? What’s your fondest childhood memory of coloring?

 

 

Check out last week’s Manic Monday: Super Fast, Super Easy Meditation.

 

Abbie Roads writes dark emotional novels featuring damaged characters, but always gives her hero and heroine a happy ending… after torturing them for three hundred pages. Her first novel is out Summer 2016.

About the author: abbieroads