Hello creative Mandala Magicians,

My name is Frauke, meaning “little Woman.”

Standing not so little at 178 cm or 5’10”, I was born in 1970 in northern Germany, but didn’t stay there very long.

For the first few years I was raised by my Grandparents.  Until my sibling was born and then the Family reunited and moved South.

At some point my parents decided to go on a mission trip for 5 years to Papua New Guinea, I was merely 7 years old when I was dropped off at a boarding school with just a few words of English that I had learned on the way. I only saw my parents twice a year, when it was time to fly “home” into the jungle.

Boarding School is where I did my growing up and learned how to be independent and how I can’t depend on anyone else other than myself. Which would be a big roadblock for the majority of my life and which I am unlearning through Mandala Magic practice, learning to accept help and speak up when things get overwhelming.

Once back in Germany and it was time for me to decide on a career, I went with Social Pedagogy.

I just love working with Teenagers and I could incorporate my love for creating which was a big plus for me. 

I have always created from a young age. It has been my lifeline all through life.

I now live with my own family in South Carolina, USA,  and still enjoy creating in many different forms, alone or with my family or friends.  Anything from Gardening to knitting, I love trying new things as well. 

About 3 years ago, I was “lost”.

What are my dreams for life now that it was so rapidly changing? Kids leaving the house, body changes etc. 

I fell into a hole. I found creative help online, one on one sessions, through Zoom, creating together and working through my anxiety. 

After Covid and the year of learning I wanted more, I wasn’t done with unravelling myself and rebuilding. I liked the new glimpse that I saw of myself.

So one day I was Googling Mandalas. I have always been fascinated with kaleidoscopes and was trying to find ideas on how to put these on paper.

That is how I stumbled over Julie’s page and joined one of her free online classes. I was hooked. So I was happy to hear that there was an Alignment through the 8-fold year class. Guess what, I signed up and never looked back.

I loved how she gave us a prompt, and showed us her work step by step, but encouraged us to find our own way to express what it meant for us, or what the prompt brought up. 

But also all the extra information she shared per text or music was such an enrichment to my life.

For the longest time, I couldn’t write in a journal, I couldn’t trust nobody else would read it.

My mom was leaving notes and corrections of how events happened, the way she thought when I was a teenager. That broke my trust and I couldn’t write anymore.

For the first few mandalas I would concentrate on what is happening in the container, the circle, and go into so much detail.

But at the same time, I was blocked from finding my own “symbol language”.  I wasn’t able to let go and understand that these symbols would only have a certain special meaning to me. I was putting too much weight on what other people might think or read into it.  Hence I fell back into the not trusting, that stemmed from my teenage time. 

Now after doing Mandalas for a while it has gotten easier.

For me a Mandala is a container, where I can drop off what is on my mind, what has been bothering me or just something I want to express and have a keepsake of it, that only I will have the key to.

Sometimes the creations spill over outside the circle and that for me is just like in life, when there is too much excitement, it can’t be contained, it has to spill over. 

I am still working on journaling on the opposite side and then finding a way to cover it up. I took the first little steps and I am starting to be able to let go and be put on the page because I know I can cover it up and nobody will be able to read it. 

I start trusting the process, I can leave my mark, my symbols and don’t worry about leaving my journal open.

At the moment I love working with either watercolor or gouache because I don’t have so much control of the outcome.

Something I have been battling for the last decade is the fear of losing control.  Which manifested in a pretty hefty anxiety for me.

Learning how I don’t need to have control and that I need to respond and not react to life, supported by the Mandala prompts and working within the container helped tremendously.

So for me, watercolor is the medium I like working with right now. That doesn’t mean that I won’t change or I will not try other mediums. Just right now this feels safe. 

This spring I did hit a wall though, I lost all mojo of creating.

At the same time, there were a lot of things happening in my family life that threw me out of my routine.

I am slowly building a new routine, too slow for my liking. I like diving into painting or creating for hours and leaving the outside world behind. That is not possible at the moment, so I take the 10 min at a time when I can get them.

I did notice that since I have been practicing creating Mandalas I have shifted my way of how I respond to certain situations.

I am an Aries, so can be very hot headed. I have noticed that I approach things differently now.

I am happy I found Mandala Magic.

It has definitely had a positive impact on my way of being. It helped me concentrate on my inner world and helped me to start unraveling these walls that I have had up since childhood. They served me then, but now not anymore.

I learned that it is ok to sit with something and that I don’t need a resolution right now.

I have picked flowers and leaves from my garden the last few months and dried them, hoping I will find a way to incorporate them into some Mandalas at some point.

In my teenage years, I used to add tickets, and other little memorabilia to my journaling pages, at some point, I might start doing that again?

Who knows where this road will lead me, so many possibilities.

I love seeing the creations of other Mandala Magicians on social media and sharing my own work. I get feedback that helps me see things from a different point of view or even sparks a new creation.

It is a very safe and loving community.

I did notice that Mandalas have spilled over into my other creative outlets. Like covering up a stain or hole on a piece of clothing, I sometimes stitch a mandala.

I am thankful Julie helped me open the door again to my creative side.