Using SoulCollage® and Crafting to Explore Deep Emotions

Think back to the way you spent your time as a child. Whether it was through finger painting or building Lego sets, you probably found it easy to get lost in a creative task. As an adult, maintaining a hectic schedule and balancing a stressful workload leaves little time to explore your artistic interests and access a flow state. But there’s something magical about sitting down with scissors, paper, paint, or clay and allowing your hands to create freely. Art, in its many forms, has long been a pathway to self-discovery; therefore, it’s essential to engage in creative practices to connect with your inner world. 

At Mongata Healing Center, one of our favorite forms of emotion-focused crafting is through SoulCollage. Similar to tarot cards and vision boards, SoulCollage is a powerful way to uncover feelings, memories, and insights through simple, hands-on exploration. Although SoulCollage is not therapy, it offers therapeutic benefits, such as instilling a sense of calm focus and even providing a doorway to self-awareness. In addition to Mongata Healing Center’s group workshops and private sessions for breathwork and human design readings, SoulCollage can be one piece of a spiritual puzzle designed to heal from within and meet you where you are.

Ahead of our November event SoulCollage: Ancestral Connections, we take a deeper look at the origins of SoulCollage and how it can impact your 

What is SoulCollage?

Combining intuition, imagery, and reflection, SoulCollage was originally created in the 1980s by psychotherapist Seena B. Frost as a way for her patients to explore the many facets of themselves. Here’s how it works: Using magazines, photographs, or found images, you select the ones that resonate with you and assemble and paste them onto individual cards. Each card is meant to symbolize a piece of your inner landscape, and like tarot, can be drawn from the deck to invite introspection and thoughtfulness about a particular area of your life. For instance, you can pause to think about your career trajectory, draw a card from the deck, and interpret the connection between the images on the card and your career. 

Unlike traditional collage or crafting, SoulCollage is not about aesthetics or artistic skill. It’s a vehicle for accessing your intuition, allowing images to guide you into a deeper understanding of your thoughts, emotions, and archetypes.

Understanding Emotion Art and Craft

SoulCollage falls under the umbrella of “emotion art and craft,” or any creative practice that helps translate feelings into visual or tactile expression. Haven’t picked up a paintbrush since elementary school? Don’t fret: These activities are less about creating something beautiful and more about giving emotions a safe outlet to move and transform. 

Maybe you find that painting is an outlet for expressing joy, sadness, or even restlessness; sculpting with clay releases tension through touch; or mixed media projects capture layered, complex feelings. No matter your medium, engaging your hands in this way grounds your body, calms your mind, and creates a bridge for emotions that may be hard to put into words.

The Connection Between Creativity and Emotions

When we engage in hands-on creative practices, we naturally step out of constant thinking and into a quieter, more mindful state. This allows emotions to surface gently and with clarity.

Symbolic imagery often bypasses our rational mind, giving us access to feelings and insights that might otherwise remain hidden. And the simple mindfulness of crafting—slowing down, noticing textures, colors, and shapes—becomes a form of meditation, opening us to presence and emotional awareness. 

Using SoulCollage to Explore Your Inner Landscape

The beauty of SoulCollage is that anyone can do it. Start by flipping through a stack of old magazines, stopping to cut out any images that speak to you or that you find intriguing. Arrange those images together in any formation on a card and paste them into place. Once your card is complete, reflection begins by asking yourself: What does this card represent to me? What emotions are stirred when I look at it? If this card could speak, what might it say?

To deepen the experience, write your responses in a journal to create a dialogue between the imagery and your inner voice. Over time, your collection of cards becomes a personal library of self-reflection and wisdom, and something that you can consult when you feel compelled to explore an emotion or event in your life. 

Emotion Art and Craft Techniques for Self-Exploration

SoulCollage is just one of many ways to use art and craft for gaining emotional insight. Here are a few others to try:

• Abstract painting: Explore your mood by letting colors and brushstrokes flow freely.

• Clay or fabric work: Connect with grounding, tactile sensations that bring you into the present.

• Mandala-making: Use patterns and circles to find balance and focus.

The key is to create without judgment—a process that can bring you into a meditative state of calm and ease. Your art does not need to “look good”—it only needs to feel authentic to the moment.

Creating a Safe Space for Emotional Creativity

Just as a restaurant’s ambiance impacts your overall dining experience, the space where you dive into creative self-exploration affects what you get out of it. Before you begin your activity, create a gentle environment that feels supportive and safe. 

• Choose a comfortable, quiet space—a corner of your dining table to an outdoor patio with your materials and art supplies within reach.

• Begin by lighting a candle, turning on a playlist, or completing a few breathwork exercises to ease into a receptive state.

• Honor yourself with self-care before and after. Whether that means journaling, resting, or sharing with a trusted loved one. Making each session feel like an enriching event will help it become part of your weekly or monthly routine, a comforting ritual that you can return to again and again. 

How Mongata Healing Center Can Support Your Journey

Looking for more ways to nurture your creativity and emotional well-being? At Mongata Healing Center, we offer a range of group and private activities that will help you reconnect with your inner wisdom: 

• Access personal insight, honor your ancestors, and cultivate community connection by attending SoulCollage: Ancestral Connections on Saturday, November 8.

• Open your creative flow with our sound baths and breathwork sessions

• Support self-awareness and encourage reflection between creative sessions by reading our Mindful Meditation eBook.

Crafting as a Mirror for the Soul

You do not need to consider yourself an artist to benefit from SoulCollage or emotion art. These practices are about exploration, not perfection. When you allow creativity to flow, you discover new ways of understanding yourself, your emotions, and your inner wisdom.

At Mongata, we invite you to see crafting as a mirror for the soul and a gentle practice of self-discovery, healing, and connection. Join us in one of our offerings to experience the joy of creating in a guided, nurturing space where your inner world can unfold.