Personal growth over the years

A mandala is a form of Sanskrit and means a magic circle. Sometimes they can be of circular, square or triangular in shapes. In Eastern religions, floor plans in temples were actually based on mandalas. And in the center circle of a mandala is usually a God, or a Goddess. Mandalas are symbol of the self, of health and of being one with nature and with the Gods.

In psychology, a mandala is a symbol of individuation or the process of being whole. In Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, individuals must satisfy certain needs, and first level needs must be first met before proceeding to the next level needs. The highest need an individual could reach is the need to actualize. Actualization per se means realization, and individuation, or becoming whole.

A mandala is just a philosophical symbol of the actualization process, and just like the eastern religions who have created mandalas to guide them to wholeness, I have my own too. Influenced by philosophy, religion, new age, and Jungian psychology, I have chosen the pentacle, which is a Wiccan symbol.

My mandala shows that I am on the process of wholeness in association with Mother Nature, which is represented by the circle around the star, and with the help of the elements in the pentacle like fire, water, air, earth, and spirit.

At the center of the pentacle is David’s Star, or the sign of King Solomon. On one side is a name of my child’s alter ego “meichiu,” and on the other side is meow5209. The numbers are significant to me, but the letters m-e-o-w aren’t anymore important to me because these letter were a child’s play. Below are words “Jesu Christe,” which is Latin for Jesus Christ because I was raised as a Catholic.

My mandala was created a very long time ago. As a child I had so much in me, people think I’m weird but I am not. I had an introvert personality as a child. I call it creative difference between you and me. Besides, everything that I have learned from my solitary studies with new age, religion, philosophy, psychology, and the occult played an important role in my growth as a person.

Progressively over the years, my past learnings were suppressed or kind of placed aside, and I became focused on my field, which is Psychology. With psychology, I was opened to a broader horizon I call reality. The Humanistic approach says that an individual reacts to a certain phenomenal field called “reality.” I became an advocate of human potential from then on. Aside from my learning, my experiences and interactions also helped me in my growth as a person that I am today. From being an introvert, I am now extrovert.

You see, I have seen my development from a child with so many thoughts on mind to an individual who has grown, and is still growing toward self-actualization. I do not use this mandala anymore in the present time but it has been my coping mechanism as a child, so it is still a part of me, a part of my past—a past that I should be leaving behind from now on.

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