A 5 step guide to your first SoulCollage card

SoulCollage® is a beautifully simple creative process of self-exploration. Through the design of so-called SoulCollage® cards, a very personal card set is created. I may apply the cards for self exploration, to get in touch with myself and my inner wisdom, to have a creative break, to do deep inner work with light and shadow aspects of myself, to deal with challenging situations, to work with pain on a psychological or physical level, to explore my world by writing, to coach myself or others, to enter deep therapeutic processes, to develop characters for a novel or a play and and and. The uses of SoulCollage® cards are almost unlimited and each one deserves its own article.

If you now feel like simply designing a card and getting a taste of the SoulCollage® process, follow this 5 step guide to your first SoulCollage Card and let your soul speak to you.

Step 1: The Materials

To create a SoulCollage® card, you will need the following materials:

• Magazines with lots of pictures such as GEO, National Geographic, art or photo magazines, Happienez, Flow etc. make it the easiest for you. But you can work with anything you have at home, be it women's or men's magazines, special interest magazines, illustrated books, advertising brochures, old photos or printed images from the Internet. What is important is a certain selection of images and the willingness to cut them up.

• Scissors and glue

• Cards sized A5 or slightly smaller (A6 is the absolute minimum). If you don't have any cards handy, just take an A4 paper and cut it in half. You can then glue it to a cardboard later.

Step 2: Select images for your SoulCollage Card

Now the creative part begins. Just flip through a magazine and rip out the images that resonate with you. These can be pictures that you particularly like, where your soul jumps for joy. Or images that trigger a strong feeling of any kind, be it longing, anger, sadness or resistance. From these pictures you are now looking for a motif for the background and one for the foreground. It should really just be images with no text. If there is a snippet of text somewhere, you can either cut it out or paste something over it later.

You have so many great pictures that you can't decide and you would like to stick 10 different motifs on your card? Don't worry. Over time, you can create SoulCollage® cards from all of these images. However, it is important to select only one background and one foreground per card. Start today with a first card.

Step 3: Cut and Adjust

This step is about looking at what kind of image might emerge. Which part of the background and which part of the foreground will be glued to the card? Should the card be in portrait or landscape format? Where do I position the foreground? What do I want to cut away? What remains?

Take a moment to look and explore. Cut out the foreground as accurately as possible.

Step 4: Glue

Once you know what your image will look like, stick it on. If you have an A5 plastic bag or envelope, you can put or wrap the card in there for better protection. But at the beginning it is enough to simply have the card.

Step 5: Let your soul speak and journal through the SoulCollage card

Really give yourself time to delve into your map, look at it, the colors, the people, animals, shapes, nature, spaces, whatever there is to see. If you can, let yourself fall into this space, feel it, smell it, taste it. When you are in contact with the energy of your card, take a piece of paper and a pen and let the energy of the card speak:

It is important that the card speaks from within you in its own voice. Sometimes she has a lot to say, sometimes she is taciturn or a bit shy and only opens up with time. If you like, you can add another sentence:

Here again the energy of the card writes. Let yourself be surprised what a gift it contains.

And now?

Now you may have gotten creative and want to produce and write with more cards. Wonderful! Just do it.

Perhaps you would also like to know what other options there are for working with a card or designing cards. Maybe you want to know more about the theoretical background and what the different types of cards like community, committee, council etc. are all about. Perhaps the card has also triggered emotions in you that you wish to be accompanied by. If you want to go deeper here, please contact me or take part in the next SoulCollage® introductory course.