I remember very well the evening I first tried honey-scented watercolours, bought for me according to the first-grader's supply list. That evening, back in the '80s, a child not yet 7 years old had to choose – watch half-hour cartoons or draw...

As far as I remember, I drew swaying forest spruces, I drew, and I don't even know where I learned to do that... And from my very first year at school, every year I collected a great many notes for bad behaviour saying: "was drawing during class. Wasn't listening to the teacher"... I drew as a first-grader, I drew as a fifth-grader, a seventh-grader... I simply couldn't not do it.

One year the M. K. Čiurlionis School of Art held a selection among children our age. The committee chose two of us. Unfortunately, the parents of that other girl sent her to study at the art school in Vilnius, and I stayed here, in the countryside. I never attended any art school or even a club. But I kept drawing postcards, decorating my school report book, decorating school notice boards too, and later even the walls of our veranda and bathroom at home. I drew the way it came out for me, the way I knew how – I simply couldn't not do it.

And to this day I probably still don't know how to blend colours perfectly according to the rules. I don't know how to render shadows, proportions and so on. But over the years, creating intuitively, through all sorts of trials, ruined supplies and failed decorations, I built a distinctive decorative style of my own – one I probably would never have discovered had I studied with everyone else, by the rules.

I'm writing this for anyone who dreams of creating, but whose mind stops them: "I can't, because I never attended classes or studied it."

I'll tell you all what I told my son when, as a college student in the UK, he had to choose between business and management or the arts:

"Choose your dream right away, because it will catch up with you anyway. You will only have lost time"

And of course, everyone's path is and will be different. And it will be exactly as it is meant to be. Looking back, I see that just a few years ago, with my narrower awareness, I wouldn't have seen or felt that strong connection between the mandalas I draw, sacred symbols, the Universe and divine nature – which had always been in my soul, ever since I sat immersed in the grasses and wildflowers over my head and already, strangely, felt and watched the magic and beauty of ever-changing nature. It simply took quite some time until I grew my awareness to the size of my soul :)

I never attended an art club or art school, yet to this day I decorate, I draw, and I am very happy for it. I had to learn many things in life on my own, including how to create my own happiness. To build a state of happiness and light my own inner sun, which will always be with me.

Create too, if you feel drawn to it. Don't overthink it, because you already know everything deep down – you only need to shed what isn't yours: rules created by others for their own benefit, limiting beliefs, fear of how it will look and what others will think, guilt for allowing yourself too much pleasure and resting while everyone else is ploughing on, that heavy, nagging "I HAVE TO," which only serves to make others happier...

Remember that

there is no single rule, and no one else can tell you what your path is.

Simply don't be afraid to notice the signs and try, without guessing what will come of it. At first it may look like chaos, probably much like a new puzzle box the moment you open it. Allow yourself to "take in" what "comes," and let it naturally form into a whole.

Over the last 3–4 years I've been learning, it would seem, quite different things. Wanting first of all to help myself, after many years of psychotherapy and other specialists' help, I also became interested in coaching as a tool, the essence of which is to ask yourself (or someone else) a good question in order to get a good answer. ICF coaching professional Povilas Petrauskas taught us to find good questions and to truly hear, not just listen.

Later, NLP methods that work with the subconscious drew me in almost magically. I completed two courses at once: NLP practitioner and master – together with the radiant Reda Bendoraitytė and the wonderful, conscious people gathered around her.

Later, it seemed almost "by accident," a mandala course announced on Facebook by Aurelija Kriščiūnaitė, author and founder of the "Sielos namai" studio, caught my eye.

And in parallel, all that year, I also studied the possibilities of applying art therapy methods at the "Menų terapijos centras."

It might look like chaos... And at first I didn't understand it myself. I simply followed what "came," what drew me intuitively.

And what came of it?...

Today I have created and tested in groups two original methods of therapeutic self-development, in which I combined everything that at first seemed like chaos: mandalas, coaching, NLP and art therapy. Both original methods work well in a group, family or couple, and they build connection, states of relaxation and happiness, and are unique in that in this therapy you don't need to speak if you don't want to. The mandala and the symbols you intuitively draw speak for you. I'll describe the methods in more detail in the "Creative workshops" section. But you are always welcome to call or write to me and ask personally, if that's how you feel.

"Sveikstanti Siela" was born naturally, over a few years. "Sveikstanti Siela" can suit anyone who is already tired of suffering and repeatedly bumping into the corners of the system, or who feels there is too much inner or outer noise drowning out the gentle, sensitive song of the heart and soul.

"Sveikstanti Siela" doesn't yet have a studio. "Sveikstanti Siela" is free – free to move, free to grow and to be wherever it needs to be at any given moment. "Sveikstanti Siela" is like a symbol that the soul need not be confined, that it can heal and grow anywhere, that it has no limits, no rules, no time, that it can heal at whatever pace and to whatever extent it itself wishes.

Draw mandalas, get to know yourself and your happiness, grow and explore the world together with "Sveikstanti Siela"