“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” 

~ Aristotle

Over ten years ago, I made myself a deck of collage cards very similar to Seena Frost's "Soul Collage Cards" but without the various "suits." My "Self-Discovery Cards" answered many of my life’s questions and visually revealed my unfolding life story. In the article below I share how I collaged my way into self-understanding.

Below is a sample Lesson from the e-course 100 Days of Art Journal Therapy

This collage exercise invites you to create visual representations of different parts of yourself to better understand your inner landscape. 

Materials:

- Old magazines and books

- Scissors and glue stick

- Matte board/cardboard cut to size for your cards, such as 5x7 inches or 6x6 inches, if you prefer working in a square format.

- Photocopies of your collage cards so you can write and reflect upon them in your art journal.

Method: Mapping Out Your Inner World

It is interesting to consider that you have a treasure trove of sub-personalities that live below your conscious awareness. Each personality part has its own goals for your happiness, and this often sets up conflicts within. You can preoccupy much of your life with inner struggles between opposing parts of yourself, not really understanding why you want something and then sabotage having it.

Your various parts of self might drive you crazy in their disparity. As you collage all the various parts of yourself, you will find many polarities in your thinking that need to be sorted out and reconciled. To sort your inner conflicts, it is helpful to map out your inner world into "parts" so you can recognize what aspects of your psyche dominate your awareness at any given moment.

Recognizing your different parts of self is exciting work because it helps your inner incongruities to make rational sense. It can even be fun to identify the destructive parts of yourself because it dissipates their power. It is helpful to understand that even your "negative" parts are trying to get you closer to happiness, even if their methods are misaligned. Seeing your inner conflicts in visual form can be an enlightening way to reconcile, direct and integrate your different drives, fears, needs, and desires. 

The Ease of Spontaneous Collage

Making spontaneous collage cards can help you map out your subconscious belief patterns and constructively work with them. Seena B. Frost, the originator of the method called "Soul Collage," wrote two informative books on intuitive collage. If you prefer more structure, you can divide the cards into structured suits, as she advises. 

I was not drawn to creating suits when I made my own deck of cards. I simply felt called to sit down when I noticed an emotional pattern dominating my psychology and made a spontaneous collage card with imagery that felt strong at the moment.

Emotional Mapping with Your Cards

I felt called to map out my psyche intensively through my collage cards for two years, and I discovered at least 50 different parts of myself. Since then, I have added a few new cards a year and removed a few that no longer feel "emotionally charged" from my deck.

Whenever I experienced an emotion that felt unknown to me, I would pull imagery from magazines that resonated with the feelings in my body. If you feel drawn to try this method, I encourage you to have a collage table ready with all your materials so that you can sit down and collage from the immediacy of your emotional states.

Naming Your Cards

It is helpful to name the various aspects of yourself on the back of each card. Each part of your personality has a life of its own, with certain needs, goals, likes, and dislikes. Naming these parts of yourself will help you witness them without becoming them.

As you identify the patterns of your psyche, you can record your insights in your art journal. I found it interesting to photocopy my collage cards and record what emotional needs each card expressed in my journal.

As each emotional need is healed and integrated into your conscious awareness, your cards may no longer be "active." New layers will arise to heal and form into new cards. When you consciously meet your emotional needs, you will feel less conflicted, and your collection of emotionally "active" cards may simplify.

Using Your Collage Cards as an Awareness Tool

Often, when I am identifying with a conditioned emotional pattern, the image of a particular collage card immediately comes to mind as a visual resonance to my emotional state. As you become more conscious of your emotional patterns, your witnessing awareness will gradually become larger than your emotional states, and they will not overwhelm you so much. 

As a growth tool, collage cards can help you find the antidote to unfulfilled emotional needs. For every difficult emotional pattern you have, there is an opposite life-affirming pattern that you can newly condition into your consciousness.

Here are just a few of the personality parts that I have discovered through my collage process!