Chris Dixon is the author and illustrator of emotional intelligence books, mainly for children. With a new Calm Colouring Book aimed at adults, Chris explains how he found help through therapy, following a mental health struggle during lockdown
Who are you and what do you do?
My name is Chris Dixon, I’m 36, and I’m a children’s and now adult’s mental health book author and resource creator. My focus is around emotional intelligence, helping people, especially children, identify how they are feeling about situations and events. The resources I’ve created help encourage confidence around engaging in emotional discussions as well as tackling the stigma that comes with talking about feelings and mental health issues.
What is your career background?
I’m a digital marketer by trade, having started at a toy and gift company, moving on to marketing agencies and now I’m self-employed. I like being creative and I enjoy analytics, so my main areas of interest are website design and helping clients make sense of campaign data and website traffic.
Creativity is what drives me – I’ve always loved drawing from a young age. So, the creation of the emotional intelligence books is something I would be more than happy for it to become my main job. I feel fortunate to be able to illustrate my own books, helping me keep production costs down and providing more freedom with my vision.
The Calm Colouring Book is the latest in a planned range of resources to raise awareness of, and help manage mental health, whilst giving me a chance to use my illustrations in a positive way.
Are you Norfolk born and raised? What do you love about living here?
I was born in Dulwich, London, My mum was originally from London and my dad from Newcastle. They moved to Lowestoft when I was 4 (taking me with them!) with my younger brother and sister.
However, I’ve lived in Norwich permanently for the last 10 years, and temporarily before that when I attended the University of East Anglia. It was through the Computing Science, Imaging and Multimedia course at the UEA that sparked a desire to live in the city full-time.
I love how easy it is to get out into nature and to the city centre. In the summer, I’ll sometimes walk through the market to get some food and admire the cobble streets and old architecture. I’ll also go for a walk by the river and through the Norwich Cathedral grounds, or around Whittlingham Lake.
The city itself I find not overly busy, but not too quiet either – being an introvert who likes occasionally socialising or going to events, this is the perfect blend for me. It has a great music scene with bands and artists of varying levels of fame playing – I recently went to see Leftfield, the Lightning Seeds. And the variety of food from different cultures on the doorstep is a huge privilege.
My partner lives in Suffolk, as do most of my family – so the logistics of Norwich is great for me as I can go and see them often.
So, I can’t think of any negatives at all about living in Norwich, I love the culture, atmosphere and history of the city.
What has led you to becoming a children’s mental health author – and launching the Calm Colouring Book?
Therapy, as a result of my struggles with mental health, was the catalyst for me creating my first children’s book. I’ve had chronic depression and anxiety a couple of times, the latest lengthy episode was during Covid.
I went to see a therapist to help me, who I still see to this day a couple of times a month – something I am grateful for. My discussions are far more mundane than they were initially, but I think it’s important to even get minor stress off your chest.
But it was only through therapy I recognised how important that is. My main problem was not being able to recognise the emotions I was feeling – for example, I wouldn’t know that I was upset, or annoyed, about something. I’d just feel the physical feelings but not be able to identify what it was.
So my therapist helped me firstly label my emotions, then I could understand why I was feeling that way. He also helped me minimise shame that can often come with emotions that we can perceive as negative – for example, jealousy, anger or sadness.
I then thought that during my childhood, emotional intelligence wasn’t taught in schools as far as I could recall, and adults would often put on a ‘stiff upper lip’ instead of talking about how they are feeling.
And looking back on my childhood, remembering my passion for drawing, I decided to create an emotions book for children, which also became a therapeutic activity for me.
‘That’s Okay’ was my first book, and I included imaginative illustrations of colourful creatures with different expressions. Each related to an emotion, with real life examples and possible feelings that come with that emotion. It’s more of a guidebook than a storybook, and the familiarity of the pages has helped SEN children absorb the information.
The overriding message of the book is that all emotions are okay as they are a natural occurrence that sometimes we can’t help!
Since then, I’ve created more resources on the environment (to help tackle climate anxiety), including collaborations with Rembrandt Zergers (on a book inspired by a letter to the government written by a school child from the perspective of a polar bear); Maddy Alexander-Grout (on a book that helps educate children about money) and Michelle Barton (on a book that helps children process the emotions that come with grief). And now my latest venture, the Calm Colouring Book, which can be used as a therapeutic tool for all ages.
How does colouring help people with their mental health?
I have to admit, I’ve always been terrible at colouring! But, in my opinion, the therapeutic benefits you get from colouring are the same as drawing. When I’m drawing, it feels meditative to me. Studies have shown that colouring has the following benefits for mental health and chronic anxiety – I’ve included some below as I’m not a trained mental health practitioner myself, I just share my experience and so maybe some others can relate.
– Colouring can help with General Anxiety Disorder
“The results of this study showed that coloring therapy combined with conventional therapy in GAD patients could better alleviate anxiety‐depression symptoms, enhance positive moods, and reduce negative moods, further enhancing the therapeutic effects of GAD patients.” The effects of coloring therapy on patients with generalized anxiety disorder – PubMed Central® (PMC)
– Colouring has similar benefits as meditation.
“Both loving-kindness meditation and loving-kindness coloring were explored by measuring state mindfulness, pre-, and post-intervention. Results indicated that both conditions similarly increased in-state mindfulness and self-compassion, and decreased state anxiety” Loving-Kindness Colouring and Loving-Kindness Meditation: Exploring the Effectiveness of Non-Meditative and Meditative Practices on State Mindfulness and Anxiety: Journal of Creativity in Mental Health: Vol 17 , No 3
– Colouring can help with stressful jobs such as teaching
“Findings from the current study support the use of mindfulness colouring to significantly enhance levels of wellbeing in teachers. The study also presents an inexpensive, highly accessible and effective self-help tool for this targeted non-clinical population.” Teachers and Mindful Colouring to Tackle Burnout and Increase Mindfulness, Resiliency and Wellbeing – Contemporary School Psychology
I do recommend if anyone is struggling with mental health to see a doctor and/or therapist to help. Colouring can be a fantastic support tool, but it cannot alone solve mental health issues in my opinion.
What other self-care activities do you recommend?
For me, based on how much therapy has helped, talking, and listening, are some of the most powerful self-care activities. My issue was suppressing emotions because I wasn’t able to understand them. This would mean that some emotions could get amplified. By talking to my therapist about the things I previously wouldn’t have shared, it feels like an amazing release. But part of the success of that process is down to the therapist being a good listener.
My therapist never offers solutions, which to me is a good thing as I don’t want to think about fixing the emotion whilst I’m processing it. That causes me more stress! He’ll always ask how I’m feeling about something then help me be unashamed of that too.
I’ve picked up on the listening skill of the therapist, although I am far from as effective as he is, which helps me be patient with friends and family who are struggling and want to talk about how they feel.
This can help them feel validated and therefore more at ease.
Where can people get hold of a copy/find out more?
The majority of my books are available on my website – there’s also mental health awareness clothing that I create the designs for too. The Calm Colouring Book can be purchased on Amazon along with some other books I have collaborated on.
What are your hopes and dreams for 2025?
I hope to keep creating resources like this to the point where I can make an income. I’ve invested money received from marketing activities to promote the book but it is very tough to get traction.
Books are incredibly competitive, like many other sectors, so I am very appreciative of Folk Features for asking me to do this Q&A! I’ve had lots of lovely reviews from parents, teachers and other people who work with children or in mental health.
By turning the mental health resources into something that can help me pay the bills, I can focus more on creating them, which will in turn help many others.
I also hope that the mental health crisis, which seems to be growing, starts reversing – I believe the key in this is good emotional intelligence, open discussions about how we feel and the reduction of shame about our mental health.
Calm Colouring Book: Hand-drawn illustrations ready for relaxation, by Chris Dixon is available on amazon.co.uk. For other That’s Okay! Youth Emotional Intelligence Books, visit thatsokay.co.uk.
Featured image of Chris Dixon – supplied
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