In the summer of last year, July 2009, I decided to take some steps to alter my life path. This would seem like the perfect time to begin a journal or art journal, yes? As much as I have admired the process of art journaling that I see others do, it has just never been able to become an outlet for me. But I needed to do something as I had too many thoughts and feelings that were simultaneously having a frat party and a war battle inside my head, and they needed to be heard. (Outside of my head.) I had heard of doodling exercises before where someone had taken a typical wall calendar and created a little doodle inside of the box for each day, to mark the day. Then I came across a doodle app for my phone and something clicked. This I could do. Every day. As a reflection of how I was feeling on that day. I liked that I had little control over too much detail (unlike an actual piece of paper, using pens and paint and brushes) since I could only use my finger and that I had little space to work in. I also decided to keep it to black, red and white. These seemed to easily reflect my core emotions. As someone who likes to distill things to their important essence, this practice seemed perfect and I made a commitment to do at least one (some days I do two) doodle a day for a year. To keep myself accountable, I decided to post them on my Facebook profile. Nine months later, I'm still with it, and while I haven't always felt like doing it every day, I have. Every day. (Even though I sometimes wait a day or two before actually posting the pics). And I think it's been therapeutic to have this outlet as I search, grow and explore this new path I'm on--letting go of the past and not having too much of clear picture of the future. The slide show here is a sampling for you to see what I'm talking about. If you've struggled with committing to a daily practice before, maybe you should give something like this a try. It's fascinating to look at the hundreds of doodles you'll accumulate as a group. Little doodles, big impact.
