The Shape That Was Waiting

Each night, I take a blank piece of white cardstock paper. I choose five to ten markers of colors that seem to want to play together. I’m not choosing colors because they’re my favorites. I’m choosing them based on how they appear to work together that particular evening. Because each evening is different.

There’s no consistency in the patterning of colors. There’s only consistency in the way the box of 100+ markers appears to me each night. They choose me, maybe? Or perhaps my eye is simply drawn to specific colors that happen to work well together.

It reminds me of improvisation.

Working with five to ten different notes on the piano, choosing them based on how they work together and then letting them play together to create something new. Markers allow me to do the same thing in a different way.

I usually begin with an idea I’ve seen on one of the many wonderful doodling accounts on social media. I’ll glance at a design earlier in the day and either rewatch it before I begin or simply start with whatever I remember.

The thing I love most is that I have no idea what my doodle will look like.

There’s always a little apprehension at first. Where should I place the marker first? What color should I start with? Which direction should I move in?

One evening last week I decided I was too lazy to find the video again, so I tried to recreate what I remembered.

Almost immediately, I knew something was off.

It didn’t look right, but more importantly, it didn’t feel right. I could feel this "yuck" in my body. I realized I wasn’t creating anymore. I was trying to copy something I hadn’t fully understood.

Instead of throwing the paper away, I simply turned it over. The relief was immediate. I let go of the video altogether, started with one simple idea, and built from there.

That experience taught me more than finishing the first drawing ever could have.

Doodling has a few built-in stages. First comes the foundation - the lines and squiggles that will hold everything else. Then comes the color and the different ways of filling the spaces. Finally, there are the finishing touches: retracing the structure, softening the edges, rounding things out until the image feels complete.

What fascinates me is that I never know exactly when that moment will arrive.

I become so focused on the individual parts while I’m creating that I lose sight of the whole. Then, I step back, look at the completed image, and something inside me lights up.

That’s how I know it’s finished.

Not because every space has been filled.

Not because I’ve followed a set of rules.

But because something inside me recognizes the whole.

Years ago, when I began training as a Jungian coach, I didn’t really know what that meant. I knew very little about Carl Jung or why his work has remained so influential. I enrolled because a dear friend and mentor, Susan Maples, encouraged me to explore the program. She sensed it aligned with what I was already searching for... who I was, what I was curious about, and how I wanted to grow.

She was right.

I fell in love with Jung’s work, particularly active imagination, where the psyche is invited to communicate through image, sensation, color, symbol, and feeling rather than logic alone.

I’ve always known my thinking tends to be abstract, but it wasn’t until I experienced those exercises that I realized, This is my wheelhouse.

I tend to overthink, overanalyze, and tinker endlessly with the mind - its purpose, its usefulness, and all the ways it can get in the fucking way.

Working with imagination knocked me out of those square edges. It was as if the cubicle walls fell over. Open space, color, shape, and curiosity became available to me.

Only now am I realizing that every evening with a handful of markers, I’ve been practicing the very same thing.

Trusting the shape that wants to emerge is a practice that requires only one simple thing: noticing.

I see that dark green. I like it.

I see that curve. It looks wide.

I see that space. I wonder which shape wants to sit in that space?

Okay... it requires two things: noticing and curiosity.

Because noticing and judging doesn’t work.

It creates tension that looks like self-doubt, regret, disappointment.

"I should have tried it this other way."

"I should have used a different color."

"I should have."

"I should have."

"I should have."

Honestly, if you get to that point of the "I should haves," pat yourself on the back because at least you started something.

A lot of people avoid the place where things aren’t certain. Where outcomes can’t be predicted.

Unfortunately...

life is ALIVE.

Even though we may love certainty and feel safest when things are contained and perfectly symmetrical, we aren't built for that.

We build lives around predictability because we stop moving with what is alive. We stop trusting ourselves to move with what is alive.

In life, that can look like routines that feel constrained, relationships that are drying up, dreams that become detached from the imagination and slowly drift away from us.

Little by little, we lose ourselves.

The word coherence comes up often in my coaching practice. It’s the third pillar of my work: Clarity. Creativity. Coherence.

For a long time, I thought coherence was something I was trying to create.

Now I wonder if it’s something I’m learning to recognize.

It feels like trusting the next line before seeing the finished picture.

It feels like allowing the foundation to become what it wants to become instead of forcing it into what I imagined.

It feels like moving in one direction without arguing with every step along the way.

I’m not suggesting that doodling is a cure-all for every emotional or mental imbalance or a remedy for incoherence that would work for everyone.

You gotta find your thing.

What’s something you already love doing that requires your focus, but not your perfection?

What’s an activity that you enjoy that uses a skill you’re curious to explore, but that doesn’t require you to be more skilled than you already are?

Start with something meaningful to you.

Do it for seven days.

And then report back.

Maybe the shape your creating isn’t the doodle after all.

Maybe it’s you.

-Nicole
Creative Thread