How doodling can rescue a relationship?

Relationships can be difficult at the best of times.  

Recently I’ve been watching two very good friends get themselves into a situation where they couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel with the only option being to sever their two year relationship.

As an outsider I could see the bigger picture.  I’ve always been a big picture thinker.  Not so much a details person.  I’ve always left that to others, and that works well for me.  But for my dear friends, life had become a daily grind of arguing about the minutia, digger deeper and deeper holes that neither could climb out of.

I remember reading the quote 

I BELIEVE

WE HAVE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE INFLUENCE OVER THE DIRECTION

AND OUTCOMES OF OUR LIVES THAN WE REALIZE

The Doodle Revolution – Sunni Brown

It dawned on me that these two wonderful people had now changed the outcome of their lives by building a negative picture of their future. Once upon a time they spoke about exotic travels, hair-raising adventures, and growing old together.  Separately they even admitted to not even remembering what had caused this terrible rift.

Finally I decided to try something – there was nothing to lose and at least I could say ‘I tried’.

To my surprise they agreed, I’m not a trained councilor and I had no idea if this was going to work but they were willing to give it a try.

The first thing that came to mind was get them to relax.  With a box full of coloured pens & pencils I handed them a big sheet of paper each and asked them to to just start putting pen to paper.  I was amazed at how difficult they found this and they couldn’t understand how this would help (and at this point, neither did I!).  There were no constraints, no guidelines other that to not lift the pen from the page.  Eventually they got going.  

On another piece of paper I asked them to split it into three columns.  In the first I asked them to draw or write words that summarized their relationship as it was when they first fell in love.  What connected them, what they adored about each other, what made them laugh, special moments, key events – however big or however small they added it to the page.  It was interesting to see how their styles differed, she preferred to draw pictures with very few words and he wrote key words.

Then I asked them to do the same depicting their relationship now in the last column

Finally I asked them to use the middle column to think about what had happened to take the relationship from the where they were to where they are now.  it really was like a light bulb being switched on.  The doodles on the page showed the big picture.  It showed what a perfect match they were and how they had allowed work life, a lack of communication, minor misunderstandings and a the loss of fun to take over. 

Swapping doodles they realized they both still wanted the same things.  They also saw that all they needed to do was to talk and go back to spending more time together and not let their careers come between them.  They decided to rekindle column one – the beginning.

I wish I could share their doodling masterpieces with you but it’s their lives on a page, a visual representation of flow from one state to another. They could actually ‘see’ what they would lose if they didn’t do anything about it.  Doodling gave them clarity and a freedom to express themselves.

So in conclusion I can honestly say:

Doodling saved a relationship!

Thank you Sunni Brown