Tangle Doodling

I'm the kind of person who doodles. When I'm talking on the phone, or during a meeting, or when I have to stuck for the whole day in a training. Sometimes even when I'm trying to explaining something to someone. I usually have a paper and a pencil with me, and by the end of the meeting, it's usually not also filled by a scrabble of notes of what was talked about, but also doodles. I've been doing doodle since I was a little girl, without really knowing what it means or what it's for. I drew it on the back cover of my school books, on the corner of the text books, or on the sheet of scrap paper during the math test.  Only recently I found out that it actually does have an effect to your mind.

I found this article about Zentangle, and though I don't really agree with the 'conditions' (what is zentangle and what is not, I mean, people have been doodling since thousand years ago, what right does anyone have to impose certain rules to do it), I find it very informative.

What makes tangle doodle interesting to me is its meditative effect. You don't need to have a preconceived idea of what your drawing would look like in the end. All you need to do is start drawing something and draw it repeatedly to fill up the blank spaces. I think it's the repetitiveness that gets your mind to focus, and to me, also the act of putting intricate details into the paper.

I showed it to a friend to try, and she gave up after a few minutes. She said, she stopped half way, didn't know what else to draw to fill up the blank space, and the idea of drawing something repeatedly and in details drove her crazy.

So perhaps it doesn't always work with everyone. I learned that people have different ways to get themselves lost in their own world (which is necessary to keep your sanity intact). But if you think you can put up with the repetitiveness and details, you might want to try tangle doodling.


And oh, by the way, the Butterfly Chaos was meant to be some kind of tangle drawing, which I believed supposed to be calming and have a meditative effect. I don't know how it could ended up like that. Perhaps, what it does first, is taking out all the nasty, tangled feeling within me.

Again, since this activity is supposed to help you calming down and relax, I think we should limit ourselves from analyzing it too much. You might want to keep a journal of your tangle doodles just like you keep a diary. I do that. I think it will be useful if one day I could go back or go through the journal and learn something from it, as I always do with my diary. But I think we need to remind ourselves not to over analyze whatever it is we find in there, because when you analyze, you cannot not judge. And when you judge, you keep thinking that there's something needs to be fixed. To me it creates a nagging feeling on the back of my head, constantly telling me that something is broken. Then I'd need to change something, to fix something, or heal something. I don't want that, and I don't think anyone would want that.

I believe in art as a therapy, but when you constantly analyzing what comes out on your paper, you will be trapped in the idea that something within you needs to be fixed. And it's a never ending spiraling down journey. To me, some wounds can be perfectly healed, some wounds can be healed but will leave a glaring mark, and some others are stay, meant to be tended for your whole life, a life long lesson. Just be wise and don't break yourself in the attempt to heal your wounds.