24/11/2020
A beautiful story. Sometimes when it appears things are falling apart, they are actually falling into place. Trust.
Nine years ago I took pen to paper when everything I held most important to me was dissolving; a relationship, a great job, and financial security.
Grasping for something to hold on to, I applied to grad school with a plan to pursue Art Therapy.
I jumped easily through the first few administrative hoops and eagerly awaited my orientation day. Then, I got a phone call from UCSB, where I went for undergrad.
"We can't release your transcripts. You defaulted on your loan a few years ago. Until you make six months of steady payments, then we can release them" said the administrator.
"But I thought I consolidated all of my loans? Why wasn't I told about this?"
Then it hit me. Crap. That computer I took a loan out for when I was 19 for school. It was a different kind of loan. And now it had doubled with the accrued interest.
My heart sank, and I pleaded in a panic that they reconsider my situation.
"I'm sorry, we can't release your transcripts until you make six months' worth of consecutive payments."
But with what money? The freelance work that I had lined up for three months fell apart because the publisher canceled the book series. I had no backup plan.
I hung up the phone. Suddenly my life felt small. My dreams of Art Therapy came crumbling down along with everything else that was falling apart.
Along came the second wave of shame and judgment.
"I suck at keeping track of my bills even though I try really hard to stay on top of it all. I'm a loser, and I will never achieve my dreams of being an artist or art therapist."
Then the anger.
"I've been working since I was a teenager. All I do is work. I was the first person in my family to go to college, and this is what I get treated like?!? I get zero financial support from anyone. Don't even have a family. I'm all alone. The system has set me up for failure."
Queue mental breakdown.
Somewhere in between the stream of tears and gazing at my studio's ceiling with a raw and open heart, an inner voice calmy urged me to get up from laying on the cold wood floor.
The inner whisper lead me to my drawing table.
"Doodle a cartoony monk. Maybe something you just read or heard in yoga class. Or a quote you found that makes you feel happy.
Make that your daily morning practice. It will help you have one thing you know that will be there for you each day when you wake up. It will set your sail in the right direction."
My first doodle was of a jolly monk and I wrote the words "This too shall pass", something that my therapist had told me repeatedly over the years but I didn't quite get it.
That day marked the beginning of waking up to my own life's path. I stopped resisting what was falling apart and instead turned my gaze inward, feeling the pain, feeling the joy, and listening for my heart's inner applause.
Having shared all of my cartoons and illustrations online since 2001, it was only natural to share the doodle love with others; so I began posting on Tumblr.
The Buddha Doodles practice was and still is the first thing I do upon waking up. Creating a picture plus the words soothes my chaotic mind just a little bit and it brings me joy that the cartoons give people something to smile or think about.
I'm a terribly slow reader and have difficulty processing auditory information, so making these doodles helps me to absorb the concepts in books about Buddhism, dharma talks, or therapy sessions.
This morning, I opened Thich Nhat Hanh's book, "The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching"; I've been inching through it for years. I have a huge pile of scribbles and sketches inspired from the past hundred pages or so.
Today I made a couple doodles to help integrate the concepts of Interbeing.
Buddha Doodles would not exist without others. It IS because of US, the collective consciousness.
I would not have found the teachings hadn't a friend pointed the way when I was in college. Jenna, my housemate, lent me Pema Chodron's book, "When Things Fall Apart."
That booked changed something deep inside me. I had never received any teachings on mindfulness or Buddhism prior. I hung on to every word and it gave me hope.
Somewhere, deep inside, I stored those teachings. When things really did start to fall apart many years later, the seeds had already been planted, and the teachings sprouted and pointed the way.
If Pema didn't have her own breakdown, she wouldn't have become a nun and disciple of Dhögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, and she wouldn't have written her book.
If my friend Jenna hadn't encountered her own hard times, she wouldn't have shown me Pema's book.
If my therapist hadn't introduced me to the concept of "This too shall pass", I may not have made that first Buddha Doodle.
We are deeply interconnected, and it is so beautiful. Let us contemplate each day on this truth.
You can do it easily by thinking about each step that is necessary for your food to appear in your kitchen.
Or imagining the millions of acts of goodness that occur each moment. The billions of people who have just stopped for a red light to allow others to go on the green light.
Consider for a moment how we rely on many non-human things and elements to be alive; we need the forests, animals, air, rivers, mountains, oceans.
Nearly ten years after penning the first Buddha Doodle, I look back at my younger self with so much more compassion. I am so grateful for the relationships that fell apart, the financial disasters, and that I became so stuck and felt so small because that constriction allowed my love and truth to breakthrough.
Trust the whispers.
XO
Love,
Molly
