Episode 66: Melissa Lloyd, Doodle Lovely

I had the opportunity to connect with Melissa this week for the podcast and am excited to share how she is serving her community and how you can let go of stress and unlock your creativity one doodle at a time!   

Melissa Lloyd has twenty-plus years of professional design and communication and combines that with her passion and connection to humanity, psychology, art therapy, and mindfulness.  In her community, Melissa encourages you to learn how to navigate the stormy seas of life, reduce stress and rejuvenate your mind!  

Melissa shares that she always embraced her creativity from a very early age.  This interest led her to a lot of different opportunities around the world!  She always knew that she wanted to be a designer.  For over twenty years she was in the design and communication industry which led to some burnout and she ended up asking herself, “  What is this all about and where am I going?”  She worked towards finding those more quiet peaceful states of “being”.  She knew the place of peace was in the creative process.  

One day Melissa sat at her dining room table and doodled circles upon circles and had no expectations.   She was going to give herself five minutes to sit there and “be “.   What she found is that she got lost in the process and said “wow”! She then started this process of going back to the paper each day. She doodled each day with no expectation and that’s where the journey began! 

Even though some of the things on the page looked terrible she permitted herself to do more doodling!   She then began to be interested in the science of doodling and what happens psychologically when we are doodling.  She stopped judging what the doodles looked like on the page and began to embrace the process.  

In school, we are taught that doodling means we are not paying attention and has a negative connotation. When in fact, it has a very positive effect and helps people to move outside of their comfort zone and into more peaceful places. By doodling helps to reduce the cortisol levels and helps you get into the present moment.  Doodling is very tactile and full sensory! People that doodle while listening can retain up to 30% more information than people who don’t.  It also helps to bring some playfulness back into your life.  And guess what? Playfulness is connected to anti-aging!  Such a huge bonus for us women in midlife! 

We explore in our conversation how Doodle Lovely can be such a gift to us women in midlife!  Typically we are taking very little time for ourselves to get quiet and do self-exploration. By doodling, this allows us to have a pause and reflection point to go into that space so we don’t miss that opportunity when it comes knocking on the door!  I know for myself when I get quiet and use my tools for self-exploration, I am better able to see opportunities when they present themselves!  It’s a lovely gift.  

By doodling, we are giving ourselves the space to let you and let the emotions process.  

Melissa shares about the development of the workbooks on her site. The first one:  Creative Mind, Happy Soul Journal is about starting simple and creating a habit through the prompts, doodling, journaling, and mood tracking.  Melissa wants us to be able to grow by filling in the page!  With the journal, you can sit down for a short period and get lost in something.  Which I don’t know about you but that’s a gift these days! 

During our conversation, Melissa also shares the benefits she is seeing with Doodle Breaks with business and their employees.  As well as her Doodle by Numbers!