Declaring Your Intention
Includes an Integrative Art Journaling Activity
A Blessing for the Road Ahead
The blank pages of uncertainty lay before me. Is this where courage is built? I can’t help but wonder. “Pick up the pencil and find out,” my inner voice whispers. What is it that I fear? A single dot of the pencil touches the page. “What is placed upon the page is temporary. Like a thought, what we create is always shifting, Changing.” Always changing. Changing… “Give yourself permission to create in this one moment. This one, Small, Fleeting, Moment.”
What is your intention?
Often, we don’t have the words to define the next cycle of where we would like to be. In this exercise, we are giving form to the formless and giving ourselves permission to dream into our own innate potential of what can be possible. We do not have to give the intention an idea or form, not yet, but right now, it is the “feeling” of it that we want to tap into. Sometimes to arrive at a destination, all we need is a willingness to explore what is possible.
When we consciously choose to work with our intention, a connection is made. This is quantum entanglement at its finest. We can only be as strong as the intention we create for ourselves, but is intention alone enough?
I have always felt that one of the biggest keys to unlocking the power of our intention, lays in just as much of the emotional connection as well as the action of how we choose to hold and nurture the seed. A seed, much like our intention, needs sunlight, water, nutrients in the soil, and so on to thrive and grow, but it also needs to be nurtured in the dark. In the unknown.
Did you know that the seed goes through a cycle resembling death to allow the plant to grow and break free from the shell? Intention may be the seed, but in our action, our willingness to surrender the way we are in the moment, allows a new cycle to begin. If an intention holds no real meaning, what happens to the seed?
If we are rooted into our “why” there is never any question of our connection to the intention. Like a compass needle pointing to our true north, an emotional connection can only empower our “why” and once our roots begin to sprout and a shoot emerges from the seed, we know that in some way, like the seed, we have surrendered those old stories to allow a new one to begin. One single intention is more powerful than we can ever fully actualize. When we make the conscious choice to hold and nurture that intention, something within us begins to shift. A whisper. My intention whispers like the gentle winds on warm summer’s day. My courage may have been built in darkness, but in this process, I have unraveled the truth. I am, forever, the light.
Integrative Art Journal Activity
Do you remember when you were a child playing with play dough, getting messy in the sand or mud as you explored insects, grass, or creating with crayons, markers, or watercolor paints, and all the things that made your innocent mind buzz with curiosity? This is what we need to bring forward as we step into exploring this process. We are not rewinding the clock back to our childhood, our childhoods may or may not hold suppressed traumas or core woundings that we are still working through, but what we are doing is bringing forward that sense of play and curiosity with inquiry.
As adults, we may have adapted the belief system to stay rigid and uniform within a specific mindset of priorities dictated or created by the needs of others. When we sit down in inquiry within our own inner process, the opportunity to integrate aspects of ourselves that may or may not have been dormant for far too long is present. By opening ourselves to the possibilities that exist within us, we allow a ground-breaking shift to occur. Something as subtle as the somatic movement across the page, being mindful of our breath, and leaning into the feeling that we are experiencing as we move the color blissfully across the page can indeed bring about remarkable change. It is a form of action, followed by a reaction, that allows that part of ourselves that has been trying to get our attention, to be witnessed and acknowledged, and as each aspect becomes integrated, we make room for what is possible to continue to evolve or manifest in our own lives. We do not always have to know what it is that we are trying to heal, we just need to be willing to hold ourselves in a new way, to witness and acknowledge the movement of expression within our being.
In this space, we are going to tap into the deeper layers of our cognitive thought to deepen into inquiry and tap into the benefits of doodling. Yes, there is plethora of benefits that go along with the simple act of doodling, and while I won’t go into the full benefits here, I will link a few articles and search queries for you to explore if you are like me and enjoy going down a rabbit hole on research, but the idea is this. The process aids us in working through blocked areas, creativity, or writer’s block, and bypassing the “busy” layers of our day to day lives to arrive at a simple answer (or complex, depending on the context). Let us explore this just a little bit more.
We begin to collectively scribble as soon as we can hold a medium in early childhood, and this is of course, dependent on culture and those mediums made available to us, and eventually those scribbles lead to doodles that can represent form as a child. Our scribble or doodles have become a language, a means of interpretation and a big part of our development. The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, studied the benefits of doodling as a way of providing insight into our unconsciousness, and while he viewed those aspects of that process as symbolic representations of repressed thoughts or desires, his student, Carl Jung, further developed that our doodles might be interpreted as manifestations of archetypes. Jungian theory suggests that the unconscious mind has its own language, and we can train that part of ourselves to communicate with each other. Like learning any language, it begins with an intention for both sides to create a bridge, and many of the creative doodling style modalities that exist today create a container and method to safely explore based on that research, but what is the personal connection and why is it so powerful?
The personal connection has everything to do with the fact that we are establishing and healing the disconnect within our being that developed from life experiences created by external factors that resulted in trauma, depression, grief et cetera. The significance is symbolically returning to wholeness and integration. Why these methods become so powerful is not only the method of the tool to help us shift the narrative and begin the process of healing, but it has everything to do with the container that calls the individual. There are those that offer a private and personal approach, there are other modalities out there that offer connection and community integrated within their teachings. We do not arrive at the conclusion at first that doodling can help us enter healing, and yet, there it is. Doodling, in its simplicity, has the capability to do so much more. While I am a student of more than one modality that utilizes doodling as a cornerstone of its method, I found myself seeking something more. I spent hours exploring a new method that would allow me to break free from those patterns that held me prisoner.
Integrative Art Journaling is an organic process created while I was navigating trauma along with uncertainty within my health living with chronic disease and the impact that it had had on my life. Integrative Art Journaling was developed during a moment of profound release, and in that release, I saw the potential and the freedom of stepping outside of idea of perfection and how I hold stories that no longer served me and kept me looping in the trauma cycles that held me prisoner. This process also allowed me to become aware of those relationships and communities that were toxic, allowing me to create functional boundaries and pull from a new and improved toolkit. I spent days exploring the method and process, and when I felt the story was complete and completed the final step of that process, the shift was so profound, I sat in silence holding myself as the tears flowed freely, and I knew, innately knew, that I was finally free of that story that I had held and released in that cycle. Now I am sharing that process with you, and in each cycle, together, we have an opportunity to step into profound healing and creative exploration. I continue to use this process, and while what worked for me may not work for you, this is but another tool we can add to the collective for the greater good.
This process allows us to work through difficult areas in life where we need to bring in some spaciousness, liberation or a sense of freedom by means of creative expression, to arrive in the moment with relief, as well as enhances outside-the-box creative thinking to form solutions that are either obvious or those ideas that we may not generally arrive at on our own. This is a tool in utilizing the power of self-inquiry and allows us to begin an intimate process of reestablishing trust within our own capabilities to make decisions for ourselves.
When we engage in self-inquiry and utilize our brain by activating different pathways through activities such as doodling or scribbling, for example, we can create neural connections that engage the brain in a different way, enhancing self-awareness and access to information that we would not otherwise obtain in a moment of overwhelm or emotional upheaval.
It is important to remember that when we step into this process, we do NOT judge this space, or what appears upon the page. This is a judgement FREE zone. If your inner judge or critic pop in to give you a word or two, or three, give them a quick thank you and continue to observe what is true in this moment.
You will need:
Your Journal
Your Art Journal
Medium of Choice: Crayons, Colored Pencils, Markers, Watercolors, etc.
Depending on Medium, You May Need:
A Jar of Water
Brushes
Towels
Instructions:
Open your art journal to a new page and using whatever medium you feel called to use, whether its crayons, watercolor, marker, colored pencils, or other medium and with the inquiry in mind: “What is my intention?”
Next, its time to create a container. Begin moving your color upon the page in a way that calls to you with bold strokes, light strokes, or scribbled motion to create a container of your choosing to hold your intention. Draw, paint or color in whatever way that resonates with you. The goal here is to allow the process to be organic, but not to spend too much time on it, but we want to continue to move the color on the page until it “feels” complete. Do not focus on the details yet.
If this process does not feel complete, and you would like to go deeper into the process, pick a new color to work with or try a different medium and ask what else is asking to arrive upon the page. An optional inquiry might be “What does my intention mean to me?” The emotional connection to your inquiry is an important factor to the overall process.
Now, give yourself full permission to scribble your doodle in whatever way that feels amazing and right to you. If you feel the scribble monster coming on or perhaps you want to decorate, paint, and create depth and meaning… There is no wrong or right way to go about this. Go with it! Allow the page to begin to fill with that color or colors, symbols, and/or words and doodle in a way that allows you to express whatever is being felt in this moment. Reminder: Do not judge what takes place on the page. We do NOT want perfection. We seek release in expression of color and movement. Nothing more.
Next, while holding this intention in mind, create a symbol that represents your conscious decision to step into the present, this time and space, with your intention. Make this a symbolic action to honor not only what is known, but also the quiet, unspoken aspects of yourself still in motion. Sketch the symbol and reflect on any insights that emerge alongside it in your journal.
Finally, what else is asking to be placed upon the page? Is it an object? More symbols? An image? Collage elements? Words? Give your expression the freedom to create freely. If you end up covering your symbol, please make a note of it somewhere else that you will remember, like your journal. We will be using this symbol later.
Next Steps:
Tear away those pieces that call to you in that moment.
Place those pieces in a small envelope or other location for safe keeping.
Thoughts, Tips & More:
You do NOT need to be an artist to enjoy exploring this process. Whether you scribble, doodle, or just color in whatever way resonates with you, that’s perfect! Expression is not about the level of skill, it is everything to do with the quality of the experience.
You can take this process even deeper by simply coloring, layering, or moving into the flow of the piece you are working on.
As you go through this process, remember, where you begin may not be where you arrive. By stepping beyond the realm of the story, you open space for truth to unfold. So often, we carry what was never ours… Projections, expectations, the weight of other people's narratives, et cetera. But when we slow down enough to truly listen to the voice within, we may find ourselves moving in a direction we never expected yet always belonged to.
Keep in mind the darker the color you use, the more difficult it can be to visually see or add in other elements unless you have a white acrylic paint pen (or paint) or other medium that can add a visual queue to the elements being added. Layering mixed media, such as collage, is also a wonderful way to explore working with a wide diversity of colors and color interplay. Some oil pastels work well, along with chalk over darker terrain, but with abstract representation, this evolves into its own process of finding innovative solutions that allow your authentic expression to be represented.
Create a Declaration of Intent
Instructions:
What purpose will your pages hold? Using an extra sheet of scrap paper or in your standard day-to-day journal, with your intention in mind, make a declaration of your intent of what these pages will hold. This is our agreement with ourselves, and a gentle reminder to be vulnerable and compassionate with ourselves as we step into this process. If you have a difficult time thinking of a declaration, use the example of the one I have given below and alter it to make it your own. When you are done, sign your declaration.
Next, decorate the inside cover if you feel called. Want to create a pocket to hold your intention? See the instructions below.
Add your symbol that represents your intention somewhere on the inside cover.
Optional: Create a Pocket for Your Intention
Using your mixed media paper, cut out the desired size for your written intention to safely fit inside (keeping in mind you will need extra space to accommodate for the glue. When you have the desired dimensions, glue three of the edges of the paper onto the inside cover to create your pocket. Decorate the pocket or leave it for another day.
My Declaration of Intention
In these pages I accept that what appears on the page is an expression of self.
There is no shame.
No judgement.
All representations of expression in the form of color or absence of color, layers or texture, structure or chaos are welcome here.
Each page reflects an embraced moment in time, whether spoken or unspoken.
With each mark, stroke, and water liberated splatter, is the universal intention of the one thing…
A blessing for the path ahead.
May I feel supported and held within these pages.
May my adventure into abstract expression be filled with curiosity and childlike wonder.
May I be compassionate with my imperfections and vulnerable with what is asking to arrive within these pages.
~Melissa Halbert
References
Go to Google Scholar and enter in the search term: “Benefits of Doodling” and/or “Neuroplasticity and Doodling” to explore a wealth of information. Here are a few articles to get you started on what has become one of my many rabbit holes while researching the benefits of creative expression.
The "thinking" benefits of doodling, Mental Health; Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School, December 15, 2016, srinipillay: https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/the-thinking-benefits-of-doodling-2016121510844
Boggs, J. B., Cohen, J. L., Marchand, G. C. (2017). The Effects of Doodling on Recall Ability. Psychological Thought, 10(1), 206-216. http://dx.doi.org/10.5964/psyct.v10i1.217
See, scribble, print: Encouraging young children to make their mark; Better Kid Care, Early Learning Professionals, Research-to-Practice, All Tip Pages; Pennsylvania State University; https://extension.psu.edu/programs/betterkidcare/early-care/tip-pages/all/see-scribble-print-encouraging-young-children-to-make-their-mark
Copyright © 2025 Melissa Halbert. All rights reserved.