Are you a doodler? Studies show that doodlers actually remember more than non-doodlers when asked to retain tediously delivered information? Did you know that there’s even a national doodle day in the UK and USA? In this week’s Healing Through Creativity show, host Dr. Desiree Cox talks to breast cancer survivor and now author and artist, Carol Edmonston about healing through doodling. Edmonston began doodling by chance while anxiously sitting in a medical waiting room shortly after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Since then doodling has become a creative and meditative practice and the spring board for a new beginning for her life.

A long time meditator and former physical therapist, Carol Edmonston is a native of California, USA. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she now lives in Fullerton, CA with her husband, a retired orthopaedic surgeon. Up until 1995 when she was first diagnosed with cancer, Edmonston would have described herself as a perfectionist, a left-brain person but never an artist. She began her career as a physical therapist, having received her B.S. in Physical Therapy from the University of Southern California and worked in that profession for many years. She was also the former Orange County Coordinator for the National “Just Say No” Club program, a drug prevention program for youth, supported by Former First Lady Nancy Reagan.

‘I’m a recovering perfectionist,’Edmonston confessed to Dr. Cox. ‘I still don’t see herself as an artist. It took me years to see that what I was doing wasn’t just trivial’.

Cox and Edmonston talk about how Edmonston uses her process of Sacred Doodling, her upbeat interactive workshops at Sacred Space in the UK and in the USA, and the story of her healing journey through doodling to inspire anxious children and adult cancer patients to connect with their creativity as part of their healing journey.

Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1995, when the doodling began Carol has authored two books since her journey began. In her first book, Connections…the Sacred Journey Between Two Points (self-published, 2000) she shares her personal story through prose, interwoven with sacred ‘doodles’ created during that time. Her second book Create While You Wait…a Doodle Book for All Ages (Self-Published, 2004) is a hands-on doodlers book for people waiting- at airports, before meetings, before exams. Her story also appears in Chicken Soup for the Breast Cancer Survivor’s Soul and she has been profiled in the New York Times, Woman’s World, ElleGirl, Women’s Health & Fitness, among other publications. Her new DVD, Sacred Doodles, is a visual and auditory meditation where the doodles come alive, woven with the Celtic harp of Lisa Lynne.

Find out more about Carol Edmonston, and Sacred Doodling as a way to healing and creativity in this week’s Healing Through Creativity conversation. You can also find out more about Dr. Desiree Cox on her website www.desireecox.com