Have you ever been overthinking so much that it feels like your thoughts are bouncing around your brain with nowhere to go?
Maybe one thought keeps asking, “What if something goes wrong?”
Another keeps reminding you about something embarrassing you did five years ago.
And another has already imagined approximately 47 different things that could happen tomorrow.
Sometimes trying to tell yourself to stop thinking about it only makes you think about it more.
But what if, instead of fighting those thoughts, you drew them?
What if your anxious thought became a nervous little monster? What if your inner critic became a grumpy creature with crossed arms? What if your overthinking became a frazzled character carrying twenty different thought bubbles?
That’s the idea behind Turning Thoughts Into Characters, a creative exercise featured in my new Cozy Critters Creative app.
And you don’t have to be an artist to try it.
Doodling Can Be More Than Just Doodling
We tend to think of doodling as something meaningless we do in the margins of notebooks.
Little flowers.
Random faces.
Stars.
Hearts.
Swirls.
Tiny creatures that somehow appear while we’re thinking about something completely different.
But I think there’s something freeing about doodling precisely because it doesn’t have to be serious art.
You aren’t sitting down expecting to create a masterpiece.
You’re simply making marks.
That takes some of the pressure out of creativity.
When you’re doodling for self-expression, the finished picture isn’t necessarily the important part. The process gives you an opportunity to slow down, focus your attention on something tangible, and explore what’s going through your mind.
Give Your Thought a Character
Here’s an exercise I’ve been exploring for Cozy Critters Creative:
Think about one thought that’s been taking up a lot of space in your mind.
Don’t try to solve it yet.
Instead, imagine that thought as a character.
Ask yourself:
If this thought were a little creature, what would it look like?
Maybe your worry is a fluffy purple monster with enormous eyes.
Maybe your inner critic is a tiny angry creature holding a megaphone.
Maybe your perfectionism wears a suit and carries a clipboard everywhere.
Maybe your overthinking is a frantic little critter surrounded by dozens of question marks.
Draw whatever comes to mind.
It can be cute.
It can be weird.
It can be messy.
It can literally be a circle with two eyes.
This isn’t about drawing ability.
Now Give It a Personality
Once you’ve drawn your thought, get curious about it.
What would your character say?
Maybe your worry character says:
“But what if this happens?”
Your perfectionism character might say:
“It’s still not good enough.”
Your inner critic might say:
“Everyone else is better at this than you.”
Write some of those thoughts around your character as speech bubbles.
Suddenly, something interesting happens.
Instead of the thought existing only inside your head, you’re looking at it on the page.
You can begin responding to the character rather than automatically accepting everything it says.
If your worry character says, “Everything is going to go wrong,” you might write back:
“That’s one possibility, but it isn’t the only possibility.”
If your perfectionism character says, “You have to get this exactly right,” you might respond:
“Good enough is still good.”
You’re not trying to bully the character into disappearing. You’re practicing noticing the thought and considering another perspective.
Make the Thought a Little Less Scary
There’s another reason I love turning thoughts into characters:
You can make them ridiculous.
Give your overthinking monster mismatched socks.
Give your inner critic a squeaky voice.
Draw your worry carrying seventeen emergency backpacks “just in case.”
Put a giant bow on your perfectionism monster.
Sometimes adding humor or imagination can change how you relate to a thought.
The thought may still be there, but you’re creating a little distance between you and what your mind is telling you.
Instead of:
“Everything is going to go wrong.”
It becomes:
“My little worry creature is predicting the future again.”
That distinction can be surprisingly powerful.
You Are Not Every Thought You Have
One of the biggest things I’m learning through psychology, creativity, and CBT concepts is that having a thought doesn’t automatically make that thought true.
Our minds generate thoughts constantly.
Some are useful.
Some are realistic.
Some are completely random.
And some come from fear, assumptions, habits, or our tendency to imagine worst-case scenarios.
Creative exercises can give us another way to notice those thoughts.
You don’t necessarily have to sit down with a journal and write three pages about how you’re feeling.
You can draw a grumpy blob.
You can scribble.
You can give your worry googly eyes.
You can turn your overthinking into a whole cast of characters.
And then you can get curious about what they’re saying.
Try It Yourself
Grab a piece of paper or open a drawing app and think of one thought that’s been bothering you.
Then:
- Turn the thought into a character. Don’t worry about making it look good.
- Give it a personality. Is it nervous, bossy, dramatic, scared, demanding, or something else?
- Write what it’s telling you. Add its favorite thoughts in speech bubbles.
- Respond to it. What would a calmer, kinder, more balanced voice say back?
- Add something silly. A hat. Tiny shoes. A ridiculous name. Anything that makes the character feel a little less intimidating.
When you’re finished, notice how you feel.
You don’t have to destroy the drawing or “defeat” the character.
Maybe it can simply exist on the page instead of taking up quite so much space in your head.
Bringing This Exercise to Cozy Critters Creative
This idea is one of the creative exercises I’m bringing into my new Cozy Critters Creative app.
I wanted Cozy Critters Creative to be about more than making pretty digital art. It’s about giving yourself a playful space to doodle, scribble, explore emotions, express thoughts, and create without worrying about whether you’re “good” at art.
Turning a thought into a character fits perfectly with that idea.
Because creativity doesn’t always need to produce something beautiful.
Sometimes a doodle is just a doodle.
But sometimes that funny little creature staring back at you represents something you’ve been carrying around in your head all day.
And putting it onto the page can be a way of saying:
I see this thought. I can listen to it without automatically believing it. And I don’t have to let it control the whole story.
That’s when doodling becomes a little more than doodling.
