What I love most about sketchnoting is that it allows you to connect your thoughts and feelings. I still don’t quite understand how it actually works, but particularly when dealing with difficult or highly emotional topics, visualisations often convey something that is hard to put into words. I also feel that the moment I see something I’ve drawn in front of me, I’m more likely to truly understand and internalise it – not just on an intellectual level, but also on an emotional one. I find this much harder to do with words alone.
Sometimes I read or hear something that really resonates with me or touches on a topic that’s particularly on my mind at the moment, and then I process it in a sketchnote. That’s what happened to me, for example, with a YouTube video by Brene Brown about how to deal with disrespectful behaviour. Here, I’ve summarised the main talk in a sketchnote, but I then needed a few individual sketches for bits of information I wanted to highlight separately.
I was very impressed by Brené Brown’s work – particularly her point about how essential vulnerability is to truly building relationships with others. What it really takes, however, are trustworthy partners, which raises the question of what trust actually consists of and how one can create such a trusting atmosphere. During a workshop led by Ben Crothers and Axelle Vanquaillie, I was able to develop this idea further and focus on a sketch which, for me, really illustrates what trust means.
Two years ago, I also tried to define for myself, in a sketch note, what constitutes human relationships and which behaviours destroy them. My drawing style has changed a little since then, but in terms of content, I still see things exactly the same way today. 🙂
