What Does Creativity Have To Do with Our Relationships with Others?

What does creativity have to do with our relationships with others? I think creativity really begins to flow as we tap into a deeper sense of our compassionate interconnection with others, not seeing ourselves as so separate from one another?

But to explain that, I want to start with a quote from John O’Donahue that Nazia Islam, one of the co-hosts of our Embracing Mystery podcast, shared at the beginning of our second podcast episode.

This is is from John O’Donahue’s book, Anam Cara. “Since the birth of the human heart is an ongoing process, love is the continuous birth of creativity within and between us”

It’s fascinating to me to think about love unfolding in our relationships as the birth of creativity since it is part of the creative process of our own heart’s formation and ongoing birth. 

Our hearts are continuing to be birthed, to be shaped, formed, molded, and grown as we cultivate connection with our deepest selves, and simultaneously with others. Seeing this process as a form of creative unfolding expands the scope of creativity to encompass our own being and becoming as a creative act. 

But it crucially does not happen in isolation. I spoke in an earlier video about cultivating compassionate connection with our deepest and most authentic selves. And our connections with others flow right out of that. 

I said there that inside us, underneath all our thoughts, emotions, feelings, all the physical or mental events that cross our conscious awareness where there is a deeper flow.

And that Creativity emerges and flows through the places in us that feel most connected and porous.

And rather than seeing our deepest selves as a descent into the most isolated part of ourselves as individuals, instead we find we are most connected, of course to ourselves, and to Reality, however we name that compassionate flow we are all held in. 

And I want to add here, our deepest self is also where somehow, we are deeply connected with one another as we get in touch with the core of our humanity. 

• Different worldviews will express this differently of course.
• Perhaps there’s a collective unconscious that ontologically exists
• Some might frame it as an interconnection as we seek loving union with Divine, and our depths are entwined in the heart of God
• Or or it could be non-dual expression of consciousness, where at the end of the day nothing exists totally separately
• Or perhaps for you there’s technically separation, but we find that our human dignity, expressed in so many beautiful ways, is what binds us together as relational beings. We belong to each other. 

However you view these things, I like that John O’Donahue does not paint this as a static picture. Our hearts are being birthed. Our depths of self are always being formed. And love flowing through this space of interconnection in and between us is the birth of creativity. Love is the wellspring of our creativity. 

But even then, I don’t think love and creativity are really separate. It’s one compassionate, creative flow.

And it means our relationships are also a creative endeavor, an artform in themselves. It’s something we have to learn to cultivate. That’s what O’Donahue’s book, anam Cara, or soul friend, is all about.

A compassionate heart helps us to practice deep listening with one another, to truly companion each other in ways that provides space for our hearts to emerge, to become ourselves together. 

But what about artistic creativity? What does that have to do with our compassionate connection and relationships with others and wider society?

When we write a song, a poem, or a story that includes others’ perspectives, whether fictional or real, we empathize with the characters and people involved. We get into their shoes, their experiences, their humanity. We have to explore their wants and needs and understand how they ended up where they are.

Same goes for visual arts and film, where capturing subtle non-verbal cues can create layers of nuance that invite us in to sense and feel what might be happening inside the person’s head. We create invitations to connection and empathy with those we portray visually. 

And you might ask whether compassion is always necessary for this. So here’s how I would frame it: if we are not compassionate toward others' whole humanity, we will end up with shallow, flat representations, even of the things we don’t like! We can’t express the evil of a situation without an appreciation also for what twisted things that must be happening in the interior life of someone committing evil acts.

And then someone might say, well, why would I empathize with or try to fully understand someone who I vehemently disagree with? And while we’re talking about creativity here, that’s a general life question.

My suggestion is we don’t get to just dismiss the humanity of those whose views we reject. And, in our weaker moments, this isn’t even for the other person, but having compassion is a way of maintaining your own humanity and receiving joy as you keep your heart open toward them. 

This is the first step of the Buddhist Eight Verses of Thought Transformation for forming bodhicitta, the heart of enlightenment. It says,

"Determined to obtain the greatest possible benefit
From all sentient beings,
Who are more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel, 
I hold them most dear at all times."

Even if you want to be selfish, the best way to benefit from everyone else is to regard them as more precious than a wish-fulfilling jewel, and hold them most dear at all times. 

Why? Because it fills our hearts with joy and gladness to allow compassion to flow freely to others! And the next verses go on to invite this posture even when others don’t deserve it, even when they are evil. The aim is to transform our hearts to be open and compassionate. 

And not that I’m at that place, but I do think it would give new perspective and ways of seeing and portraying others in our creative work. There would be greater insight into the human condition.  

Even when our creative work is not about a particular person, we are still often reflecting on something more than just expressing our personal experience, and that means we’re trying to compassionately see and capture some aspect of human experience. This involves an inner movement of the heart, to grow, expand, and come into contact with the experiences, the sentiments, the questions, that we then capture. So, yes, compassion practices, 

But what about when our work really focuses on our personal experiences?

When our work feels very personal, expressing and we can express it from a place of depth in our authentic selves, it is then what’s going to connect us most to the depths of others. It’s more particular, but also then resonates more deeply by expressing things that are more universal about what it means it be human. Rick Rubin talks about this in his book, The Creative Act.

Even if the other person does not have the same experiences, it evokes our own empathy and shared humanity as we really see one another and share our creative work together.

So what this helps highlight is that one of the primary functions of creativity is to help connect us. 

Art is giving the gift of shared experience. 

What starts off as my or your own individual experience, we are then able to capture some piece of that in a way that will help to evoke that same experience in someone else. 

So creativity helps us share our own authentic selves in ways that connect us in shared experience and help us empathize with one another’s experiences of being human.

AND, if we have done our work of cultivating compassionate interconnection, the art we create will also help people to see the humanity in the characters and people we portray, or our expressions of broader human experience will be more empathetic, and thus more accurately reflective of the human condition. 

I like to see this all as part of the creative compassionate flow in process, where the love within and between us is giving birth to creativity.