Inspiration over Advice

“This is the era where…everybody creates!”

-Patti Smith, “So You Wanna Be”

What if we saw ourselves as artists and creators, and our lives and relationships as collaborative art projects?

The old, dying way of navigating relationships is outward-focused. We listen to other people tell us what a “good relationship” looks like, what the rules are, how we should let people treat us, and whether or not someone is “right” for us. We learn what our relationships should look like from people on TikTok, from Cosmopolitan, from our parents and the people around us. This is a “paint by numbers” model of relationships, and its viability is running out.

In the new way that’s coming, people will be stepping into their worldbuilding power–recognizing their ability to create structures, forms, and realities in their individual lives and to ripple these out into the world.

When we see our relationships as creative, collaborative art projects, we change how we relate to outside input.

We’re going to start moving from an advice model of decision-making to an inspiration model. Which isn’t to say that we don’t listen to anyone else, but that HOW we listen changes.

In an advice model, we’re looking outside ourselves for answers and guidance, assuming there’s a right way to do things that we learn from other people. In an advice model, we trust outside authority more than we trust ourselves. If someone says something with enough certainty or weight behind them (relationship expert, psychologist, magazine), we’re likely to listen even if it doesn’t quite sit right with us.

In an inspiration model, we hear something and it strikes a chord in us. It sounds an internal yes. We’re not going out into the world looking for the right answer, we’re going out into the world to be inspired, to learn about what others are doing and see if it resonates.

In this model, we see other people as collaborators, not authority figures. When we go to someone else’s art show, we don’t go home and copy their art, we take a little piece of something we’re inspired by and it works its way into our art, creating something new. With art projects, the point is that the “end result” is unique.

Seeing our relationships as collaborative art projects can help us get in touch with the resonance between inspiration and desire.

In an art project, there’s a gorgeous flow between intention and inspiration. Internal intention/desire meets outside inspiration and is changed by it, in relationship to it. We know that with art, there’s no wrong way. It’s all about discovery, intuition, and trust. And when we know there’s no wrong way, we’re open to our collaborators. We trust the importance of our desire and curiosity.

Art projects have room for all kinds of colors, not just the easy, pleasing ones. Seeing relationships as art pieces can help us see our fears, our projections, and our struggles with curiosity. Painting with only a few colors isn’t that interesting. We stop trying to make the right choice, and we instead try to make the interesting choice, the choice that resonates with us.

The collaborative art model of thinking helps move us from “this is what’s right, always” to  “this is what I’m creating and interested in right now, but not forever”. It can help us be more attuned to what’s alive for us in the present. What do we desire from our collaborations and relationships right now, instead of 50 years down the line? Can we trust that our desires for right now will carry us to something exciting in 50 years?

This way of thinking can also work for smaller things like a date night or time spent with friends. If we see getting coffee with a close friend as an opportunity to co-create a piece of art, would we change how we show up? This way of thinking helps me to drop my agenda. I’m more open and more curious about where the conversation will go. I’m working on seeing silence or disagreement not as bad, but as interesting. I trust that I’m not going to ruin my art project, because process is always worth something.

If you look at your relationships (which I mean in the broadest sense, always), what kinds of artworks are you creating? Do you feel inspired by where they’re going and their possibilities? If not, maybe you’re listening too much to someone else’s ideas of what makes good art. Maybe it’s time to remember how great and wierd and probably fucked-up and fun your art is.

Till next time, all you crazy creators.