This past Monday, I was guest teaching an Art Connection Circle workshop in an intimate retreat of women business owners. Just like students, several of these women longed to find out the “right answer” for the interpretation of the artwork we were looking at. They, again like students, were taught to look for the answers somewhere else, outside of ourselves.
In a book
or on Google
or in a course
or from the mouth of an expert or coach
or on crowdsourcing platform like Facebook.
One of the biggest lessons I personally have learned over the last few years is that I already have the answers that I crave inside of me.
My job is to know myself and to listen and stay true to the small voice inside that knows.
And sometimes that knowing is that yes there is a skill I need to learn or information I need to obtain from an outside source, but when we continually outsource our thinking to someone else and put our own internal knowing aside, we end up in situations that aren’t right for us. We make decisions that don’t feel right and that impacts our happiness and our wellbeing.
Art allows us to practice being in that place of uncertainty, practice listening to our inner voices, and then learn to trust what comes up.
It’s powerful and necessary process, and one I wish our education systems championed more than memorization and tests. But it’s one of my favorite benefits of looking at and discussing art.
I’d love to invite you to join the Art Connection Circle this summer so you can experience this process for yourself—spending time listening and connecting with your own inner voice. Get more details here.
🎙️🎙️🎙️ Also, on the podcast this week, Amanda Koonlaba of Party in the Art Room and I talked about how art helps us deal with uncertainty in our discussion of One Woman Show by Celeste Rapone. Listen to the Art and Self podcast here on my website or on your favorite podcast player.
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