My friend and colleague Nicki Lang and I facilitated our “Cultivating Creativity” retreat last weekend on Hood Canal—20 adults of all genders coming together to create community and art. We had four “Makers Sessions” with inks on canvas, collage, block printing, and writing. And lots of time around the fire singing, meals together, and the collective proclamation that we are born to create. 

For our closing circle, we had everyone share a creation from the weekend they felt tenderly toward. People shared poems, painting, prints, songs, and it was easily the best 45 minutes of my year. A beautiful reminder that there is so much going on inside each of us that’s waiting to be expressed, noticed, acknowledged. And that perfection is always the enemy of the good.  

I’m very accustomed to being in settings where people are invited to be vulnerable, whether it’s in professional development settings where I’m a participant, my own therapy, experiences I create for workplace groups, or coaching clients. But there was something really different about asking people to share something they made. It was both easier and harder than asking them to reflect on something more intangible. On one hand, the thing is right there, irrefutable. It can be seen, touched, described. On the other hand, sharing things we’ve made can feel incredibly exposing. Our inner critic can become ferocious, and we mistake our lack of expertise for a lack of worth. 

Sharing in community made this all possible. Being witnessed is always powerful, and sometimes I forget that. It’s categorically not doable to become ourselves without the influence of one another. We need each other like water, like air and sunlight, like a stand of trees whose roots share nutrients. And I was reminded again last weekend that we need not know all the details of one another’s stories to be connected. Proximity and an intention to bring our whole selves to the moment can be enough. In a confessional era of fabricated authenticity, it’s still our presence that’s the most powerful. Especially if we are sitting next to one another drawing, painting, or singing. As one participant said to me over lunch, “It’s good to be reminded that people are good.” 

A client told me recently that an employee made a puzzle out of several photographs of organizational artifacts and employees’ faces, and it was being worked on in the lunchroom between shifts. The work these folks do is hard—it’s certainly not virtual, it can be by turns intense and boring, and certainly under-appreciated. But when they walk into the lunchroom and find a few pieces of the puzzle, they are reminded of all the ways they are connected. Don’t you just love that?!  

Life is hard, and especially so for some folks. We are not born resilient or not—it’s a measure of our connection to one another. I’m inspired by all the people in my orbit who understand this, and who take risks to connect even when their energy is low, they are nervous about failing, or they have been hurt in the past. And to our pop-up community from last weekend, I miss you already!