October 29: What art keeps teaching me about love and life (and what it can teach you).

Yesterday I did a thing, and I am geeeeeeked.

I registered for a course in arts-based approaches to social emotional learning.

It’s about using artistic expression to model growth and development of justice-oriented, global citizens, through themes of Mindfulness, Identity, Perspective Sharing, Community Building, and Agency.

Nerd heaven.

Pass the Mod Podge.

Here’s the part that took me a while to type:

I am an artist.

It’s taken me decades to say that.

I won’t say I’m a good artist, and I don’t make a living off of my art.

But I am an artist.

Digital, multimedia, collage.

I value visual art and have it in my home.

I taught fashion design for a decade.

I value expression, the process, the making.

And I value what making art with my hands (including writing by hand) does for my brain.

(If you’ve read Take No Sh*t!, you already know I’m the one telling you to grab colored gel pens and doodle your notes.)

I recently took over a closetin our condo for my art space.

It’s small.

It feels like growth.

Several of my clients recently have been interested in expressing themselves through color and doodling and art-adjacent things as we work on their authenticity and self expression.

One of them is working to find their color again, learning how they attach feelings to color and exploring a favorite artist to see what it stirs up.

And I’m here for it.

Because here’s what art keeps teaching me, and what I think it can teach you about love:

In art, it is judgment rather than rules that matters.

Think about how much dating and relationship advice is rules.

Text back in X hours.

Never make the first move.

Always make the first move.

Be more alpha.

Somebody is always selling the WON TWOO WAY.

But in art, problems can have more than one solution and questions can have more than one answer.

There are many ways to see and interpret the world.

And creating art requires openness to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

Sounds a lot like a relationship worth having, doesn’t it?

This one’s for everyone who freezes up trying to say what they feel:

The limits of our language do not define the limits of our ability.

Sometimes art helps us say what cannot be said.

I don’t know how much I’ll get to use this learning in my love/sex/romance/kink coaching and mentoring work.

But I do know it won’t be wasted.

I’ll get a certificate for my wall, to go right next to my Unicorn Questing License.

And I’m excited to grow from it myself.

So let me ask you:

Where are you following someone else’s rules when you could be trusting your own judgment?

And what would you say about what you want, if you didn’t need the perfect words to say it?

If you’re ready to explore that (crayons optional), let’s talk.

My Big Ask is a free 15-minute consultation where we look at what you want to express in your love life and what’s getting in the way.

👉 https://my.curiouser.life/15-minutes-big-ask

--
Rev Heather, aka Nookie, LUQ
https://my.curiouser.life
+1-855-712-5433 (toll-free)

P.S. Do you make art? Doodle in meetings? Have a color that just feels like you? Hit reply and tell me. Bonus points if you send a picture.