How to Turn Your Relationship Into a Creative Adventure
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PHIL: We wrote recently about a card game we invented to nudge us into spending time together out of the house and out of our routines. The game has mutated, and we now take turns each week to pick something to do and when to do it. We have replaced the randomness of the cards telling us what to do with our own agency of making choices.
It reminds me of a book I read years ago, “Dice Man” by Luke Rhinehart, in which a man decides to make all the decisions in his life by throwing dice. He forgoes free will, but is also plunged into situations that would never have happened had he taken control of his choices.
Exercising the ability to choose what we do in life, big or small, and manifesting it – making it come into existence – is the essence of creativity.
I think this is in action all the time for Maude and me. Years ago, I read an article by Maggie Scarf on how opposites attract in relationships: you are drawn to behaviors that are different from yours, but over time, you come to find them intolerable because they are aspects of yourself that you have suppressed; for example, the financially cautious person cannot abide their partner’s spendthrift ways.
Maude and I avoid traps like this by choosing from the many ways we could react to each other – we exercise our creativity. It also helps that we recognize that differences are the addition of variety, not an anomaly that has to be straightened out.
This is also why we have a peaceful relationship. It is something we choose to have by choosing how we act. This is not very commonly understood and practiced. Many people fail to achieve this because they bring defensiveness into their relationships, and modern culture takes this as the norm and tries to call it “healthy conflict”. I know that relationships without conflict might sound unrealistic, but they are not. Neither of us has any desire to live that way, so we simply don’t act in that manner. It’s not avoidance; it’s the knowledge that love connects and fear divides, and we can always find how to connect by looking for what we have in common. That is creativity at work.
MAUDE: Some of you have recently read our post on using a deck of cards to pick activities like walking and going for a drive, to create a pattern of taking time each week for us, and making new experiences together.
I have been surprised and pleased to see how fast the basic plan has evolved within a few short weeks. First, it got modified so we took turns each week rather than letting the cards decide who makes the suggestion. That worked great and brought us to a wonderful drive and walk combined. Then we added all kinds of activities, and in line with getting away from the heat, we are going to a movie in the late afternoon to see Mary Oliver, Saved by the Beauty of the World.
What I have noticed is that our creativity and playfulness have surged to the forefront with this game. And that has me thinking about creativity and its role in bringing peace to relationships. I think it will help to understand what I am referring to here if I repeat that peace is an actual experience, filled with joy. It is a sensation, as well as a state of being, that reverberates throughout your whole body. It creates a calm, centered, safe place that surrounds the individual and relationships.
When we approach things creatively in our connections, it requires being present and open to that which is new and different. We create interactions which are full of an awareness of each other and the play of uniqueness between us. The spontaneity of the plan and the playful aspect of creating a shared adventure cause the kind of inner happiness so characteristic of peace. This is not the peace of the sleeping, or dead (as so many imagine peace), but rather a living, dancing, jump-for-joy reality.
Julia Cameron, in her well-known series The Artist’s Way, calls for a play date with yourself once a week for a few hours where you go off with nothing to accomplish and just play, whatever that means to you. The very purpose of this practice is to bring forth your creativity.
When we apply that to our relationships, we usher in with it a kind of peace which removes the sense of combativeness, irritations, or impatience. It brings with it instead a bursting bubble of gratefulness and a sense of open possibilities. Try it! You won’t regret it, and you just might experience a whole new kind of peaceful relationship.
Photo credit: Phil Mayes
Photo note: Santa Barbara Solstice Parade
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