That Makes Sense: Expanding Creativity with Empathy

I read a book some time ago during a series of drives back and forth, two hours one-way, between the Omaha Eppley Airport and our home in Norfolk, NE. The book was a curated collection of encouragement toward noticing. I do not know that I thought this book would be a good or necessary read, but something in the Libby app called out to my spirit to consider this as a possible #goodread. It was, for me, in fact a #mediocreread. By the seventh passage about birds, I had my fill.

Feeling and seeing are both the greatest blessing of the creative, as well as our greatest burden. If art was made from noticing alone, we would all be set. But art is made from processing as much it is from noticing. Sometimes, noticing can drown your soul. Disappointment is as present and powerful as beauty. The psychology of creativity exists within the same dualities we live in each day. There is mental work, and a mental load, to being a noticer. As creatives we find ourselves in the (good) work of processing all there is to be noticed daily. As embodied people, it behooves us to notice our bodies bear the load of noticing, even as they continue to bear the heavy burden of their backstory.

Redemption comes through empathy.

God feels for us and with us. We are not alone in the million good and challenging details of our lives. Empathy is an antidote for much of life. I have good news, friends, empathy is also a companion, a schoolmate, and a partner to innovation, creativity, and refreshment as well (Bellis et al., 2023).

“God feels for us and with us. We are not alone in the million good and challenging details of our lives.”

The link between empathy and creativity

In a study of workmates by Rouse (2020) researchers discussed that dyads or teammates did better with change, adjustment, and moving toward innovation when they worked on things together. It wasn’t the quality of the relationship or the closeness of the pair that mattered, but as cited, the dyads could move into creativity and innovation because things made sense more readily through one another’s lens. The article itself by Rouse was in the end about sense-making. We need things to make sense as humans, and when they don’t, we languish. Confusion tends to be the cognitive version of emotional pain. Our tired souls cannot carry confusion for long and bring new work forward. We will need a break, a rest, a time of grounding again.

Through another’s lens, we gain a perspective we would not have on our own. The dyads, or pairs of workers, also needed some boundaries for the empathy and perspective to be expressed unhindered (Rouse, 2020). We need to understand the intimacy of the relationships we are seeking to understand if they can lead with empathy. Know your people – who gifts you with enough warmth that you feel seen, that sense comes forward because the emotional pain of your cognitive confusion has a landing space, whether through expression or simply through presence. Who are the people who help you make sense of the world? Who are the people that sit with you until you can say to yourself, “Life is hard. That makes sense. Life is beautiful, and that also makes sense.”

“Resonance is something created when we leave room for someone to feel and wrestle in our presence. We do not try to take it from them or try to shift it to make them feel better. We share validation. We share noticing.”

Healthy and less healthy empathy

Freud (whose shenanigans I generally have very little time for) referred to creativity as the tension between male and female, person to person, and/or one’s consciousness and unconscious (Tomyuk, 2020). As Freud is apt to do, he distilled tension to things like love, sex, and power. But the tension “between” is also the simple energy that exists as God knits people together in relationship and within themselves in God’s way, in God’s time. What Freud did not know is that the tension between can be healthy through simple resonance, when people often think we must react. Resonance is something created when we leave room for someone to feel and wrestle in our presence. We do not try to take it from them or try to shift it to make them feel better. We share validation. We share noticing.

“I see what you are saying. I see that in your life. That makes sense.”

We often want resolution rather than hearing and seeing and sense-making together.

The Rouse (2020) investigation into innovation and creativity suggested partnership and the power of empathy. The research found that empathy and sense making as a team led to co-creation as well. Imagine a world where we are less exhausted by producing for the algorithm and more inspired by one another, more collaborative, not for attention but for creation. I promise we are less tired when we are not trying to solve one another’s problems, many of which have few solutions to begin with. Imagine the health of a life with more collaboration and less solving.

Empathy and sense-making are “simple” – not easy –

Practice with yourself first. When you encounter confusion, sit with it a moment longer, and share with your anxious, your frustrated, your weary parts; “That makes sense.”

Then, practice being the person who can sit alongside someone this week. Bring with you a pocketful of empathy that does not answer concretely but allows a moment for life’s stuff to come forward. Be careful not to see people as tools for our own benefit, but remember, empathy benefits everyone by creating a sense of connectivity and validation in the wide variety of experiences we encounter as humans. Small moments of empathy lead to rays of transformation and creative energy, because they are founded in love.

That Makes Sense: Expanding Creativity with Empathy

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