The Heart of Reflective Arts

for peace within and all around

Jun 19, 2025

In a world that can be saturated with stressors, creating and maintaining peace within and around is infinitely challenging, and valuable. In this introduction to reflective arts, we’ll look at how creative reflection can support that peace.

Let’s start with the basics:

What Are Reflective Arts?

Reflective art is any kind of creativity that personally relates to the world around us. It’s compassionate creativity (and lots of really inspiring people do it already. I’m just giving it a name cuz I’m nerdy like that).

It starts with the simple creative prompt, “What if Life were a mirror?” With this simple question, art, poetry and meaning can be found in everything (read more about Unlocking the Poetry of Life here).

That being said, this question of reflection doesn’t require believing that Life is a mirror. Instead, it’s a creative exercise in perspective that simply asks “What if?” Reflective art is a creative practice of the heart that invites folks with different beliefs to discover and wonder with love for (our) nature.

How Reflective Arts Support Peace by Growing Love for Ourselves, Others and Life-At-Large

Though the list of benefits from reflective arts are unlimited (and can be very personal), here’s a few of the ways in which reflective arts have supported love and peace within and around me:

Firstly, it’s stabilizing: seeing (our) nature as a mirror allows me to connect with a much broader sense of myself; rather than seeing myself as an isolated individual who’s surviving against a ruthless world, I anchor a sense of being part of a world where life and death, pain and pleasure cyclically and purposefully maintain Life (as a whole) through natural checks and balances. While, as individuals, we’re all made vulnerable by the natural dramas of the ecosystem (predator and prey, competition for resources, changing weather conditions, etc.), when I identify with Life (as a whole), my experience of it becomes much more stable; we’re all gonna die, but Life (as a whole) will always prevail- and we’re all part of that Life. With that in mind, identifying with, understanding, and serving this larger sense of Life helps me maintain a sense of peace with the inherent challenges of being alive. With a natural tendency to be strung along by my body’s push and pull impulses to survive, reflective arts help me stabilize in the broader, and much more resilient, perspective of the whole. (Read more on Nature’s Gifts of Hope and Resilience)

Furthermore, reflective arts help me hold on to the core innocence of myself and others (which helps me stay in love, even when it’s hard). While staples of human morality (such as caring for others and taking only what we need) have developed as safeguards for society, the mirror of (our) nature helps me to have compassion for the ways in which we can all miss the mark sometimes. For example:

As conscious animals, we often have conflicting motives: we’re neurologically wired to be pretty selfish: to seek personal comforts and pleasures, and to avoid pain and danger. But, we’re also wired to be social. To that end, we have the intellectual and emotional capacity to make choices with restraint, and with others in mind. But, when caring for ourselves and caring for others is in conflict, it’s natural to be confused, and to make decisions that are morally questionable. This is especially true when we’re hurt or stressed. Understanding this core challenge of the human condition fosters love and mercy for myself and others when we don’t meet our moral ideals. Seeing Life as a mirror reminds me that none of us are alone in this challenge. (Read more about Reflective Arts for Calming the Nerves)

Furthermore, as our understanding of Life (and each other) is constantly changing as life changes, no matter how well-intentioned we may be, the nature of learning is to have hindsight realizations (often through consequences) about how things are different than what we thought. Understanding this core challenge of learning helps me to have mercy and compassion when the consequences of our misunderstandings end up being harmful. Again, seeing Life as a mirror reminds me that none of us are alone in this challenge.

Finally, reflective art empowers me to be a creator in my own life: I’m not just creating art, I’m creating my actual reality. Here’s how: making art frames our lives and gives it focus. This frame and focus impacts how we see the world, which impacts the choices we make -and these choices play a big part in the life that we create. With that in mind, I become a powerful creator of my life when I ask: What kind of life do I want to make with my art? Though the answer to this question often can’t be pinned down (if I could say it in a sentence, the art wouldn’t be necessary), my art serves my life greatly when I stay lightly connected to the question “What’s this creation creating?” Perhaps it’s creating compassion, connection, joy, inspiration, respect, peace, empowerment and/or appreciation. In any case, I’ve found that making art that’s dedicated to supporting the kind of life that I want to live, and the kind of world that I want to live in, is a superpower. Read more about art as a creative power in life:

With all that said, if making reflective art seems like it could support your life,

Here’s some supportive practices for reflective arts -in any medium:

Here’s some supportive practices for reflective arts -in different mediums:

For Songwriting: Lyrics that Lift: Peace with (our) Nature through Songwriting
For Storytelling: Stories that Shape Heart with Hope
For Poetry: Activating the Poetic Perspective
For Pictures: Visual Poetics for Reflective Arts

Authenticity or Impact, Personal Benefit or Community Benefit: What’s the purpose of what we’re creating?

Within the realm of the arts, there is a debate about whether making art should be something that we do primarily for ourselves or for others. Some say that art is more authentic (and therefore more valuable) when we make it for ourselves, only sharing it with others as an intimate glimpse into our inner-world (without caring about what others might think of it or how it might impact them). Others value the impact of art more, saying that our creations are most valuable when they’re able to connect with an audience. If it’s not connecting with the audience, and/or if they don’t understand what you’re meaning to say, then what’s the point?

In reflective arts, both creating for ourselves and creating as communication are a valuable, though they present different priorities and considerations. In my life, the two are sequential: first I make art for myself. Creative reflection is at the core of my self-care and inner-peace. For over a decade I’ve made reflective arts as a life practice in which my primary audience has been the crickets; the process has been deeply supportive and meaningful, even without a witness.

Still, once I’ve made art for myself, some creations do itch to be shared with a wider audience (though not all do). That being said, the moment I share my creation with another, it ceases to be just for me; it becomes a communication (whether or not it was meant to be). Whether or not I make art for myself or to communicate with others, the heart of the art is the same: to make peace within and all around through building loving connections between the inner and outer worlds.

In this article, we looked at how reflective arts serve us as individuals. In the next article, let’s look at what happens when we share our art with others, as a communication.

Reflective Arts for Communication