The Art of Showing Up

When I made painting my quest at the beginning of the year,
I secretly carried expectations around every corner.
I need to get good at painting.
What if no one likes it?

Eventually, the weight of those thoughts made it less fun, less freeing.
So I put the brush down.

But with Lumen’s encouragement
and a quiet nudge from within,
I started painting again,
this time with a different mindset.

I wasn’t creating art to create art.
I was creating to feel presence.

What arrived from that presence no longer mattered.
The value was in the practice.
The stillness between strokes.
The noticing.

And the universe noticed too.
Little synchronicities began to whisper back,
tiny nods saying, yes, this.

Whisper from the In-Between

The art isn’t the canvas.
It’s the moment you showed up.
The brush just makes it visible.

Reflection for the Reader

Where in your life could you show up again,
not to improve or impress,
but simply to be present?
What might the universe begin to whisper back
when you do?