A 4yr old boy, an easel, and a lesson about being true to ourselves…

I gave away an easel today and learned a whole lot about love.
Exactly 1 year ago, I’d found this freebie treasure while on a scavenger hunt for nick nacks for my newly rented apartment.
I’d felt convinced my live/work studio would need an easel. While I don’t paint per se, blank canvases, easels, drafts tables, they’ve always inspired me to create.

A year ago, my thoughts of creating centered very much on all that I would do, build, paint with the mental canvas so to speak.
A year ago I needed externals to symbolize forward movement and growth, commitment, devotion, dedication.
A year ago I’d come to a place where I thought I needed to be in order to plant, grow, become.

Today I gave away the easel today to a four year old boy.
He paints.
He creates awe-inspiring works is more like it.
And he doesn’t use an easel.

Fortunately, his innocence and wonder and uninhibited zest for being impels a creative spirit that hasn’t been squelched…at least not enough to obligate him to feel he may need ‘help-meets’ along the way.

His unprejudiced, untainted exuberance hasn’t yet fallen to self doubt, despair or even an ounce of a hint he needs another’s approval or permission to create in the very exact unique way his individuality beckons him.

With or without said easel, me-thinks this painter-boy will continue to fascinate simply in the act of painting itself, in zero need for potential external motivation that title, rank, honor, public acknowledgment would perhaps foster.

To be sure, he flat out told me so.

Upon dropping off the easel I exclaimed “Looky looky! Something to help you with your painting!”

To which, I kidd you not, he exuberantly replied “What is that? I don’t need THAT THING to help me paint! All I use is my paint and brushes!”

That simple response touched me deeply.
I chose to give up the easel for the simple fact that I’ve come a 360 in ways mentally since a year ago.
I’m no longer seeking external permissions that I once sought for a few projects I am tinkering around with.
But more than that, in giving myself permission to honor my sense of right purpose and right life and how to love and be the kind of woman that I know I must, well, let’s just say i’ve dropped a ton of mental baggage and objects too.

It’s been a year since I obtained that easel.
And during this 365 day journey one of the deepest lessons I’ve been reminded of is:
No external object can ever provide the motivation to live true to one’s heart.
It’s simply not ours to exude our individuality in order to become someone, obtain acknowledgement, praise, title, or even power.
We possess our greatest asset, our unique individual expression of Being, simply to BE him or her. And being true to those inner pulls is surely what fills us with achievement, a sense of success, a sense of completeness and satisfaction.

I never thought I sought external approvals, at least in more recent years, but to be sure, I’ve harbored a ton of fear about fulfilling some innermost goals that simply are huge desires and will take many years to evolve.

And yet, so too is this sweet lesson of the 4 year old painting boy. ‘I need simply my paints and brushes.”
For me, this translates into the simple basics I need: to so love my own unique individuality that I honor my unique expression and listen and heed my innermost yearnings to discern and cultivate the vision and purpose for my life.

Those innermost nudges are really the impellings of Spirit. And in hearing them and in heeding them we can’t help but BE the exemplification of our true nature.

And in the times when it feels like an enormous amount of courage and steadfastness is needed to persevere in pursuit of my passions, again, I have only to go deep within, to thought, to listen for those yearnings, honor and nurture them, and sense out natural next steps.

Authenticity and being true to our hearts will only ever ask that of us: are we willing to get mentally still and listen? And keep listening to hear what pulls at us, what song beckons to be sung or what painting nudges for us to paint?

Neither an easel nor another’s opinion is necessary to give ourselves permission to exude and honor and live out what our hearts nudge us to live and do and be.

And that desire to pursue our innermost yearnings likewise defends our nature to love wholly, unconditionally, unfragmentally, unceasingly. We already have approval. We already have permission.

Thank you four year old painting boy for reminding my childlike self she hasn’t ever lost permission to live out her preciousness, her wonder, her adventure, her tireless yearning to climb and soar and sing and write and paint and be!!! 🙂

And thank you four year old painter boy for reminding me too that sneers and rejection and disapproval have zero effect when one continues to discern one’s heart and live it.

Whether you ever use the easel or not, thank you four year old painting boy for reminding me you will paint on masterfully anyway because it is simply who you are and what you must do!

Here’s to living that authenticity and wonder of being! 🙂

*Photo above taken by the painter boy’s incredibly gifted photographer mama, Kristen Sauer Higgins. Thanks for letting me use. And thank you Miles Higgins for this lesson. 🙂