Glennon Doyle - Paintbrush
“Your body is not your masterpiece — your life is.
It is suggested to us a million times a day that our BODIES are PROJECTS. They aren’t. Our lives are. Our spirituality is. Our relationships are. Our work is.
Stop spending all day obsessing, cursing, perfecting your body like it’s all you’ve got to offer the world.
Your body is not your art, it’s your paintbrush.
Whether your paintbrush is a tall paintbrush or a thin paintbrush or a stocky paintbrush or a scratched up paintbrush is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that YOU HAVE A PAINTBRUSH which can be used to transfer your insides onto the canvas of your life - where others can see it and be inspired and comforted by it.
Your body is not your offering. It’s just a really amazing instrument which you can use to create your offering each day. Don’t curse your paintbrush. Don’t sit in a corner wishing you had a different paintbrush. You’re wasting time. You’ve got the one you got. Be grateful, because without it you’d have nothing with which to paint your life’s work.
Your life’s work is the love you give and receive - and your body is the instrument you use to accept and offer love on your soul’s behalf. It’s a system.
We are encouraged to obsess over our instrument’s SHAPE — but our body’s shape has no effect on it’s ability to accept and offer love for us. Just none. Maybe we continue to obsess because as long we keep wringing our hands about our paintbrush shape, we don’t have to get to work painting our lives. Stop fretting. The truth is that all paintbrush shapes work just fine - and anybody who tells you different is trying to sell you something. Don’t buy. Just paint.
No wait - first, stop what you are doing and say THANK YOU to your body - right now. Say THANK YOU to your eyes for taking in the beauty of sunsets and storms and children blowing out birthday candles and say THANK YOU to your hands for writing love letters and opening doors and stirring soup and waving to strangers and say THANK YOU to your legs for walking you from danger to safety and climbing so many damn mountains for you.
Then pick up your instrument and start painting this day beautiful and bold and wild and free and YOU.”
-Glennon Doyle (one of my fav. humans)
I don't actually think the title of this blog by Glennon is 'Paintbrush.' I found it in a blog of hers after hearing it on her podcast. PS, if you don't already listen to the We Can Do Hard Things podcast by Glennon, Abby, and Amanda, you need to check it out. It will pump new life into your veins. Same statement stands for her book, Untamed.
This one's been a good reminder for me lately. And it's written so, so elegantly. Enjoy.
