Resist or Struggle?

There’s something funny about painting. You start with an idea, a vision so clear in your mind that you can almost touch it. You pick up the brush, full of excitement, ready to bring it to life… and then the paint does something completely different. The colours blend in unexpected ways, the brushstrokes don’t land quite where you wanted, and suddenly, you’re faced with a choice: fight for control or surrender to the flow.

I’ve learned (the hard way sometimes) that the best moments in my art come when I stop clinging to an outcome and just let the process unfold. It’s not always easy. Sometimes, I still catch myself gripping the brush a little too tightly, trying to force a piece into being exactly what I imagined. But the magic happens when I loosen my grip.

Painting has taught me that life works the same way. We make plans, set expectations, and dream big, but things don’t always go as we hoped. There are detours, surprises, and moments where we feel like we’ve completely lost control. And just like with a painting, we have a choice: resist and struggle, or trust and flow.

The art of letting go

Some of my favourite pieces have come from ‘happy accidents’: a splash of colour I hadn’t planned, a brushstroke that took on a life of its own. The more I embrace these moments, the more I realise how much beauty comes from imperfection. That’s true in art, and it’s true in life too.

For example, I once started playing in my art journal without too much thinking, trying to use colours and brush strokes I don’t normally use… It looked kind of yucky so I abandoned my experiments:

But… The new ideas stayed on my ming so I decided to surrender and revisit them a bit later…
They led me to creating one of my favourite paintings, “Enchanted Meadows”:

(click here for more photos  – you can even watch the videos of my full painting process for this painting here)

Another time, I spilled paint across a nearly finished canvas. At first, I was devastated, but I played with the mistake and transformed it into a striking abstract detail that made the whole painting more powerful.

This applies to everyday life too!

Beyond painting, I’ve seen this lesson play out so often in my own life.
Here are a couple of my personal examples – small, and big:

• An unexpected damage to our vehicle forced us to slow down and enjoy our surroundings…
  Only a few weeks after starting our campervan tour of Australia, our skylight flew off the roof while driving on the highway… OOPS!!! You can watch the in episode 8 of our vanlife vlog here. I think we (and when I sway ‘we’, I mean HUBBY!!) didn’t’ close it properly before taking off! Waiting for a replacement halted our travels for a good 10 days forcing us to stay in Cairns much longer than the 3 days originally planned. After lamenting about the cost and wasted time, we decided to make the most of it and spent time exploring the area, discovering some truly awesome spots we would have definitely missed otherwise. It also allowed us to make good use of the fantastic enormous outdoor pool (available for free to everyone in the middle of the town) every day and slow down our pace for the rest of the trip (which lasted 6 months all up).

• An unexpected  friendship that changed the course of my life…
  When I got married at the tender age of 20, I thought this was it for the rest of my life. But meeting Yuri  many years ago (I sadly lost him to suicide a few months ago and wrote about it in my last post here)  played a part in my marriage ending later. This turn of events left me feeling alone and scared of how to handle life all on my own, without any family support. I won’t go into details now (if you want the full story, just ask me below), but instead of falling apart, I trusted Life had bigger plans for me – and it did! Meeting that one person altered the course of my life, and has been influencing who I am today!

What do you do then?

You change your mindset!

So often, what we see as setbacks are really just redirections.

So here’s to letting go. To trusting the process. To allowing things to unfold in their own time and their own way. Because sometimes, the most breathtaking moments happen when we least expect them.

Have you ever experienced a moment where letting go led to something unexpectedly beautiful? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments below.

xx mimi.

Ohhh and that day when our AC stopped working and it was 30 degrees outside… After sweating like crazy and getting more and more angry about the situation, I decided to stop working and take myself outside instead to make some art! 

Since then, I try to regularly do this! And I recommend you do too, even if it’s just sitting in the grass with a few pencils or watercolours