Sunday's ART of Truth - "Stop shrinking..."

Hello friends, this journal spread was so much fun to make! I love using napkins in my journals. It is a quick and easy way to get some color down and build around it. When I was thinking about what I wanted to create for Sunday’s ART of Truth, I saw this beautiful sunflower napkin and all the inspiration came at that moment.

“Stop shrinking to fit places you’ve outgrown”

Have you ever noticed how sunflowers grow? They are not concerned about what is around them. They don’t care that their neighbor has a bigger center or that the one down the row is much taller than she is. They don’t stop growing because they are afraid to shine. They don’t even care that they are planted close together. They just grow. They tilt their faces to the sun and they grow. They don’t shrink to be smaller or not to be seen. They don’t tell themselves that they are not good enough to reach to the sun. They just grow. Faces pointed up. Their stalks are thick and strong. Even though their seeds, oil and yellow color have other purposes, they don’t concern themselves with even that. They just grow. They grow because they are.

How often, I find myself shrinking myself down. Listening to all the old messages- “you talk too much…don’t you know when to shut up? You have a big mouth…no one wants to hear you…you are just TOO much.”

I shrink because shrinking is safer, but it is also suffocating. Like trying to stuff the jack in the box back in it’s box before it pops open again. Before, I pop open again. To shrink is to defy what we were created to be. To shrink is to say to the world, God made a mistake.

Stop shrinking.

The sunflower does not shrink. It knows its beautiful. It knows it makes people smile. It knows what it was created to be. A sunflower.

“Stop shrinking to fit places you’ve outgrown”

Do you ever try to change who you are to fit places that you have outgrown? I sure have! Sometimes with people, sometimes within myself.

Again, it feels safer to just change who we are then to disappoint, be left out, be rejected, not be liked…

It’s easier to shrink down and fit in with the crowd. Stick with the status quo.

Sometimes, we just outgrow people and places. That’s alright. It doesn’t mean we don’t care about those people and those places.

Outgrow (VERB with object): to grow too large for. To leave behind or lose in the changes incident to development or the passage of time. To surpass in growing.

Outgrow (VERB without object): To grow out. Burst forth. Protude.

To outgrow is good, it is very good. It means we are growing. Just as a child outgrows their clothes, we outgrow things in our lives and relationships too.

Sometimes, it hurts. It hurts them and it hurts us. But it is necessary for all. To burst out, we must make the choice to let go and reach forward and upward like the sunflower.

My friends, I don’t know if this resonates with you but it took me deep into my heart and soul.

Is there a place that you are stuck?

Something that is crushing you…that is pushing you down?

Something that you are afraid to let go of…something that keeps you from shining?

Did you know that you can shine right next to the sunflower beside you? Don’t compare yourself to that one or that one or that one. Be your own beautiful self. Someone needs your sunshine. Someone needs to see that in hard times, your beautiful face is lifted to the sun and you stand tall and strong. As sunflowers growing under the gray skies of this planet…we can still shine and lift one another up. AND, we can be what we were born to be 😊