Ep 87 If Your Life Were a Painting, Would You Be Proud to Hang It Up?

In this insightful episode of The ARTwork of YOU, Lori Gouhin invites you to reflect on your life not as a checklist but as a creative masterpiece in progress.

Using the metaphor of painting, Lori offers a fresh lens on clarity, alignment, and emotional contrast. From composition to contrast, from bold brushstrokes to knowing when to pause, this episode is a beautifully crafted call to step back and truly see what you're creating with your life and ask: “Would I want to hang this up?”

With vivid storytelling, intuitive insight, and practical journal prompts, Lori shows how the principles of great art mirror the principles of a well-lived life. If you've been adding more to your plate without stopping to ask if it’s working, this episode is your permission to pause, edit, and realign.

"You're not just living a life, you're designing one. Make it something you'd be proud to display." ~ Lori Gouhin

Episode Highlights:

➤ Why composition matters in both painting and life
 ➤ The hidden cost of adding more without realignment
 ➤ How emotional clutter and over-commitment can mute your clarity
 ➤ The role of contrast: joy, risk, passion, and presence
 ➤ What it means to paint over what no longer reflects who you are
 ➤ The danger of rushing transformation before the last layer has dried
 ➤ How to know when it’s time to pause, pivot, or boldly commit
 ➤ A powerful journal prompt to help you reset your life's composition

This episode is a gentle yet bold reminder that you have full creative permission to begin again. Not because your life is a mess but because you’re ready to create something that’s truly you.

Ready to step into your next chapter with clarity and courage? Apply now to work with Lori one-on-one.

Thank you for sharing your time with me and remember to show up in your life like the masterpiece you are because YOU are the ARTwork!!!

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Transcript

Lori Gouhin: [00:00:00] Hello my friends. I am so glad that you are here with me today because today I want to ask you what I think is an interesting question, and that is, if your life were a painting, would you actually want to hang it up and look at it? Today we're going to explore that because I think that life is a lot like a painting.

And sometimes the bravest thing that you can do is stop, step back, and decide whether you [00:01:00] actually want to live with what you're creating. And so when I'm painting, there's always this moment where I ask myself, do I actually like what I'm creating? Do I like the painting or. Am I just adding more to it?

Because I don't want to admit that it's not working. And sometimes I keep going, not because I believe in the piece necessarily, but because I've already spent so much time on it and because I don't want to quote unquote, waste the work. And so what if you asked yourself that same question about your life?

Do I actually like what I'm creating or am I just adding more, because I don't want to admit that it's not working. In other words, am I creating something that I love or am I just adding more, maybe more commitments, more habits, more expectations? Because I don't want to admit that something needs to change. And so in a painting, composition is everything. It's the layout, it's the [00:02:00] structure, the way that your eye moves around the canvas. And although I often say that I just make it up as I go while I'm painting and I do that doesn't mean that. When I'm creating a piece that I just throw colors on the canvas and hope for the best. I do think about what draws the eye, what supports the story, and what feels balanced in the work, as well as what doesn't.

And I also do that while following my intuition. And I honestly think that life works the same way. So think about the composition of your days. Where does your energy go first? What takes up the most space on your mental canvas and what are you keeping front and center and is that what you actually want to be centering? Because when your composition is off in art, the whole thing feels scattered. Even if every individual element is good, and when the composition of your life is off, you most likely feel overwhelmed or [00:03:00] uninspired, even if nothing is technically wrong. And you might be doing things that look great on paper, but they don't fit together in a way that feels like you. And so here's a journal prompt I want to give you that might help you to gain some clarity.

Ask yourself what's currently dominating the composition of your life and does it deserve to? Because sometimes all it takes is just stepping back and rearranging the composition of what you let take over.

One of the things that I love most in a painting is contrast the light and the dark, the soft and the bold, the stillness and the movement. And to me it's emotion and it's depth. And I found that the same thing is true in life. And we're often taught to aim for balance in life, I would say, but not in the way that an artist understands it. In life, balance generally means keeping everything running smoothly, but in art balance doesn't mean everything looks the [00:04:00] same. It means everything supports the bigger picture, even the tension in the work.

So ask yourself this. Where in your life are you avoiding contrast? Where are you trying so hard to keep things calm and easy and pretty, that you're missing the opportunity to feel contrast? And sometimes contrast might look like doing something bold when you've been playing it safe. It might mean something like bringing back color or passion or joy or a challenge when things have gotten too neutral in your life.

I've had paintings that look totally fine, that I think, okay, it's finished, and then I add one bold, unexpected color, and suddenly the whole painting seems to come alive in a whole new way. So what would that look like in your life? If you're feeling stuck or let's say muted. It doesn't always mean something is wrong, it just might mean that you're missing some contrast.

Again, contrast to me is what makes things [00:05:00] worth looking at. And now that being said, here's something else I would like to share and that's that one of the hardest lessons I've personally learned in painting and honestly in life is knowing when to stop. There's always this temptation to keep going, to tweak, to add, to try to fix something that maybe doesn't actually need fixing or worse to keep adding, in the hope that the discomfort will go away on its own.

But the truth is in both art and in life more is not always better. Sometimes more just muddies the water. I've ruined good paintings by pushing them past the point of clarity, and I've done the same with other projects, with relationships, routines, even entire seasons of my life, I would say, because there have been times when I did not want to admit that something wasn't working, so I just kept going, hoping it would somehow magically resolve itself if I just did more, but sometimes the most powerful decision you can make is to stop, [00:06:00] to step back and say, this is not working, and that's okay. And I like to think of it not as quitting, but more like editing. It's like creating a space to start something that's more aligned with you. So, an important question to ask is what are you still adding to?

Not because it's meaningful, but because you might not want to admit or accept that it's time to stop. Now, in a painting, you can always paint over it, and I suppose in life you can too, but only when you're honest enough to put down that proverbial, brush.

 And another thing painting has taught me is sometimes you have to let it dry before you keep going because if you rush it, if you start layering on new colors before the foundation or the previous layer has a chance to dry you end up with just a muddy mess.

The colors will bleed, the texture kind of flattens and, what could have been beautiful starts to feel [00:07:00] very chaotic. And again, that happens in life too. We maybe make one big decision and then immediately try to build 12 things on top of it. We start something new and expect it to feel amazing by day two, or we don't give our shifts time to settle.

We just keep layering and layering, hoping it all holds together. But some seasons in life require space to just adjust and to let clarity emerge before we slap on the next big bold move that we're thinking about. And it's important to ask yourself if there are places like that in your life where you are rushing the process, where do you need to pause and let things settle and trust that the next step will be clearer once this one has time to set. Sometimes the next right move doesn't come from pushing forward. It comes from being still long enough to see what's really there. The best paintings that I've personally [00:08:00] made, they don't come from a perfect plan. They come from a mix of trust and curiosity and the willingness to respond to what is happening on the canvas in real time.

There's this rhythm to painting. I would say that's part intuitive and part intentional. You kind of feel your way through it, but you also bring your experience and your sense of composition and your sense of values. And that's how I think we're meant to live too. But so often we default to just one side. We either try to control everything right down to the last detail, or we go completely with the flow and hope that somehow some way it all comes together. Neither one really works long term when they're isolated like that, because true alignment comes when you pair your instincts with your vision.

 like when you're tuned in, but you're also tuned up. When you listen to what's unfolding, and you also decide what [00:09:00] you're building. And in coaching, I talk a lot about strategy, but strategy only works when it's paired with self-trust.

And just like in art, knowing when to pause, when to pivot, and when to commit to a bold move is often more about your present than your plan. And so here's another question for you. Where are you following someone else's blueprint and where are you listening to your own creative rhythm? There's nothing wrong with getting guidance from others.

In fact, I think it's often necessary, but you also need to rely on your own creativity and intuition because when you do, that's when life starts to feel like something you actually created, not something you're just managing. Every once in a while, I step back from a painting and I ask if this were a finished piece right now, would I love it?

I don't ask, is it done? Where is it perfect? But would I want to live with it and hang it up? And I think it's a [00:10:00] powerful question, not just for art. So again, what if you asked yourself that about your life? If your current life were a finished masterpiece, would you feel proud to hang it up? Would you say, yes, this feels like me, or would there be parts that you would like to paint over. Parts that feel disconnected or clutter that you added to it?

Just to fill the space? And again, it's not about perfection, it's about intention. Because not to be cliche, but you're not just living your life. You're designing one. And whether you realize it or not, you've already made choices about the color palette and the energy and the structure and the focal points.

so reflect on what you would keep, what you would edit. Maybe something you've outgrown and what would you dare to make bigger and bolder and brighter if you stopped worrying about what other people might think of the finished piece. You get to change the direction of your life at any [00:11:00] time, but only if you stop long enough to actually look at what you've created so far.

And so one more time, let's just bring it back to that original question. If your life were a painting, would you keep what you're working on? Would you hang it up, proud of what it reflects? Or would you quietly admit that somewhere along the way you lost the direction and the composition? the beautiful thing about both art and life is this, you are allowed to begin again and again as many times as it takes.

You have to be willing, as I said, to step back and really look at what you're creating. And if that feels hard to do on your own, if you know there's something that needs to shift, but you're not sure where to start, that's exactly the kind of work I do with my one-on-one coaching clients. We don't just talk about goals.

We look at the full canvas of your life, your habits, your energy, your environment, your mindset, and we get really honest about what's [00:12:00] working and what isn't. So if you're ready to stop just adding the layers and start creating something that actually reflects who you are and who you're becoming and who you want to become, go to my website or the link in the show notes and apply to work with me one-on-one. Now is the time to create a life that you're excited about.