Flexible Flexible Flexible

Flexible Flexible Flexible

That’s what my grandparents always said. Not just a thing to do — a way to be.

Flexibility isn’t just about stretching your muscles. It’s about practicing resilience. It’s about dusting yourself off when life hands you an unexpected alternate or a flat-out no, pivoting with style, and finding something unexpectedly wonderful in the new direction.

It’s also one of the greatest creativity tools of all time.

This green umbrella painting? It’s a perfect little reminder. Painted in watercolour, I used a technique where you blow the paint across the page. You can guide it, sure. You can hope it’ll go where you want. But really? The paint has its own ideas. Those green drips tumbling off the edges? I didn’t place them there on purpose. But they’re part of the story now. They belong.

That’s the deal with creativity — you can plan, but you also have to let go. You can show up with all your best ideas, but sometimes the magic is in what you didn’t plan.

I learned this on a much bigger scale years ago, painting a 2000 square foot mural — a beautiful ombré sunset sky I'd spend hours working on. Then sploot — a drop of dark blue landed smack in the middle. I didn’t even notice it until it was half-dry. Sure, I could’ve scrubbed it out, patched it up, and no one would have known. But I saw it as a creative dare. An invitation.

That drip? It became an owl.

A silly, lovely little owl, flying across the sunset to roost in a nearby tree.

The mistake became the best part.

Find opportunities to practice flexibility. The next time something goes wrong or unexpectedly, accept the invitation for a flexible response. Find a way to frame the moment as a creative challenge and see what sort of magic shows up. Even if the magic is simply in growing your resilience muscle one tiny neural pathway at a time.

It’s resilience. It’s creativity. It’s life.

Flexible, flexible, flexible.