The Dive, Original Canvas Painting

Do you remember ever playing in the ocean as a child and all of a sudden a much bigger wave than all the others is coming towards you and you know you can't stop it, and you've got only seconds to figure out what to do?

If you try to stay on top of a wave like that—treading water as hard as you can, fighting to keep your head above it, resisting its power—it will curl over you. Tumble you to the bottom. Drag you along the ocean floor. And sometimes pull you even farther out than where you started.

So the trick is... you run right toward it.

And dive.

You dive straight through the middle of the very thing that looks so enormous and overwhelming. And then something amazing happens. The wave passes over you, and seconds later you emerge on the other side. You turn around and look back at the wave that seemed so overwhelming just moments before.

I think about life's hurdles that way -- grief and trauma and overwhelm -- and it always helps me when I don't know what to do and I am powerless and I feel frozen in fear. I remind myself the only way to get past a big wave is turn towards it and to dive straight into it.

That is why I painted this painting. Maybe I painted it for you too? This artwork is perfect for someone facing, or in the middle of, a huge life transition or upheaval.

If you could use a visual reminder that when a big wave comes over you, and as you are standing there looking up at it looming over your head, you have to decide you are either going to stand there looking up as a huge wall of water swallows you whole... or you are going to dive into it.

Dive!

Details: