We spend so much time trying to glow on the outside, we forget to ask if we still feel it on the inside.
Everywhere I look, someone’s selling a new way to glow — serums, filters, highlighters, promises in a bottle. It’s subtle but constant, this quiet persuasion that if we just do a little more, buy one more thing, maybe we’ll finally feel something.
I’m not against beauty — I love it. But lately, I’ve noticed how easy it is to trade stillness for stimulation, meaning for movement. If all the noise disappeared — the scrolls, the skincare, the constant doing — would you still feel whole?
That’s what The Art of Creating You by Jerome Gastaldi made me think about. I’ve known Bob for a while, but this was the first time I sat down to actually experience the book myself — not as a project, but as a practice. I wanted to document the journey, to see what would come up when I just created without expectation.
These days, my favorite ritual is quiet. The house softens, the sky turns gold, and I light my Graanmarkt13 Candle — that warm, grounding scent that makes everything feel slower. I slip into my worn in silk pajama bottoms, pour a cup of tea, and let the night find its own pace. There’s something about that time of day that feels safe — when you can finally hear your thoughts again.
It’s not about being productive or performing “self-care.” I just genuinely love that feeling of reconnecting with myself — of sitting in stillness and seeing what’s really there.
One evening, I opened the book to the first exercise, Understanding the Spirit Within. It asked me to explore the “worldly nature” — the side shaped by what the world says we should value. So I did. I grabbed scissors, magazines, and glue, and started cutting.
The sound of glossy pages tearing, glue on my fingertips, clippings of lips, lashes, and perfect skin piling up — it felt nostalgic. Like being a kid again, surrounded by color, chaos, and possibility.
Each image represented something we’re told to chase: beauty, youth, perfection. The girl on my collage board doesn’t age, doesn’t sweat, and definitely doesn’t skip her skincare routine. She’s flawless — and a little tired. Because perfection, even on paper, is exhausting.
Somewhere between the candlelight and the torn pages, I realized how healing it is to create for no reason other than it feels good. It reminded me that art doesn’t have to be perfect — it just has to be honest.
Peel back the layers — the filters, the noise, the expectations — and what’s left is something simple: you.
And there’s something really comforting about that.
Just ask yourself- What might surface if you gave yourself permission to create- not for an audience, but for you? It’s not about painting or perfection- it’s about what happens when you give yourself permission to just begin.
