Today I Choose to be Lush – How to be Lush

There was a window of time—one golden, unrepeatable season—when life felt wildly abundant, like I was drinking from the overflow.

It wasn’t during a vacation or after a big win. It was late summer, ordinary on paper, but everything in my life suddenly felt drenched in richness.

My house was full—not with things, but with people. Curtis was healthy. The kids were orbiting home more often than usual. We were scrapbooking the memories from our vacation, half-full coffee cups forgotten mid-conversation, belly laughs from the back porch, and that deeply satisfying exhaustion that only comes from a day well spent—not chasing, just *being*.

Evenings were for painting. I’d lose track of time at my art table, blues and oranges pooling together like emotion in liquid form. I wasn’t painting for profit or praise—just for the sheer indulgence of letting color and intuition have their way with me.

There was a playlist that seemed to score the whole season perfectly—Maggie Rogers, Tracy Chapman, Bill Withers. Everything felt like a montage.

I cooked real meals—not rushed or efficient, but slow, layered things: roasted vegetables, homemade vinaigrettes, a lasagna that took half the day. Not because I had to. Because I *wanted* to feed the people I loved.

What made it feel so abundant? Time slowed down because I let it. Work didn’t evaporate, but I stopped letting it own me. I had space in my head again—enough to notice sunsets, listen deeply, reread favorite books, and speak in full sentences instead of bullet points.

There was no striving, just soaking.

That’s what rich living felt like: soaking in my own life instead of skimming the surface.

The Overflow Principle

True abundance rarely comes from accumulation—it emerges from overflow. During that late summer season, I wasn’t acquiring more possessions, experiences, or achievements. Instead, I was finally allowing myself to fully receive and savor what was already present in my life.

This kind of richness requires a fundamental shift from scarcity thinking to abundance consciousness. Scarcity focuses on what’s missing, what needs to be accomplished, what problems need solving. Abundance notices what’s already flowing, what’s working well, what deserves appreciation and deeper engagement.

Like the way my house felt full of people rather than empty spaces, abundant living involves recognizing and amplifying the richness that’s already present rather than constantly seeking external additions to create satisfaction.

The Art of Presence as Luxury

Perhaps the most crucial element of that abundant season was how present I became to my actual experiences. Instead of rushing through meals, conversations, and creative activities to get to the next item on my list, I allowed myself to sink fully into each moment.

This quality of presence transformed ordinary activities into luxurious experiences. Cooking became sensual engagement with colors, textures, and aromas. Conversations became deep connection rather than information exchange. Creative time became meditation rather than production.

The richness came not from the activities themselves but from the quality of attention I brought to them. Like the way those blues and oranges pooled together like liquid emotion, full engagement creates depth and satisfaction that distracted activity can never provide.

When Time Becomes Spacious

One of the most dramatic shifts during that abundant period was how time felt. Instead of rushing through packed schedules, time became spacious enough for spontaneous conversations, extended creative sessions, and the kind of leisurely meal preparation that feels more like meditation than chore.

This spaciousness didn’t come from having fewer responsibilities but from changing my relationship with those responsibilities. Work continued, but I stopped allowing it to colonize every corner of my mental and emotional space. This created room for the kind of rich engagement that makes life feel abundant.

Like the way we could spend hours scrapbooking vacation memories, letting coffee cups sit half-empty while we laughed and reminisced, spacious time allows for the kind of unproductive richness that productivity culture often eliminates.

Creative Expression as Natural Overflow

The evening painting sessions weren’t scheduled self-improvement activities—they emerged naturally from having enough mental and emotional space for creative impulses to surface. When you’re not constantly managing crises or optimizing efficiency, there’s room for the kind of purposeless creation that feeds the soul.

This kind of creative expression differs fundamentally from goal-oriented projects. I wasn’t painting to develop a skill, create portfolio pieces, or accomplish anything measurable. The joy came from the process itself—watching colors interact, following intuitive impulses, losing track of time in flow states.

This purposeless creativity becomes both a sign of and contributor to abundant living. It indicates that you have enough resource overflow to engage in activities purely for pleasure, and it generates the kind of satisfaction that no achievement-based activity can provide.

Nourishment as Love in Action

The shift from rushed, efficient meals to slow, layered cooking represented a fundamental change in how I related to nourishment—both my own and that of people I care about. Those elaborate meals weren’t burdens to be optimized but opportunities to express care through attention to beauty, flavor, and the communal pleasure of sharing food.

This approach to nourishment extends far beyond cooking. It represents a willingness to invest time and attention in activities that feed the soul rather than just meeting basic needs efficiently. Like the way I made homemade vinaigrettes not because they were better than store-bought but because the process of creating them felt like a form of active love.

When nourishment becomes an expression of abundance rather than just functional necessity, it transforms both the experience of providing care and receiving it.

The Soundtrack of Abundance

The playlist that scored that season—Maggie Rogers, Tracy Chapman, Bill Withers—wasn’t background noise but integral to creating the emotional texture of abundance. Music has the power to amplify and deepen whatever emotional state you’re cultivating, turning ordinary moments into scenes from the meaningful life you’re actually living.

Like the way everything felt like a montage, the right soundtrack can transform routine activities into cinematic experiences of your own life. This attention to the aesthetic dimension of daily experience—through music, visual beauty, sensory pleasure—creates the kind of richness that makes ordinary life feel extraordinary.

Practical Cultivation of Rich Living

While that particular season of abundance had elements of timing and circumstance that couldn’t be forced, there are practices that create conditions for this kind of overflow to emerge more regularly.

Create space between obligations. Like the way time became spacious when I stopped letting work own all my mental bandwidth, abundance requires margins rather than packed schedules.

Prioritize presence over productivity. Focus on the quality of engagement with whatever you’re doing rather than just getting through tasks efficiently.

Follow creative impulses without agenda. Allow time for purposeless activities that feed your soul rather than accomplishing measurable goals.

Invest attention in nourishment. Whether cooking, eating, or other forms of self-care, approach nourishment as expression of abundance rather than efficient necessity.

Curate your environment for richness. Pay attention to music, visual beauty, sensory pleasure, and other aesthetic elements that amplify positive experiences.

Recognizing Abundance Cycles

Understanding that abundant periods like my late summer season are part of natural cycles rather than permanent states helps you appreciate them fully without trying to force them to last forever. Like seasonal changes in nature, life includes periods of abundance and scarcity, expansion and contraction, overflow and conservation.

Recognizing these cycles allows you to receive abundance gratefully when it arrives while also preparing wisely for leaner times. The goal isn’t to maintain constant overflow but to recognize and fully inhabit the rich periods when they occur.

Like the way that season taught me what soaking in my own life feels like, these abundant periods become reference points that help you recognize when you’re skimming the surface and make choices that invite deeper engagement.

The Ripple Effects of Rich Living

When you model abundant engagement with life—taking time for creative expression, cooking with love, being fully present in conversations—it creates invitation for others to do the same. Your willingness to prioritize richness over efficiency often gives others permission to make similar choices.

The overflow from abundant living tends to benefit everyone in your orbit. Like the way our house felt full of people who were drawn to the warmth and presence we were creating, authentic abundance attracts and nourishes community rather than just individual satisfaction.

Today, I choose to cultivate conditions for rich living—not by accumulating more but by engaging more fully with what’s already present, creating space for overflow, and prioritizing the kind of presence that transforms ordinary experiences into abundant ones.

Because the most luxurious life might not be the one with the most possessions, but the one where you’re actually present enough to drink from the overflow of your own beautiful, ordinary existence.