Coming Home IV: Moving From Performance to Listening

"Coming Home IV" 24 x 24. This piece is part of my Coming Home series, a body of work exploring the movement from apathy toward empathy, attention, and presence.

I’ve never been great at listening.

My mind is usually racing with five different thoughts during every conversation, podcast, audiobook, or sermon. And more often than I’d like to admit, I’m not actually listening at all.

I’m performing.

As I’ve investigated why listening is hard for me, I’ve noticed that my desire to perform is often a barrier to opening my ears and being present. 

Here’s what I mean by performing: making, speaking, and acting with an audience in mind—constantly thinking about how my words or work will be received. Performance isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But when life becomes centered on what the “audience” might think or do, it becomes very hard to be present, genuine, or comfortable with imperfection.

Here’s what performance has looked like in my life: 

• I want to make sure that I have something great to contribute to the conversation, so instead of listening, I’m planning on my words. 

• I want to create something really cool in response to a great podcast or presentation so I plan it out instead of listening to the content fully. 

• Even in prayer, I can spend more time sharing my thoughts and listing out my needs, my wants, etc rather than simply sitting and listening.  

As I’ve noticed this tendency in myself, I’ve made some intentional moves to transition from a performance mindset to a listening mindset. The piece in the Coming Home series that I’m sharing today reflects this shift—from performing to listening. Over the past year, this has been a significant part of my spiritual formation.

Listening to God. 

Listening to my community and family.  

Listening to myself.  

This transition from performance to listening meant that some things had to be surrendered.  One of them was my studio that I was renting. I had become so focused on performing— for clients, for collectors, and even for myself— that I had forgotten how to create with joy.

The quiet creative voice that once guided my work was getting drowned out by a constant internal pressure: Get into more shows. Network with collectors. Apply to new opportunities.

Perform. Perform. Perform.

Moving back to my home studio has been such a good step in rooting out performance and growing some ears to listen. I’m learning to listen curiously.   To slowly explore and to be gracious with  myself as I make messes and mistakes.   

In the painting, two figures represent two different heart postures.

One figure is scattering her resources widely—hoping something will catch. She represents results, activity, and performance.

The other sits quietly and listens. She is focused, attentive, and engaged. Relationship focused. Listening

And here’s the coolest thing I just noticed.  Sitting in listening doesn’t mean I can’t do things. But listening helps me do the right things for the right reasons. I hope to eventually be BOTH of these figures.  Listening first and then acting purposefully in obedience to the Spirit.  

You’ll also notice that the painted imagery layered across the piece is full and busy.

That’s intentional. The struggle between performance and listening often happens internally—hidden beneath the surface. The noise of performance can be subtle, but its effects are powerful. 

To grow a mindset of listening.  I’ve been doing a couple things this year:

• Asking more questions instead of immediately offering my thoughts

• Sitting in silence and solitude with God for a few minutes each morning before reading or praying

• Pausing to seek guidance before saying yes to opportunities

What are you growing in your life?  Peace that comes from listening and trusting?  Or Perpetual people pleasing with performance?   

If you want to see all the pieces of the Coming Home Series, you can click here.