Ep #99: (Part 1) Bringing Light to Your Creativity

In her book, Women Who Run with the Wolves, Clarissa Pinkola Estés uses the story of the Little Match Girl to describe what she calls the difference between focus and the fantasy mill. The story of the Little Match Girl was one that I shared in an Art School class recently, and I wanted to share that episode with you here today.

I recently shared a quote by Lady Gaga that talks about the importance of believing in your delusion to the point where you embody it and become the living, breathing reality of that grand and magnificent dream. Some of you may be asking though, what if I just get lost in delusion?

Today’s episode, as well as the part two that will be the follow up next week will help you discern, how can I know that I’m using my imagination to evolve me? To move my life forward? And how can I know when I am stuck in that fantasy mill?

So, today, tune in to learn how to know the difference between real healing magic that sacred dreams and our vision offers us, versus the kind of malignant fantasy that keeps us, our creativity, our dreams, and our life out in the cold.

You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, Master Certified Life Coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to The Art School Podcast. I hope this finds you doing well, wherever you are in the world. 2020 continues to unfold and yield more and more surprising events. And I wanted to just take a moment at the beginning of this podcast and acknowledge and celebrate a woman who was truly a creative force of nature and blazed a trail for so many of us, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

She, although diminutive in physical stature, was a giantess in terms of the impact, her life, her work, her contributions have made and in the tsunami of ripples that her breakthroughs and smashing of glass ceilings has been and has meant for women in this country, in the United States, and also around the world. So, we honor and celebrate her and we’re going to continue to carry that torch.

And on the theme of torches, the story of the Little Match Girl. This, truth be told, was one of those fairytales I avoided like the plague for so many years, as a child and as a young adult. It just made me terribly depressed and sad.

And then, I came across Clarissa Pinkola Estés’ interpretation and use of this story and the metaphors in her book Women Who Run with the Wolves. And it came up in a recent Art School class. And so, while it wasn’t the episode I had planned for this week, it seemed so relevant and timely for many people in that group.

And I have to imagine, it’s not just that group, contained group within the enrolled Art Schoolers for whom it’s relevant and timely. But I have a feeling there are others of you listening who will also benefit from the discussion that we had. And if not today, then later down the road.

One of the things I adore about Estés’ work is her use of metaphor and ability to dive into the profound, the sublime, the poetics of metaphor. It’s something that resonates deeply within me. I know that life is always having a conversation with us in so many ways.

And maybe to the chagrin of our very cerebral intellectual selves, it doesn’t care to always speak in complete sentences or English or any other human tongue. It speaks to us in a myriad of ways in the natural world surrounding us, through the actions of other people, through whatever it is that captures our attention.

It’s important for us to know that that’s deeply significant and that’s one of the ways that life is attempting to have a conversation with us. The things in front of us are not just accidents, but to instead view it as an opportunity to move more deeply into conversation with the deepest aspects of yourself and with something bigger than yourself that is trying to always communicate with you.

And so, along this metaphor work, before we dive into the content of today’s episode, there are two amazing opportunities to dive more deeply into this kind of metaphor work and to understand all of the rich opportunities that are always in front of us, to engage with this conversation, to listen, to learn, to discover, to evolve, and to grow with the life that is right under our noses, right in our back yards, right under our feet with the wisdom that comes right out of our own mouths if we take the time to slow down and listen to it with wrapped attention and also to fuse the imagination and intellect into the kind of poetic imaginative creative analysis that doesn’t try to nail a thing down or understand it too precisely, but that does yield a captivating, illuminating, enlivening understanding about who we are and this world that we’re living in, and where we are going.

So, again, there are two amazing opportunities to harness the energy of October and all the magic it offers us. And one is through the dream analysis masterclass that I’ve mentioned before that Betsy Pearson is offering through the Art School. Again, that’s included for those of you who are already enrolled in the Art School. No need to do anything differently. You will receive all the information with a Zoom link for those two 90-minute classes.

And for those of you who are in this broader Art School community but just right now not currently enrolled in the fall session of the Art School, this is an awesome opportunity to opt into the community for what is going to be one of the best two 90-minute segments that you will spend this fall. I promise.

Betsy is brilliant. So grounded, and also has this other worldly imagination and intellect, truly, next level mind. And working with her is, at once, so deeply grounding and reassuring and also feels like the top of your head has come off. Just really mind-blowing.

I went through various testimonials about Betsy’s work and thought, what better than just to share one of my own. And that is that working with Betsy really is life-changing and you can have the sort of epiphanies through this dream analysis work that make you wake up even more to the life that’s in front of you and know that really there is magic and miracles right in your everyday life.

And even though I’ve been doing this work, doing this work with Betsy amazes me. So, I can’t recommend it enough. And I will also have, up on my site and through the newsletter, I’ll be sending out testimonials from others about Betsy’s work. So, make sure that you’re signed up for my newsletters as well as any information you’ll need to sign up for that masterclass.

And I am subsidizing it through The Art School. So, this is a very accessible rate at which to experience Betsy and this kind of work and dive deeper into that nocturnal side of your psyche and discover what is trying to come through you. As Betsy says, tis dream work is messages from one part of us, this nocturnal side of our psyche that is coming through in a lyrical way for the benefit of all of us. And it really is the sort of thing that can make life seem a world different in just an instant. So, I hope you will join us for that.

There is another amazing opportunity. This one coming from another of our Art School Mastermind aces Lisa Messier of the Scotts Valley Healing Center. She is going to be taking this metaphor work and taking it into the natural world.

So, Lisa’s offering is an animal spirit wisdom workshop. And this is one of those areas where when someone has such a gift for someone, people are knocking on your door, asking you for more, asking you to do it. And this was, for sure, the case in our mastermind. People are asking Lisa all the time for this kind of information, like more and more and more, raising hands before she’s even offered something.

So, you know there’s gold there and there’s magic there when that happens. So, this one-day workshop will be taking place Monday, October 5^th. I believe it will be recorded, although it’s held live, 10am to 11pm Pacific time, because Lisa is out in California. And I will be there with bells on.

Here’s what she writes, just a brief description she shares, “Animals have a magical presence in our lives. The wisdom of the animal’s nature is a pathway into the present. Spirit animals bring offerings to be in harmony with the core strength they serve. There are various meanings for animal spirits. But this one-day workshop will help you learn how to tap into your own deepest wisdom and find guidance.”

So, again, Lisa uses the presence of nature in your life, animals – I know she also does this work with plants and with trees so that you can cultivate this kind of rich conversation with your life all of the time.

She also writes, “My deepest intention in this workshop is to encourage you, through these uncertain times, to receive better clarity and energy. There is so much more as you become aware of your surroundings. I will coach you how to tap into your deepest wisdom and find guidance.”

And again, Lisa is one of those people whose very energy and presence you already feel more centered and grounded and also like you’re more opened up and able to access and tap into your own creativity and intuition. So, I highly recommend this workshop. And again, it is insanely economically accessible for this particular workshop. So, don’t miss out on that. We will have that information available as well on our website.

And this is one that Lisa is offering through her own private coaching practice, not through the Art School. But I wanted to share it with all of you because I just know this work and I know Lisa and I know so many of you will resonate deeply with this and that it is such an awesome and very accessible, very fun, deeply meaningful opportunity. So, I hope to see you there.

And now, back to the Little Match Girl. So, in her own words, this is how Estés describes this story, “Though some might look at the superficial story rendering of the Little Match Girl and say these are maudlin stories, meaning they have excessive emotional sweetness. It would be a mistake to dismiss them lightly. The stories actually are, at their base, profound expressions of psyche being negatively mesmerized to the point where real and vibrant life begins to die in spirit. The story of the Little Match Girl describes what lack of nurture, lack of focus look like and what they lead to.”

So, in this episode, I am not going to recite the story of the Little Match Girl. I think there are many ways you can access that out in the Googles. The Hans Christian Andersen is what she bases her interpretation on here. And I also highly recommend that you have your own copy of Women Who Run with the Wolves, and you can definitely use this chapter, which is called Clear Water Nourishing the Creative Life.

It’s going to be and it is the inspiration for these next two episodes in particular as we dive into this story of the Little Match Girl and what it means for you so that you do nourish your creative life and it’s not a situation where your dreams, your creativity, your potential, yourself, your life are left frozen out and die in spirit, that they die, even though you might go on living, that essential creative part of you can be frozen and be neglected and die as well.

And again, this all sounds very maudlin, but you can be a very successful person and still feel that there is an aspect of you that needs tending, that wants tender attention and care and cultivation. And I know for many people who are traditionally successful, even in the arts, even in creativity, reaching a certain peak, still feel there is this aspect of themselves that has been left untended or left out in the cold.

And so, for many people that I work with, they have achieved many amazing things, in traditional ways, but also in creative ways, making amazing livings and creating amazing success as artists, as working creatives. And then, there is another dream that calls them forward, that calls them into this deeper exploration of what’s still there in the psyche, what light, like the match lit, what light do we still want to draw out from the abyss and see what we can contribute in the world? What fire can we light going forward? How can we be torch bearers ourselves, just like the Notorious R.B.G.

I mentioned in the intro that these next two episodes are going to help you trust yourself in discerning the difference between the real healing magic that sacred dreams and sacred visions provide, those kinds that are evoking and animating something deeper, our souls, our greatest work within us, versus those malignant fantasies that leave us mired in that fantasy mill that don’t actually nurture us or contribute anything to our lives or the world, but they just leave us frozen and with a sense of emptiness and maybe a growing frustration. And they ultimately leave us out in the cold.

So, that’s what these next two episodes are going to be about. And before I leave you to listen into a recent Art School call, or a portion of a recent Art School call, I’ll share with you another distinction that Estés makes about three kinds of fantasies.

First, she says there is a pleasure fantasy. It is a form of mind ice cream, strictly for enjoyment, such as daydreams. The second kind of fantasy is intentional imaging. And just a side note from me, I’ll say this intentional imaging is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about using the imagination, using it constructively and having creative agency in your life.

So, back to her words, this kind of fantasy, this intentional imaging is like a planning session. It is used as a vehicle to take us forward into action. All successes, psychological, spiritual, financial, and creative begin with fantasies of this nature. Let me just repeat, all successes, psychological, spiritual, financial, and creative begin with fantasies of this nature, this intentional imaging, planning, imaginative nature.

Then, there is the third kind of fantasy, the kind that brings everything to a halt. This is the kind of fantasy that hiders right action during critical times. That there is key. If your fantasies are, instead of moving you into action, moving you from one place to another, you hear me say often, I want to help you move the needle in your life. So, take this information and don’t just fantasize about it, be entertained by it, but take it and make it transformational. Use it as nurture, as sustenance. And you’ll know it’s doing that when you’re using it, transporting yourself from one place to another, taking right action during critical times.

So, that is what I want these next two episodes to help you do, become more clear about how to, again, claim all of your creative power, put yourself squarely in that role of empowered creator and agent so that you can use that powerful force that you’re imagination is to nurture your gifts, to cultivate those visions, those dreams, and the gifts that you have within you so that you love your life and that dream in the world from one place to another in deeply meaningful profound ways. So, listen in to this portion of a recent Art School call and I will see you on the other side.

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I’d offer that for everybody, if you’re tuning in, we’re talking about the importance of ritual and how not to disparage anything about managing time or energy, but I think that can be, again, just one of those loops our brain gets trapped on and we ignore this ancient creature self that we are, that has always needed ritual.

And we ignore this aspect of ourselves that also exists below the brain, which needs to know its connection with the world. And it matters to us that seasons change, and define those ways we connect with it. So, if you are in these hemispheres, we’re entering into fall. I know some others are on the opposite end of the spectrum. But thinking about how can you acknowledge that for yourself, because I think too, the place from which the deep creativity comes from that I’m so in love with and passionate about us all accessing, that part is deeply connected to nature.

That creature, think of the root of that word, creature, creator, that creative part of ourselves needs that acknowledgement of the passing of seasons or time. And also the ritual, again, when Reese and I were talking at the beginning of the call, for people coming on now, the ritual in your day.

So, if you are having thoughts that are related to time stress or overwhelm or not enough or time’s going to quickly and you find yourself in that time scarcity or any kind of scarcity, it can be useful and generative to talk about these thoughts. And though too, to look at the holistic picture of who you are as a human creature and, like, do I have these rituals in my life, in my day, where I plant seeds during the day? What’s my intention for the day? What do I want to create? What do I want to experience? Acknowledging moments and then acknowledging as you’re moving through it. And then, at the end of the day too, to acknowledge and kind of harvest that.

And, you know, something as simple as, “This is good. This moment is good. Lighting a candle, this is good. Setting a place for yourself to eat, this is good, this was good. Getting out your work…” like for today, whatever you want to play with or work on, be like, “This is good.” And saying that at the beginning and the end.

And I think too, it’s not just a pretty thing, the lighting of the candle, but fire, that element is deeply important to us as humans, and even in our modern age. And it’s very important to the creative psyche. And even just this morning, Anna, from Columbia and London Anna, had mentioned the match girl in one of her posts. And that got me thinking along the lines of that myth.

And then this morning, I had gotten out my Women Who Run with Wolves book. I was going to look up something else, but what did it flop open to but the story and her writing about the Little Match Girl. So, I stared recording a mini podcast for you all on that.

But it’s so relevant. And just one phrase that jumped out at me was where she writes, “Fire is the major symbol of the revivicator in the psyche.” So, thinking about that for you, what warms and nourishes you. And it’s also relevant to what we’ve been talking about in terms of taking massively magical inspired action because action, that gang energy, is like fire energy.

And you do need that. You need the cool mist, blue tones, this water energy of spirit and abstract and going into the imagination. And then to feel whole and actualized in the world, you also need that spark and fire of that healthy fire, where it cooks all of those ideas that you have. And it turns it into a beautiful feast.

So, I thought I was going to quickly redo my massively magical action worksheet for you. And it turned into – my assistant was like, “Whoa, this is more of another workbook.” And so, I was like, “Well I don’t want you to be overwhelmed, but I also felt like I needed to write out first why this is different than creating a to-do list for yourself. Why this is different than hurling yourself at one more brick wall and being like, “I’m going to do all the things,” from scarcity. Why this is different than taking action from, “I’ve got to do this stuff first and I’m behind and why it’s different than, like, generating overwhelm for yourself.

So, I wrote some things for you to read that are a preface of that massively magical action workbook. And I am also going to say, this is not an overthinking process. This is part of really moving into your creative powerhouse, stepping into that self is really balancing the imaginative creative part with the action part and knowing that you’re always putting something in motion when you take action and you’re going to get feedback and it’s going to be like you’re not likely going to nail it the first time. And that’s great.

That is great. But you’re going to generate momentum. And action begets clarity. And you get that fire cooking. And you’re like, “Oh, now I’m cooking with gas.” And so, I say in the instructions, your first go around, don’t spend over 20 minutes meditating on this, brainstorming on it. Don’t try to be like, “I’ve got to feel just right. I’m not feeling in a place of love and not fear yet.” That’s okay. Just start moving and you will come into more clarity and more knowing.

And whenever possible, just say, like, “This is good. What I am doing right now, as is, I declare it good and I am so powerfully creative that therefore it is so.” And you keep doing this and a part of you will be like, “Bullshit.” That mean inner girl critic. But you just keep going and keep declaring it good. Keep stamping it good. Stamp what you’re doing out in the world as good, that Julia Cameron affirmation, “I am a channel for God, the universe’s creativity, and my work comes to good.” Keep doing that and you can look back with time and you will connect the dots. You will be able to connect the dots.

But you do need that fire part, that action part, and again, from a place of this is good. And not from a place of I’m behind, I can’t be myself until I get there. None of that. Because in the story of the little match girl, you know, the symbol of the match is bringing something out of the abyss, out of darkness, into light. And it’s a spark.

But what she does is she just keeps lighting that spark, and instead of finding kindling and making it a bigger fire, she gets lost in fantasy. She lights the spark and it draws up the image of an imaginary fire and an imaginary grandmother who loves her, an imaginary way that she is warming her spirit and her body, and then it goes out.

And she’s like, oh quick. So it’s this momentary giving away of all of the sparks. She has magic at her fingertips literally. Bringing a light out of the abyss, and this is what the feminine, the creative is so powerful. It’s bringing light, life out of nothing. And that is everything. And you have to recognize how powerful that is and then you have to instead of – she uses it as comfort though, and that’s the moral of the story.

She uses that fantasy, that light as a momentary comfort, and instead of taking the light and moving it to spark something, which could actually keep her alive and thriving, she just dwells in the momentary fantasy and then it goes out again. And she dwells in the momentary fantasy, and it then it goes out again.

So it’s acknowledging that that potential, that spark is a god seed, that is a miracle to bring a light out of the abyss, to bring the potential that could be your creative idea. That could be I just know this is what I’m built for in this life. And then it’s moving it beyond the comfort of that vision that conjures up, moving beyond the comfort of that and into nurturing, which is the metaphor that she uses in this book is the difference between comfort and nurture is if you have a plant in a closet, in a dark closet, but you go in and you, oh, I love you plant, you’re so beautiful plant, the plant is going to die.

That’s comfort. You can speak comforting words to the plant. What you need to do with the plant is move it out and give it light and water. Give it sun. And that fact, the moving, the action part is so important. And it takes you out of thinking in fantasy and into action.

And the other thing that’s remarkable about that match girl story is that she lights one and then another and then another and then another and then another. And so how many times do we – I just had another epiphany in myself just yesterday. How many times do we hoard our possibility?

And we’re like, I’ve got this idea, I’ve got this idea, I’ve got this idea, I’ve got all the ideas, and we’re like, match, match, match, match, match. But it takes something else. It takes really – this is abundance, prosperity, trust, consciousness to be like this one match is a god seed. I see the potential in this spark and I’m going to do what it takes to find the kindling.

I’m going to find other people that really don’t want to buy my match for just a penny, but I’m going to find other people that are like, oh, that match isn’t just worth a penny, it’s not just a spark. That match is worth this roaring fire that could cook a meal. So thinking about that, where do I hoard possibility? And we’re like, light a match, fantasy, light a match, fantasy, light a match, fantasy.

And then at first it feels good, and then it doesn’t feel good. And then it feels bad. And then you’re left out in the cold. So just a way that I realized that myself yesterday was Amanda Gibby Peters, who’s not here today, but she’s in the Art School, is also a Feng Shui consultant.

And I engaged her services to do – show her around my new house and do Feng Shui consultation with the new house. And then I took her down to my main office space, studio space, and I had a bunch of these scrolls from previous Art Schools and notebooks. I’m like, I’m going to use those things to make a digital course.

I put a lot of work into that content creation, all the content’s there. Now I just need to put it into a different mode. But as I was telling her, every time I walked by this part of the house, I was like, oh, got to get to that. And she’s like, why don’t you instead clean out this part and put your paintings up on the wall.

And she’s like, I don’t know, just muse on what needs to be released here. And after we got off the call, I’m like, oh, do I really want – is it a good idea? It’s a possibility. It’s a match. I could do something with those scrolls. But if I’m thinking about is that step coming from fear or love, it is really more fear because it’s more me thinking I’ve put a lot of work into that, I should do something with that, which does not feel like love.

It feels like scarcity to me. It feels like lighting a match out of scarcity. And I’m like, what if knowing that my resources are not infinite, do I really want to do that before the end of this year? Or what do I really want to do and make space for instead? What I really would rather do instead is spend time putting my poetry out into the world and finishing that project, finishing paintings.

It’s another series of paintings this year. That, my heart says yes. That’s a step out of love. So it’s then saying no to other possibilities and not hoarding them in my basement, which the basement is the symbol of your subconscious and your psyche. What possibilities are you holding down in your creative psyche that you need to release?

And I actually decided I needed to burn mine. Again, that symbol of how can burning it by letting it go, but also igniting my spirit to have the energy for these other – this other creative energy that comes from love. So thinking about all of that as you move into your life here today.

And the other thing that – I posted a couple things on Instagram, but for today, and again, from the Women who Run with Wolves book, about how our psyche need the fire energy, the sun of others to be nurtured. And so use the chat here today to let all of the brilliant sun energy from these creative geniuses in this group, these brilliant suns in this group, let them shine on what your intentions are for today and let yourself receive and be nurtured by that light and warmth.

Because that is an essential part that that was the other – that’s actually another moral in the match girl story is she had all this light to herself, but she should have sought not just the imaginary grandmother nurturer, but sought – had real humans see her and see and recognize the value in her match and encourage her to not just light the match and let it go out, but really see her, see the potential in that match, and insist that she make a fire with that and not just let it burn out momentarily.

So that’s what we’re all here for. Witnessing that creative spark that you have pulled from the abyss. That’s huge. Let that be seen so that others can help you, despite witnessing that, move it to something that will actually warm and sustain you and give light.

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Now, this brings me to the part of the podcast where I want you to do more than just listen. I want you to lean in and really work with me, coach with me. Again, we want to step off the fantasy mill if we’re there, and then also, step off that fantasy mill where we can be creating a lot of external success, but we feel an emptiness inside. We feel something calling us that tells us a very vital, profound part of us is being neglected.

So that’s what these next two episodes are about. Attending to that call of that sacred dream, that vision, and then tapping into the power of that to move your life forward, move the needle in significant, meaningful ways.

Again, because this is a two-part episode, next week’s coach with me will follow up on this week’s. They will go together and complement each other very well. So this week’s episode is going to be a hybrid of awareness and also action.

So first, let’s revisit those three kinds of fantasy as Estés breaks them down. I’ll repeat it for you here so you don’t have to rewind to find this particular clip. She says there are three kinds. The first kind is pleasure fantasy, that’s like the mind ice cream. Strictly for enjoyment, like daydreams.

The second kind of fantasy, this is the imaginative vehicle and tool and practice that we lean into, dive into heavily. This kind of fantasy is an intentional imaging. It is like a planning session. It is used as a vehicle to take us forward into action. All successes, psychological, spiritual, financial, and creative begin with fantasies of this intentional imaging nature.

And then there is the third kind of fantasy, the kind that brings everything to a halt. This is the kind of fantasy that hinders right action during critical times. Now, I want to pause and point out that some people don’t think they’re engaging in this third kind of fantasy because they are always going, going, going in life.

But there’s a difference between going, going, going, versus taking right action during critical times too. You can be in a fantasy that you are creating the life that you’re meant to live because it looks very successful, but if there’s something in you and if you stop, you can trust yourself, you know it, that you are meant to nurture and you’re not nurturing.

That will continue to get your attention throughout life. You can repress it, you can ignore it, you can neglect it, you can push it down. But it will continue to call for your attention in a myriad of ways, which is again, both side note, why the work – the dream analysis work and the work like the animal spirit work can be so powerful.

Because you might think with your mind you can ignore your psyche and your soul, or what wants to happen through you or creativity, but life is going to get your attention one way or another. So sometimes it’s so helpful to step into metaphor and step out of your analytical, logical mind to understand what’s going and just what that conversation is and what is wanting to be heard and paid attention to.

So for this week’s coach with me, again, I said it’s a hybrid awareness and action. I want you to revisit these three kinds of fantasy I just described and just gently, with a gently, compassionate awareness, see where you most often use this powerful gift of your imagination.

Is it strictly for pleasure? Nothing wrong with pleasure fantasy, but again, it’s not the kind that you can employ to move your dreams and your life forward. Just like regular ice cream in life. You do not want to eat it three meals a day or every day.

Or are you using the second kind of fantasy, which is the intentional imaging, which is, as I would describe it, the intentional use of your imagination. Capital imagination for your highest creativity. Capital C. Or are you engaging in this third kind of fantasy, which I would call the malignant kind of fantasy. The kind that brings everything to a halt.

And you can know this too because it starts to erode your trust in yourself, and you also then start to lose trust in the creative process, in your dreams, in imagination. Because you’re like, all I do is light a match, get entertained by the vision, but it leaves me feeling empty and cold and not nourished.

And again, just notice with so much compassion for yourself. Because just raising, elevating your consciousness, your awareness of this can initiate the healing process. And that is step one. The healing process requires a container, this deep, spacious, radically safe container of love and compassion and clear seeing.

And we can’t see clearly if we’re also judging ourselves. So allow that healing to occur just with the powerful healing energy of your attention and your awareness. And then bring in this action element. What is one action you can commit to taking, preferably before your head hits the pillow tonight, but for sure by the end of the week?

What is one action you can commit to taking that is a step towards nurturing your dream, nurturing your gift, nurturing your creative self, setting yourself up for your next greatest evolution? So for some of you that might be a grand gesture. We’ve been talking in the Art School about the importance of taking these small mouse steps and consistently taking action every day in this humble craftsperson, brick by brick, but also very powerful and committed way of every day laying the bricks in your foundation, laying the bricks for your road.

How underestimated that is and overlooked, and how radically transformative those small, subtle daily actions and small, subtle shifts can be in completely changing the trajectory of your life. So that’s so important. And then there are times too when the grand gesture is called for.

So an example that seems to be coming up a lot in Art School, and maybe it’s because people have been homebound so much is getting away by one’s self for a few days or for a week. And not necessarily taking your work with you. At first everyone wants to say, oh, I’m going to take my novel and then finish it by the time – I’m not going to leave that retreat until I’m done.

Or I’m going to create content for three months for my business, or I’m going to complete my sales plan and not leave that week until I have 10 new clients. That’s all fine, but also too, just check in, and maybe the grand gesture is the spaciousness your imagination requires to go more deeply into your work or to be nourished, so you can stoke the kind of inner fire that is going – that you can live off sustainably for the rest of the year.

A grand gesture could be making a big ask, signing up for an audition that you think is beyond your reach, offering your services to the dream client, pitching your work to that gallery that you’ve long dreamed of having show your work. So the caution I want to pose here is if you say you’re going to do a grand gesture but immediately you’re like, yeah, I’m not going to do that, know, know, know that the radically powerful place for you to start is with something tiny.

Something that is going to be harder for you not to follow through on than it is to follow through on. And also, find a trusted ally to share this with. If you don’t have one, send me an email at lead@leahcb.com and I will be your witness for this. I would love to hear from you all. What is action you can take that is moving you towards nurturing your creativity, nurturing this next dream?

Again, it can be a small step, it can be a big step. It could just be sharing what your dream is with another living, breathing human being. And if that’s the case, I am here for all of that. Again, if you have a beautiful living, breathing human being who you can look in the eyes and will hold it for you, that’s beautiful.

And if you’re like, nope, I don’t, you can email me. You can join us in our free Facebook group, the Art School closed group, but free for anyone to join. You don’t have to be an enrolled member of the Art School. We love you and welcome you as part of this greater listening audience and movement.

And you will find so many extraordinary, compassionate, powerful space-holders there who would love to witness you in whatever action you’re taking to move the needle in your life. You can also tag me on social media. My Instagram handle is @leahcb1. I’m on Facebook as Leah Campbell Badertscher and I would love to hear you from then. You can hashtag the Art School.

Whatever you can do to let your light be seen. Because that was one of the morals of the little match girl was she didn’t have anybody who could recognize the value in the match that she was offering. That is the most important thing you can do. Have someone recognize the value of the match, of the light you are holding.

And again, this applies no matter where you are along your creative journey. Whether at the outset or whether you’ve been building massively magical bonfires all over your industry, but now you want to go to the next level, or now you want to do something outside the box. Find yourself somebody who is going to see your light and not let that sacredness be left out in the cold.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, if these episodes have helped you move the needle in your life, the best thing you can do to pay it forward is to share, is to leave a review, and is to subscribe.

I am truly grateful for all of you out there listening and it is also so meaningful to me in ways that are intangible, but also very tangible. When you do share this work with people that you love and admire, or that you think could benefit from the work, it’s a way of you tending to their creative spirit and that is a beautiful, powerful act.

When you’re ready to take this work more deeply, I have so many ways I would love to help you do that. The best thing to do is to be on my mailing list. So go to www.leahcb.com to subscribe for that, and then you will be sure to receive information about free group coaching classes that I offer, any upcoming offerings, trainings, and you’ll be the first to know about any early bird discounts as well.

I also just happen to believe it’s an act of nurture when you sign yourself up for this community because even if you never sign up for a call or a training or a program, there is something about the belonging and knowing that you belong to an extraordinary community like this that already begins to shift things.

And you can feel your insides start to reorganize themselves according to this new prioritization, where you prioritize what is sacred and essential in your life. You prioritize your creativity and your visions and your dreams. And it is just so awesome to not have to do that alone, and so fun to be surrounded with these kind of powerhouses.

So to close today, I have just an additional pep talk to really encourage you to follow through, take me up on today’s coach with me. Do this. Mark this day. Follow through on this and you will be able to turn around someday and connect the dots to this very day in what you did by listening and coaching along, doing the work of this particular episode.

So again, I’m going to introduce this with some words from Estés. So if the woman is in this frozen condition of her psyche, or any creative, any artist, you must refuse the comforting fantasy. The comforting fantasy will kill us dead for certain. You know how lethal fantasies go. Someday… and if I only had… when I get really ready, when I have enough x, y, and z, when the kids are grown, when I am more secure, when I find someone else, and as soon as I… and so on.

The little march girl has an eternal grandmother who instead of barking, “Wake up, get up, no matter what it takes, find warmth,” takes her away into a fantasy life, takes her to what is, “a heaven.” So if you don’t have a real life grandmother or godmother in your life shouting, “Wake up, get up, no matter what it takes, find warmth,” move yourself into a truly nurturing place, I can be that. I can stand in for that right now.

And you heard that the comforting fantasy often is proceeded by somedays or all the cousins of somedays. So think about something that you’ve had perennially on a someday list, which really after a while, you can feel that inner erosion has become a no, I’m never going to get to that list.

That can all change today. What can you do before the day is over? How can you stake a claim in the universe that you’re going to take an action? No action too small, and also, it might be the time for you for a grand gesture. What can you do? This is so important. Take that step to find some kindling to strike your match to lay it against.

Anything that has been a someday for you, what can you do before the end of the day or the end of the week to guarantee that that someday is not a someday, but it is a day on your calendar, it has a day of the week assigned to it that starts with Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, a day like that, with one of those prefaces and not some, and it has a time and there is somebody else in the world who views that, who is going to hold you accountable to that.

Remember these words. Wake up, get up, no matter what it takes, find warmth. Thank you all so much for being here. Have a beautiful week and I will talk to you next time.