Ep #210: When Perseverance and Magic Come Together

Perseverance and magic, two elements that will help you take your art to the next level, that will help you live your most inspired, self-actualized creative life. And if those two things seem to be at odds, well then listen in to what I have for you today.

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, my friends, and welcome to another episode of The Art School Podcast. Oh my, something is in the air. I’ve had so many conversations this week with clients and friends and loved ones that are either having breakthroughs, or feel something in them is being broken wide open.

So, I’m well aware of what has happened, astrologically speaking. It’s November. Let’s see, what is today? It’s November 11^th as I record this. And earlier this week, we had the full moon and lunar eclipse, and many other things converging on Monday. So, maybe that’s it. Maybe there’s something else in the air.

But what I am thinking of is, one, the fact that it has been such a full week. I think I’ve probably easily talked, coached, I’m going to say 50 hours in the last week. And that feels probably conservative when I think of all the time I’ve spent thinking about coaching in between. And I have been in the midst of a creative – I don’t want to say storm, but maybe. Maybe in the eye of the storm.

I’ve been painting like crazy. I’ve been writing so much. And when I thought of what I can offer you, it’s part of what I’m creating.

So, those two ideas that I offered in the intro, perseverance and magic. If you have a desire to create something great in your life, if you have a creative dream, if you have been tapped, anointed as an artist, as a writer, there’s just something that has grabbed you and not let go, then what I want to offer you is that you can do that. You can do that. And what I want to offer you is more than simply those words.

I want to offer you the knowing, the deep knowing. I want to offer you time immersed, coming to know yourself as someone who indeed embodies, “I can do this. I really can do this.” That’s what it takes, and the perseverance and magic to get you to that point, that really is simply what the Art School is about; evoking that innate genius and awakening that spirit in you that says humbly and profoundly, “I can do this.” Not from a place of hoping, not from a place of wishing, but coming into the knowing and creating from the inside out. “I can do this,” and then the evidence of actually doing it.

So, I will be talking more about this in the informational session. It will also be inspiring. There will be a Q&A. It will be grounding. It will be edifying. It will be nourishing. It will help you realign with your own sense of, “I can do this.” And I will also be talking about ways, if you’re interested, that you can work with me, to continue to build that ecosystem from the inside out in your life that supports a very robust creative psyche, so that you can be the conduit that you were meant to be for the most powerful creativity that you were meant to channel and manifest in this life.

So, those dates are not yet determined, to be determined, so again, watch Instagram, @leahcb1 for announcements. But the best place is my newsletter. And again, signing up for that, that link will be in the show notes, on my website, or you can always sign up by emailing us, support@leahcb.com.

If you’re hearing this, this, “I can do this,” And you’re like, that is just too simple. I hear you. And I also want to offer that perhaps it’s just been a long time since you’ve been able to experience your own sense of inner agency and power.

Also, I hear you if you’re saying, “No, I’m in a place where I just feel broken open, like I can’t do this.” And that was something that has come up in a lot of the conversations I’ve had in the last week. Some people entirely new to me. Some people I’ve known for years.

And in every case, once we got to the bottom of it, it was a sense of, “No, I just can’t do this in the way I’ve been trying to do this. I am now experiencing this kind of surrender so that I let go of my ideas of how it has to look, how I have to look, how it has to be done, that I can’t fail, that I can’t lose face, that I can’t lose money, that I can’t lose time. And instead, I am really being brought to a place of being open and being willing, open to so many other possibilities, willing to explore, willing to again feel this refreshing energy that can come in when you let go of something you’ve been clinging to for dear life.”

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. My most powerful invitation for coaching today is really to come to the live event that I’ll be holding.

Raise your hand, send in a question and really get to experience the shift that can happen in a short amount of time. My second invitation is a shorter version of a longer exercise I just did with my mastermind, a powerful exercise meant to disrupt rigid ways of thinking that have eclipsed your ability to see all of the possibilities, that have been putting a chokehold on your creativity because perhaps you’ve just been so habituated or so scared and clinging to one way something has to look.

So, this invitation – again, this is an abridged version of the longer exercise which we will also do in that session if you attend live. It is to think about something that you’ve been trying to create and make a list of all of your rules of shoulds, about how this thing should come to being.

So, it could be a dream. It could be a goal. Write it down, and then write out all the ways that you are telling yourself, or you’ve been told, this is how it has to happen. For instance, I have a client who, at the beginning of the year, was really reluctant to call herself an artist and who just last month had her first art show and sold a painting at, currently, what she thought was an impossible price of $10,000. A beautiful, incredible, powerful painting.

Part of what brought that to fruition was examining the places where there had been these internalized set of rules of first what it is to be an artist, who gets to call themselves an artist. And then later, we did the same process again with rules, quote unquote around an art show and how a quote unquote proper artist has an art show.

And then, we did it once more with the pricing and selling of painting. And all along the way, there were these small subtle opportunities to do this again, raising awareness around rules and where we are unconsciously, subconsciously, or consciously cooperating with those rules that coopt, that hijack our freedom, our freedom of expression, that force us to try to fit ourselves into an identity and a concept, even of an artist, which should be open and free, but it makes us feel so confined that we have to shut off actually our channels to genius and inspiration and seeing new ways of doing things in order to fit into this small box of artist, and how one does an art show, and how one is allowed to start beginning making money as an artist.

A lot of artists have internalized this idea that it has to happen in these slow, incremental processes and you have to put in years. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But why have that as a rule? Why not explore all of the ways of being an affluent artist, for example, that are available to you?

So, there is also more nuance and subtly in examining of one’s individual internal experience with these rules that we will explore in the live cal. But for the purposes of today’s episode, it will be so powerful for you to again raise your awareness around where are you cooperating with rules about how to go about creating your dream, your goal, your life, yourself?

I am thinking of another example from someone who thought becoming a wealthy woman had to happen through her business. And then, once she got sick and tired of that and exhausted by trying to make that happen, then she realized she was back in the realm, first of all, of being deeply relieved, feeling like the pressure was off, feeling like there wasn’t the same sort of scarcity to squeeze it out of her business while at the same time feeling financial pressure of not making it happen.

When we removed the shame that has no place in that, from not creating one’s entire income from one business – this goes for artists too – then again she was in the realm of capital-C Creativity, relief, feeling alive again, feeling inspired, feeling energy, and like there were worlds open to her again where, for a long time, she’d been feeling and trying to hold it like the beachball under the water, she’d been feeling, “I can’t do this because I haven’t done it yet. I haven’t done it in six years.”

For you, maybe it’s, “I haven’t done it in 10 years. I haven’t done it in 20 years. But I have to do it this way. But I can’t fail.” Once you release that beachball and surrender and let all of the options come back to you, she realized her desire wasn’t actually just to make money through this business. It is to be an example of what’s possible and to become a wealthy woman and then seeing all of the ways that that could happen.

And then, she was also able to reconnect with other examples in her life where she had indeed embodied and felt – felt, not just hoped for, not just wished for, but felt – that humble but profound, that worker-bee craftsman statement and visionary artist statement of, “I can do this. I can do this.”

And that is also the paradox, the miracle, and the mundane that is available to you, my friend, in becoming the artist you’re meant to be, the person you’re mean to be, creating the art you’re meant to create, and really building the life from the inside out that you’re meant to have.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. Thank you for helping me build this community, this community of podcast listeners and really this movement from the ground up of people who are experiencing a creative awakening.

And I greatly appreciate all of your help in helping me continue to build this community and spread the word to a wider audience. The best ways to do that are to leave a review on iTunes, are to share far and wide. I love hearing from you on social media. You can tag me, @leahcb1. I love to hear what episodes you’re listening to, what your takeaways are.

And then, I love to pop into your direct messages too and have a chat with you there. Also, if there are particular topics or subjects that resonate most with you or that would help you most, please feel free to email us with your ideas and suggestions. I always love hearing from you and that email address is support@leahcb.com.

To close, I cannot say it enough. I know you can do this. If you have been touched with this creative dream, it is not random. It is there for a reason. Those dreams and your creativity are a way of interfacing with the truth of you, the capital-T Truth and the truth of what wants to be made manifest through your life.

That embodiment of, “I can do this,” that’s something that I know can flow from us when we are seeing and our work is met in the proper way, and when we and our work are radically nurtured. That’s the work that I do with my private clients. It’s the work that I do in the Art School, and in that mastermind.

I really believe, again, there is this paradox that your innate genius is also that sense of yourself that sounds maybe not very sexy or a little mundane, “I can do this.” But truly, that’s where the magic is. That’s where the magic and the persistence come together, carried on the winged back of some workhorse Pegasus.

And that’s my mission, to help you find that within yourself. That is the regeniusing work, is the reclaiming, is the discovering, is the revealing, is having any conditioning and shame drop away so that you once again can feel your creative, solid self.

“I can do this.” And if you’re not feeling it, do not beat yourself up. Come hang with me for a while longer, longer than you do in the podcast. Get yourself to one of my free workshops or classes or coaching calls. Sign up for the Art School, apply for the mastermind, work with another coach, maybe go back to school, maybe create your own community or art school.

Give yourself 1000 chances, and when those don’t work, give yourself 1000 different chances, 1000 other ways where it will work. Whatever you do, give yourself plenty of opportunity to practice and then embody, “I can do this.” And if you do, I know that day is coming where you will say, “I did it.”

That’s what I want for all of you and that is what is available for you. Have a beautiful week, everyone. And I’ll look forward to talking with you next time.