“Whether I’m writing about plumbers or psychics or psychic plumbers, I want to find a creative space that imprisons me usefully, so I can deviate with purpose,” novelist Heidi Julavits.

Choreographer Twyla Tharp said, “In order to be creative, you have to know how to prepare to be creative.”

What both of these creative powerhouses are talking about is the importance of setting yourself up with an ideal creative space; one of the core themes that I teach in this creative, functional philosophy. That is, how to function as a superbly creative highly successful artist in the world is the importance of creating the ideal structures, the ideal ecosystems, inner and outer, so that you can not only flow your contributions, your work out into the world, but also so you are ideally situated to receive. Receive ideas, inspiration, creative energy. But then also, be a channel for receiving the value of your work, in kind, the fruition of your labor.

Over the next two episodes of The Art School Podcast, we’re going to be focusing on the elements that you can incorporate into your creative process, no matter what it is that you’re wanting to create, so that you can experience a more innate sense of power, flow, and ease with moving your work into the world and then also receiving value for that work.

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 another episode of The Art School Podcast. It is so good to have you here. And I am very revved up, excited, ready to go about the topics for this week’s episode and the next. They are very related, but I have so much to say that I won’t fit it into these next two podcasts. But I do have – I’ve gone through my notes, and like, “What can I tell you that will most help you move the needle? That will help you shift?” And the question I’m always asking myself are, like, where are the master-keys? What do they most need to hear so that they can use this, implement it in our life, and really create a difference and see a shift and create massive change?

Before we dive into those two things though, those two elements that we’re going to be talking about that are essential for creating your ideal creative ecosystem, I have so much news and so many things to share with you that I wanted to make sure I talk about that up front. Because otherwise, it goes out some open window in my mind as the podcast goes on.

So, first, I have a very exciting event coming up in May. I have been invited to present on an amazing platform, RevelEleven. And that event is taking place, it’s online, free and open to the public. You can make a donation, but tickets are also free. And you are all so welcome and encouraged to attend. That’s Tuesday May 4^th. And I will be presenting a workshop entitled Cultivating the Creativity to Dream Big.

I’m going to be talking about what it takes to not only dream big, but also to create that big dream and to do so from a place of health, inner strength, self-love, and compassion. I’ll be sharing with that audience and all of you what my functional philosophy is for creating anything you want and building the life of your dreams from the inside out in the process.

So, I would love to have my Art School audience be there for this. It is on video, so a little bit different, a little bit cozier and more intimate maybe than a podcast. And if you would like to sign up for that, again, it’s free. It’s Tuesday May 4^th on the RevelEleven website. You can register for your tickets there. And we will also have links to that in the show notes.

And then, the day after May 4^th, May 5^th is when my book launches. So, my poetry and creative prompts book, it’s entitled Wild Blue Yonder. And when you read the book, you’ll see why that title is so special and dear to me. But it is a book that is a combination – it’s unique. It’s a combination of poetry and some of my poems that are in work, in process, because I thought, this is what I do. I love to be immersed in process. I love to see other people’s process. I love to share what my process is in the hopes that it helps your process.

And so, it is part my poetry. And some poems are finished and some are process and I have some notes on what my process, my thought process are as they move along. And then the second half of the book is a series of creative invitations. So, prompts, meditations, opportunities for you to take this beautiful, magnificent imagination you have and put it to work in your life, and in what I hope are ways that light you up, that are this intersection of, like, analytical mind and also wild imagination and intuition and creativity.

Because you know I love this intersection of being analytically intellectually rigorous and then also blow the top off things with intuition, creativity, spirituality. I love integrating these aspects and that is really the place from which I created these creative invitations, these imagination meditations are another way that I think of them. And they’re things I use in my own creative life and also some that I’ve shared with clients and some that I’ve never shared before.

So, the official book launch is May 5^th, but the books will also be available for presale on all platforms. And we’ll have links to that in the show notes as well.

Also, some of you have messaged me to ask when I will have new paintings available for sale. So, I have an ongoing Society6 shop and an Etsy shop, which honestly, for the last two years I have not tended. And that was on purpose. That was deliberately practicing what I preach, my creative essentialism, my own creative audit, and shifting my attention to growing my coaching business in exponential ways and now also bringing back in this phase where I really have this opportunity, I’ve created this space in my own life to devote so much more time and attention again to my own creativity now that I have this momentum running and building of itself and on itself now on the coaching side of things.

So, I’ll also be revving those up, but prints and things like that are still available on Society6 and Etsy, to a more limited degree. But as for original work, I have been painting up a storm. And yet, I will be sharing soon on Instagram first and then – usually I sell things first on Instagram and don’t have a lot of opportunity to move originals over to my website. But I will also have anything that is still left available on my art site. So, I’ll be sharing more of those details soon. And thank you, everybody, that has expressed an interest and asked about paintings.

Finally, May. I have been craving some good old fashioned deep advanced coaching work. I have been craving – I know we can’t get together in person yet, but here’s what I had envisioned in my mind. In the evening, deep conversation, like a good hour, hour and a half, maybe two, to come around in a circle and dive deep into the kind of coaching work that blows the top off your mind. Just those moments where you are like, “Oh my god, I did not see that. That was in plain sight.” Just that kind of delightful super-advanced coaching.

And so, I thought, well how can I create that even when we can’t get together in person, and when my audience is also mostly not just around the block? So, here is what I came up with.

In May, I’m going to have a series of four classes. I’m calling them classes, but in my mind, I’m really thinking of them as these small mastery circles. And rather than call it like a mastery workshop, because there are so many connotations with that rule of mastery. But what I thought of instead is I want this to be like a Gold Medal Mindset series, where I am going to be coaching from a very advanced place.

I’m going to expect that people are completely invested and committed into being pushed and that they’re there because they want to be pushed and they want to look at things and they delight in this kind of rigor. And again, it’s the kind of rigor where I love to play, at that – I want to call it an intersection, but I think it more aptly said is an integration of incredibly intellectually analytically rigorous meets, integrates incredibly creative intuitive spiritual. That you’re willing to open yourself up to the vastness that you are, embrace all of these things and really go for it.

So, this is going to be a smaller group, a limited group so that we have time for the kind of back and forth and the exchange and the depth. But to be sure, I don’t want this to be depth as in rabbit hold depth, depth with no point. I want this to really move you. I want this to be profound in a powerful – even though, just over two weeks, we’re going to meet four times.

But I know the kind of magic that can happen when I set intentions like this and I create a container like this. And the people that accept the invitation, like both hands raised, come running in and are like, “Yep, I’m down with this. This is the sort of thing I love and I’m ready to go.”

So, if you are interested in that level of both intellectual rigor and also the creative, the spiritual side. And you’re just really craving an advanced, elevated conversation and you want to be challenged and you want to be pushed because you really are ready for some breakthroughs, email us, support@leahcb.com with Gold Medal Mindset in the subject line.

So, whether you already have a gold medal and, you know, whatever that metaphor stands for, for you, and it’s just in need of some polishing, you’re going for your next one, or you think of yourself as a neophyte but you know you’re gunning for the gold, you know you’re meant to be on that stand. And again, I’m using these Olympic metaphors because the Olympics is on my mind because it’s coming up. And because I have, if you’ve listened to me before, been following my work, I liken the Art School and the work that I do to creating this sacred container, this program that is like an Olympic caliber training program for creatives, for artists, for those people who are like, “Yes, I don’t care what the odds say. That’s where I’m meant to be. This is what I’m built for and I’m going for it.

So, if that sounds like you and you are really ready to take your work, your inner work and your outer work in your life to the next level, and this is the kind of conversation and coaching that just lights you up, again email is, support@leahcb.com and we will put you on the wait list and let you know when we open spots for this mini – again, we’re going to meet four times. And also, the thing I should say is two of the classes, it will be Tuesday, Tuesday, Thursday, Thursday. So better said Tuesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Thursday. And beginning the second week in May.

And the Tuesday classes will be at 8PM. So, for those of you who haven’t been able to join me live before because of time zone changes, I hope that the Tuesday class at eight will give some of you a chance to join. Replays too will also be available if you can’t make it live. And then Thursday, we’re going to have a follow up on the Thursdays that will happen at 3:30PM Eastern.

Again, I’d love to have you join us if this is the sort of thing that you have been craving, the kind of conversation and work that you have been missing. You know, sometimes you’re just ready to go, you’re just ready to run, ready to play on that – I’ve got sports on my mind – that division one, you’re on the D1 squad, you’re going for the national championships, whatever that metaphor is, no matter your industry, your genre, your discipline, if that’s the kind of league that you love to play in, a league with your own and you’re the sort of person who, when you think of competition, really loves to define yourself as like, “I want to be in this place where I am so damn good and so damn myself that I have no competition.”

And then I’m also so invested with doing this kind of work in a community that uplifts the entire community. So, it’s not the kind of competition that tears anyone down or requires and results in a hierarchy. But it truly, again, is an environment in which the better you are, the better everyone else is. The better everyone else is, the better you are, and a rising tide lifts all ships.

So, that’s what we’re going to be doing in May. And here is what we are talking about today. Today, we are talking about two elements that a container, a creative container needs in order to best support you, to support the evocation of your creative spirit, to support the receptivity of creative ideas, resources, but also external resources, money, and also the kind of structure that then supports the flow of whatever you create back into the world.

And to be precise, we are talking about spaciousness, one, and the second element, specificity. So, I have been building up to introducing these topics to you for quite some time, including over the last few episodes, including the conversation with My Linh Luu, which I will refer to again in a little bit. And then also, I was referring to it in a recent Instagram post I did which I will just read to you here. It’s short and sweet. And then you’ll sort of see the high-level view of where we are going. And then, in this episode, we’re going to concentrate and focus in on the aspect of spaciousness.

So, in my Instagram post I wrote, “What would feel amazing to you this week? What kind of development, moment, creation, completion, conversation, breakthrough, opportunity, experience would feel magical? To create anything you want in life, name it. Be unapologetic and unabashed about what you’d love to love more of in your life. Love, inspiration, money, genius, beauty, peace, fun, you name it, literally.”

So, that’s the specificity part. And that’s me adding in notes for you here. Now, back to the post, “And then start creating space. Magic, any kind of creativity loves a sacred container. And how do you create space and sacred containers? By saying yes to more of what you want and no to what you don’t. This includes the thoughts you no longer want to think and believe, and then when those beautiful magical moments show up in your life, let yourself be caught up and swept away. Love the hell out of them and say, and really feel it, yes, this, thank you, and more please. What are you making space for this week? What are you saying yes to? And what is now a hard no?”

So, that’s the end of the post. But you know, if you’ve been listening to recent episodes, I’ve been asking you, at that next level for you, as our future self, what will you no longer be available for? It’s a topic that we explore when we ask the question in the Art School, you know, what is sacred and essential to you?

It’s something that billionaire Warren Buffet has said, you know, “The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say no to almost everything.” So, then there’s been this ongoing theme of what are you creating space for? And in that intro quote, why Heidi Julavits, the novelist – I hope I’m saying her name correctly – she said, “I want to find a creative space…” when she’s writing, “I want to find a creative space that imprisons me usefully so I can deviate with purpose.”

Dang if that obviously isn’t written by an incredible writer. A creative space that imprisons me usefully. So, that is implying constraint, but also the constraint is like the walls of any container, right? The walls are necessary to define the space.

As creatives, we know – and if you’ve been listening, you’ve heard me talk about the importance of creative constraint in order to liberate your creative genius. So, she’s playing on this, like the creative space that imprisons me usefully. So, it’s having the certain kind of constraint in place that is the right kind of constraint for you. Not right as in there’s a one size fits all, but right as in you find what works for you. And she says usefully, right? It works. It’s useful.

And so, within that, here is that jumping around with language paradox again, she’s imprisoned so she can deviate with purpose. And that deviation with purpose is exactly what an ideal creative space allows. One that has definition, which is the specificity that we’re going to talk about next week a little bit more. But we’ll talk about that too within this concept of spaciousness.

Too much spaciousness, like complete spaciousness is just like vacuousness. It’s without purpose. Where she’s saying this allows for space with purpose. And it’s also useful, imprisons one usefully. So, spaciousness is not all options on the table, but there is a sense you can feel the energy of it. And to me, it’s an energy of abundance and it allows and facilitates for the creating from abundance, creating from trust, creating from knowing that you belong exactly where you are and that your ideas and dreams belong in the world and that you’re not questioning yourself.

Spaciousness implies some amount too, those walls, that definition, that constraint can be applied to things I’ve talked about before about what are you no longer available for. What is not allowed within your creative space? And this too is what I imagine Twyla Tharp is talking about when she talks about in order to be creative, you must prepare for being creative.

So, deciding ahead of time, what are you going to decide are the protocols for your creativity? What are the constraints? What things have you put in place so that you don’t have to think about all of the things? What can you put in place so that your creativity flows? And then I would argue, what can you put in place so that resources, including money, flow back to you to support you as the artist, as the creative, and to support the continuation and development of your work and contribution?

One of the reasons I have wanted to talk about these topics so badly – I will not even pretend to gloss over how badly I’ve wanted to talk with you about these topics – is because I see so much resistance to them. And I see so may people inhibiting and restricting their own development and their own success and their own thriving because they are not giving themselves permission to have the spaciousness that their heart desires and that their dreams require.

And two, that they are being reluctant about being specific enough about what those desires are. But again, we’ll go more into specificity next week. For today, I really wanted to focus in on spaciousness. So, I want to refer back to another interview I did with one of my Art School Alum, Hope Dunbar.

So, that episode was in the fall of 2020 and we will post it in the show notes. And Hope is an incredible singer and songwriter. And she was in my very first Art School back in 2018. She was one of my very first clients back in 2011.

And in the interview that we did, she talks about how it was so important in her evolution as a creative to learn what it was to take her work seriously. To take it seriously. Those were her words, to take it seriously. And we talked about how this means being unapologetic and taking up space and investing in yourself, investing in your development as an artist, investing in your development as an artist entrepreneur.

And it was one of the reasons why she signed up and was in several iterations of the Art School. And Hope is also a mom. She’s a mother of three. She started writing on the back of envelopes when her children were really small and they would take naps and she would write her songs on the back of junk mail and find space that way.

So, that’s one of the things that I want you to take away from this episode, is that no matter where you’re starting, start somewhere. Start by taking any space you can. Because if you can’t leap ahead to where you have these grand open spaces, you know, physical, like a recording studio and then also space in your schedule, start with what you can and develop a foothold. And that’s what Hope talked about doing.

But then, don’t stop there because what I know too is that once you claim some space for yourself and your dreams, that space will beget more space. And that space, because now your energy and your creative energy and just Creativity with a capital C has a space to move into in your life, that brings this infusion of life force that is generative.

Giving creativity space in your life doesn’t take up time and space. It creates more. That is how I built my business and my art career too. Also, I started building when I had babies. I was not an artist. I built my art career that way. I built my business that way, in at the time what were the remains of the day.

I also even used to go out, hire a sitter, and go out for an hour to sit in the back of my minivan in the garage and used that as my office because my children did not know to look for me there and the sitter could not keep them away from my office door. So, I did what I could while I had to. But I was always looking for ways to trade up.

I was not willing to take no for an answer. And even when I had my down days, my down weeks, I got back up and was not willing to take no for an answer forever, or for long. I knew I was just going to keep coming. And that is too what Hope conveyed in her story. And the reason in particular that I wanted to refer back to Hope’s story in this particular episode was because just this last week, she celebrated another incredible milestone. And I wanted to give her a shoutout and congratulate her here, cowbell and snaps, as we say in the Art School, on air.

Because to have witnessed her journey and then to see what she released into the world last week and to see how the world released it, it’s giving me the chills and getting me all choked up just thinking about it. And I wanted to share it with you because it’s the kind of thing that I know will edify those of you out there on your journey who are maybe in the middle of it, maybe in the thick of it, maybe at the very beginning. And it’s the very sort of real, real, real result that is possible when you believe and when you stick with it and when you create space and learn what it means, as we’re going to talk about today, what it means to create spaciousness in your creative process, in your mind, in your heart and your grace for yourself and others, and in your life, literally, physically, spaciousness in your life as well.

Because here’s another angle, another thing I really wanted to talk with you about. If you follow my work, you’ve heard me talk about the feminine aspect of creativity, even the divine feminine aspect of creativity. And I think spaciousness is a hallmark of the feminine. Spaciousness is integrating, you know, make it happen with receptive mode.

So, spaciousness is a feminine aspect. And as a feminine aspect, is an aspect to creating and creating like a badass. Because when you take yourself seriously, you’re going to create a container. And what does a container allow you to do, but receive? And receive with the appropriate amount of space and pressure to focus and constraint. But also, it takes you out of the paradigm that you’re always producing, always making it happen, which when many clients first come to me, they are overachievers and they’ve done all this and they’re burnt out and they don’t think that they can elevate themselves anymore or move any higher or rise to the level of their dreams because they have been just in what is an overly masculine-ated idea of how to create.

And that’s go, go, go, produce, produce, produce without having any internal conversation with how you are actually built and without having space for the receptive part of creativity, without having a spaciousness in their mind and their spirit, and I would say even in their body for receiving what wants to happen through them, for receiving being a channel, being a vessel. And also, a spaciousness also takes you out of a place where you are being hurried and rushed by small ideas that tell you you’re inadequate and therefore you have to force and you have to overdo and you have to over-function in order to overcompensate, in order to make up for.

When you create space – and one of the ways you do that is by saying, “I’m no longer available for those kinds of stories,” you’re going to take yourself seriously, which says, “I’m no longer available for the kind of story that says you’re not really an artist. You’re just fooling around. This is just a pipedream, who are you kidding?”

When you are no longer available for those stories, you create spaciousness. You create spaciousness for a next level of kind of creativity and also the kind of self-love that’s necessary to sustain the creative energy to create something epic and next-level. When you create spaciousness, you escape because you have this realization that you’ve never had anything to run away from. But the idea that you are small and too small for your dreams, you suddenly see as a false limiting story within you that you can discard.

And you can discard any stories and conditionings that have kept you small and in a small mind-made prison. When you do that, when you take yourself seriously in that way, you have already created space.

So, Hope talks about, in her interview, you know, how she invested in herself, how she created space, how she took herself seriously, and the evolution of what that was like, what that was like for her as an evolution too. And she shares that it wasn’t easy.

She’s also written this about her journey, that with her latest release, the milestone I should say, I got so carried away I missed that part. She officially released her latest album, Sweetheartland. Again, goosebumps for me just saying the world. You guys, it’s incredible. It is an incredible work of art. Some of the reviews have likened her to a young Springsteen and I have just bits of the incredible reviews to share with you today.

But Hope had written this about her own mission with Sweetheartland, and producing that record. She wrote, “My mission in this project was to fully realize my own strength and identity as a songwriter. I gave myself permission to have fun, to be humorous, to be frustrated and intense, to be sexual, powerful, hopeful, and sad.”

So as a sidenote, those are all things that cannot happen when we don’t give ourselves this kind of spaciousness. And I’ll go back to hope writing. She continues, “As a small-town preacher’s wife, I had been kind of tentative with my identity on my previous album Three Black Crows,” which is still, I would say as Leah, incredible.

And she writes, “It just felt unbecoming for me to express feminine sexual power on a record. But I’ve always had a sense of rebellion. So, this time, I just decided to put that out there along with everything else. Three Black Crows has the spirit of asking for permission, a feeling of tentativeness. My intention with Sweetheartland was to walk in and say, “I’m not asking for your permission. I’m doing what I want to do. I am fully empowered, and I am choosing to make this record.”

Mic drop. So, that right there, you can begin to see why the release of Hope’s album does dovetail perfectly with this episode on spaciousness and why I wanted to include her story here. That entire statement, “My intention with Sweetheartland was to walk in and say I’m not asking your permission. I’m doing what I want to do. I am fully empowered. And I am choosing to make this record.”

That is also very specific, but also that’s the kind of spaciousness I’m talking about. That is the integration of these feminine and masculine components.

And so now, I wanted to share with you this album has come out to rave reviews including in Billboard, Americana Highways, and Saving Country Music is a platform for reviewing country music, when this gentleman usually has quite the rap as being very critical, let’s say hard to please to put it mildly.

So, this is what he had to write about Hope’s album, “Leave behind all that defamed country moldy folk reconstituted indie rock, derivative roots pop, and pallid white-boy soul that they try to pedal these days as, quote unquote americana, and pin your ears to what this virtually unknown mother from Middle America is doing because it’s leagues better than most, and the idea of what post-alt country roots music should sound like. You’ve probably never heard of Hope Dunbar before…” unless you listen to The Art School Podcast, and unless you’re an incredible music connoisseur.

Back to his review, he writes, “But my goodness, pipe up a few of her songs and you’ll be made plenty aware. How much does a preacher’s wife with teenage boys from nowhere, Nebraska have to lend to the americana conversation? Apparently quite a bit.” And then he goes on and on and on in pretty profuse and knowledgeable glowing critique, positive reviews of her album.

And ow, listen to this review from Americana Highways, “With what I consider one of the most perfect female country vocals that ever spilled from my speakers, a voice that exudes the tradition of the genre, Hope Dunbar’s classy tone with these nine cuts was a delight to listen to.” And he goes on.

So, why am I sharing this with you other than to give a huge high-five and bearhug out from the entire Art School community to our very own Hope Dunbar? It is also because this story is a testament and an example of creating space. And for Hope, it was creating space that started with listening, giving space to the dream inside her, and then it started with her writing those songs on the back of the envelopes while her boys napped. And then it started to going to songwriting festivals. And then, it started with playing at them.

And she built and she built and built. And then, with this album, it also started with doing her own crowdfunding campaign and then taking the original amount, which she thought was a big ask, and then doubling down on it and creating even more space for this record to succeed and be everything, to have the adequate kind of space and then more that would do justice to the talent and the gift and the dream within her.

Hope’s story to illustrates another reason why I wanted to talk so badly about this topic. And that is many people are thinking that they will give themselves the space required to create the spaciousness, both in their grace with themselves and their belief in themselves, that kind of spaciousness once they have created the thing that quote unquote proves they deserve it. But that’s not the way it works.

Giving yourself the spaciousness of belief, which is the spaciousness of love, is what then creates the ability for the ideas to flow to you, through you, the opportunities to flow to you for that meeting, that chance meeting, that spark where the magic happens. You have to love yourself to create that space.

And if you think, “Oh, well I don’t love myself though, Leah, you do. Start by extracting that thought in your mind that you don’t and just decide that your heart knows that you do and that you’re going to act as if. And then finally, allow yourself to experience this love that wants to happen through you and for you in your life.

This is the part where I see so many people wanting to skip over because it feels like taking a risk that they don’t think they deserve. But this is precisely where the magic happens. This is precisely why I said magic in any kind of creativity loves a sacred container. Giving yourself that kind of opportunity, which is space, as well as the definition of space, the constraints, so you can find out what’s within you, that you can find out what this dream is that’s wanting to happen, what this is about, this voice within you that says that there is more for you.

So, one of these steps that we tend to skip is this part of creating a structure that helps us be both a receiver for creative energy as well as a generator or channel for creative work and the value that you give to the world.

And a lot of us are just conditioned to try out and do our best with the structures the world tells us that we should be okay with. The world will tell us these are the structures that everybody else who’s done it has made work. And so, what’s so wrong with you or what’s so special about you that you need something differently. But a lot of these structures, these paradigms about how to be creative, these supposed formulas or templates for success, whether creative success, artistic, monetary, financial, you know, just your wellbeing as a person, a lot of these were largely constructed in earlier times, informed by the industrial revolution for example, or and other out-moded patriarchal paradigms that didn’t take the true individual into account.

These are structures that assume we are all cookie cutter machines and if we aren’t producing consistently and constantly, according to this template on this schedule and this timeline and this method with this training, then something is wrong with us. And we aren’t just built for it. Maybe we’re just not cut out for success.

But I think that’s wrong. And if you listen to my interview with My Linh Luu, you heard her say that one of her secrets to finishing her book in six months was to unchain herself from the desk, as well as unchain herself from any other old worn paradigm that espouses really punishing ways of writing and creating.

The title of those episodes with My Linh Luu was about how achievements can change you. The title was Achievements that Change You. And I know that that can be true. And from this sacred sense origin, from the soulful place. And I’ve taught it in the way that I teach sacred twin intention concepts and I’ve taught about it in terms of setting yourself up for creative success in a way that honors your own values, that’s on your terms, and honors this idea that it can’t be about the dream if the means to the dream comes with some expensive, expensive cost that sacrifices other values that are intrinsic, that are sacred, and essential to you.

Because here’s the thing that I also know to be true. That if you honor and give yourself the spaciousness, meaning the space to create the dream, and then also spaciousness that honors a holistic soulfully informed process along the way, and you hold that dream to be true, as if it is done, you are in the energy of commitment, it is completely done, it is inevitable, and you stay there and you learn to come back to that place of staying there as you fall a thousand times, and then you allow yourself the space and grace to learn and rise and return a thousand times.

If you stay with it and honor that commitment to that dream, life will rearrange itself to accommodate your belief decision. And some of the ways that it rearranges also requires you to do some moving of the furniture to create some actual space in your life so that it happens.

So I’ve talked before about no longer being available for things like self-imposed suffering, no longer available for cooperating in our own oppression, and we’ve laid groundwork for conversations about creating space in our minds and lives by eliminating the clutter of confusion and overwhelm and doubt.

Talked about setting creative constraints, energetic boundaries, and standards for ourselves by saying that those things I tolerated and I indulged in before, those limiting beliefs and old sad victim powerless stories, those aren’t permitted in this new space.

And when I’ve shared about my thoughts for this new mythology, a guiding story, guiding wisdom story for what the feminine creative is and what it is to be a modern creative woman, an artist, I’ve talked about rewriting the hero’s journey to allow for a story that includes space for the feminine. And it is an aspect that I see in this divine feminine and in creativity with a capital C, that it requires space to be receptive.

And that it requires space for that to flow through us and also for us to participate in creativity because something I’ve learned in my own creative journey was that I needed to unlearn that suffering is a virtue and overworking and pushing harder and going harder and setting myself up for more than I could ever possibly do, like cramming, that heaviness and that oppression, I thought that that was what was required to be a “successful creative.”

I thought that that was what was required for creating my best work. What I didn’t use to realize was that that was one of the ways I was not only cooperating in my own oppression by fabricating my own needless suffering, but I was also squeezing out any chance for the feminine to come through.

I was squeezing out with all of my doing and action and focus on the me aspect of things and what I was creating that yes, part of my action is necessary and showing up is necessary but I was depriving myself of the spaciousness that’s required to participate in the receptive aspect of creativity.

I had been trained to think that creativity was do, do, do, do, make, make, make, make, make. Prove, hustle, work harder, get things done, get it done, make it happen, and it’s never going to be enough anyway, and just to get used to that.

What I knew though and as I talk with my clients, it’s so important to be able to have this nuanced understanding of the difference between what you think and what you know. And how to access and use both. But I knew and in talking to clients, I know that there is a better way. A different way, a third way, as I’ve called it earlier.

But my conditioned brain talked me out of this. It would say time is money, make hay while the sun shines, get it done. But then I’d feel like it was trying to get blood from a stone. That I was just exhausted, and the harder that I tried to create, the further I felt from the original source of inspiration, spirit, and energy that had led me to want to create in the first place.

What I’ve come to realize I was missing was this under-appreciated, under-talked-about, undervalued, although so powerful, aspect of creativity, which is what I think is a very feminine aspect of creativity. And that is being a vessel, being a receiver, being a channel. And what does a vessel receptive mode channel require? Spaciousness.

Spaciousness within and spaciousness without. We are so conditioned to believe that creativity is productivity and the more productive, the more we get done, the more creative we are. But this paradigm ends up feeling like an exhausting, frenetic, soul-draining running up a mountain with ice skates on. Soul-draining, unsatisfying, mad race to nowhere.

But I do believe the more creative we are, the more creative we are. Therefore, if spaciousness begets creativity, then the more spaciousness that is the right kind of spaciousness for us, the more creative we are. And spaciousness also is a form of self-care. And it’s what I was referring to in the Instagram post when I said in order to create more of what you want in life, say yes to more of what you want and no to what you don’t.

And that when you do that, even more space for what you do want in life is created. And again, people will argue that this takes time, but this kind of self-care, this kind of self-love and stewardship of your creativity and your dream creates so many things, including more time, as well as a more spacious experience of time.

One thing that I have learned as I’m on this journey to create two million dollars a year as a writer, as a coach, an artist, a creative is that it requires spaciousness and I started small as I mentioned earlier and I have been trading up something I teach to my clients as I go. Doing quantum leaps when I can but also being willing to move foothold by handhold by foothold.

And the more space I create for the things that are really me, true to me, and the more I release the rest, the more energy I have to create and the more focused and precise and effective my actions become. So I wanted to share with you another story and give another shout-out to an Art School alum, Gail Cartwright.

Gail recently posted some photos of an installation of her paintings and sent me pictures of her new studio that just made me bawl. Because a year and a half ago, I remember speaking to Gail, having a conversation, and she was in her car because while she loved her home and home environment, she felt like her car was where she needed to go in order to have the kind of space she needed.

And she did not think of herself as an artist, she hadn’t painted before, but she felt she was an artist. And so long story short, I said, well, what would it be then to leave all those other stories behind and just own that you are an artist? And I had her say it, like, I am an artist. And the way she said it, it was like, in that moment something was done.

And then she started to create space, first by just doing art where she could in her home, and then she decided she needed a little bit more room. So she set up a table in the laundry area in the basement and worked around there. But then she said during COVID, that got coopted into an exercise room by the Peloton bike, and she then moved to a beautiful studio location, a space devoted just to her work downtown.

A beautiful art studio space. And if you could see these pictures of Gail standing in front of these many beautiful large-scale abstract paintings, it, again, sent chills through my body. It’s so her in her element and I can trace it back to that moment in her car when that was the space that she was taking up.

And when she then with her conviction, with her commitment, with her words and her word to herself, declared I am an artist. So, so much can happen in a year and a half when you are willing to give yourself that space and the other kind of spaciousness that I want to celebrate in Gail, who has this incredible spirit that is both beautiful and warrior at the same time is the graciousness and love towards one’s self in the mindset work and in the inner work.

And being so open-hearted and courageous and willing to shed old thoughts, old beliefs, and instead condition this beautiful, kind, creative force of nature, creating art on her own terms, and in a way that is very loving. And that energy, the energy of Gail shines through in her art.

So I wanted to share her story as well because I just adore her and I wanted to give her a shout-out and cowbell and snaps, Gail. And also, because for those of you who are still unsure and tentative about taking up space by declaring who you are and declaring your dream and who are also tentative about taking up the physical space required to go for your dream, and who are thinking, oh, how can this matter? I’m doing art on my dining room table. Oh, what a big change is that? Now I’ve got a table in the laundry room.

A year and a half later, Gail has these incredible installations of these beautiful, beautiful paintings, and her very own beautiful and I will say spacious – it looks big in there Gail – art studio space as well. So you might be asking, how much spaciousness is enough spaciousness?

And that really is an internal process to discover the answer to that question. Because as I said earlier, I say the right relationship between spaciousness and the specificity of definition and constraint because it doesn’t mean right as if you’re trying to find a right answer out in the world and then become it.

It’s finding out what works for you. How you’re built, and what combination of space and then constraint, specificity will help you be the most creative, will help you be the most successful, will help you thrive. One indication though that you are not allowing yourself the right kind of spaciousness is that if you are constantly trying to cram, to compensate, to prove, you’re trying to overcome constantly, you’re just trying to get the damn thing done so you can move on and feel relief, which makes you wonder why you ever started doing this in the first place, that is an indication that you’re coming from not enough energy, that you’re coming from scarcity.

If there is a lot of clutter in your creative space, and I don’t mean in your studio because you might operate great with supplies all over the place. But I mean the kind of clutter that feels like it’s stifling, that feels like you can’t breathe. The kind of too much pressure in your mind and in your life where your energy feels constantly frenetic, feels way too high, that you fill your mind and calendar with all of these complicated, ambitious plans, even though as you write them you have a sinking feeling that you’re not going to do any of it.

That is all an indication as well that you just haven’t yet found the right amount for you of spaciousness. So it’s one reason why I developed this concept of the simple plan. Both for myself, it’s how I created six figures, and then multiple six figures. It’s how I create art, it’s how I create this podcast, it’s how I am creating a multiple seven-figure business.

But to begin executing the simple plan, it starts by cultivating the mindset and a way of being that is strong, fast, spacious enough to hold all of the things that you will encounter along the way. The kind of spaciousness that is clear and committed and true. That kind of sacred container within yourself.

So one of the ways I go about this myself, go about this myself or teach clients and students in the Art School is to come from your future self. Come from a place of you have done it. And you are so immersed in that energy of having done that any sort of ideas that you have to create in order to prove or perform, to shore up any insecurity or scarcity, that all goes off the table.

So what you are attempting to do with this work and it’s one of the premises of my simple plan is that you start from a place of abundance, of having done. You start from a place of I am a creative genius and now it’s just about falling in love with the process and being here for the adventure and for the journey and for the ride.

Simultaneously, fully committed, fully knowing that your results are inevitable. So here’s another client story. This one about one of my former clients, private clients who re-engaged me recently to do a month-long engagement consulting work for him as he was negotiating the next chapter, really book in his life, which involved multi, multi, multi-million-dollar deal with a company that he had created.

And I thought it so powerful a story for today’s episode because one, he’s a man obviously, but we’re still talking about this feminine aspect of creativity and the importance of spaciousness. And two, there is this detail in his story. One of the things we talked about and one of the reasons he engaged me is that I am at the intersection of very intellectually, analytically rigorous.

And also spiritual and open and creative and intuitive. And he was wanting a space to consider the full breadth and depth of his being as a person in the midst of considering navigating the details of a very large transaction.

And the space in question here for him was in this deal, there was a line within brackets on a contract in which he was supposed to declare going forward what his role was to be post this potential deal. It was maybe an inch and a half long on the page.

And he was really feeling like in a tight space, trying to decide what to do, about what does he write in this space. Like does this declare the next book in his life? And he definitely had that feeling of being too constricted, not enough spaciousness.

So the beauty, why I love this story is the paradox in that space. Because it was the fact that something in him knew that whatever he is about, whatever this next book in his life was about, this next chapter, it is of course not going to be able to be summed up within that tiny inch and a half space, that blank that he was given to fill in to define his role going forward.

And yet it was also that space that was an invitation to him. It was the constriction of that space, which prompted him to reach out and create space with me for having a bigger, deeper, larger discussion about what will this next part of his life be about, who is he.

So I wanted to offer that for you as well. That even if you are feeling constricted right now and that you’re feeling cramped, that that’s not the end of the story and you don’t have to stay there. You can use that discomfort of feeling like you’re in a story for you, being asked to answer a question, and the multiple-choice answers all seem too small for you, that that too can be an invitation to give yourself permission to choose a larger space, to not allow yourself to ever be defined by anybody’s two-inch blank opening.

To never let yourself be defined by even how you have thought of yourself in the past, that what you’ve claimed for yourself in the past, if it was too small, that doesn’t matter going forward. If you are currently a stay-at-home mom with small children, just trying to make things work in the remains of the day, that is the perfect place to begin.

You can begin to dream of the spaciousness from there and not from resentment, and not from an urgency or feeling like you have to hurry out of there and change everything tomorrow, without feeling like your current situation limits you. You could be currently pulling in seven figures as a performing artist, but feeling like it’s cramping your creativity and your soul.

You can begin anew and not trade off the thriving, lucrative career, but learn to create more spaciousness, learn to create on your terms, wherever you’re beginning. If you’ve never done it before, you can also create six figures, seven figures, you can write the novel, you can learn to paint.

You can decide that you’re going to be one of the best in your field, even if you’re starting when you’re 40, 50, 60, 70. You can decide that you’re going to develop the gift within you to create something, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

You can decide that you are going to be someone who has no competition. You can decide that you’re going to be a serial and best-selling author. You can decide that you’re going to thrive in your career and have a beautiful, extraordinary family life.

You can decide you’re going to create and produce a Grammy worthy album. You can decide you’re going to be a thought leader. You can decide you are going to be someone who revels in making beauty and unrealistic goals even though you never want to be on social media.

You can decide that you’re going to create and achieve one after another of your moonshot goals and you can decide that even if you have little room to breathe right now, that you are going to learn to open your lungs and someday look back and be so grateful and glad for the you that took the junk mail to begin to outline her next song, who took time over her lunch break, during her corporate job to plan her exit strategy that helps her move from thinking her art career is a pipe dream to plotting it out to be a bad ass multiple six-figure artist.

It takes space but you can do it, and you can find it, and you can begin by creating space in your mind. Everyone can begin by creating space in your mind, by clearing out the limiting stories, taking out that garbage and having some breathing room. And you can take the mystery and confusion and struggle out by saying I love myself enough, my life is important enough to do this.

My dream is real and I’m going to allow it to breathe and give myself in my dream permission to take up not only adequate space but someday, way more than enough space. Breathing room and then some.

So many women and men and artists and creatives are just not giving themselves this kind of permission. And no one’s going to give it to you, especially when you not taking up space is currently serving them. And they may not like it when you begin to take up space and you can still do this from a place of love.

Not from a place of undermining yourself in order to go along, to get along. You can begin to take up the space that you require and that you would love to have in life and hold that space from a deeply loving place. And life will bend around you, life will move and rearrange to accommodate you and who you are meant to be.

You can decide and only you can decide to believe in you, and you must believe in yourself more than anyone else. It’s not anyone else’s job. And it’s also not your job to win them over. And in that way, when you move into this paradigm where you create on your own terms and you decide that you’re going to love yourself enough to believe in yourself, in that way spaciousness is freedom.

It’s freedom to create your way on your terms. It’s freedom to take big risks. And within that is the freedom, the space to fail. The freedom, the forgiveness, the grace to learn from your mistakes, to learn from your failures, to harvest that organic wisdom, and the freedom to restore and heal and recover and move on and rise.

Spaciousness is the opposite of what perfection says it requires of us. Spaciousness allows for grace to flow in. Spaciousness allows for imperfect actions. It allows for humans. And it leaves plenty of space for grace to come in and fill those cracks and to fill the places where we “think we have shortcomings.”

Spaciousness is room for process. Process over perfection. Spaciousness is room to engage with something rather than just get it done so you can move on to the next thing and climb the next rung and the next rung and the next rung. Spaciousness is room again for things to actually change over time and happen, and for you to change and evolve over time.

Things already begin to change when you take the necessary steps to rearrange atoms in the atmosphere that begin when you rearrange your language, when you begin by rearranging your definition of who you are. It begins when you clean out a room and change the atmosphere, the atoms already that way. It begins by clearing out your mind.

It’s the spaciousness created when you do something that I call letting the chips fall where they may, which is freeing yourself from other people’s expectations, no longer holding back on who you are, what you say, what you do, what you think because you’re afraid some people won’t like it or approve, and it’s also no longer doing things that you don’t want to do, where you are should-ing on yourself and committing to obligations and ongoing commitments because you’re also trying to micromanage and keep people from thinking what they would think and judging from what they would judge if you just proceeded in a way where you were honoring your own priorities, when what was sacred and essential to you was what dictated how you took up space and how you committed to defining space and spaciousness in your life.

So 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. So the assignment that I want to give you this week is twofold. One is to think on spaciousness, to contemplate it, to take it for a walk, to drop it into your psyche and ask your highest intelligence, where is it that this theme of spaciousness, invitations to greater spaciousness are presenting themselves in my life.

How am I incorporating, thinking on, changing the structure, inner and outer of my life, change how I am able to more effectively create and also receive value in the world? How can how I structure my life with spaciousness in mind help to create more thriving for me as a person, in terms of wellbeing, in my bank account, maybe in terms of your body of work, and also how could those structures allow opportunities and ideas and abundance to come back to you?

I know that when you ask yourself why am I hearing this conversation about spaciousness, what does this mean for me, I know that what is right for you and wants to be heard will bubble up and come to the surface if it doesn’t just spring to mind or hasn’t automatically for you as you’ve listened to this.

So for many of you, once you contemplate this, then what wants to be addressed, then what you are invited to will come up, and likely your brain will then say, we can’t do anything about this, otherwise we would have done something about it already. And you’ll be caught in that circular loop.

So the second part of this two-pronged assignment for this week is an exercise I call trading up. So I’ve given you several examples of trading up throughout this podcast and a few just in this episode alone. You’ve heard about how Hope started off writing her song lyrics on the back of pieces of junk mail while her small children napped.

And then fast forward and Hope took herself down years later to a Nashville recording studio. And years in between there she kept trading up, trading up, finding more, finding another foothold, finding another place where she could move her career forward, expand the spaciousness of her definition as an artist, and also the time and resources and mentoring and training and taking herself on tour, going to festivals, she kept doing that until the space that she created was a world-class, cutting edge recording studio with world-class, incredible other badass musicians and artists to help her cut this record.

You heard Gail’s story. The way that she traded up was she joined the Art School before she even really considered herself an artist. She began by sitting in her car, having conversations with me. And then that moved to what space we could create in her mind, to allow for her an expansive definition of herself as an artist.

It then lent itself to trading up to creating space in her home, which then fast forward, and 18 months later she has a beautiful professional art studio space apart from her home and paintings and an installation to show for it.

For My Linh Luu, if you listened to my conversations with her, for her, the evolution, the trade up was moving from these paradigms and mindsets, which had been conditioned to believe that in order to be a successful artist, you were going to probably be miserable or unhealthy in one aspect or other in your life. And instead, she traded up for this idea that she could be an incredible artist, an incredible writer, and have a joyful, beautiful, amazing, full life.

Part of being somebody who is very abundant is being somebody who is able to see opportunities, to see possibilities, and is able to generate opportunities and possibilities and then act on that from there. So train yourself to be somebody when other people see no way forward, when your past self, when your mind said there is no way forward here, train yourself to be unstoppable.

Train yourself to be somebody who always finds a way. And the thing about trading up and finding spaciousness is that then it starts to work for you. The more space you create in your life for creativity with a capital C, for grace to come in, then it’s not just you doing the work. It starts to compound. It starts to take on momentum. It starts to create a force of its own.

And you don’t have to do this all overnight and you don’t have to make it all happen. It’s not about cramming and grinding it out, thinking it out, always getting it right, figuring it out, never letting yourself fail. Trust yourself that if you envision a dream and a life where there is space to be you, where you get paid to be you, where you love being you.

The small steps you begin to take right now or the big leaps will have tremendous payoffs. When you learn to give yourself creative constraints and the right amount of space for that magic to happen, a chemical reaction takes place inside a container like that, when those right conditions are present, and then it becomes a case like I tell my clients in the Art School, in this kind of sacred container, there’s no way out but up.

And the same is true for all of you. Think about spaciousness, about how it applies to creating your own sacred container, and trust yourself, trust this to be true for you as well. No way out but up.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School podcast. If you’ve enjoyed these episodes, if this podcast has been useful, inspiring, empowering, and meaningful to you, I am so grateful that you are here and that you are listening.

And if you would like to pay it forward, the best way to do that is to share, is to subscribe, and is to go to iTunes and leave a review. Also, I have a new ask this week. If you would screenshot as you listen to this and tag me on Instagram, I’d love to hear which episodes resonate with you, I’d love to connect with you on Instagram.

I’m @leahcb1, so you can tag me there and hashtag The Art School or The Art School podcast. It would be great to see what you’re listening to and what particular themes jump out at you. So that was a social media venture that I wanted to propose this week and I look forward to connecting with more of you there.

If you would like to take this work to the next level, if you’d like to learn more about working with me, either privately or in the Art School or in any upcoming workshops or masterclasses, including our free monthly workshop, please go to my website, www.leahcb.com and sign up for my newsletter.

And I’d also encourage you to email us, support@leahcb.com, especially if you’re interested in any of our smaller and more exclusive upcoming trainings. That way we can add you to the waiting list and make sure that you are the first to know when those spots open up.

So to close today, and this is a bonus for those of you that are hanging around for the end, and I know this was a long episode, longer than I thought it would be. But like I said, I’ve wanted to talk about this so much because again, I see too many people putting unnecessary kinks in their creating hose and in their abundance that flows to them.

Too many people cutting themselves off from opportunity and possibility and success by not taking the steps to create space in their life. So here is some advanced coaching for those of you that are familiar with thought work and are like, hey, wait what? Isn’t space a circumstance in life and don’t our thoughts create our results and not our circumstances?

Yes. And here is what I have to say with that and here is why I keep hammering home, I can’t say it enough, begin by creating a spaciousness in your concept of yourself and in your mind. Begin by eliminating the thoughts from your mind, discarding them. The ones which keep you cramped, which keep your dreams cramped, which keep your self-concept cramped.

And it can also be true that when we make changes in our space, in our external circumstance, before our mind is completely on board, it can help shift our mind to be more onboard. Because it ushers in, it invites in this greater creativity, this next new level of mind, which has an effect, a powerful influence on our thoughts and can make it easier to change our thoughts.

Again though, it gives you the opportunity to decide I am someone to whom life can bend and rearrange itself to accommodate how big I am. Beginning with a thought like that is available to all of you. And take what is available to you. Take it and run with it. Have a beautiful week everyone and I look forward to talking with you next time.