I want to start today by sharing with you a strong and clear statement that sums up the spirit of today’s episode and the previous episode, which is a partner episode. And that is that the idea that there is a seemingly impossible gap or distance to bridge between where you are and where you want to be is completely optional and does not serve you.

But here’s why I want to talk about that today. It’s because the idea that there is this seemingly impossible gap or distance to bridge between where you are and where you want to be can feel so daunting, overwhelming. It can leave you feeling exhausted even just thinking about getting there. It can even feel agonizing.

It can prolong your journey. It can for sure burden your journey and make it feel so much more oppressive. And it also can tempt you, invite you into quitting; either quitting for good or doing all of these micro-quits along the way. Whether they be in the form of distraction, or just the other subtle, subtle ways in which you throw gravel in your own path and slow your roll.

If we’ve been persisting at trying to close a gap for a while, that goal or dream can feel like, instead of something we do for ourselves, instead like a wound or a raw area, maybe an area that we would just rather avoid so we don’t have to feel all the painful feels when we venture into this idea of not being there or having it yet.

So, today’s episode is a partner episode and a continuation of the previous episode, both of which I wanted to record for you as pure medicine for those kinds of hurt or wounded places. I hope that they are not only a balm for your raw places, but also act like a restorative energy elixir that fuels your purpose, revives, restores, lifts your spirit and allows you to rise to the level of your heart’s desire again. And this time with so much more natural strength, peace, and enjoyment of your ability and your adventure and the journey, and of this gift of being you in this life.

This week and last week’s are similar. There is some overlap and some repetition. But this does not mean that it is redundant. In today’s episode, there is also a new angle and nuance, in particular a short and profound two-word statement that can transform everything for you. I hope today’s episode and the previous one meet you in just the right places at just the right time. I hope you find them useful and I hope you enjoy.

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, hello, and welcome to another episode of The Art School Podcast. Wow. I feel like there has been a month in this just last several days, really just a week since I recorded the previous episode for you. So many amazing things going on.

I was just speaking with the Art School group and talking about how definitely I’m sensing there’s something afoot, some magic in the air. We were talking about, okay then, every person that still might be on the struggle bus, hop off. It’s time for the magic party bus.

So, just a few things that have happened this week, I gave a presentation for the online platform RevelEleven and it was so fun to partner with that organization and to connect with other women, both the founders of that organization and their audience; women that are kindred spirits who I resonate with deeply, passionate women, passionate about creating and creating from abundance and contributing to the world in such bold and beautiful and brilliant and big-hearted ways.

And also, generously, they have sent and shared with me a recording of that presentation. It is an hour long, and so I will figure out a way to make that available to all of you, if you would like to download and watch and listen. So, it will be a like a supercharged masterclass version of the Art School, but in video format.

Also then, my book Wild Blue Yonder, that official release was yesterday, Cinco De Mayo, 5/5/21. So, that seemed like an auspicious day for a book release. And I wanted to thank everybody who has sent such warm and celebratory messages and you’ve been showing your support, you’ve preordered books, and now they’re available so now you’re just ordering them. Thank you so very much.

Yesterday morning, I went for a walk. It was such a beautiful day and I went to the Notre Dame campus, which is incredible any time, but this time of year especially, in springtime. And it just felt so good to soak in that completion and in that shipping, and it’s there.

It made me think a lot too about what I would be speaking with you about today, so I’m sure I will circle back around to that. We have had some epic, epic Art School sessions lately, like off the hook. The conversations, the topics that come up, the coaching, the interaction, the exchange, the energy, amazing.

So, I want to thank all of my current Art Schoolers who listen in. You truly are extraordinary. I am just in love with this group and how they take the work and make it their own, and how they support one another.

Because of them, my vision for the group is surpassed and then they also inspire me to elevate my own thoughts and energy around it even more. Which is amazing because I didn’t think that was possible and yet here it is happening. So, I’m so grateful for them.

And speaking of elevating energy, I’m also doing the advanced coaching masterclass next week, and then in June for myself, I have a trip to Mexico planned. I’m so excited. I’m sure I will have more to share soon. But in the meantime, yay, I can’t wait. My fingers were shaking. My heart was so full as I was signing up for this and I had this thought of, “Oh my gosh, that’s a great elevation cue for me.”

What I was just saying about how my Art School clients and students inspire me to up-level, I was up-levelled just signing up for this trip. As I was enjoying and basking in my own enthusiasm for this I was like, oh my gosh, I want the people who sign up for the Art School to feel what I am feeling right now, just so much aliveness and enthusiasm for what’s around the corner, so much just delicious desire and anticipation and simultaneous gratitude for being alive right now and the opportunities and the conversations and the communities that are available to us.

So that, my own experience with shaky fingers on the keyboard, I had to reenter my information a couple times. I had one cup of coffee before, so it was not that. I’m like, “Oh, this is so much fun.” I for sure am bringing that into my own design model of what I want your experience to be.

And I’m just going to, like, it’s elevating energy, elevating energy, elevating energy. Guess what? Today, my mom arrives. I haven’t seen her in almost a year. She’s coming from Iowa. She’s going to stay with us for a long weekend. And needless to say, as you can tell, I’m excited. And I’m recording this the weekend before Mother’s Day, Mother’s Day in the states. And so, you will all listen to this after that day has passed.

But to all the mothers out there listening and to all of those who mother, I’m celebrating you and sending you so much love and gratitude. And this includes to those of you who have dreams of mothering as well. You are a mother at heart as well. So, sending love to you as well, everyone here, myself, my children, and my husband as well. I’m so excited that mom is coming to visit. My dad wanted to come, but this is the time of the year when he’s in the field planting. And so, hopefully he can make it out soon.

But in the meantime, my mom is the main event for this weekend. And let me tell you, she’s pretty much rock star status here. And elevating energy was an easy segue into talking about my mom. Because she is absolutely an uplifter just by nature. You naturally feel better when she’s around. And she has this magic for raising the energy in a room with her presence and for raising the energy in a room with the things that she does, that just flow so naturally from who she is and how she is in the world.

Which is another good segue into today’s topic. Which, as I mentioned, is similar and that there’s some overlap and repetition from last week. But that in no way means that it is redundant.

There is an important difference in what I’m presenting this week that I believe will meet you in significant ways. That’s my hope anyway. So, last week, we talked about these what-if questions and this line of inquiry where if we go on a hunt for what’s wrong, we realize, okay, it does feel terrible to believe this, that there is always some sort of gap, that your goal is ever-elusive, always just a little bit out of reach for where you are or who you are, or maybe seems unrealistic for where you are or who you are.

And I talked about then acknowledging, well, if this feels so terrible, that it’s important to give yourself the spaciousness and the grace to ask maybe what’s going on. Is it that this feels so terrible because I’ve been wrong about that, that I’ve been wrong about this gap? Maybe it feels so terrible because I’ve been wrong about myself, thinking that this is unrealistic for me or that I’m not capable or that I’m not good enough or that this just isn’t available for me in this lifetime?

I’m sure you’ve heard people say – or maybe you’ve felt it yourself – oh, I just don’t think money is in the cards for me in this lifetime. I think I can do good work. I think I’m great at what I do. But maybe money is just not in the cards for me to experience. Or other people will say it about love. Maybe I just won’t get to experience that in this life.

So, with any of those sort of things, to note how they feel and to question maybe they feel so terrible because that’s just a lie that you’ve been believing. Maybe that feels so terrible because you have been wrong about you and what’s meant for you and available to you in this life. Maybe you’ve been wrong about what the road or the journey needs to be like.

Just today, I want to give a shoutout to Risa, because Risa was celebrating – she always knew she could be successful and make money and it just makes my heart overflow. A celebration that we were having today was that se has had her biggest revenue month ever and it has been while falling more deeply in love with her life and truly creating from a place where she’ healthy and restored and nurturing all of her most dear values where she’s in love with her life, and had her biggest revenue month ever.

So, questioning all those places that end up making you feel terrible, that was a line of inquiry that we delved into last week, that there is this big gap between where you are and where you want to be. And I shared my own personal experience with this, and then also how it presents for my clients. And I talked about it being like kind of the go-to schtick for the negative bias in your brain.

So, the other negative bias schtick that brains like to hand up – and this is one of my big areas in particular – has been this thought that I am doing it wrong. And my brain loved to marry this to that other lie that I was believing that I just mentioned, that there is this huge gap between me and where I want to be. And sometimes, not even a huge gap. Sometimes, it was like a maddeningly small gap, like I’d get so close I’d almost there, but not complete the distance, so it seemed mysterious and illusive, and still like almost there but just still out of reach for me. I’m somehow being taunted by this dream and then also being taunted by, “Well you could want it but you’re not going to be, quote unquote good enough to have it.”

So, obviously this all feels terrible. And so, when I have clients experiencing this, I have so much compassion because I know what that feels like. And then, I also have so much hope and excitement. Because if I can learn to unwind that. And by unwinding, I will tell you that it felt like unwinding, unwinding, unwinding until finally I was like, no more unwinding needed. Now I feel like I can just drop it. I can just no longer be available for that.

So, that’s why then, when my clients come to me and they’re experiencing this, I feel both compassion and I feel very excited for them. Because holy smokes, the relief, the levity, the freedom, the liberation, the success that comes so much more easily and effortlessly to you when you can drop, to me, what felt like 10-ton psychic baggage around, “There’s a distance that I can’t close and I can’t close it because somehow I’m doing it wrong but I can’t quite figure out how to do it right,” once I just learned to drop all of that, I felt as light as air.

And I felt so much energy come back to me. And things just started to work again. Slowly at first, in other areas, right away. But it’s been cumulative and it was enough to embolden me to focus on this path that I’m going to share with you. And part of this path is learning how to inhibit and not focus and prune away, be ultimately unavailable for thoughts like, “I am doing it wrong.”

So, I want to share with you a little bit more detail about what my unwinding journey was like, what my thought process and my own inquiry was like because I think you may find it helpful.

So, for me, the antidote, the medicine, the counterpose to I’m doing it wrong was then not to go first on an endless search for identifying all the ways that I was doing it wrong so that then I could do it right. This is what my lawyer brain – and many of us, not even if you are in law are conditioned to do. In law school, you were taught issue-spotting. You’d go on these endless issue-spotting quests. If you’re a doctor, you diagnose.

And in so many other areas of our life, we’re taught to be problem-solvers. And what do problem-solvers need though is the first part of that equation, which is a problem to solve. So, that’s what we go looking for. However, as I said, the antidote to, “I’m doing it wrong,” is not to go on an endless quest – you could argue wild goose chase – to figure out what your problems are, then diagnose yourself, then go about fixing yourself or the way you are doing things. Because again, that just keeps you in problem paradigm. That keeps you in the self-concept of somebody who has the problem.

Whereas if you think about your true self, perhaps your future self, where you want to be, that’s a place where you don’t have the problem, where you are not obviously then looking for the problem to solve. You are living in the after, I the absence of. And so, you want to embody that energy now.

So, then you might think, “Okay, well then maybe an opposite or an antidote to the belief I’m doing it wrong,” is to turn it around to one of its potential opposites. Maybe one of the more obvious places to begin with a potential opposite is then, “I’m doing it right,” and then you try to believe that.

And while you’re welcome to run with this if this works for you – I always suggest to all of you and my clients to try it on yourself, see what it feels like, how does your body respond, how does your energy respond? But what I want to offer you today is something that I have found to be far more powerful for myself and for my clients. Because here is where I see, “I’m doing it right,” become problematic. Because I work with such high performers, overachievers that for much of our life, we know how to do things right.

We know how to be the valedictorian. We know how to get the gold star. We know how to perform. And it feels then like life becomes not about your life and actually living it and being you in the world. Life becomes learning how to live up to external criteria and how to be good, as good as one can be, at being judged favorably by others and external criteria. When you’re good at doing things quote unquote right, life can feel like you’re walking a tightrope.

And you’re on the tightrope and you’re up there. And then you’re also aware of any wrong move, any wrong step, any step that is not right, and you’re so aware of the consequences, even when and even while you’re still on the tightrope, which is quote unquote doing it right.

So, my suggestion is to go down the path of there is no tightrope. And I’m going to tell you what I mean by that. And that’s simply first to drop the aspect of judgment. So, an antidote to I am doing it wrong, you could also say this is an antidote to the tightrope experience of I’m doing it right, is also an opposite of it, but it’s in a different way. And it’s this. I am doing it. Where you just drop the judgment. I am doing it. I did it, if it’s in the past tense.

So, not I am doing it right, because then you are still locked into that paradigm that leaves you feeling like you’re walking a tightrope, waiting for the other shoe to drop, wondering how long you can keep that up. And it feels like what I’ve called before here a very brittle or fragile version of success. And it does not have to be that way.

The judgment is so conditioned in us that it argues it’s necessary and useful. But I want to argue today that you can be discerning and know that it’s not. It’s like having a thorn in your foot when you’re running a marathon, or you know what I said earlier is that 10-ton psychic baggage that you’re carrying while also trying to spread those wings and fly.

It’s so worth it to take the time out. As I said, I wanted this episode and the previous one to be like medicine and also this revivification, elixir, an energy for you. And the first aspect in this is to not only dress the wound and apply the medicine or the balm, but the first part is just to sit down and see where there’s a thorn and take it out, or to see where you’re trying to both spread your wings but at the same time hold onto your 10-ton psychic baggage.

So, I’m going to simplify this even further to make it even more powerful and universally applicable. And to do that, I have for you what is just a two-word statement. But what I think is a two-word miracle statement because it mirrors the miracle that you are because it is so simple, how could it not be true?

These are the two words that I promise you, sit with it, rest with them, which is resting in you, in the miracle that is you, and it can transform everything.

So, you take a statement like, “I’m doing it wrong.” And you drop everything but, “I am.” That’s it. So simple. Just that’s really everything, right? I am. Not I am doing it right, but simply, powerfully, purely, “I am.” I am. I am.

Try those words on. Settle into them with whatever energy resonates with you and really feel that. Feel that letting go of everything that’s not you, of everything that you’re trying to be because you’ve been conditioned to believe a lie that whatever you are isn’t enough and you have to somehow compensate for that or you have to somehow adjust yourself so that the world receives you in a quote unquote right way, you have to quote unquote make yourself right for the world and just drop all of that. And settle into the energy of I am.

From that place, there is no lack. You’re resting in your truth. You’re powerful. You’re not then also – and this is so profound and such – I don’t want to say one of the tricks of this practice, but one of the powerful medicines of it.

It’s that when you are resting in I am, then by default you are not also focusing on what you’re not. You’re not focusing on, “Am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong?” You’re not evaluating yourself from any position of lack. Therefore you’re not focusing on what you don’t want.

Focusing on what you don’t want, getting scared and then trying to fix it all from a scarce energy because you believe there is a problem or a deficiency. And then you just perpetuate that energy by trying to fix it. Because why would we try to fix something if we didn’t believe there was a problem with us.

So, it’s trying to fill a hole with a hole. But what if there is no hole? What if you just are whole? What if you are holy and whole? This is what I think is the miracle of I am returning, restoring to yourself this knowing and this energy that you are holy and whole.

From that place, it’s absurd to entertain a question like, “Am I doing it right? Somehow I’m doing it wrong.” It’s absurd to entertain notions, to be available for anything like that.

We were also just talking in the Art School today about how what you celebrate increases. And so, it could be said then that when you’re focusing on your problems, when you’re focusing on the supposed distance between where you are and where you want to be, when you’re focusing on how things aren’t quite there yet or you’re not quite there yet, then that is what you are celebrating.

And then therefore that is what increases in life. So, if you instead rest in I am and you are receiving the full energy of who you really are, of that I-am-ness, if you’re receiving the energy and the gifts of just your beinghood, if you are celebrating what is holy about you and if you are celebrating wholeness, then that is what is going to increase in your life, and then give you more effortless cause for celebration.

The other thing I love about I am is that it has the ability to return you to a neutral place. And I think sometimes it’s just a good check to see if we are. Because myself included, I can get into a place where I think – and that’s the operative word – I’m thinking I’m creating from wholeness and from abundance and from Creativity with a capital C mode. I think I’m in capital C Creative mode as opposed to survival mode or scarcity or lack. We can think we’re creating from abundance or from prosperity consciousness.

But really, we can see it show up too in the results in our lives and how we feel. And it’s okay. we’re human. This is the journey. This is the adventure. This is the exciting conversation we get to have. But we can slip into creating from a place where we’re trying to close the gap instead.

And again, no judgment, that’s alright. But it’s something about elevating this awareness that to me is so delicious and so exciting and feels like a homecoming.

And here’s the paradox. I love to talk with people about how do you bridge the distance? It’s a question everyone has. Like, if I can imagine it, I can create it. And then, of course, that comma between, that little bit of space, that suspense of what’s the journey between. How does one, after they imagine it, how do you create it? That’s the gift, the mystery, the adventure of our life, right?

I love the conversation. But again, here’s the paradox. So, we can talk about bridging the distance and closing the gap. But one of the most powerful ways that I know how to do it, what’s worked for me and what I teach, it’s to know and pay with this; that there is no gap. And to play with those places where you think the gap is because you are doing something wrong, and so here’s where I want to intertwine, start to braid together last week’s episode and this week’s. To drop the idea that you’re doing something wrong and that it’s your fault that there’s a gap. Drop all of that.

There’s no fault. You are not lacking anything. Nothing you have done is perpetuating this frustrating gap for you. It’s to play with that matrix line, you know, where the child says, he’s like, “How do you bend a spoon?” Well, there is no spoon. There is no gap. And there is no possible way you could do it wrong.

Because if you’re coming from I am, how could that possibly be wrong? And trust me, this was something that I had to unwind and I felt a truth in it and I unwound it, I unwound it, I felt the truth but it still wasn’t clear to me because I still really was entertaining this idea that somehow I could do my life wrong, that somehow I could get being me wrong, that I could screw it up, that I was screwing it up, that sometimes I did it well and that sometimes I didn’t do it well.

Until I continued to watch it, meditate and look at it, until I could finally see the truth of it, that I could just drop that and it is an absurd notion, that I could possibly do anything any differently than the way I have done it and the way that I am.

So, when you are, when you just are I-am-ing, there is no gap. There is no argument that could be had with that. There’s no judgment that’s even possible or capable of being entertained with that. It takes you to a powerful, sacred, solid ground within yourself. And then you get to reset and you reconnect with what it feels like to create from a solid non-needy place, from a truly capital C Creative place, creating from overflow, creating to create, not creating in order to prove or to convince or to shore up. Creating because that’s the desire you have arising within you. And that creating begets more abundant creating and also more abundant having.

And again, it’s like what you celebrate increases. So, it is so powerful to focus on what you have, the abundance from which you’re creating, because that increases creating from abundance and more abundant having. And I just want to say again, one of the greatest gifts in my mind and my eyes to practicing I am is the release and the relief. When you let go of anything that’s not you and you get to let go of that baggage and you get to spread your wings unapologetically right now, because anyone in I am energy, the idea that you would somehow apologize for that or fold your wings in or be timid is also absurd.

You get to feel lighter. You get to feel what it is to be you in the world and let that be amazing. You get to experience a buoyancy and this sense of being more carried and lifted on the rise of powerful ideas that you have, on the rise of your own creativity.

And a little sidenote here, if I could hyperlink as I’m talking in my own podcast what I would hyperlink to right now is a previous episode that I did on the concept of a wind horse. So, if you haven’t listened to that or you haven’t listened to it in a while, I would just invite you to, if this idea resonates with you, what I’ve been talking about in these two episodes, to then relisten to the concept of a wind horse and this idea of how an idea can occur to us, but what happens from there depends on how light, how nourished, how healthy our quote unquote wind horse is.

So, another concept that I wanted to tie in with these episodes is how it relates to a belief that I have intentionally chosen to be one of my deliberate, formative, and dominant creative beliefs for myself. And I’ve shared this before. I don’t think I’ve done one specific episode on it, but I’ve shared it before. And that is I decided on purpose to believe I get paid to be me.

By just being me, that’s how I will be most successful and thrive in the world. And I chose that at a time when I did not feel that. I hadn’t yet figured out how to embody that energy or what it would look like for me. I just decided to believe that if I decided to make it my dominant creative belief, meaning it would be my most practiced belief and it would be one that I would first own by believing it in my mind and then it would be reflected in my external environment.

And I did that several years ago and it continues to be a belief that has been so good for me and so good for my soul and so good for my life and so good for anyone else who is in my life. And this is very much related to this I am work because what I have found too, something I’ve discovered as time went on, that there were still layers of letting go of what wasn’t me, shedding that baggage.

And so, I also played with that intentional belief, “I get paid to be me,” at times when I realized, “Oh, I can be more me,” which really means settling more into I am and letting go of anything that’s not me. So, for a while, I was making it my mantra, the more I am me, the more I get paid. The more I’m me, the more I thrive.

And it’s interesting to play with those words because the more I’m me, it really means not adding to myself, but subtracting from anything that’s not. It means not doing more. It means to not be available for judging myself and then trying to accommodate what I perceive to be others’ judgments of me so that, right? Allowing myself to come as is, as I am, with no judgment, and that that is the path for me.

And when I create from this place – and I love this as an ongoing practice, so obviously I’m not perfect at this, but here’s the thing, you don’t have to be when you practice I am, the judgment goes out the window. You just return to resting in I am.

So, when I play with this, creating from I am versus I am doing it right or I am doing it wrong or I am doing it better or I am doing it worse, when I create from I am, it then seems like such a moot, irrelevant, small point to think that there is any other way that I could be or do in life.

So, my brain still wants to just unload on me a lot of times all of its judgments about how I should do something or could do something or should have done something or could have done something. But I’ve also been meditating for so long on how to focus my mind on what it is to I-am and how to not focus, how to inhibit, not be available for all of these other conversations, the shoulds the could conversations that it is now feeling so much more and more natural and effortless to me to come from I am and to not be available for that judgment. And the contrast and how I feel is nothing short of miraculous.

There is so much energy that has come back to my spirit, to my body, to my life, to my relationships. And that flows out into how I create and what I’m able to create and attract as well.

And I share this because I want you to know what’s possible for you, it might not even be like right now something that you can envision, feeling that much lighter. So, just to sit with what would it feel like without this heaviness. Even if you can’t get there yet, just to start to entertain the notion, to become available for it. Because it really does open up worlds to you and it takes care of this feeling that we sometimes have of having a foot on the gas and then also on the brake.

It’s like you lift off that self-imposed friction and the engine that’s been kind of revving and burning then just gets to work as it’s meant to work and you soar and you have that feeling of – yeah you might be engaged, you might be in effort, but it also feels so much more effortless.

Also, in the topic of how the unwinding happened before I was able to have a lot more ease and my mind is more readily able to drop into this place where I’m just not available for it, I’ll share with you a fun imagination trick. I’ll call it fun. You might call it, “Gosh, Leah’s strange. She’s weirder than I thought.” So, humor me. This might work for you too.

But as I was playing around with different ways of really settling into the energy of a completely different mindset, a different way of being than that which constantly monitors and judges and is hyper-vigilant, walking the tightrope, hyper-critical, always negotiating, always strategizing and having to change and contort, I was like, okay, just sitting with myself and believing that we have so much wisdom within us and it’s also able to guide us out of these places where we get stuck or find ourselves, you know, one part of our mind is limiting us, one part of our brain.

I also think our spirit or mind, something is always dropping us clues. You know, like this is the way out of the labyrinth. And so, I had this idea of imagining that there was a culture, some remote area of the world apart from the rest of society, or some alien on a different planet. And within that culture, within that alien reality and in their minds, they had never been introduced to this concept that you should judge, that that would be completely not only foreign to them, but even impossible for their imaginations to touch.

How would a being and a mind operate in the world if you couldn’t be in this constant, like, “How did I do? How am I going to do? How’s it all happening?” Trying to micromanage yourself through your judgments. And that freed up more of my energy and headspace.

It’s not unlike the Byron Katie method of who would I be without that thought? It’s similar. But for some, whatever reason, this imagination exercise of thinking of this distant remote human culture or an alien culture and that was even impossible for their minds to ever touch that concept or reach for it as an option, then what would you do? Then how would you proceed?

To me, considering this whole line of thinking and this process is very much what I’m talking about when I talk about a functional philosophy for creating whatever it is that you want, whether that is art or wealth or love or inner peace or relationships. And that is cultivating that way of being in mind, body, and spirit that make your extraordinary results inevitable.

And for me, I want to have an ease with myself that facilitates the flow of creativity, that allows for massive iterations, many of which are not going to go as I anticipated they would go. But it’s unimpeded by these internal inhibitions that are not useful, like this constant prejudging, the sense that I could get it wrong, am I doing it wrong, am I doing it right?

And a recent example, which felt so amazing for me, I watched how I moved through this last week with the RevelEleven presentation. And in the past, I know I would have felt a lot of pressure, a lot of nervousness, a lot of anxiety. I would have thought, “Gosh, this is such a generous invitation and it’s an opportunity to connect and speak with a whole different audience and their platform. I don’t want to let them down. I want to do a good job.” That would have been my former self’s thought process. And she probably then would have been super diligent and she probably would have done a fine job, even a great job.

But it would not have been a soul-building enjoyable process for her. It would have been one where she was really wracked with self-doubt and fear and judgment and dread instead of the way I was able to experience it. and on the backend too, afterwards she would have been like super hyper-questioning every move she made, everything she said and didn’t say, how she said or how she didn’t say it, would have been wondering about the micro-expressions in face or language from other people and wondering if she did a good job by them or disappointed them.

Like, oh my goodness, the space now is so much more clear. And it’s not that I don’t care. I was so passionate and in love with the topic. I talked about creativity, tapping into your creativity. I talked about my functional philosophy. I got to field some questions from the members of the Zoom audience. It felt like connection. It felt like me just being able to show up and be me and also without overthinking my preparation for it, but trusting my whole way of going about it.

I mean, I love and breathe this stuff. So, it is possible, I guess, that my mind could be more full. I’m always learning because I love it. And then too, it’s then trusting that I can make myself a clear and direct channel, that that’s my business, to make myself a clear and direct channel on that evening and to allow it to be like I’m a jazz performer, responding to the moment and alive in the moment and even responding to the audience, even on Zoom, allowing myself the belief that even on Zoom I can tap into the energy of presence for myself, for them, that’s real, that’s there, that’s now and feel like I am having a heart to heart experience even when it’s with 100 people or whether it was with a few hundred people.

And that felt like such ease and I loved it. it felt – I don’t know if proud is even the right word. I just felt solid. It felt good. And I felt grateful that I was able to do it and able to connect with people who are kindred spirits.

And I just wanted to, for myself this week, pause to take that in because it’s one of those milestones that it doesn’t come with a big flashy marquee sign or some other connotation of, “Oh you’ve made it,” like a check or anything like that. But it felt like a miracle, that my former self could not have envisioned having an opportunity like that and not feeling bad in some way, feeling pressured or feeling dread around it.

And that to me again allows me to unleash more of my creativity and not hold back, not hold back from opportunities, which I think too is part of, if you think in terms of law of attraction, we’re vibrating what we actually desire and what we’re actually open to versus what we say we want.

And so, I feel like being in this place of I-am-ness allows you then to vibrate at the frequency of your desires in such a true and uninhibited way that the match to those desires shows up with more ease and it is a beautiful upward spiral. It is like riding momentum that is beneath you, that its not just about you and over fist, clawing your way to the top, just making it through, just getting by, just finishing something so you can check it off, experience some celebration, some relief, and then it’s back to the next thing.

It’s so different than that. This other way is available. I talk about it as the third way. And so, that’s’ really what I want to invite you to. I want to invite you to consider that that’s possible for you. That’s available for you. And likely, you already have something speaking to you within that has been telling you that there is another way.

And so, I’m here to affirm that. And I’m also here for coach with me, because this leads 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, if you have been experiencing any of these thoughts like there is some gap, whether it’s a huge one or whether it’s this small maddening one that’s just persistent and chronic, or whether you have also experienced the psychic baggage of no matter what I do or no matter who I am I’m somehow always doing it wrong, I want to invite you to drop that and sit with the I-am-ness.

Maybe it’s easier for you to enter it through, “I am doing it.” But maybe it’s also the most simple and direct path to allow it to be so easy and so simple as just I am and to sit with the energy of that and to sit with the energy of the absence of anything else, with the quiet and the clear and the still that is present when you’re not always constantly judging or evaluating, wondering if you’re doing it right, wondering if you could have done it better, feeling like you’re walking a tightrope to just settle back into I am and consider all of the invitations, all of the ways that you can start to let go of those 10 tons and feel yourself both rooted in I am and the energy of that, standing on solid, sacred ground within and also feel how the energy comes back to you. And that is precisely the energy that’s you, that is going to lift you to be the match for what your heart, what your mind, what your dreams most are leading you to. So, how can you celebrate, meditate upon I am? And then truly sit back and watch how that celebration achieves effortless increase in your life.

Thank you for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you have enjoyed these episodes, I would love to hear from you. You can give me a shoutout on Instagram, screenshot this particular episode and tag me @leahcb1 and #theartschoolpodcast. If you would like to support this magic and spread the joy, spread the love, the best thing to do then is to share, subscribe, and to iTunes and leave a review.

I want to just take a moment and celebrate all of you that have already done that. Thank you so very much. And when you’re ready to take this work deeper, if you would like to experience life-changing magic, the transformation, the uplift, the elevation that the Art School offers we would love to have you join us.

Enrolment for the fall 2021 session is now open. And here’s the reason we opened early. One of the reasons is that I offer a summer workshop series to early enrollees. So, that means included at no extra cost in your Art School enrolment, you will also have access to our monthly workshop and group coaching sessions, which past participants have really said helped them stay in the groove and flow of their creativity, particularly because for many people, this is a time of year when schedules can be off. And so, it helped them maintain momentum and kept them, again, in touch and in the energy and in the community and just generally supported any sort of progress they had made and continued to support their progress along the way.

Also, we are limiting enrolment, so that is another reason to reserve your space. If you have any questions about this, you can email us, support@leahcb.com. You can find links to sign up in the show notes, or you can stay connected with us by going to www.leahcb.com and making sure that you are signed up for my newsletter.

So, to close today, I want to share a message, a quote that I have shared before because it ever gets old, for one, and it completely underscores the messages of these past two podcasts. And it is from Martha Graham.

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action. And there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is. Not how it compares to other expression. It is your business to keep it yours, clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware, directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open.”

So, keep the channel open, my friends. Not only because the world is waiting for the creation that’s waiting to happen through you, but also because it then allows you to experience that vitality, that lifeforce, that quickening that to me it is that Creativity with a capital C, that Creativity that carries with it the essence of who you really are and brings that full delicious alive feeling that everyone deserves to experience.

Have a beautiful week, everyone. Keep those channels clear, direct, open, and I look forward to talking with you next time.