Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 74: creative devotion ✨

Transcript

74: creative devotion ✨ · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

• 0:00
  What are you devoted to in this life? Who are you devoted to in this life?
• 0:07
  Hello, soul sibling and welcome to the soul salon. It is such a gift to be with you today,
• 0:13
  to be speaking with you and I want this to be an exploration of something that I've been
• 0:19
  feeling into a lot recently, which is devotion. I think about devotion a lot and I feel into its
• 0:26
  power. I think a lot of us on this vibration, we are repelled by the idea of discipline.
• 0:33
  We know that there's something there like we do need to show up for our art, we need to show up for
• 0:38
  the things that we feel committed to in this life, but we know that the word discipline
• 0:43
  carries a lot of the baggage of supremacy, white supremacy, male supremacy, heterosupremacy,
• 0:50
  all of these forms of hierarchy, of othering ourselves, oppressing ourselves, forcing ourselves
• 0:56
  diet culture, a lot of anti-fatness and this idea that we are projects to be policed instead of
• 1:06
  lives to be stewated and protected and nourished. So a lot of these systems of especially colonialism
• 1:13
  and capitalism have used and patriarchy have used the idea of discipline against us as black people,
• 1:21
  as women, as whatever identities you carry in some way the notion of discipline has been used
• 1:26
  against you to make you feel like you should be torturing your body instead of bringing it into
• 1:33
  pleasure, bringing it into movement from a place of play and enjoyment and also a challenge,
• 1:39
  but in that like delicious way versus from a place of punishment. So a lot of us I feel were
• 1:46
  on discipline we're like oh it just doesn't feel good in my body you know it doesn't feel good
• 1:50
  in my body to carry that word, but when we shifted to devotion it's like ah I like that there's
• 1:56
  a softness there's a feeling of sinking into something nourishing while also keeping the integrity
• 2:03
  or the divine aspect of discipline because discipline isn't all toxic or all terrible it's been
• 2:10
  leveraged it's been used by a toxic imagination for its own ends but we know that there is the
• 2:15
  discipline of a devotee of something there's a discipline of the artist of the creator of the mother
• 2:22
  of the parent of the friend but when we take it into the space of devotion we are able to maintain
• 2:27
  that I will say positive aspect of discipline that nourishing aspect of discipline while also
• 2:33
  introducing this feeling of softness this feeling of transcendence as well there's something there
• 2:42
  around spirit there's something around something greater than the self there's something around
• 2:46
  humility that we can tap into with the word devotion if I'm devoted to my podcast there's
• 2:54
  something there around almost removing the self and the self focus and submitting it in a beautiful
• 3:02
  way to something bigger than the self to this person or energy or being or spirit that's being
• 3:09
  devoted to so I love this word and I think many of us here we love this idea that we want to be
• 3:14
  devoted and at the same time it's not like devotion is easy devotion asks of us something that I say
• 3:22
  to myself very often with respect to singing for example one of my passions were all
• 3:27
  multi-passionates here something that I say to myself with respect to singing as a multi-passionate
• 3:32
  as someone who loves playing with different mediums is if you show up for your voice it will show up
• 3:40
  for you and sometimes I sing it from my voice like show up for me and I will show up for you and
• 3:47
  my voice is speaking to me and this is true of any practice or craft that you are calling in or
• 3:53
  anything you are seeking to invite into your life you know if it's a friendship if you show up for
• 3:58
  that friendship it will show up for you I don't only mean the person but I mean the energy that you
• 4:05
  are co-creating with this person the home the world you know every friendship is its own world if
• 4:11
  you think about it it has a language it has a rhythm it has an understanding it has a set of
• 4:18
  topics that are covered it has a way of being and feeling it has what is said and it has what is
• 4:24
  not said if you show up for the world of that friendship and you allow it to expand it will invite
• 4:30
  you into more connection more love more softness and as creators as people who seek to create magnificent
• 4:40
  things in this life as artists as stewards of life which we all are we're all artists of life we're
• 4:47
  all nurturers of life we are all mothers parents of life I think feeling into how powerful devotion
• 4:55
  is and can be for each of us and asking ourselves what are we devoted to and sometimes the answer
• 5:02
  is not actually going to be something that we would want to claim we're devoted to in the book
• 5:08
  the third perspective by Africa Brooke which I haven't read but I have heard of she's been low you
• 5:14
  heard of it like go from where anyways I have heard of the book and there's one core idea that I've
• 5:21
  taken from that book it is on my to be read list to be read is TBR to read list but one of the ideas
• 5:27
  she speaks about which I'll never stop thinking about is when it comes to our values like if I ask
• 5:32
  you oh what do you value you might say honesty kindness compassion liberation love whatever it
• 5:38
  may be but what she says Africa Brooke in this book is she says there is a difference between our
• 5:43
  desired values and our embodied values hmm oh yes so you might have a family member's like I really
• 5:53
  value self-awareness you're like do you know you can value that a little bit more and we've
• 5:56
  opened that ourselves as well where what we say we value is not how we are showing up and with
• 6:03
  devotion that's often just going to be the case you're going to say you value being a devoted singer
• 6:08
  and then you're going to find you haven't practiced singing in a while and that's okay we just sit
• 6:12
  with that we let the alchemy of the truth into the room and we move from that place of integrity
• 6:18
  of truthfulness truth is very powerful there's just little space that we often create for it in
• 6:23
  this culture in this society so I want to ask you is devotion to you is it a desired value
• 6:32
  or is it an embodied value when we are embodying values and of course it's a mix it's a blend it's
• 6:38
  a spectrum so it's not either all but where on the spectrum are you landing especially in the
• 6:43
  crafts that you're really calling in at this time so let's say for me for example I want to be
• 6:49
  devoted to the soul salon and I haven't created or shared on the soul salon in a consistent way
• 6:56
  in some time and that's okay so I desire to be devoted but I'm not embodying devotion to this
• 7:02
  project I'm not embodying devotion to you like I want to show up for you I want to give my love
• 7:08
  and I also want to show up for the aspect of life that I believe I must do it I want to bring what
• 7:14
  is most alive to you and share that aliveness and have it blossom out of me so my devotion to
• 7:20
  this project it's like I formed a relationship with the soul salon with what I'm building and I want
• 7:26
  to feel like so devoted to that you know that beautiful thing where you just know someone's on a
• 7:30
  mission they have their soul mission they have their soul's purpose and they're just moving towards
• 7:35
  it and it doesn't have to be one and that's a beautiful juicy feeling I think when we see that in
• 7:39
  someone we might envy it or we might want to integrate it in ourselves we might admire it we
• 7:43
  might want to think wow what would it be like to wake up and feel that way so I love feeling like
• 7:47
  that that sense of devotion that sense of purpose and so what I want to ask you is what of your
• 7:53
  desired values for devotion can you shift into an embodied value and what would that look like
• 7:59
  that might look like you want to show up for your writing every day for like 300 words that might
• 8:05
  look like you want to actually call that family member that you want to be more devoted to but
• 8:11
  you're struggling to really embody that devotion or let's say there's a friendship friendships are
• 8:15
  like plants or like any aspect of life when we don't tend to them they wilt and they die and also
• 8:25
  that's also a natural cycle of life so there are friendships we can allow and we can grieve their
• 8:29
  death but it could be that that's the most natural form of life with that friendship to have other
• 8:34
  friendships we do want to revive we do want to resurrect and so what is that friendship asking
• 8:40
  so I just actually feel that someone in our community might want to hear this that just because
• 8:44
  you feel resistance towards reconnecting with someone doesn't mean that you shouldn't reconnect with
• 8:49
  them it doesn't mean your intuition is guiding you away from connecting with them sometimes it's
• 8:54
  just like any creative act where uncertainty is involved they will be fear they will be resistance
• 9:00
  and I have this with some friends right now where I'm like I love them so much and also it's been so
• 9:04
  long that I'm like oh my word I have to like prepare myself even though it's all love and I believe
• 9:10
  if there's one thing we should apply our courage to it's our relationships and there's many ways
• 9:15
  that I haven't been courageous in my relationships in my friendships and I want to be a woman of
• 9:20
  courage in all of my pursuits in my creative life in my relational life like say the brave thing
• 9:26
  apologize in a vulnerable way say what's on your heart like this is a lifelong practice a lifelong
• 9:32
  desire to embody that level of devotion what would happen if you approached your visibility journey
• 9:37
  if you're trying to be more seen with devotion what would you invite yourself to be devoted to or
• 9:43
  who would you invite yourself to be devoted to is there someone you could connect with even in
• 9:48
  your imagination like wow I'm gonna make this video for other black women who don't feel represented
• 9:56
  by the spirituality space let's say that right so then you're devoted to them and then you make
• 10:01
  everything you create in the frequency imbued infused with that frequency of devotion to them
• 10:07
  and you can ask your craft this question if I were to embody more devotion what would that look like
• 10:13
  what are you asking of me what would you like me to do to show up as with or through okay I want
• 10:19
  to keep these explorations short my loves so what can you invite yourself to devote yourself to
• 10:25
  what would devotion look like who are you devoted to and who do you want to re devote yourself to
• 10:31
  okay my loves my darling my angels I'm so happy you stepped into the soul salon I love you so
• 10:36
  so much and I'll see you on the next soul session I'll have you by my darling my love my soul
• 10:43
  sibling thank you for stepping into the soul salon if you are still hearing or watching this
• 10:48
  we are soul siblings we are resonating on the same frequency and so something you may struggle
• 10:53
  with that I struggle with is the fear of being seen you know that visibility is involved in you
• 10:59
  living your creative purpose and being in your power serving the collective through your gifts
• 11:05
  through your magic through your medicine in order to do that you know you need to be more seen
• 11:11
  than you are allowing yourself to be right now I have a gift just for you heart made for us on this
• 11:18
  frequency and it is a free ebook called the soulful visibility guide that is soulful visibility like
• 11:25
  we don't just want to be seen we want to be felt we want to be heard we want to move and be moved
• 11:31
  so I do have a free gift for you and all you need to do is go to my website ianderstud.com
• 11:37
  and there you will be able to input your email address and receive this directly to your inbox
• 11:43
  this is such a juicy and delicious guide and I change the free offering every few months
• 11:49
  so you know get it while you can all the links are in the show notes so thank you so much
• 11:53
  I love you and I will see you on the next sole session okay I love you bye