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650. Art and Spirituality: What Trying New Things Awakens in You · Soul Elevation: Guiding Your Ascension to New Heights

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Hello.
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Welcome to Soul Elevation: Guiding Your Ascension to New Heights.
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I'm your host, Kara Goodwin.
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I'm so happy to be here with you today.
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It's Friday, October 23rd, 2026.
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Today, I wanna talk about a couple of things that have come into my life in
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the last few months that I wasn't really engaging with them to experience them
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from a spiritual perspective or from a multidimensional perspective, but
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that's how they've shown up for me.
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And it's not always about meditating or going on a spiritual retreat or
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being in silence or being in nature.
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All of those things are… I feel like they're kind of the low-hanging fruit
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of spiritual growth and spiritual development, and they're very valuable.
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It's not to say that you shouldn't do those things.
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But I have found in these unlikely places real spiritual growth and real, a real
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ability to connect with me in m- in multi-level ways, in a lot of different
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or multidimensional ways you can think of.
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But ways that I didn't expect.
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And so one reason that I wanna share that is just because this
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can be happening for you, too.
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If you feel like in order to nurture your spiritual, um, your true spiritual
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nature that, that you have to be meditating or you've gotta carve out
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all this time to go on a retreat or you, you know, that you have to do things,
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you know, you've gotta do an hour of breathwork, and that's how you're
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gonna engage your soul and your spirit.
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Again, those things are great.
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They're really beneficial, but there may be other ways that your soul can
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connect deeply with you, that your soul can sing that are more unlikely.
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For me, two of these ways that this has shown up is, one, through art,
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through creating art, and I'll talk about how I don't… You know, this
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has not been an avenue in my life.
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Like, I have not felt that I'm an artist per se, so at the age that I
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am now, you know, I'm 48 years old.
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And so I, you know, I feel like I had passed the time where I would engage with
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art and feel like that would be something that I would enjoy or be any good at.
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Um, the second thing has been through Pilates, which I, you know, I, I
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have a, more of a yogic background.
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I've spent many years doing yoga, so I had not been super interested in Pilates.
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I kind of felt like if I was gonna do something like that, I would
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do yoga because that's got a more inherent spiritual connection there.
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I've gotten so much out of Pilates, not only for my body,
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but for my soul and for my mind.
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So I wanna go into both of those things, but before I talk about those specific
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topics- I wanna just talk generally about being human and trying new
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things, just broadly trying new things.
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Because those two examples that have enriched my life may not speak to you,
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and so I don't wanna get bogged into the details of those two specific things.
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I feel like in this age of AI that we're uniquely in right now, where
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it has exploded, and a lot of people are really worried about, for any
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number of reasons, they're worried about this, this prevalence of AI
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and where humanity might be headed.
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And when I think about that, you know, I have those same concerns
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about the environment and the loss of humanity, the loss of jobs, and
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all of those things are very real.
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But a bigger question, or a more, maybe even a more hidden question
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is, what is it to be human?
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What separates us from machine?
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What makes us… What is it that we wanna preserve?
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What is it that we're afraid that we're gonna lose, that we have here
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on this earth through humans that we cannot, if we let AI take over,
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what is it that we really lose?
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That's a big question that I want you to feel into for yourself, and it
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r- it applies directly to your life.
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Because so often we get comfortable in our lives.
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We find something that fits for us.
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We find a pattern.
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We find a routine.
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We find comfort in what is familiar.
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We find comfort in our identity.
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So I am a computer programmer, or I am a manager, or I am a speaker, or whatever.
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I'm a teacher.
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However we identify, that… There is comfort in that.
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I know how to do that.
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I do that well.
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I've been doing that for a lot of years.
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I've learned a lot.
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I can apply it.
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I don't have to try so hard or work so hard because I'm used to it.
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I- there's a pattern.
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But even in our bigger life, you know, this is what I do on Saturday.
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I wake up at this time.
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I make coffee in this way.
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I make coffee before I do this, and then I do this while I drink my coffee.
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And then when it becomes lunchtime, then I do this, and I, I go for a walk
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at this time, and, and so on and so on.
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These could be very enjoyable things, but we might have found ourselves in this
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repeating pattern that every day we're doing the same thing, and we have, and
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we do the same thing at the same time.
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And even when the weekend comes and we have leisurely time, we're
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spending it in the same way.
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And what probably has happened is that we have had good results from whatever
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it is that we've incorporated into our daily routine, and so we think, "Oh,
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this is how I want to always spend my time." But Are you living like a machine?
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If you are so deep into your grooves of the comfort zone that
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you are, for lack of a better, you know, for, uh, for all intents and
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purposes, you now are a machine.
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We benefit so much from infusing our life with new, getting out
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there and stretching ourselves.
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So you as a soul came here in this human body to have experiences, not
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to lock into the same thing every day.
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And you have an opportunity every day to break out of the cage that
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you have put yourself into, and that doesn't need to be some dramatic
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run off and start a new life thing.
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It can be I'm gonna try something I never knew I even wanted to try before,
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or I'm gonna try something I'm not even sure I'm gonna like, but there's
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something about it that is making me think that I'm just gonna try it.
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I mean, you can always try something and not like it, and give it
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a little bit of time, and stop doing it if you don't like it.
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But the way that this showed up for me was, i, I mean, a lot of you who,
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if this is not the first thing that you're watching of mine, you may know
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that I, I really love sacred geometry.
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I've, I see sacred geometry energetically.
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I see those patterns, uh, with my eyes closed, so I feel this
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connection with sacred geometry, and I draw sacred geometry.
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And so I'm very comfortable exploring things from that way.
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And with sacred geometry, you often use, like, a compass, you use rulers.
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It's very precise and exact, and you're really, um, tuning into the, the
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angles and the bigger shapes as well.
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But, um, but there's, because it's so, like, precise, it's a
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different type of artistry than free flow, than drawing, like free
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drawing, or even, like, mandalas.
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And so with mandalas, those are those, like, images that they're usually
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circular, and they've got a pattern, a repeating pattern through it.
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But, uh, there's a lot more, like, free style with mandalas.
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There's more curves, and those, those curves are where it… Not
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that sacred geometry isn't human.
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I don't… But it's, it's less mechanical, right?
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It's less precise.
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There's more of the infusion of the, the artist in the mandala,
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and I have really never been drawn.
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I love when the word drawn comes in when I'm talking about drawing.
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But, um, I've never really felt the pull to doing mandalas as much as
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doing traditional sacred geometry where you're really only doing angles,
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and the ruler, and the precision.
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And there was something that occurred to me, like, a week or two ago where
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I was like, "I think I'm gonna do a mandala." But there… I wasn't
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really even excited about it.
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I just felt like I should do it.
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And it… But it wasn't like a chore, but I wanted to draw, and I just didn't
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feel like drawing sacred geometry.
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I just felt, like, a little bit curious about the mandalas.
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And for a really long time, I have had the opportunity to draw mandalas, and
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I was not dra- I wasn't like, uh…
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No, I don't feel any, any resonance with it So I kind of went against the
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grain and really even wasn't convinced within myself that I was gonna enjoy
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it, but there was just something within me that was like, "Oh, what the heck,
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I'm just gonna do a mandala." And one of the things that was holding me
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back is that I, from a very early age, did not feel like I was good at art.
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And the sacred geometry, again, because you've got these, like, tight parameters
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that are guiding you, there's not a ton… I mean, the, it's weird because
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there is artistry with sacred geometry, and there's not that freeform that, um…
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So I could do a lot of sacred geometry and it would look really nice, but I
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didn't, I still didn't feel like I was crossing the threshold of artistry.
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Um, right or wrong, 'cause I could argue that the whole other way, but that's
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just the, the inner way that it felt.
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And as I was engaging in this mandala, um, I was ver- I could feel the
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resistance of like, "Oh, you're not an artist." Like, "This is, this is not
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your domain, and this is not worthwhile.
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This is not…" I could feel all of those things.
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But I, I pushed through it, and again, not in like a, an un- not in a way that
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was like, "Oh, I'm hating every step of this." In a curious way, but also
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had those kind of nagging, like, things that were telling me, I could s- hear
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it, like, "You're not good at this.
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You're not gonna be good at this.
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You're gonna be frustrated."
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And, and just doing it anyway.
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And there was some of that.
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I was watching a tutorial online that was helping me to, um,
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to know my way through this.
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Hello.
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Hello, Year of the Fire Horse 2026.
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Good to see you.
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Thanks for joining.
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Um, I was using this tutorial.
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So I'm watching an artist who is doing it really well, and, and I
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can see the difference, you know.
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Mine was, was not as sharp as theirs and not as confident.
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But what happened is that, one, I got better as I went along, and two, I could
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feel myself stretching and growing.
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I f- I could feel my energy changing in the acceptance of s- of being
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uncomfortable and of doing it anyway.
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And there is this growth as we allow ourselves to
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stretch past our comfort zone.
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And there's also the untruth of what we're good at, because we can become
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good at anything at any point in time.
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I, in a totally different way but very similar, I had Dr. Lottie
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on, um, in the summer And she went back, she went to med school at 52.
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She decided to become a doctor at 52, and she was born in Sweden, so i- and
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she was doing this in America, so she had to, before she could even start medical
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school and do all of the training that has to, years and years of school, medical
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school, but also, like, the residency and the interns and all of that piece of it,
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she had to go to community college to get some of the basic chemistry and biology
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that she needed because she hadn't had to do those types of things in Sweden.
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So she was starting, like, even more baseline than somebody who would
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have a bachelor's degree that they haven't, you know, that they got 25
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years ago or 30 years ago or whatever.
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So she went through all of that training at 52 And so that's really,
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really starting over, and having a big uphill climb before you can
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even start practicing on your own.
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But I- I've read this book, or I'm reading this book called Draw- Drawing
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on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, and she talks about how when
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we're little, we… Everybody loves art.
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Everybody loves being creative when they're little.
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But when they, um, they, there comes this point in time, which is kinda like
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later elementary school into middle school, where we start to notice the
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difference between us and others, and we can see that there are people who
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are very, who find art a lot easier, and their output is so much better.
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And we can plainly see, oh, that person's really good at art.
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That is what an artist is.
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And then we start to take ourselves out of the, the equation.
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We get more self-conscious about it, and this is showing up in other areas of our
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lives at that developmental stage as well.
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But we start to tell ourselves this story that we are not gifted
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and that it's not worth our time.
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But art really is something that is, we can do it just for pleasure.
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We don't have to do it for the result, and that is something that I'm also
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engaging with, uh, through this process of any sort of perfectionism within
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me, any sort of, um, anything that I'm coming up against where it's like, "Oh,
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it's not perfect, so should I just stop?
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Oh, I've made some mistakes here.
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Is this, you know, is it even worth continuing to go, keep going?" And there,
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it, because when you're drawing, and again, drawing, this is just a metaphor
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for anything that you wanna try that's new, because you're not gonna be great
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at it when you first start, right?
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You've got to have, you've gotta build up your strength and your practice and
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your motor memory, your muscle memory.
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But I'm, I'm working on that within myself of, okay, I know that I've,
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I may, oh, there's another mistake.
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There's another mistake.
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But- What happens if I keep going?
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Because the finished product is, you know, you're, you're not really gonna
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necessarily look at every single brushstroke and every single line and
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every si- It's the totality of it all.
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So it's like, can I stick with it?
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Can I adapt it?
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Can I, can I accept the imperfections?
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Can I see the beauty even in the imperfections?
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So there are so many different ways that we can become challenged, that
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we can stretch and grow and live through experience, and it also
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does amazing things for your brain.
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When you, in, when you're working in the creative mode, you're working and
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engaging the right hemisphere of the brain You're engaging the more creative
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aspects of yourself that often, in today's world, are lying dormant.
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So you're really activating things within yourself.
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And one final thing on the art front is that you don't…
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You may feel like, "Well, I don't even have any supplies for art or anything."
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Get a pencil, get a pad of paper, go online, look at YouTube, and there are
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all kinds of places to start where you can just start getting a feel for the,
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the drawing, get a feel for the, um, the cr- getting into the creative mode.
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And you can slowly add some art supplies.
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You know, slowly, if you like just being on a pad of paper, you know,
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maybe you wanna get a sketchbook.
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Maybe you wanna get a set of colored pencils, um, a compass, something.
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But it doesn't have to be a, like, oh, let me, um, uh, I've gotta go and get
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all the supplies and get a canvas and get, you know, and, and I've gotta be
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great at it the first time I try it.
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You know, this is… Let it be a process, and challenge yourself
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to enjoy the whole process.
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Even the beginning when it's like, oh my gosh, I have nowhere to go
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but up because this looks terrible.
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You know, there's a, oh, okay, thank you, thanks for coming.
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Um, so glad you were here.
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So there's this whole beauty to the whole process.
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So if you can just immerse yourself in it, let yourself be a beginner.
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Let yourself feel into that, and know that you will keep getting better.
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So it will be, even though what you're drawing now isn't what you'd hoped it
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would be, you know, imagine looking back on that after doing 20 more drawings of
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different things and then seeing how much, because you will naturally get better.
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It's just experience.
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So the other piece to this where it's different but similar of how
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an unexpected spiritual experience and multidimensional experience that
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I've had has come through Pilates.
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So I, again, never really expected that I'd be interested in Pilates but,
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um, a friend of mine was wanting to sign up, and I was like, "Oh, maybe.
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Maybe I'll try that." So I One of the things that with that particular
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exercise is that it is very fine-tuned.
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Like, they, the whole point is to engage s- muscles that you don't use very much.
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And so you've got these bigger muscles that are doing the heavy
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lifting all throughout your day.
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So when you're, when you're walking upstairs, when you're lifting
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something, there are these big muscles.
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And, and I'm not like a, I was never that interested in, in
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anatomy, so there, I don't know if it's like the, the glutes maybe.
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No, the… What are the thigh muscles called?
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Like, the front of your thighs.
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That's one example of a, a muscle that, uh… 'Cause the
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glutes are the back, right?
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So I can't remember even what the front of the…
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The quads maybe.
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The quads.
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Um, but because the mu- the e- the exercises in Pilates are so minute and
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they're really specific, so they're… It's like, for example, put your
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heels together and now push away.
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'Cause I'm doing it on a reformer, so it's a machine.
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But it's like put your heels together, so you're pushing out
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with your toes to pull back, and it engages the sides of your legs.
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And it, that's just one example.
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There are, like, a million different exercises, and you're finding these
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finer muscles, even like in your feet, in your ankles, where I feel
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like I'm activating muscles that just do not get used because we've got
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these bigger muscles that, that do.
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They're like the workhorses of the body.
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But this is bleeding into my time outside of Pilates.
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Because, for example, I can feel automatically when I'm, like, walking
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up the stairs, I can feel now those big muscles, the workhorse muscles that
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wanna take over that are always carrying the load, and I can feel myself kinda
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going, "Oh, let's step more on the outside of my foot To activate other
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muscle groups and/or step more on the inner part to kind of get the inner
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parts, uh, inner littler muscles going.
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And it's this, this tuning in to the, the little details of the body.
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But this has imp- implications outside of the physical, because this also
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applies… It's a, it's a metaphor, but it's also an experiential way that we
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understand that there are so many parts to ourselves, and also emotionally,
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spiritually, and mentally, there are these big kind of obvious things that we…
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So for example, with thoughts, there may be the big obvious thoughts
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that are constantly circling, and they may not be beneficial for us.
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We may have these thoughts that are the big thoughts that
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are, are under everything.
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They're doing all the heavy lifting, and it may be it's stuff about our
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worthiness that, like, no matter what shows up, we tell ourselves this
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story that we're not worthy or we're not good enough, we couldn't do that.
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We're, you know, whatever.
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But it's this constant reinforcement, and it's happening in the background,
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but it's kind of like the default, and we don't even know that it's
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doing so much work, that that's where we're always heading back to.
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But we can become more attuned to the subtleties and
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start to work other muscles.
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Not just the physical muscles, but other ways of, okay, like maybe at the beginning
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of this, this live stream when I'm talking about art and maybe you just dismissed it
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and you're like, "Well, I'm not an artist, so next. I'm not gonna listen to that.
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I'm not gonna do something like that," but you're… That's that immediate,
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like, easy muscle of like, nope, I've got m- I'm c- I don't have time for that.
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I don't have… I'm not good at that or whatever.
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But there's, there are these other aspects of you that may want to grow
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and challenge and try something new and expand in a certain way, and
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those are those quieter parts of you.
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They're the more suppressed parts of you.
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And so it's this, it's this ability, this, of, of paying attention to the s- the, the
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subtler pieces of you and exercising them.
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Like, oh, well, there's this really quiet part of me that, that remembers that I
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used to enjoy dancing when I was little.
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I really loved to move and to spin and to dance.
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But I got to a point where I was too busy to do that.
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Or I didn't value that anymore.
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I vali- valued my mind, or I valued some working or something.
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But maybe there's this little quiet part of you that's still there that loved
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dancing, and so what might that bring into your life if you were to embrace
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that, and you were to nurture that, and you were to find a way to exercise that
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part of yourself, to express that part of yourself So there's a lot there.
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You know, you can take this in so many different directions, that there are
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these quiet parts of yourself that are here to express, and you may be in such
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a comfort zone with your days, with your weeks, with your years, with your
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life, with just how you're used to doing things, that you're… There are things
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lying quietly within you that you might really get a lot from if you, if you
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leaned into them and explored them.
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So I encourage you to notice within yourself.
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And so this can be with quiet time.
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You can go… You could do a meditation.
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You could ask before you go to sleep, like, "What is something that is rising
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within me that wants to be expressed? What would help my soul to be able to
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move through me more, more readily?"
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That might be fun to, to phrase it in that way and ask yourself that
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question, and then release the need to have an answer right away.
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But, but feel into and pay attention.
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What shows up in your life?
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What shows up in your dreams?
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Are you dancing in your dreams?
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Are you surfboarding in your dreams?
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Are you roller skating in your dreams?
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Are you cr- cr- uh, sculpting or doing pottery or gardening?
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What is showing up in your dreams?
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What's showing up… What are people talking about around you that's lighting
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you up, that's like, ooh, wow, I, I remember that time that I took that
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pottery class and how that felt, and then I just lost time for it, and I'm
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gonna go back, I'm gonna see what kind of local pottery classes there are for me.
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Any kind of number of things, but this is the way to let your soul in.
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Let it in and feel it and experience it and let it move through you.
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Let yourself express.
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Let yourself be human.
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You are not a machine.
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You are not artificial.
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You are organic.
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You are a human, and you have value, and part of your value
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is in your creative expression.
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That is part of what… Why did you bother to come here?
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You did not bother to take on a life, a human life, and be an automaton.
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You came here to create and to express and to experience your soul, so do it.
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Thank you so much for being here.
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So your subscriptions and sharing it, really, that means so, so much.
28:24
I'm so grateful for you.
28:25
I bless you.
28:26
Thank you so much