Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 18: overcoming creative resistance

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18: overcoming creative resistance · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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You are creative, you can create, it does not have to be perfect,
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it merely has to be an offering to the collective in service of the divine,
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in service of love, in service of communion, in service of our togetherness,
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our great oneness, our interdependence.
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Hello sunshine and welcome back to paradigm shift with I understood,
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a place where we reframe what is and reimagine what could be.
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I hope you enjoy today's episode.
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Let's paradigm shift together.
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I am so thrilled to be covering today's topic,
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because it is a struggle that I face almost daily in my creative life.
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And that is the struggle of overcoming creative resistance.
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First I want to tell you the story of how I came to this idea.
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How did I get to know her?
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Who is she?
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Okay, so I started my podcast, which was called reimagining at the time
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last September, 2022.
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And this is something that I had been conceiving of doing for months.
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And when I would picture this vision of creating this podcast,
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it always seemed like it was going to be nothing but fun and delight and playfulness.
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And I felt so excited and energized by what I could create.
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That was the ideation phase.
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Then came the putting into action or execution phase, which I don't like.
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You know, I don't like violent language, but whatever.
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And it was completely different from what I expected,
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because I didn't anticipate any obstacle,
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not least, an internal one.
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I didn't anticipate that I would feel this deep sense of avoidance,
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of perfectionism, oh, my word.
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The way I tried to start my first episode so many times,
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I would click record.
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It would get to like eight or ten minutes.
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I would say it's not good enough and I would start again.
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And I would do that again and again and again and again.
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And then I would cry and I'd be like,
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this is never going to be good enough.
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I'm never going to be able to include all the perspectives I want to include.
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Someone's going to cancel me.
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Someone's going to drag me.
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This isn't good enough.
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Who am I to have a podcast?
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And then I would avoid, okay?
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So I would put it off.
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So at some point in this journey,
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my best friend sent me an episode of Oprah's podcast,
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which I hadn't really listened to ever.
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And it was with someone called Stephen Pressfield
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and was on the idea of creative resistance.
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Now what's so interesting to me about ideas
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is what is so obvious to one person is completely new to another.
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And this is why I believe what is obvious to you is not obvious.
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And whatever you feel is so obvious is what you should be making content on.
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Okay?
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Either what you've come to learn or what you've always known.
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That's very powerful energy to draw from.
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But I digress.
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So I learned from this man, Stephen Pressfield,
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about this energetic force called resistance.
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And then I read his book, The War of Art.
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And I will say it's extremely self-helpy.
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It has a lot of you are the reason.
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I believe as you know, social structures,
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manufacture, shame, manufacture, perfectionism.
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We know that that's one of the tenets of white supremacy.
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All of these systems where we are made to feel like we are not good enough
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then make us very insecure artists.
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And that's why I claim that term.
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I am an insecure creative.
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I am creative. I know that.
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But I'm never going to be a confident creative.
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That's just never going to be me.
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That's just never going to be me.
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But that's actually beautiful because I can create from that energy.
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And we're going to be speaking about that today.
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So when I learned about this force and I love the idea of energy,
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I'm a very energy driven person.
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It's like I learned that wow,
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this is something that we all face.
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And it's not merely procrastination.
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That's the wrong word for it.
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There's something that seems to be bigger than us,
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where we say, okay, I really would love to write this.
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Or I would really love to create this.
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The love is there. The passion is there.
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But then comes what?
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The fear.
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The avoidance.
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The perfectionism.
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The shame.
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The self-doubt.
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Okay?
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The creative envy of other people.
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Oh, I could never be like them.
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Look at their body of work.
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How could I create this?
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How did they do this?
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I'll never get there.
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It's too late to start.
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I'm behind.
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I'm never going to get there.
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Other people studied this when they were 18.
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I could never learn to dance.
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I could never learn to sing.
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I could never learn to put this artistic project out there,
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to put this way of doing therapy into the world,
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to put this business idea, this project.
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Whatever it is,
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he gives so many different examples, okay, in the book,
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which I haven't written a long time, I will say.
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But I do know that if you're not ready for a tough love,
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pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,
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then don't read it, okay?
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If you want to dance or vibes, read the Creative Act,
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or maybe the artist's way, but I haven't read the artist's way yet,
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it's almost like I'm saving it.
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I'm also I'm reading Creative Quest by Questlove anyways.
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So thank you best friend for sending me this podcast episode
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because it gave me language to understand that this force
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is something that every single artist faces.
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He speaks off the example of writers and how so many writers feel
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that it's more difficult to sit down and write
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than it is to actually start writing.
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But the resistance of like, there's the chair, I don't want to go there.
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There's the chair, I don't want to go there.
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That's how I feel often with this as well,
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is the resistance towards the act itself.
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Okay, so by now you may be asking, okay,
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I understand in general what this concept is,
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but let's give a little bit more of a tight definition
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of what is Creative Resistance.
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Let's give a definition from this man.
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I really want to be calling these people this man.
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Let's get the definition of Creative Resistance
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from Stephen Pressfield, okay?
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Resistance, he just calls it Resistance.
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I'm calling it Creative Resistance.
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Per an innovator.
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Okay, Resistance is an energy field
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radiating from a work in potential.
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It is a repelling force, it is negative.
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Its aim is to shove us away, distract us and prevent us
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from doing our work.
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Okay, so this got me thinking.
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I, in high school, remember learning about Newton's third law
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and also kind of in college, I was a math minor.
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In fact, first I was a math major,
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then I switched to philosophy when I took my first philosophy class
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and then I switched to a math minor.
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But in any case, I learned about this idea of Newton's laws.
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Okay, and I really never thought about them again
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because again, why are we being made to learn useless things?
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This had me connecting two things
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that I had never thought of together.
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And it came to me when I was thinking of creating a TikTok video
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on this idea.
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There is a law in physics called Newton's Third Law.
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You know, Newton had laws and we were made to learn about this
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instead of actually learning about black history
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or society or indigenous genocide
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or maybe like how to relate to other human beings,
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how to make friends, all the important things
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we learned Newton's Third Law.
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But he has this Third Law, which is that every action
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has an equal and opposite reaction.
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So, how does this link to creative resistance?
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Well, actually, very beautifully.
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Thank you to that man for creating that law
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because it was all for this.
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Like, I know that Isaac Newton was like,
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I have this goal who's going to show up
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because this ties perfectly into the idea of creative resistance, right?
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So, you have an idea.
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What are you inspired?
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You feel the inspiration.
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It's propelling you.
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Inspired, inspired, inspired.
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You're like, wow, look at what I could create.
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Look at how inspiring the world is.
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I have this idea and I want to bring it to life, okay?
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But, who's not going to let you be great?
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Well, resistance.
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It's saying no, no.
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So, every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
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Er, per, and er, and per, and er, okay?
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So, it's not going to let you be great.
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So, just as the inspiration is pushing you this way,
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the resistance is pulling you this way.
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And so, now, what do you do?
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Well, you stand still.
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You're stagnant because you're overcome.
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Your inspiration is overcome by your resistance.
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So, you have stagnancy or stagnant.
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I don't even know what the word is.
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But, let's just call it stagnation.
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No one knew she was going to say that next.
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It was not obvious.
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So, now, you're standing still, babe.
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You're not making the progress you want to be making.
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And, as you know, this is not about productivity culture.
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We're having a very spiritual conversation.
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There's something in you, a dream,
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that wants to be spoken in alignment with the universe,
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with the cosmos, because you are nature.
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You know that this idea could help people
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or could help yourself, could help your younger self,
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could help someone in the world.
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But, you're scared, you're terrified.
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And, let's pause on this for a second
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and talk about the resistance side of the field, okay?
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So, the resistance side of the field
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is very much imposed on you by society.
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You didn't grow up in an environment that was conducive
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to you feeling free to create.
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Because we live in a society that's opposite of free.
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The people whose voices are most urgent to hear
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experience the most resistance, okay?
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And, that's why I want you to know
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if you experience resistance, your voice is needed.
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Why? Because your voice is going to be made to be the shadow
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because they don't want you to have a voice.
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So, that's why you need to create, okay?
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Love you.
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So, anyways, so I digress.
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The point is resistance is this energetic force
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that's not acting on you pulled out of thin air.
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It's acting on you from a society
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that creates and manufactures
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and sustains the idea of shame,
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especially if you have any identity that's marginalized.
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But, I think especially because we live in a culture
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of these ratings and reviews and feedback
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and this criticism.
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And then, there's also comparison and not good enough
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ism and feeling like you're unworthy.
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There's so much unworthiness.
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There's so much conditional worthiness
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where we don't even tell ourselves,
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oh, if I create this, that's amazing.
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We say, if I create this and it goes viral
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or it does well or it sells well, that's amazing.
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But, that's out of our control
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and I have an episode on this
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or two actually called insecure creatives unite or gather.
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And, anyway, so I won't talk about feedback right now.
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But, I just want to say, you are not alone.
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Like, you alone didn't create this energetic field
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of resistance that's keeping you stagnant.
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Obviously, hopefully you know that.
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But, I want to affirm that because I do think
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when I read the word of art, it didn't discuss that.
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It didn't talk about society, obviously.
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It didn't talk about how we from a very young age
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are made to be very self-conscious.
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So, for example, when I'm dancing,
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I feel the sense of self-consciousness
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and that is resistance, right?
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That is not letting me be great.
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That's not letting me be my fullest self.
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And it's only when I feel really comfortable
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that I don't feel that resistance.
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So, that's why I love this quote,
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on procrastination by Julia Cameron,
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the author of the artist's way,
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where she says procrastination is not laziness.
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It is fear, call it by its right name,
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and forgive yourself.
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I love that, forgive yourself, babe.
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That's always going to be the case.
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Like, we're always going to be trying to forgive ourselves.
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Okay, anyways.
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So, now we see we have these two opposing forces
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of resistance and of someone needs to teach me
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how the screen can like not ever go off.
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Okay, so we have these two forces of inspiration,
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pulling us forward, resistance immediately pulling us back
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and not letting us move forward.
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Okay, so what are we going to do?
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What are we going to do about this?
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How do we create motion in this equation?
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Well, we have to make sure that our inspiration
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can exceed our resistance, right?
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That's the only way we'll move forward
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is if we get our inspiration to be more than our resistance.
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We can do this in one of two ways,
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assuming all things are equal.
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Either we can increase our inspiration
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or we can reduce our resistance.
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Those are the two options,
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which can either happen by lowering the one
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or increasing the other or doing both, right?
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Today, we're going to focus on increasing inspiration
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because that's where I feel like my conversation
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with the universe and with you is going.
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So, we're going to focus on increasing inspiration
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and I made a tick talk about this and it did really well,
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but really, I made the video and I was proud of it
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because I was like, I need to hear this.
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So, someone needs to hear this
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and that was my offering to the flea market of life,
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which we'll talk about soon and it was made
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and it was received and I love that, okay?
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So, let's talk about how can we increase our inspiration?
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You know, it's not obvious.
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So, I want you to think of two bodies of water.
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Let's let the water trickle in
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and let's use this as a representation of inspiration.
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So, imagine on the one hand, you have a dried up lake.
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It's struggling, it's dry.
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It has a little bit of water, but like not enough,
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you know, to sustain life.
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The animals are coming in there like,
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what's up, like there's nothing for us to drink here.
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The earth is dry, it's drying up.
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That's you when you're stagnant, okay?
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It's that you're not feeling the juiciness of your inspiration.
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You're feeling a little bit dried up.
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And so, now we would ask, okay,
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where do we want to draw inspiration from?
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The dried up lake or the ocean?
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The endless, vast, never-ending ocean, okay?
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That's where we want to move.
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We want to move from a dried up lake,
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which is the individual, the self,
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which is always going to be limited and afraid
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and ashamed to the ocean we need to tap into forces.
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That was so fun to do, I have to do it again.
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That are bigger than us.
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Okay, so we have the lake on one side, the dried up lake.
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Oh, limited, drying up, nothing much more to give.
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Waiting for the rain, but how often does the rain
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in a dried up desert versus the ocean, endless, vast?
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So grand, so big, divine, never-ending,
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impossible to become completely dried up.
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Okay, tap into forces that are bigger than you.
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Three forces we're going to be talking about
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tapping into our number one spirituality.
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Number two, the collective and number three nature.
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They're all actually in reality very connected,
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but let's split it up in this way
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so that we can really understand what it would mean
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to draw inspiration from forces that are bigger than us.
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Okay, first let's go to spirituality.
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Okay, now I am not telling you to become a spiritual person.
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I'm telling you about what I've learned
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when it comes to overcoming resistance
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is that I need to lean on a force on an energy.
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Remember resistance is an energy.
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I need to rely on an energy that is bigger
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than my own resistance and therefore bigger than me.
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And that for me is spirituality.
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It's the universe.
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It's the idea of magic.
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These are the things that I draw from.
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The idea that I am in constant conversation
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with the universe.
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I am of the universe.
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And if I allow my ideas to manifest through me,
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then I am serving something much bigger than me.
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This is very difficult to explain to you as well
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unfriendly to the idea of mysticism, okay?
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The mystical dimension of life.
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If you do not believe in the mystical dimension of life,
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this won't resonate with you,
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but the other two ideas might.
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And that's okay.
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I'm really speaking to people who want to have
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a magical connection to their art
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and to their creations in this segment, in this section.
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Because that's who I am and I can't help being any other way
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and I wouldn't be able to create
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if I didn't have this mystical property within me.
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Like I literally want to be in touch with the divine.
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I want to feel like, oh my word, I created magic today
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or I let magic pass through me today.
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That to me feels deeply fulfilling
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and feels like I am drawing on something
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that is much bigger than me.
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You come from a lineage, you live on a universe,
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you had less than a 400 trillion chance of surviving.
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There's something incredibly magnificently random
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about the human experience.
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And we have always, throughout time,
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throughout ancient traditions,
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there's been a insistent on believing in something bigger.
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With this idea of spirituality,
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let's talk about Bell Hooks.
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All about love, there is a chapter on spirit
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and what she says is, when we begin to experience
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the sacred in our everyday lives,
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we bring to mundane tasks a quality of concentration
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and engagement that lifts the spirit.
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We recognize divine spirit everywhere.
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That is so beautiful.
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The sacred in our everyday lives.
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I actually have a daily ritual that I started about
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four weeks ago called the magic of today.
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It's a journal exercise.
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I do it every single night
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and I write down moments that felt like magic that day.
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When my best friend's voice just makes me feel so warm
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and full magic, when I create a video
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that I feel so spiritually aligned to magic,
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when my other best friend sends me a poem
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that is so delectable and I'm just like,
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you are such a genius.
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How do you do this magic?
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One day I was at a cafe and this woman was next to me
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and she was like, I don't want the other half
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of this pastry, do you want it?
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And she was like, I haven't bitten it or anything.
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And I was like, oh, my word, magic.
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So things like that, sometimes I put things
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that I wish didn't happen.
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You know, some days I feel so lost
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and I have no idea what I'm doing
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or I feel anxious or I feel like I'm not doing enough
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or I feel behind.
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And I'll try to extract some sort of magic
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from that experience just so I'm having kind of a holistic,
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you know, life, okay?
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The idea that joy and sorrow are connected.
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So here we have this idea of bringing to mundane tasks
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a quality of concentration and engagement.
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This is really beautiful because it speaks
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to the opposite of our distracted era
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where we don't bring our fullest engagement to everything
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and as such this creates some disease in our daily lives.
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Now, first and foremost, the onus is on the tech companies
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to not create addictive technologies
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that literally aim to survey and extract our attention
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in very exploitative ways.
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And also I think, for example,
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when you have coffee with someone
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and you give them your full engagement,
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like you don't look at your phone, you like are with them.
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I think that's such a beautiful way
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of giving to mundane tasks or to daily experiences
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your full presence.
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The second quote that I want to bring
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into this idea of spirituality is Julia Cameron
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in the artist's way says, do what intrigues you.
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Explore what interests you.
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Think mystery, not mastery, oh, my word.
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Four words that I actually want you to sit with.
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Think mystery, not mastery, powerful.
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Okay?
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What if you made your creative life or work or projects
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about the mystery?
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Oh, I wonder if, wouldn't it be interesting if
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I've always wondered why mystery versus this has to be perfect?
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I have to get better at this.
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This many views tomorrow, I want that many views.
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And next day I want that many views.
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Get a reward, get an accolade, 5.0 stars.
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You know what I mean?
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Mystery versus mastery.
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A duty may numb us out.
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She says, turn us off and tune us out.
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Whereas, which is implied, a mystery will in live in us,
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remember the erotic, will turn us on,
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will tune us in to the magic of the mundane,
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the magic of everyday life, the magic of mystery, you know?
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I think that's so powerful.
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Tune into mystery, not mastery, tune into mystery,
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not mastery, tune into mystery, not mastery,
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tune into mystery, not mastery.
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One thing about me, I'm gonna make a song so that it sticks.
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All day after this, I'm gonna be like tune into mystery,
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not mastery, okay?
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Tune into mystery, not mastery, yeah.
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Let's move on.
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So I loved this little bit of a quote from Miss Shonda Rhymes,
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the creator of what Grey's Anatomy, Scandal, Bridgerton.
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Oh, my word, it goes on, I can't even remember all of them.
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Queen Charlotte, how to get away with murder?
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Like it goes on and then it goes on inventing Anna, okay?
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Where do you think she gets inspiration from?
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Is it working hard?
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Is it discipline?
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Listen to what she says.
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A lot of the stuff that comes to me,
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comes when I'm lying in bed.
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Ha, sexy, beautiful, powerful,
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or after I've gone to sleep.
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If the things I'm thinking about at night,
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stick with me through the day, I know there's something there.
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So when she says there's something there.
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Oh, powerful, sexy, spiritual, magical, mystical,
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mysterious, there's something there.
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She doesn't say what?
20:52
She doesn't know what?
20:53
She's curious about the mystery.
20:55
That wow, this idea has stuck with me.
20:58
This idea came to me in my sleep, in my dreams,
21:01
in my visions, in my rested mind.
21:04
So rest is a similar connection to the divine.
21:07
When you take a nap, when you sleep,
21:10
you get to have these lucid dreams, these visions,
21:13
the subconscious mind-wondering that can connect you
21:16
with something that has to be mystical.
21:18
Like, where does it come from?
21:19
Okay, right.
21:22
So I think that's very, very powerful.
21:24
And if you want to learn more about the connection
21:26
between the spiritual and the creative,
21:28
I think the creative act, a way of being,
21:30
is a beautiful, beautiful book that you can read,
21:33
that I just loved and I reread it
21:35
because, oh, I'm rereading it,
21:36
because it's just like reminders that you always, always need.
21:39
And let me just say one more thing
21:41
about this idea of spirituality.
21:44
The practice that we need in order to access this consciousness
21:48
is silence, is meditation, is stillness,
21:51
because, and is awareness,
21:53
because the artist is the one who notices, okay?
21:57
Because if you are always letting like things
22:00
into your consciousness that don't serve it,
22:03
you don't have as much space to notice.
22:05
Space is very important.
22:06
Listen to this quote by Rick Rubin
22:08
in the creative act, a way of being.
22:11
Most of the time as creative people,
22:13
which he believes we all are, which I believe we all are,
22:16
we are gathering data from the world through the five senses,
22:19
or whatever we have access to.
22:21
With the information that's being transmitted
22:23
on higher frequencies, we are channeling energetic material
22:27
that can't be physically grasped.
22:30
Remember Sean Derheim saying,
22:31
I know there's something there.
22:33
We are channeling energetic material, something
22:38
that can't be physically grasped.
22:41
It defies logic in the same way that an electron
22:45
can be in two places at once.
22:47
This elusive energy is of great worth,
22:50
though so few people are open enough to hold it.
22:56
So many people will listen to this and say,
22:58
ugh, that's not true.
22:59
That's not fact, that's not science.
23:01
You know what I mean?
23:03
But you're not open, so you'll never experience
23:05
what I'm trying to describe to you,
23:06
unless you are open to it.
23:09
He says, how do we pick up on a signal
23:11
that can neither be heard nor defined?
23:15
The answer is not to look for it,
23:17
nor do we attempt to predict or analyze our way into it.
23:22
Instead, we create an open space that allows it.
23:26
And to me, this open space is the open awareness.
23:29
It's the silence, it's the journaling, it's the meditation.
23:32
It's the practices that are going to open up your awareness
23:36
and your, therefore, your connection,
23:37
your energetic field between you and the divine.
23:40
A space so free of the normal, overpacked, overstimulated,
23:45
condition of our minds, that it functions as a vacuum,
23:48
drawing down the ideas that the universe is making available.
23:52
So the idea, he says, doesn't come from you.
23:56
It comes from the universe, which is also your experiences
24:01
and your collective understanding of those experiences.
24:03
But you know, you're just walking
24:04
and you're like, this happened to me this morning.
24:06
I was walking in, I was like, oh, my word.
24:07
And I wrote it down.
24:08
I wrote the idea down.
24:10
And that's another thing.
24:11
You need a practice of recording the things
24:13
that turn you on in life, your ideas, your inspiration.
24:16
You need a note on your phone where you can store
24:19
these random bursts of insight.
24:22
I have a notion, a notion page where I just keep
24:25
the ideas that come to me.
24:27
Maybe I'll never do anything with them.
24:28
But the fact that that energy was so potent
24:31
that I noticed it and that I cared enough to write it down
24:33
to me is very important, especially to my future self,
24:36
who may be seeking ideas.
24:39
Let's quickly go back to Bell Hooks
24:41
and let's read another quote from her unspirituality,
24:44
because I think what she has to say here is so important.
24:47
OK, so Bell Hooks says, living life in touch with divine spirit
24:52
lets us see the light of love in all living beings.
24:57
That light is a resurrecting life force.
25:00
Remember, inspiration, resistance.
25:02
That light of love in all living beings
25:05
and being able to see it is a resurrecting force,
25:08
an inspiring force, a propelling force,
25:11
an in-living force, an erotic force.
25:13
Go listen to the erotic episode.
25:15
A culture that is dead to love can only
25:18
be resurrected by spiritual awakening.
25:21
This is so interesting.
25:23
A culture, a loveless culture, which she says often.
25:26
A culture that is dead to love can only
25:28
be resurrected by spiritual awakening.
25:31
And then she goes on to say, because we are spiritually empty,
25:35
we try fill up on consumerism.
25:38
It is a response to lovelessness.
25:40
I think we've had a great time discussing
25:42
this idea of spirituality and magic.
25:45
And I've left you three resources
25:46
that you can lean on to further your connection to this realm.
25:51
The second idea I want to talk to,
25:52
remember we're talking about tapping into forces
25:55
that are bigger than you, like the ocean of life,
25:57
the ocean of inspiration, the endless abundance
26:00
of nature and of spirituality and of the collective
26:03
that can inspire you, an endless force
26:05
that can act against the repelling force of resistance
26:09
so that we can grow our inspiration and serve that inspiration.
26:13
The second force is the collective.
26:16
And I absolutely love this one because it's one that I have not
26:21
really heard as much discussed,
26:23
or maybe I've just been looking in the wrong places.
26:25
But the idea that this art is here to speak
26:28
to something in someone else,
26:30
and that this part of you that is curious about this idea,
26:34
that is affected by this idea, that is turned on,
26:38
that is intrigued, that finds the mystery in this idea,
26:43
is connecting you to someone else,
26:46
to others who similarly experience that mystery,
26:50
that inspiration, that curiosity, that calling,
26:54
and something that is alive in you can awaken something
26:57
that could be alive in someone else,
26:59
or that is already alive and seeking further enlightenment.
27:03
So in making your art about serving the collective,
27:06
you tap into a force bigger than you.
27:09
You say, wow, let me step into the flea market of life.
27:14
And the flea market of life is each of us bringing an offering.
27:19
And an offering is just that.
27:20
It does not have to be perfect.
27:22
It does not have to be picked up.
27:23
It does not have to be received.
27:25
The idea, the thought, the love is in the offering itself.
27:31
It's that I showed up and I offered something to others.
27:34
And I recognize that I have benefited, I have been enriched,
27:37
I have been in live end by the offering of the collective,
27:42
by that poem that saved my life, by that book that kept me going,
27:48
by that show that delighted me, by that movie that in live end me,
27:53
by that business that inspired me,
27:57
whatever it is, I am being served each and every single day
28:01
by the imagination and the willingness to commit to that imagination
28:06
of other beings, of the collective.
28:08
The collective is what is serving my consciousness,
28:11
each and every day through their offerings on and offline.
28:15
You know what I mean?
28:16
And so as someone who's been a beneficiary
28:18
of the collective's offering in the flea market of life,
28:21
I am going to add to that offering and I'm going to say,
28:24
hey, I also have something to give and I want to give it.
28:27
And it's not about how it's received.
28:29
It's about the fact that in an act of love,
28:32
in an act of mutual connection, in an act of service,
28:36
I'm here to provide this offering.
28:39
And the mechanism that makes the offering possible
28:42
is the emotion from which we create.
28:45
What do I mean by that?
28:46
The mechanism of connection is emotion.
28:49
When you feel connected to someone,
28:51
it's because they made you feel something
28:54
or they spoke to something you already feeling.
28:56
They made you feel less alone.
28:58
They made you feel more alive.
29:00
They made you feel seen.
29:01
They made you feel inspired.
29:03
They made you feel sad.
29:04
They made you feel angry.
29:06
They made you feel something.
29:07
So if you create from an emotion, it could be inspiration.
29:12
It could be like as in you want to inspire.
29:14
It could be love, pain, grief.
29:17
Oh, let grief have a word.
29:18
Grief has so much to say and it isn't being given
29:21
enough space to speak.
29:22
So if you create from an emotion,
29:24
you are going to find or connect with each and every other person
29:28
who has experienced that emotion.
29:31
And your vulnerability is what's going to connect you to that person.
29:34
It could be through your voice, but also through a song.
29:37
How many songs speak to something we've all experienced?
29:40
And they catch on because it's like so moving.
29:44
Whether it be sad or happy, grief, pain, whatever it is,
29:47
it's moving us and therefore we're connecting to it and through it.
29:52
So when you think about the flea market of life,
29:54
you take away the pressures, the resistance of perfectionism.
29:59
No one at the flea market wants things to be perfect.
30:02
They want to see us as a collective, mutually serving each other,
30:06
giving each other the ingredients that we need
30:08
to enrich and in life in our lives.
30:10
You know what I mean?
30:11
The spices, the flavors, the vegetables, the fruits
30:15
of our visions, of our dreams, and yes, of our labor.
30:19
Okay, because it's not always fun and roses.
30:22
It's often very, very difficult.
30:23
That's what resistance is.
30:25
It's not that fun to overcome.
30:26
It's quite painful.
30:27
It can be very rewarding when it's been overcome.
30:30
But often it's suffering.
30:31
And I don't glorify suffering.
30:33
I wish there was no suffering on earth,
30:34
but I cannot seem to find a way to create things that people like
30:38
without in some way suffering.
30:40
That's the vibe.
30:41
You know whether it be the fear before,
30:42
but then they may be delight during.
30:44
But often there's fear the whole time.
30:46
You know what I mean?
30:47
So we are serving the collective
30:49
through our mutual offerings to one another.
30:52
Okay, recognizing that everything,
30:55
with the think of insecure, we loved insecure.
30:58
We don't know how is a suffered
30:59
in that making of that show.
31:00
We have no idea.
31:02
You know, we don't know how these artists,
31:06
how do they have the ability,
31:09
but not only the ability, the devotion to their audience
31:13
to bring ideas into life and to see them through.
31:15
And of course the resources, which is huge
31:17
and very, very crucial in our world,
31:19
is that often we have dreams
31:21
that we don't have the resources to bring into life.
31:23
Okay, that's very important as well.
31:25
So serving the collective can help us
31:27
rethink what we are on earth to do.
31:30
Because I'm gonna die and no one can die for me.
31:32
I might as well use my consciousness
31:34
to serve other people while I'm here.
31:36
The other day I actually wrote my eulogy
31:39
because it's an exercise that helps bring me back
31:41
to my aliveness and bring me back to,
31:43
am I living in accordance with my values?
31:45
And I was like, actually I am.
31:47
And obviously I'm not perfect or anything like that.
31:49
But when I wrote down what people in my life
31:51
and people who I've tried to serve would say about me,
31:54
I was like, I like this girl.
31:56
I like this person.
31:57
This is great.
31:58
You know what I mean?
31:59
And bringing in death for me helps me just take away
32:04
the shit that I'm worrying about that doesn't matter
32:05
and bring back and to focus the things that really do matter.
32:08
Not only my own death, but the death of people in my life.
32:11
Like being like, oh wow.
32:13
Am I gonna do this?
32:14
Oh yes, because this person is gonna die someday.
32:16
You know what I mean?
32:17
Literally that's how I think.
32:19
So yes, you know what I mean?
32:20
Especially when it's like your parents or things like that.
32:22
But obviously no pressure.
32:23
Every family dynamic is different.
32:25
And family is a source of pain and trauma
32:27
for so many people sustaining you love.
32:28
But what I mean to say is this,
32:31
when I think of the idea of service,
32:33
the reason I think of death is I can't serve anyone
32:36
while I'm dead.
32:37
The only reason I would be able to is because I've left things
32:41
that will live beyond me.
32:42
So my time to serve is my aliveness.
32:45
Is my time while I'm alive.
32:48
And there's this delicious circularity,
32:50
this delicious wholism or integrity,
32:53
actually the word integrity means whol.
32:55
When we use our energy to serve people, why?
32:57
Because the universe, ah, it gives you that energy back.
33:00
It's a very energizing experience
33:03
to know that you are helping people.
33:05
And you shouldn't do that for that reason,
33:06
but it's very, very holistic and integral, integral.
33:10
So let's talk about bell hooks again
33:12
because when we think about the collective,
33:15
we wanna bring in communion by bell hooks and she says,
33:18
the communion in love, our soul's seek,
33:21
is the most heroic and divine quest any human can take.
33:26
So once we seek communion in love,
33:29
which is the flea market of life, communion,
33:31
the idea that we are serving the collective,
33:33
we are doing this out of love for the collective,
33:36
for other people, and we are part of the collective.
33:39
It's not out there.
33:40
That's why I say the curiosity in you lives in others
33:43
because you are of the collective.
33:45
Your consciousness is both unique and not unique at all.
33:48
Your fears are not unique at all.
33:50
Your experiences are not unique at all.
33:52
But you are, as Rick Rubin says, the prism,
33:57
the specific array or arrangement of experiences,
34:00
of ideas, of thoughts, of also of talents
34:04
that can bring that perspective into the world
34:06
in a way that I believe only you can,
34:08
but also in a way that will serve many others
34:11
because we are so alike.
34:13
We're so alike.
34:14
How many TikTok comment section?
34:16
I thought I was the only one.
34:17
I never knew other people did this.
34:19
I never knew, blah, blah, blah, blah.
34:21
Oh, my word, I've never had a unique thought in my life.
34:23
Oh, my gosh, nothing I do is unique to me ever.
34:26
I do that all the time.
34:27
I'm always so shocked.
34:28
I'm like, wow, damn.
34:29
My fellow beings and I were actually the same species, yes.
34:32
Well, actually the same, yes, you know what I mean?
34:34
Wild, crazy, delicious and ridiculous.
34:36
Okay, so the communion and love our soul's seek
34:39
is the most heroic and divine quest
34:41
our any human can take.
34:44
So that's why it's linked,
34:45
that's why I said all of these things are linked,
34:46
the collective spirituality nature
34:48
because it's a divine quest to serve
34:51
and to seek communion with others.
34:54
And our art can be one mechanism we do that through.
34:57
I wanna read you something else from all about love
35:01
by Bell Hooks, where she's quoting someone else,
35:03
it's a longer quote, so said,
35:04
backlessing up, cue the music babes,
35:07
to me I'm babes, ah!
35:09
Okay, look at my socks, aren't they so delightful?
35:11
Okay, so this is by someone called Thomas Merton,
35:15
quoted in all about love by Bell Hooks.
35:18
She says, love is in fact an intensification of life,
35:25
a completeness, remember integrity,
35:27
a fullness, a wholeness of life.
35:31
Life curves upward to a peak of intensity,
35:35
a high point of value and meaning
35:38
at which all its latent creative possibility
35:41
go into action and the person transcends themselves
35:45
in encounter, response and communion with another.
35:51
So this is this idea of transcendence,
35:53
of reaching this place where all the creative possibility
35:57
that we couldn't before access,
35:58
the latent creative possibility go into action,
36:01
so become potent, okay?
36:03
And the person transcends themselves
36:06
in encounter, in response and in communion with another.
36:10
So the creative act is in conversation,
36:13
it's in the encounter with someone else
36:15
or it's in the response to someone else
36:17
or it's in this divine communion with someone else.
36:21
It is for this that we came into the world,
36:23
this communion and self transcendence,
36:26
this is really important.
36:28
It links to the idea of the dried up well
36:30
versus the ocean.
36:32
He's saying that it is for this reason
36:34
that we are on earth, is to be in communion with others
36:37
which Bellhooks also says is the most divine quest
36:39
any spirit can take and also to transcend the self,
36:43
to go beyond the self, that's what I'm trying to say,
36:46
tapping into forces bigger than the self
36:48
means we lose track of our self, that is the flow state,
36:52
is losing track of the ego, losing track of the self,
36:55
you know what I mean?
36:56
Finally, we do not become fully human
37:01
until we give ourselves to each other in love.
37:07
So precious, we do not become fully human
37:10
until we give ourselves to each other in love.
37:15
And this connects to the quote on how nature is always serving.
37:19
The sun is shining so that we may experience life
37:23
and experience enlivenment, the flowers are blossoming
37:26
so that we may, it's not so that,
37:28
but I'm saying without which we could not, you know what I mean?
37:31
Experience beauty, experience smell, experience fruits,
37:35
so this blossoming, this serving, this abundance,
37:37
it's our nature and it is nature.
37:40
And there's nothing that can make us more fully human
37:42
than giving ourselves to each other in love.
37:45
This episode, it's an act of love, it's not for me,
37:48
it's not for I, it's not for my ego
37:51
because it's gonna get 200 views on YouTube
37:52
and that's okay, it's gonna get whatever, it's okay.
37:56
Whoever's listening to this, if it reaches one person,
37:58
I'm thrilled, I gave to you, I gave of myself,
38:02
I gave of my experience and my perspective to you in love.
38:05
This is what I'm bringing to the flea market of life.
38:09
And I hope that you enjoy it.
38:11
This connects beautifully to the third and final force
38:14
that we can tap into that is bigger than us
38:17
in order to overcome creative resistance
38:20
and move forward into inspiration is nature.
38:23
Nature is always going to be much bigger than us.
38:26
And if we become students of nature,
38:28
if we allow nature to become our teacher,
38:31
there's an endless abundance of ideas,
38:33
of understandings, of stillness that we can tap into,
38:38
of calm and of integrity, again, of wholeness
38:41
that we can tap into because nature is inherently creative,
38:45
nature is always creating, nature shows us,
38:48
for example, when you look at a tree, it doesn't make sense
38:51
and it's so vast, it's not linear, it makes no sense.
38:54
The branch is, and you're like, how is this possible
39:00
because it doesn't have to always make sense
39:03
and yet it's fortifying, it's strong.
39:05
And also in the hidden life of trees,
39:08
there's such beautiful quotes about nature
39:11
and about the way that trees exist as a collective.
39:14
And when one tree is not doing well,
39:16
the other trees conspire to protect and serve that tree
39:18
and help it and that trees underneath the ground
39:21
have a communal network, they're not just a lone tree.
39:24
So this teaches us we need community as well
39:26
in order to create, we need a support system.
39:29
And if we don't have that in our real lives,
39:31
we need to lean on voices like hopefully I'm helping you with
39:34
such that we can be enlivened by a virtual support system.
39:38
So both times spent with nature, both in stillness,
39:42
but also in observation, as a teacher,
39:44
don't only look to books and to scholars,
39:46
but also look to trees, to mountains, to rivers,
39:51
to lakes, and the wisdom of these bodies, okay?
39:55
The wisdom of animals, the wisdom of trees,
39:59
the wisdom of the ocean, the wisdom of stillness
40:04
and of recognizing that you are a part of nature.
40:07
The birds chirping in the morning,
40:09
trip, trip, trip, trip, trip, trip, that's what they do.
40:13
So how can we find our birdsong and sing it?
40:17
Without judgment, nature's not ugly, nature is.
40:21
And nature's only purpose is to be itself.
40:24
And you are nature, my darling, you are nature.
40:27
Many things that are unnatural have been done to you
40:30
and are being done to you.
40:32
And you are living in an unnatural environment
40:34
that is poisoning you, daily, both your actual physical being
40:39
in terms of pollution and such,
40:40
but also your spiritual being,
40:42
your spiritual life is being poisoned.
40:45
One of the things you can do to come to your truest nature
40:49
and to be in touch with nature is to find moments of stillness
40:53
and also to find moments of connection,
40:56
but that deeper connection, you know,
40:58
where you're connecting with, you're full of self,
41:00
you're deeper self, you're higher self,
41:01
whatever you wanna call it, your truest nature.
41:04
And I think this idea of meditation and stillness
41:07
it comes in because there's a lot of unnatural forces
41:10
acting on you.
41:12
So it's important to reconnect with that which makes us feel
41:17
like we are being our truest nature,
41:19
which for me is often dancing, singing, being.
41:26
It's not natural to judge yourself based on what you make.
41:30
That's not nature.
41:32
It's not natural to be on our phones all the time.
41:35
This was created to serve the Mark Zuckerbergs
41:38
and the Elon Musk's of the world.
41:40
Like that's who we're serving through our consciousness.
41:42
Is that who we want to serve?
41:43
If Mark Zuckerberg came to your door
41:45
and was like, could I have your attention
41:46
for seven hours a day, you'd be like, what the fuck?
41:49
Get the fuck out of my house and give your money over
41:52
to the poor and to the people.
41:54
So anything that can connect you with nature
41:57
and with your nature, like who actually are you?
42:00
This is something that we can take for granted that we know,
42:03
but it's actually a daily act of knowing,
42:05
I'm coming to know and understand
42:06
because we're always also evolving just like nature.
42:09
Okay, so I hope that you enjoyed today's conversation, okay?
42:14
We spoke about how we could overcome creative resistance.
42:18
This force that's acting against us, this energetic field.
42:21
And we said, what if we tap into forces
42:23
that are bigger than us that can propel our inspiration
42:26
such that is so much greater than any resistance we may feel?
42:29
We say that there are at least three ways to do this.
42:32
It is through connection to spirituality, to the divine,
42:35
to God, to whatever your faith is,
42:37
to something bigger than you in terms of the mystical dimension of life,
42:41
the magic of life.
42:42
Number two, we said it is in serving the collective.
42:45
It is in stepping into the flea market of life.
42:48
The idea that your art is an offering
42:50
and that your art connects you to other people
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and that the curiosities that you have connect you to other people.
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The itch you have is going to scratch someone else.
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The fear you have is going to relieve someone else.
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The excitement you have is going to excite someone else.
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This emotional mechanism is what's going to connect us,
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to each other, and that our highest purpose,
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there's nothing more divine that we could do
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than give ourselves to each other.
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Give to each other.
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Give the offering in love in this flea market of life.
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Number three is nature, being in nature,
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learning from nature, letting nature teach us
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the wisdom of nature, right?
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That is going to connect us to the fact that we are also nature.
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It's going to connect us to a deeper self within us.
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If we take the time to not do anything
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that our ancestors couldn't do,
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so to be with nature, to be in silence,
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to look at the stars, to look at the moon,
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just to observe.
43:44
In Creative Quest by Quest Love,
43:45
he speaks about micro-meditations
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that if you struggle to do longer meditations
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or even as an addition,
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you could do like a 60 second moment
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where when you experience something profound,
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just be still with it.
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Let it affect you.
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Cultivate the awareness, the space,
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to be affected by life, the childlike wonder, the awe.
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These are forces that are bigger than you.
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They connect you to the universe.
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They connect you to the divine.
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They connect you to nature and to yourself as nature.
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They connect you to the collective
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and to yourself as the collective.
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You are a creator, you are creative,
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you can create, it does not have to be perfect.
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It merely has to be an offering to the collective
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in service of the divine, in service of love,
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in service of communion, in service of our togetherness,
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our great oneness, our interdependence.
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I need you, you need me, I am your other you,
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you are my other me, the aliveness within me,
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sees the aliveness within you
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and hopes to further enliven it.
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Okay, I love you so much.
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I hope you enjoyed my offering to the flea market of life.
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It is here, I'm standing with it and I'm proud
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and I'm grateful and I'm blessed
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to have other people within this market with me,
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doing the same, being brave with their life
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and with their art, knowing that we each have a limited time
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on earth, we are here to serve others,
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we are here to serve each other
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and we are here to serve the divine.
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I hope some paradigms have been shifted
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for you in today's conversation.
45:11
As always, if you can, please leave a five star rating
45:14
on Apple and Spotify.
45:15
Like, comment, subscribe.
45:16
I love you so, so much.
45:18
Okay, I love you.
45:20
Join me on my sub-stack, links in the comment section.
45:23
Go there.
45:24
Okay, love you so much.
45:25
Love you.
45:26
Bye.