Latest / Soul Salon with Ayandastood / 88: be a sanctuary for your EFFORT (not EXCELLENCE) 🦋

Transcript

88: be a sanctuary for your EFFORT (not EXCELLENCE) 🦋 · Soul Salon with Ayandastood

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  what would it feel like to become a sanctuary for your efforts, not your excellence?
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  To be a temple for your trying, not your triumphs. What would it give you? How would it feel
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  in your body to trust that you are going to get to where you are seeking to go?
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  It's already done. What you are calling in, what you are seeking is seeking you, it is calling
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  you in, it exists, causing you to desire it. And so your only role, besides taking the aligned
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  action towards that calling, is to be a guardian, a shepherd for how beautifully you treat yourself
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  along the way. I think we can all relate to the feeling of not being a safe space for our efforts
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  of expecting perfection and excellence and something that is worth applause rather than
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  prioritizing centering alignment over applause. Soul resonance over results. And what would it give
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  you, my darling, my love, my angel, to put that resonance first, to create because the spirit
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  moved you and to become the most loving, sacred, safe, holding place, not for your highest
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  achievement, but for the humble effort, the humble devotion that it takes to simply show up
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  and try. For most of my life, I have only wanted to celebrate myself or felt celebrated when I
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  was excelling or achieving in this very obvious way the results that I was seeking or the accolades
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  or the schools or the marks or grades or whatever you may call it. And as I stepped further and
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  further into my identity as an artist, as a creative, I realized that this programming was only hindering
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  me, this idea of going to these schools where you are ranked and where you are made to think of
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  life in a competitive and therefore scarce way, where you are taught to prioritize people based
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  on how excellent and remarkable they are and you should celebrate people only on that basis and not
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  celebrate the fact that wow, someone tried on a Tuesday, someone was brave with their voice,
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  someone had the courage to be a beginner at something, someone had the devotion to show up even
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  when no one was watching. That is not something we are taught societally to celebrate. So I want to
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  give you two examples. So becoming a safe space for your efforts rather than your excellence is
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  something that I think is so critical to us as we step into our power and our purpose.
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  I recently yesterday recorded a live on YouTube. I was experimenting with lives and my first
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  live, I really enjoyed and was so magical. And then my second live, I was like, oh, I don't know,
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  I didn't love my, there's some moments where I felt like my, I don't know, it wasn't my,
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  my one of my favorite, I speak a lot. So it wasn't one of my favorite speaking experiences,
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  which is totally okay. And then I was thinking maybe I won't post this, like maybe I'll delete it
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  and just let the however many 56 souls who received it, receive it. And I was going to delete it.
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  And then I came on to YouTube this morning and even more so reason to delete it is I looked at it
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  and the audio and sound quality was so bad. And I do pride myself on trying to make sure that it's
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  really useful for you to just listen to this, like there aren't glitches in the sound or whatever
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  it is. And also the video and audio weren't synced. So he or sunk, no, synced. So there was an
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  even further reason to say this is not good enough. I'm going to delete it. But then because I've
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  done this work of creative reparenting of becoming such a nurturing space for my creative efforts
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  rather than my creative excellence, I say to myself, no, this is the message. Every creation,
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  I say this often is love's invitation. There's a deeper love trying to be expressed through that
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  idea, through that creative project or intention. So also we can't control what something we create
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  is actually here to teach us only by allowing the idea to really take us on and to take us on a
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  journey. Do we actually learn what the idea was here to teach us? So maybe I thought going into
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  that, oh, this is here to teach me the experience of going live. But really it ended up being about
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  teaching me how to show up and be visible even when it's not perfect. Literally the sound and video
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  literally the third word I say, it glitches, like it doesn't say consciousness. And I'm like,
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  like I really care about the first few seconds of the video because that is when you really
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  demonstrating to someone what you can offer them through the transmission. And so there's a
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  previous version of me who would have said, this is not good enough. I'm deleting it. But now
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  it's twofold. It's like a love I have for myself that I get to show up imperfectly. And I think
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  specifically black women artists, black women creatives and visionaries. This is just your
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  sign in your message. We get to show up imperfectly and our worth doesn't have to come from how excellent
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  we are. And when we see all these models of black creatives who are celebrated for how excellent they
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  are, Beyonce is obviously the archetype of this. It can feel like we don't have room to be
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  imperfect. And I just want to invite everyone who experiences this feeling of like I don't get to
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  show up imperfectly. This is your sign. This is your invitation. Your higher self has sent this
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  message to you through me. I'm simply a channel for this from your own wisdom because you already
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  know this. You get to do it imperfectly. Whatever you are seeking to create, you get to be an
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  imperfect divine channel of that creation. So the first love was love to myself for I get to show
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  up like this. And it's totally safe. It is safe for me to be seen in making mistakes or trying
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  new things or just exploring and seeing where things go. That is safe. Okay. That's creative
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  becoming this nurturing space for your efforts, not just your excellence. Now second is the love I have
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  for the viewer. I asked myself, what if this could help just one person? What would what would the
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  light do? What would source do? What would the divine do? If the divine knew this video could help
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  even one soul on this earth knowing how much help we all are calling in, knowing we all need love,
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  we all crave inside and wisdom that nourishes and nurtures us. Do I believe this could help one
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  soul? And if so, what would the divine do? Leave that video up. And you know, the sacred irony of
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  all of this, which I absolutely love is that the whole video is about the willingness to be judged
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  as a form of generosity that as part of my generosity to you, I need to be willing for you to judge
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  me. I wouldn't make this video and it would never reach you if I said I am unwilling for you to judge
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  me. I'm unwilling for you to find this not good enough or I'm unwilling for you to say you
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  should have said it this way or you didn't say this or you didn't add this and what about these
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  people? You didn't mention this intersection or that, whatever. I have to be willing for you to have
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  a negative opinion or thought about me in order to do my work. If I'm unwilling, that unwillingness
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  will prevent me, will block me from ever expressing anything. So that was what the whole video was about.
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  And then I was confronted with my own desire to control the viewer's reaction because I don't
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  want the viewer to think, oh, that's not good quality. Let them, let them think that. So allow them,
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  be the allowance. I want to just say, oh, this came, this came full circle. So allow people to have
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  the experience that they need to have. Also, because we think only our perfection is generous,
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  but our imperfection is just as generous. It is generous to allow people to witness you
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  not being perfect because you create a space in their heart and their mind to say, if they can do
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  it, maybe I can. If they're giving themselves permission to be witnessed like this, maybe I can.
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  And this can even be expressed in a more dark way through criticism. Oh, they're not saying this
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  and this, I would say this and that. So let them have that reaction because then I'm adding my
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  voice to the creative conversation and allowing you to just use this as a conversation with your
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  own creativity to receive this rather. I don't love the word use to receive this as part of your
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  creative conversation. So as you unlock these capacities within you, maybe you're feeling
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  called this year to unlock your singer archetype or unlock your dancer archetype or unlock your
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  photographer archetype and lock your artist archetype and identity. As you do that, how can you
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  learn to be the most loving version of yourself to both you and to the recipient to the receiver
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  of your gifts? How can you ask, okay, is this generous? Could this help someone? Could this allow
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  someone to experience feeling seen and supported and resonant, feeling delighted, humorous,
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  feeling held, feeling vulnerable, feeling seen, whatever it may be. And if so, what would the
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  divine do? Would the divine say, it's not good enough or would the divine just create the offering
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  and allow the person on the other end to receive it in the way that their soul was always designed
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  and meant to. If you are just seeking more community experiences, what I'm so excited to invite you
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  to is the soul vision portal. Now, this is a completely free gathering where we are going to be
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  joining live on zoom on January 15th to co create an energy field that is just so juicy and
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  resonant and allows us to call in to call forth our most aligned and abundant 2026. So this is for
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  the soul siblings to gather and to be in each other's energy and frequency and to really call in
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  what we are seeking to create this year, but from a place of wholeness and worthiness, you are
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  infinitely worthy to experience anything you are seeking to experience in this life.
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  There is no readiness. The hack to readiness, I don't even like the word hack, but it just came.
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  The hack to readiness is worthiness. What is the hack to readiness? Worthiness. If you don't feel
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  ready, it's because you don't feel worthy of trying worthy of experiencing worthy of receiving.
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  Readiness is really just a commentary on worthiness. If I think to myself, I'm not ready to host
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  a podcast interview. It's just that I don't feel worthy of what could happen if I do. I don't feel
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  worthy of making mistakes. I don't feel worthy of not being the perfect interviewer. I don't feel
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  worthy of not knowing what to say. I don't feel worthy of being in my magnificence and actually being
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  fucking amazing at it. I don't feel worthy of success or I don't feel worthy that I'm far beyond
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  any quote unquote failure that is actually the exact roadmap to the purpose I'm seeking.
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  So how can you unlock a deeper worthiness this year within your body, within your being,
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  you are infinitely worthy? And how can you become this delicious sanctuary for your efforts,
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  this safe space for what you are trying to create, knowing that you are in offering?
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  Yes, you've come here to have a human experience, to experience all the emotions and feelings,
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  and also you have come here because there is something that is desiring to be given through you.
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  Just like the apple, just like the sunlight, just like the rivers, there is an inherent generosity
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  to your essence, to your being, and you will never feel like life was all that it could be
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  without fully tapping into that generosity, that sacred giving that feels like receiving.
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  Because when you are in your aligned giving, not the giving imposed on you by familial expectations
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  or cultural demands, but your giving, your most generous state, you will also be in your most
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  magnetic state to receive. When the speaker is giving their gifts to speak, everyone in the audience
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  is feeling so resonant with their vibration, with their words, with their frequency, that they cannot
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  help but go up to that speaker afterwards and say, how can I work with you? How can I learn more?
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  Have you written a book? How can I book you for my event? So that giving that the speaker is doing
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  is also their most magnetic receiving. When the writer devotes themselves to the book,
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  and they show up for the characters and they build the world, and it's been such a magical
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  experience witnessing my best friend and soul creative partner and earth angel Alex showing up for his
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  book every single day. Not for days, not for weeks, but for over a year now and actually writing
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  for four decades, he's been a writer and showing up with devotion and commitment and witnessing him
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  because 99% of the creative journey is the process. It's not just about the book launch
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  and that is also a key part of soul craft is witnessing the 99%. I deeply believe in community
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  as one of the most profound manifestation technologies that community is the conditions for all we
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  are seeking to experience and create. So I hope that this year you find aligned communities and
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  forms of support that really become that soil, become those pollinators, become that nectar, that
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  juiciness, that environment, that ecosystem that allows this emergence to come through.
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  If you are seeking a soul-led creative community to help activate your creative dreams and to
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  help turn your creative visions into tangible realities, turn the podcast idea into the podcast,
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  turn the course desire into the course that's generating sole aligned income towards you and
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  impact all over the world, turn that desire to be on that stage singing into oh I booked my first
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  open mic. I want to invite you to join soul craft. Soul craft is a creative expansion community
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  that I run with my best friend Alex and it is for spirit, heart, soul-led creatives, artists,
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  visionaries who are seeking to become the embodiment of our visions, who are seeking to be surrounded by
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  like-hearted community, friendship and resonance, something that we want to feel witnessed and held
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  by. We want a deeper frequency than productivity or than results or then outcomes. We wanted to
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  feel good and we want to feel deep connection in the process. So I want to invite you to join
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  soul craft and you can see the link. If you do feel cold, you can join the link below. You are
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  worth celebrating in your becoming not just in your I did it. You are worth celebrating in your
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  unfolding not just at that end state that we all envision right. We are all calling in and it's
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  so important as artists and creatives to have spaces that celebrate the process because the
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  process is the 99%. So I hope this year you find whether it's soul craft or wherever you feel
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  cold most to that you find your most resonant and aligned community spaces in person, online
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  offline, wherever you feel most cold, a tiny intimate group or a bigger group whatever feels
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  most resonant with you, I'm manifesting that for you and through you. And do remember that the
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  sole vision portal is here as a free gathering to support you on January 15th. So remember that
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  you are here as a sacred giving that anything you criticize about yourself, you are criticizing
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  about creation itself. You are saying creation isn't good enough. If you say what I have to say isn't
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  good enough, what I have to write isn't good enough, what I have to express isn't good enough.
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  Remember you are creation. You are an inextricable part of creation. The law of divine oneness,
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  the first universal law of the twelve says everything is connected, everything is one,
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  everything is interdependent. So you cannot criticize yourself without criticizing creation itself
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  and creation is divine, creation is intelligent, creation is holy sacred infinite and you are that,
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  okay? So we're not going to criticize ourselves, we're going to become sanctuaries for our expression
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  and our efforts, not sanctuaries for our excellence and the completion and fulfillment of the stream,
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  but actually holding as a temple, the trying, holding as sacred, the steps that feel tiny and
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  insignificant, but oh my goodness, do they not compound and add up in ways that are shocking?
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  The leadership coach Robin Sharma says that small seemingly insignificant improvements
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  when done consistently over time lead to stunning results, small seemingly insignificant
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  improvements when done daily consistently over time lead to stunning results, you will be stunned
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  by how those tiny tiny steps grow, layer compound into something profound and magical
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  and yet you are also so worthy of being celebrated for taking that tiniest step, for responding to
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  that email, for following up, for practicing for five, ten minutes, for showing up with devotion,
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  for writing that chapter or that page, for honing your craft, you deserve to be celebrated.
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  And just as you are here to give something so much as being given to you, creation is conspiring
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  to give to you my love, creation is conspiring to give you sunlight and nourishment and water and
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  friendship, so many people are seeking you out, are seeking to give to you, want to work with you,
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  want to know you, want to receive you, want to experience your music, your gifts, your talents,
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  they are just waiting for the invitation, so make yourself findable, so that the magic and miracles
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  seeking to find you, the people seeking to know your work and know your words and know your essence
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  can find you, and I know many of us feel so uncomfortable promoting our work, I have a
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  association called pro-mote your work, be pro the motion of your work because what you came to express
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  came here to be expressed through you meaning it came here to move through the collective heart
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  and consciousness, so when you promote that workshop you're holding or that event that you are
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  creating, when you promote your book club, when you promote your book, you are pro the motion
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  and nature, what is the what to do, it flows, your work wants to flow, your work wants to move
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  and yet you, especially in the beginning, you are the vessel of that movement, over time people
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  will be moving your work through and for you, people will be forwarding your episodes to their
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  friends invitation to do that, people will be supporting the motion and movement of your work,
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  but in the beginning stages we are really the steward of that motion, if you have a poem and you
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  don't tell anyone the poem won't move, it will move you and that's really sacred, we don't have to
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  share everything, but if it's here to be part of a bigger movement unless you share it, it cannot
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  move, so you could say but that poem is not good enough, what is that even, that's not good enough,
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  that doesn't make sense or you could just be part of that sacred flow, that is a part of you,
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  while I was on Instagram, I encountered this incredible poem and I was on Instagram to post
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  about the Soul Vision Portal, please do join us on January 15th, but I encountered this incredible
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  poem that speaks to how much creation is conspiring to give to you and how much you as part of creation
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  are here also as a giving, so I want to read that poem to you now, this poem is by Gail Brandeis,
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  it is called the plumb you're going to eat next summer, the plumb you're going to eat next summer
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  doesn't exist yet, its potential lives inside a tree you'll never see, in an orchid you'll never see,
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  will be touched by a certain number of water droplets before it reaches you,
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  by certain angles of light by a finite amount of bugs and dustmotes and hands you'll never know,
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  the plumb you are going to eat next summer will gather sugar, gather mass, will harden at its center
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  so it can soften toward your mouth, the plumb you're going to eat next summer doesn't know you exist,
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  the plumb you are going to eat next summer is growing just for you,
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  that is such a beautiful offering such a stunning poem and it reminds me that your artistry is gathering
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  mass and gathering water droplets and gathering strength and attracting to it the messages,
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  the supporters that can help fortify it into something that will one day be received by someone
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  who has no idea of the invisible work you are doing for it to be receivable, so I want to
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  congratulate you for the work you are doing to allow yourself to be the vessel you know yourself
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  for the journaling you're doing for the meditation or whatever your work looks like the conversations
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  you're having with yourself and with others the boundaries you are setting the healing work you are
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  doing you're doing incredible and we as the collective thank you for the invisible work you do to
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  make it possible for you to be in your artistry and be a visionary and share your visions and
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  creations with the world you are so generous and your generosity is not only in what you actually
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  create but in all the work that you do to allow yourself that creative expression that has been
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  conditioned out of you that you are returning to that your childhood self had all the magic
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  and medicine and you are finding even more forms of magic and medicine and archetypes that you
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  are unlocking and we thank you even though it is an invisible effort your effort is sacred
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  and the law of divine compensation it will be rewarded it will be rewarded you will be rewarded
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  even if it feels like the rewards are not being reaped the day you plant the seed is not the same
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  day that you receive the fruits of your labor there is a sacred void there is a sacred gap the
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  farmer knows it your ancestors knew it and you know it the day we say this is what i'm calling in
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  even the day we post the video or we write the essay and we send it out is not the same day
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  that that full expression of that vision is realized that's just not how creation works
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  even you had a nine month incubation period and even you continue to evolve and become the womb of
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  further and further versions of yourself so let's hold the void hold the sacred gap and know that
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  it's not an empty space it's not actually a void it is so pregnant with possibilities it is so
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  juicy it is so full and it is the 99 percent so i'm sending you so much love and i will see you
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  hopefully at the sole vision portal on january 15th and if you cannot attend live
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  the recording will be available until the end of january so i'd love to see you there either on
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  the replay or live with us please join the link below i'm sending so much love to you how can you go
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  and create something as imperfectly as it wants to be created how can you move into action
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  shortening that gap between intuition and action that's what i call interaction it is a
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  flow idea creation what blocks that flow sometimes they are actual you know material world reality
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  blocks obviously there's like you're at work and you get the idea you may not have the time to just
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  go and create it but often it is perfectionism it is control something needs to be a certain way
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  for me to be allowed to create it or make it nope interaction i get the idea i flow with it i get
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  the idea i flow with it i get the idea and i flow with it i receive it down low and i go with it
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  into action we just flow flow flow flow okay so how will you flow where does your energy want to
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  flow or go next i'm sending so much love and light and juiciness to you maybe all have more
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  soul gasms in 2026 may our spirits our bodies and our essence be lit up in a sacred energy of
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  possibility and of pleasure and purpose and presence because presence really unlocks pleasure in
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  order to experience pleasure we need to slow down and be present to what is seeking to please us
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  and so much is seeking to please you feel the sun on your skin feel the eroticism of an idea
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  in and of itself this is a form of life seeking to be channeled through you that once you
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  a form of life that is turned on by you a form of life that has chosen you never take for granted
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  how juicy and sacred ideas are and how full of erotic potential the relationship between us
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  and our craft gets to be i'm sending so much love to you and i'll see you on the next
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  soul session and the soul vision portal on January 15th get the link below i love you by
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  my darling my love my soul sibling thank you for stepping into the soul salon if you are still
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  hearing or watching this we are soul siblings we are resonating on the same frequency and so
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  something you may struggle with that i struggle with is the fear of being seen you know that
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  visibility is involved in you living your creative purpose and being in your power serving the
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  collective through your gifts through your magic through your medicine in order to do that you know
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  you need to be more seen than you are allowing yourself to be right now i have a gift just for you
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  heart made for us on this frequency and it is a free ebook called the soulful visibility guide
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  that is soulful visibility like we don't just want to be seen we want to be felt we want to be heard
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  we want to move and be moved so i do have a free gift for you and all you need to do is go to my website
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  i understood dot com and there you will be able to input your email address and receive this
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  directly to your inbox this is such a juicy and delicious guide and i change the free
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  offering every few months so you know get it while you can all the links are in the show notes
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  so thank you so much i love you and i will see you on the next sole session okay i love you bye