Ep #129: Creating a Sacred Container – Part 2: Specificity

“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time,” Zig Ziglar. In the previous episode on spaciousness, and today’s episode which is on specificity, we are talking about how creativity, creative genius, creative magic all love a sacred container.

And so, in last week’s episode, we talked about one of the vital elements of a sacred container, and that is spaciousness. In today’s episode, we are talking about specificity. In this discussion, I will talk about the practical, pragmatic, sensible, logical reasons for being specific, why it serves you in goal setting, why it will help you create anything that you want.

And I also want to have this conversation with specificity with all of you because, for me, it’s a profound inroad into coming int conversation with your Truth, with your capital T. It’s a profound inroad, a way to align with Creativity, with a capital C. And that way, you can never miss the mark. Because when you’re standing in this place, when you’re grounded, standing on that sacred ground of your own truth, when you are in alignment, then in many ways, you’ve already hit the mark because you are already standing squarely in it.

You are it. And anything you aim for or create from that place will just be gravy. It will just be more of you flowing and creating from within alignment and it is one of the most powerful and empowering places to be. And specificity can help you unlock the door, can be the key that opens that world of your own truth to you.

You are listening to The Art School Podcast; a show for artists and creatives who want to become the next greatest version of themselves. Learn how to cultivate an extraordinary way of being and take the mystery out of making money, and the struggle out of making art. Here is your host, master certified life coach, artist, and former lawyer, Leah Badertscher.

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Art School Podcast. And greetings from a beautiful spring day in Michigan. I have a fun update for you. So, I mentioned a few weeks back about how my husband and my daughter and I transplanted probably 1000-plus daffodil bulbs from places like on our farm, and we also got some from neighbors’ farms that were more obscure and we wanted to have flowers and plantings up around the house. Because last year at this time, this was just a construction site, so it’s looking a little bare bones.

And we’ve started – you know, there are many trees on the property, but we’ve had to plant the ones that are closer to the house and obviously, you know, we have plans for gardens and we’ve planted an orchard. And so, this is going to be an evolution.

But anyway, we thought, how lovely to have just thousands of daffodils that come up volunteer in the springtime to have those bursts of color around the house. So, we transplanted those thinking, “Well, this is for the future.” They are probably going to wilt and die. Let’s hope they take root. And me – because this is how I roll, including with gardening, with all other things, I’m transplanting and I’m doing all the appropriate things, putting them in the dirt and then watering them. And then, I’m also saying little prayers as I tamp down the dirt and tend to them, like, “Bless you. Bless you little daffodils.”

Because I just believe in that and I believe in the energy that you give when you tend to anything. And I’m not saying it was just my energy that created this. But here we thought, “Okay this is for the future.” This is for a whole year from now and years from now. And hopefully, fingers crossed, they take root and the transplanting works.

Well, two days after we planted them, we had a hard frost and a snowstorm and I thought, “Oh shoot. Oh, shoot, there go all of those thousands of daffodil bulbs. That was probably too much of a shock.” And then, you know what? Fast forward to this last week and they are all blooming again. So, I just loved that because I felt one of the messages in that was, yes, plant for the future, play the long game, take the long view, and also, things can happen much more quickly than you think. And that the energy that I was experiencing was like delight and thinking, “Well, it’s fun to plant. It’s a great way to spend a Saturday.” I enjoyed being outside with Blaise and Brad. It was something fun for all of us to do together. It was just a very satisfying way to be out in nature together and enjoying thinking of all these flowers coming up years from now and years from now and that they would spread and spread, as these volunteers do. Just loving that.

And not feeling an energy of patience. Because I feel like, if I’m in the energy of patience, like impatience is really right there and right underneath it, it was just being committed, planting the bulbs, looking forward to that future, enjoying the process, and also not being attached.

And then, it happened sooner than I thought. We have all of these sunburst yellow cheerfulness rising and sprouting and shining their faces like all over. I love it when I come in the driveway and see them. I love it when I look out any window and can see them. So, I just wanted to share that story and that little bit of an update on that. So, plant, look for the future, and don’t be attached. Enjoy the process. And also, sometimes things happen faster than you think they will.

And also, I will say for me, whether or not the blessing of the bulbs has anything to do with it, I think of it as – I think it’s a Kierkegaard quote of, you know, “Prayer doesn’t change God but prayer changes the person who prays.” So, there’s that as well.

And so, today, what I am very excited to talk with you about is specificity. And if I had to boil it down to one simple takeaway, I will give that to you here. The ultimate reason why I want to have this conversation about specificity with you – we’ll get into the nuts and bolts later about why it helps you as a creative constraint, why it helps you to focus your energy, why it helps you to be more successful, how you can use it to gain insights into discovering the own structures that are unique to you that, once you lock them into place, you will experience creativity and creative flow and creative success as being something that’s natural for you, as being something that’s innate when you look at the structures in your life, internal and external, and what specificity – and think about, what does specificity have to do with creating these structures, these ideal creative ecosystems on the inside and out that allow you to flow your gifts into the world and that allow you to receive your gifts, the benefits of your gifts, but then also allow you to receive value, money, recognition, whatever it is, allow you to receive that which your heart desires.

Here though is the main reason I care about specificity, why I care about it for myself, for the people I love, for all of you listening, for all of my clients. Specificity, for me, is about allowing yourself to know what you know, allowing yourself to know the whole truth of yourself, allowing yourself to love what you love, allowing yourself to acknowledge and honor the dreams that you have for your life. And then, once you create a space and a spaciousness for that truth, for being radically honest with yourself about who you think you are and what you really love and what you would love to create specifically in life, it is a way, like a spiritual path towards greater communion with one’s self, to being in alignment with one’s self, to having this open channel where you have created a structure of safety and trust with yourself, where you are being honest about who you are and what you want in life and putting it out there.

And then, when you want to, saying, “I am committed to honoring this truth about who I am and what I want and what I want to create and what I want to experience, I am willing to honor this truth about what I think I’m capable of. And that I’m willing to honor and hold a space for the fact that maybe there’s so much more that I’m capable of that I won’t even get to unless I first just start to turn on the tap, get the rust out until the clear water starts flowing. And then, from there, believing in myself enough.

And as I’ve talked in previous episodes, taking yourself and your work seriously, it’s not about this burdensome, responsibility-laden concept of, “You must take yourself seriously, be a professional.” Not this externally imposed thing. We’re not looking to external markers of are you taking yourself seriously. But to me, taking yourself seriously means loving yourself and honoring your truth and honoring your dream.

And one of the reasons I really wanted to talk about this in the context of a sacred container is because I do think specificity is also like that creative constraint, that if we are really honoring ourselves, our creative dreams, and our goals seriously, then we create that space, that sense of spaciousness that is unique to us on the inside and find that balance, that particular architecture of a sacred magical container in which some sort of chemistry can happen.

But that spaciousness requires definition. And if you look up the definition of wall or structure in the dictionary, it will say that the wall provides definition. It provides shelter. It provides safety. It gives shape and form.

And again, there are all of these aspects too of allowing us to focus our creative energy. Because I do think that is what extraordinary creativity and genius is about, is the ability to focus. But if we don’t first allow ourselves the truth of who we are – see so many previous episodes in which I talked about this – and we don’t allow ourselves to focus – see my 100^th episode on the importance of focus – then we’re not giving ourselves that opportunity, that ripe ecosystem, that fertile ground in which our dreams can grow, our souls can grow, and that we can experience thriving.

I was just yesterday talking to my friend and the extraordinary coach Nicole Whiting, who I’ve had on the podcast before. She’s an ultra-runner. And like I said, an extraordinary coach. And she just finished a 100-mile race in Zion. 100 miles in the desert.

And she was talking about various times during the race when you can see the invitation where she experienced the very strong invitation to opt out of the race. And she didn’t. She stayed the course. She went with it. And we were talking about when do you opt out? When is that out of self-compassion? When is that out of rest? And when is staying in it and staying with it the most loving thing to do?

So, that’s a different tangent for a different time. But what I want to talk about today is that specificity of, like, for her, a 100-mile race was to give herself the opportunity to move through, she said, like mile-87 where she’d been crying for two miles and the thought comes up, like, “Do I have what it takes to finish?” to give herself that finish line as a dream and to have given herself the experience of moving beyond thoughts. Like, do I have it within me, to crossing the finish line.

And we were talking about these creations, these achievements, these things that we do in our life that change us, that give us this experience of knowing what we are capable of and what a gift that is. And that never happens if we’re not specific. You know, she could hem and haw about, “Do I really need to be an ultra-runner? Why 100 miles?”

But ultimately, as Zig Ziglar said in the intro, “If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.” That being said, she’s also coming from this strong, compassionate place of she knows she’s an athlete. Something within her says, “You’re built for this. There’s something about these events in this lifetime that are part of your journey.”

And so, you don’t have to be an athlete and an ultra-runner to extrapolate this and apply it to your life as a creative. Because your ultra might be finishing your novel. Your ultra might be taking that novel that you’ve finished and moving forward with your dream that it’s read by millions and millions of people. Your ultra might be first crossing the six-figure mark as an artist and then moving your work out into the world in even more profound ways.

But specificity can be such a gift because if you are reluctant to declare to the world, “Here’s what I really think I’m capable of. Not only do I want to write books. I want them to be beloved and read by millions. Not only do I want to create art. I want to be an artist who is paid handsomely and who doesn’t have to stress about paying the bills, who doesn’t have to think art supplies are so expensive, but who feels supported by life.”

It’s allowing yourself to be that specific with your dreams, which then allows you to ask the next necessary questions; what do I need to focus on? How do I commit to this so that this is inevitable? What needs to shift within me so that I come in this lifetime to know myself as, yes, this is what is available to me. This is what I love. this is what I’m going for. And I’m also allowing myself to be in love with the process along the way.

And then here is another element that fascinates me about specificity and why I think it is so important. I think it allows not only for us to help focus our energy, achieve our goal, you know, and then we set these milestones and then we have the opportunity to have feedback and evaluate. Because for instance, if we are in New York City and we say, “I don’t know, I just want to go on a trip somewhere,” then we start meandering and we wonder, you know, a week later, why we’re just still in Brooklyn.

Whereas, if in your heart you know you really want to go to California, you’re just afraid if you can actually withstand the trip to get there, then you at least have direction. And as you go, you can tell, “Oh gosh, and now I’m in Florida. Is there something I should do to course-correct here if I actually don’t want to be experiencing the Atlantic Ocean but I want to be on the Pacific.” So, we’ve got to be specific.

And I know that’s kind of a silly example, but I just wanted to illustrate that without inputting that specific coordinate in our GPS, we have not only missed the opportunity to engage our inner guidance system and to experience that creative process unfolding within ourselves, to experience coming into communion in a more intimate relationship with a deep and divine and innate organizing intelligence and wisdom within ourself as well as eliciting any outside help. But we also then miss the opportunity to grow because we don’t have any feedback set up along the way because we don’t know if we’re actually on target or not.

And so, there is this aspect too, I think, of loving oneself where if you have a desire to grow, it’s useful, like using specificity for yourself and not against yourself, as I’ve said over and over again, using your goals for yourself and not against yourself.

One of the main reasons I have goals is to experience a particular kind of growth within myself that I want to experience, that it is as much about the spiritual evolution, if not that’s the whole point, as it is about using these external markers and milestones to keep me honest about my spiritual evolution.

But I want to bring it back to this other point, why I think specificity is so important and in the context of this sacred container, being an ideal ecosystem for your spiritual evolution, for your unleashing of your creative genius, for creating any external goal that you want to create.

And that is, I think it is a healing element to this process of becoming a thriving artist. To me, it’s not only a masculine element. I think there’s elements of both the masculine and feminine in spaciousness and in specificity. But to me, the sacred container represents many things, including an integration, a whole-making, a healing of bringing the masculine and feminine together and finding out what that relationship is within you, where you are not thinking that it’s this, “Well, I’m either creative or I’m analytical. I’m either feminine or I’m masculine.”

But realizing that we all have all elements and all elements are always at play in all of the universe and in any creation and allowing that holistic view within yourself and thinking about, “How can specificity help me receive creative ideas? How can specificity help me move my energy and my contributions out into the world?” So, in that way, it can help then focus this very receptive, fertile, sometimes called fertile void creative energy that can seem more to be the feminine aspect and serve that by channeling it and bringing it and bringing it into the world to realize it.

So, I think of making it real in the world. That’s that process of realization is aided by figuring out what the right structures are for you. And I don’t mean right as in there’s some right answer in the world. I mean, what helps you come alive and be thriving and live life in a way that, for you, feels like a homecoming?

And so, why would anybody avoid that? Why would anyone avoid specificity? And one reason I have to offer you is one I’m sure you’ve heard before, the Marianne Williamson quote about how it’s not that we fear that we are not powerful or that we fear actually that we are so powerful. We fear our light.

I know for me, it’s that hitting an upper limit of, “Oh gosh, that’s a little too good. How nice to be me, that I get to be both adept at the masculine element and be specific, I get to declare what I want and what I want to create. And I also have the gifts within me and the ability to channel creativity in a way that allows me to actually achieve those gifts. Like, how nice for me.”

But it is not just me. It’s what’s available to all of us, this integration that you are both and it is this amazing adventurous process of discovering how you’re built and in what ways you can lean into the gifts that you have but also, like, lean into those places you think are your weaknesses to create the channels in the world that flow your genius into the world, and again, allowing yourself to pass through the gate, answer the invitation of specificity is one of the ways that will help you with this integration.

So, are there times when you shouldn’t be specific? I don’t like that word, should and shouldn’t. It’s a question I get though, so I am anticipating those of you listening, some of you might have it, so I wanted to address that.

What I want to say is trust yourself. Here is a paradox. I am going to say, “I am never going to be a person that says always do it this way or always do it that way and that there are absolutes.” And having just made that generalization, I’m going to break it and say, “Never say that you must always be specific.” Trust your own wisdom. Be discerning. Trust yourself.

Which really, that theme of trust is a great ally and companion in this discussion of specificity. Because here is why I think people avoid specificity. And here is why I want to say to you, you know the difference. You know when you are avoiding specificity because you are coming from, what I’m going to talk about here, of coming from a place of lack, from a poverty consciousness, from a lack of belief in yourself, from not wanting to align with yourself or fearing for any reason.

And that’s okay. You don’t have to beat yourself up for that. And you will know when you choose not to be specific or you choose to go general. Because that’s what’s right for you. But what I want to highlight today, the consciousness, the issue that I want to raise, elevate our consciousness around today are these reasons that we avoid specificity, that if we were just more aware of it, we would likely not do it because we would see that it’s not serving us. It’s not serving our thriving. And it is for sure not serving our ability to create the results that we want in life. It is not serving our ability to close the gap between where we currently are and where we know we want to be, where we know is actually a more accurate representation, external representation of our inner potential, how specificity can help us close the gap between having that inward potential within us and living more fully expressed and being supported in all ways as creatives and as artists.

So, as I said, many people are avoiding specificity because they’re approaching it from a place of lack. A lack of belief in themselves, their work, their ability, a lack of trust in the world to support them. It is setting goals then becomes problematic. Because if they know they’re in this place of lack, there can be two fears that go on.

One fear is just internally you know you’re setting goals that don’t really matter to you and you know you’re kind of still in this rat race hamster wheel mode of setting goals because you think there’s going to be some external validation that fills that emptiness inside. So, that’s also coming from a poverty consciousness.

But then there’s also a place – and people will say, “Well, I got off of that hamster wheel. I don’t want to go back to that place of being specific because I think it was coming from a superficial place.” But specificity set from a place that’s not in alignment will yes, result in specific goals that are not aligned.

But if you are aligned with your truth, if you are allowing yourself full honesty, not based on anyone else’s expectations for you or your life or how you should live it, but just from your heart and soul’s desires, then specificity is a beautiful, powerful profoundly powerful thing.

Specificity from than area is then just clarifying and taking some of those ideas of the heart and soul and putting them out in front of you in the world. Which to me is that work is love made visible. To me, that is like building from your soul out in the world and that is one of the reasons I love art and seeing what people’s creativity, how that manifests out in the world and how that changes the world.

But people still will argue, “Well I don’t want to put the dreams of my heart and soul out in the world and be specific about it because what if I don’t get it? What if I fail?”

And I want to point out right there, when you hear yourself saying this, look at how you are disassociating. Look at how you have then abdicated full responsibility for creating your results in the world? What if it doesn’t work out?

That is abdicating you as the Creator, with a capital C, “What if I fail?” Well, if you fail, you always have the choice to redefine that and to reap the wisdom from it and to use that to double-down on your trust within yourself, to be like, “I made it through this challenge and this adversity and I have my own back. I know how to be a good ally to myself. I can see how I am somebody who’s growing in wisdom and compassion and truth and I can reap the lessons from this.”

Because part of why I’m doing this – sacred twin intention, for those of you who know what that is – is because I am learning how to love myself more deeply. And I am learning what it is to truly be me in the world, to live soul-forward, fully expressed and to go for it, to not hold back, to not dilute myself, to not present a dulled-down version of myself or my dreams or my goals in the world. I am willing to be all-out bold and I am willing to be very specific.

So, another point on specificity coming from alignment, coming from a prosperity consciousness, coming from a place of resting in your abundant and sacred truth as opposed to specificity coming from lack.

I think specificity coming from your truth, coming from alignment allows you to be clear and committed in the world. It allows you to be courageous. But it does not feel graspy or attached because, as I said in the intro, you are already sitting squarely in your truth.

So, when you are specific about what you are going to do and what you want to experience and what you want to create, that specificity, those goals are manifestations, external expressions, already creations of who you really are in the world. You are already sitting on that X marks the spot. In so many ways, you have already hit whatever you will aim for. And achieving those things then becomes somewhat of a redundancy, but a delightful and a fun and an adventurous and a joyful one. And sometimes a heartbreaking one because this is the experience of being fully alive.

So, that’s different than trying to be specific from a place of trying to prove; trying to prove to yourself or trying to convince to the world or trying to compensate and achieve your way to some sort of external validation rather than coming from your truth.

And if this sounds judging and preachy, oh my gosh, I am so squarely coming from speaking from my own experience. I know the difference between setting goals, even very specific ones, from a place of trying to arrive at some sort of truth or validation externally, rather than resting and internal knowing, and a truth of who I am, and then creating expressions of what I want to achieve in the world that look like goals, that look like creative constraints, about this is what I’m going to do, this is the creative container I’m creating for myself.

It’s very different. And I have done it from both places and I am constantly still working on refining, knowing when that is for me now. But I can tell you that the energy of one is one of settled commitment and this is who I am and this is what I’m creating. And it allows a clarity of my vision.

For instance, I’ve shared one of my visions for the Art School, this work that I’m doing, vis-à-vis coaching, is I really see in the wake of this work for which I get to be a channel or a conduit in this lifetime, I see these stars of my work being recognizing that star potential, that start seed, that god seed of genius and creativity in other people. That’s one of my gifts. For seeing that and holding a space for big visions like that and creating the environment and through coaching, helping clear out the obstacles and evoke the genius that allows those stars to rise.

So, a very specific part of that vision for me is my friend Zoe introduced me to that there is actually an acronym; PEGOT. Pulitzer, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony. Not to mention so many books written, book deals, artists hitting new levels of income, artists and creatives, women creatives in particular shedding old paradigms of constantly needing to be in lack or struggle or martyrdom or sacrifice around their creative lives and their creative work, but instead, ushering in this new era where we normalize that you are an artist and therefor you thrive, therefore you are able to create the same sort of material stability and mental, physical, emotional stability that allows you then to focus your creative energies and creative genius on flowing your art into the world.

Because I know it’s that flowing of that art and that flowing of that creativity and that ability to take our energy off of just trying to survive and instead focus it on thriving and contribution, which is part of the greater healing that the world needs.

So, I see, in the wake of the Art School and its coaching very specifically, yes, all of these people achieving external accolades and new levels of income, but most importantly, coming into their own. Coming into a realization of their own truth and liberating their creative genius and their creativity and their spirit and their intellect from the shackles of scarcity, of trying to prove, of trying to convince, of trying to earn the right to be an artist in the world, of trying to earn the right to do what they feel like they were built to do. But instead shift into a place, a new thriving creative’s paradigm where this is the next evolution for humans.

We can focus the best of our energy on being whole and what is created from that place, and that this is something that is good for the all of us. As my friend Betsy says, being these rivers that when they flood their banks with their creativity, it feeds the entire ecosystem. That very specific vision for what we’ll call my coaching work, that specificity flows when I’m sitting squarely in the truth of my own knowing.

And there have been other times when I have gotten off track and been like – you know, my email list is only 500. There was a time when I had heard that your email list had to be at 1000 raving fans, something like that, for you to be able to break six figures.

And I stared down a path of trying to figure out all the marketing in order to do that, and like, you know what? This does not feel true to me. This feels like I’m trying to achieve some external thing in order to, in order to, in order to.

It felt way too many steps and levels removed from my truth when I just decided to question that. Like, is that really true, that you can’t get to six – who made that up? Who made that up?

And then, I decided, no, I have 250 – that’s what I think I had on my list at the time. If that. Maybe 244, something like that. And it was with that list that I made my first six figures.

So, question all of these ways where you start to get further from your truth and you’re being specific, but it feels graspy, it feels like you’re trying to do something in order to, in order to. It feels very graspy and like you’re coming from lack and that you’re very attached. And to me, it feels like I’ve moved outside of myself, like I’ve left myself, versus again, when I’m settled and when I’m clear and maybe it has felt scary for me. It feels less scary now that I’ve said it a few times that this is what I’m doing. The Art School is an incubator for creative genius. It’s an incubator for the next generation of thriving and I will also say rich artists.

And it is also an incubator for people who come into a sense of wellbeing that is so deep and so profound that those external achievements feel amazing, and also feel like gravy.

And there was a time when I announced my $2 million a year goal as a creative, as a coach, as an artist. And that is very specific. And it felt very scary. It feels less scary now because I have said it so many times. And in saying it the first time, it allowed me to have this conversation, to come in alignment with the truth about who I really am, that I get to declare and decide what I’m going to create in this world, and it also then illuminated all of the places where I was out of alignment with my truth because I was playing small.

And when I was playing small, interestingly, then any specifics or goals I did set were those ones that felt attached and graspy, or when I was playing small. And this is something I see most often with clients who are like, “I just don’t know what I want. I don’t think I should be specific. I don’t think that will work for me.” Is because it’s coming from a place of not having had these deeper conversations with themselves about deciding who they are and then committing to that and then committing to creating that. And that is another gift of specificity. That it will illuminate all of those places where you are arguing for your own limitations, where you are afraid to declare first to yourself and then to the world who you are, what you’re doing, what you’re capable of, being the change you want to see in the world.

You’re scared to speak about the contribution you want to make. You’re scared about speaking out about the vision for the world that you think is possible. And again, inviting in specificity will start to illuminate these places. It will be such a profound and empowering part of your healing, of your whole making, of you coming into your own as a creative powerhouse, as somebody who begins to understand the depths of their gifts and what they are creating and the contribution they can make in the world.

And my last point about specificity is that so many people will say, “Well, I’m afraid of declaring who I am and what I want to create in the world because what if I am wrong? What if I don’t create it? What if I don’t get there?”

But what I want to ask you is, what if you do? What if you’re right about yourself? What if the only way you’ve been wrong about yourself is that you have greatly underestimated what you’re capable of? What if you do cross that finish line?

Like my friend Nicole, she could say, “What if I don’t make it past the finish line? What if I am not the kind of athlete that will make it the 100 miles in the desert?” But what if she does? What if she is?

And you know what? Now, she has. And the same is possible for you. You get to move beyond questions of, “What if I don’t make it?” You start to entertain the possibility of, “But what if I do?” And then, you move towards it. You might have a failure. You use that to increase your belief in your trust within yourself because artists are someone on whom nothing is ever wasted. And we learn to reap the wisdom and the strength from anything that comes our way. And then, you become somebody who builds momentum because they understand they are building soul in the process. They understand they are living an incredible, an amazing life that is honoring the truth within them.

They are living a life that is in alignment with what they’re capable of, what they’re built for. And then for those people who still say, if they miss what I’ve already said and what I already teach and they’re like, “Oh, but when I’m specific, I’m so hard on myself and I tear my life down.” But then wait. You are not creating specificity from alignment. Because you also get to be specific about who you are becoming and ow you are treating yourself through the entire process.

You get to be specific about how you treat yourself when you do decide, “You know what? I’m going to lay down next to the trail and take a nap.” And then, you get to have your own back. You get to decide that if you have whatever your race is, one where you quote unquote fail or you don’t finish, you get to decide how you treat yourself. You get to decide your relationship to yourself and to your life and to your journey along the way.

And that is an area where I want to invite you to not skip over being specific. Be so clear about how you want to be with yourself in this life, who you want to be with yourself, encountering all kinds of experiences, not just the successes, but the more difficult things, the places that are harder to look at, the places where it’s harder to be with ourself.

That, to me, is where some of the magic of specificity happens, being able to pause in those difficult moments and say, “Who exactly do I have the choice to be right now? Who do I want to be? What is true? What is most beautiful and loving and true for me in this moment?”

Name it. Declare it. Define it. Declare who you are. Declare who you are becoming. Declare what you love. Declare what you want. Be specific.

So, this brings me to the part of the podcast where I want you to do more than just listen. I want you to lean in and really work with me. Coach with me. This coaching, it works. It will transform your life from the inside out. But in order for the coaching to work, you’ve got to work the coaching.

Don’t just consume, but be a Creator, a capital C Creator. Contemplate it. Ask deeper questions. Take it for a walk. Ask how it applies to your life and then implement it. Experiment. Try. Go to that place where the rubber meets the road and you get actual feedback from life and from yourself about what is working and what’s not working.

So, here is the question I have for you in today’s episode. If you were going about creating the kind of container in which magic can happen, in which your creative genius, your gifts can thrive can blossom, can flow into the world, you can also receive everything that you need for your thriving and your continued support and flourishing and growth, then ask yourself what your relationship to specificity is.

And if you find yourself being reluctant, then examine why, “Why am I not being specific? If I were specific, that would mean X, Y, and Z.” Another thing that comes up, another fear people have – and I mentioned this in a tangential way earlier but I’ll call it specifically out here, is that people think if they’re specific then there is going to be this overwhelming avalanche, crushing, soul-sucking avalanche of things that they have to do.

So, again, I want to point out that that’s coming from scarcity. Because if you’re coming from a place of trusting your own innate connection to some powerful force within the universe, if you’re knowing yourself to be here as an empowered creative genius, as someone meant to thrive, if you can even just lean into that 1% more, then you will see how thoughts that, “I’m going to have to do all of this work,” are thoughts that come again from scarcity, from a poverty consciousness, from a lack of trust, versus coming from a place of you have a self-concept that is spacious and amazing, and also I would say leaves room for what I think is a key to this process. And that is, like, leaves room for something better.

When I’m specific, I always love to say – and I suggest this to my clients – be specific. Say, “This is what I want. This is what I’m creating.” And, or something better. Because for me too, that is leaving room for the sprit. That is leaving room for the divine. That is leaving room for something that knows me and knows what I want and loves so much better than I do. But I have done my part. I am surrendering, in many ways, by being specific. I am surrendering to what is mine to do and I am also allowing in something greater than me.

That helps me avoid thinking that I have to create and move through all of these tedious and daunting tasks and instead moves to me to a place of power, of knowing, “Okay, what is my next step here? What is my next step to take? What is mine to do in this moment?” And part of what mine is always to do is to come back and rest in that place of knowing and trust and belief.

So, consider this question. What is your relationship to specificity? Is it an avoidance that’s coming from fear? Is it an avoidance that’s coming from lack? Another way I like to approach this is that if you find you are avoiding specificity or that you do have some kind of lack or fear-based relationship to it, one inroad, one way I like to leapfrog over that is to think about someone else who I think would have no problem being specific, or seems to have no problem being specific and naming who they are and what they’re going to create in the world.

And then, I’m like, what are my thoughts and what are my beliefs about this person? Do I believe that “Oh, they are supported by the universe? They are very intelligent. They are able to be resilient and withstand adversity. They are talented…” whatever it is, list out your inventory of thoughts and beliefs and feelings about that person and about their relationship to the world and see what is available there for you to integrate into your own knowing about yourself. So often, what you are seeing in them is a reflection of where your truth is within yourself, and that will help you come into alignment with that truth.

And finally, related to that, if I find that clients still have some part of their brain that is putting up a wall or a thick fog or a veil between what they really want and their ability to see that and know that and articulate it, here is a fun side door around that.

So, I will ask them, if I could wave a magical wand, if I were your fairy godmother and could wave a magical wand, what would you like to be, do, or have within 12 weeks? If I, as your fairy godmother, so it’s all on me, right, what it’s doing is removing this idea in the mind that this is something that they are going to have to create, it removes the weight and that oppression of the how and opens them up again to the knowing of their imagination, it opens them up to possibility. And I think also opens them up to be a channel, a clear channel for their truth and for the truth of wat’s possible for them.

So, then I will keep going. If I were your fairy godmother and I waved a magic wand, what would you create in a year? What would you be, do, or have, experience? What would be different in your life in a year? And then we do three years. And then we do 10.

So, I wanted to offer that as well, if you have found that your being gets into such a place of fear when you try to be specific that you just shut down, that you have fight, you know, flight, or freeze response, or that it’s just a blank and you feel blocked, use this magic wand exercise as a profoundly effective and magical way of reopening that channel within you and allowing yourself access to that truth that’s within you, that allows you to begin to, again, open the floodgates and start to let those desires and start to let those truths flow.

It doesn’t have to be something you commit to or set to in stone, but just the act of being able to flow them out into the world again, to write them, to speak them. Because even if you speak them to no one else but yourself, that process of using your own instruments, your body, your voice, to feel the vibration that your desires make as they move through your body via your voice is powerful. And then, if you can find a place where there is a sacred container, where there is spaciousness and there is trust and you know you will be seen and heard and honored, I would advise that too.

One of the most important things though that I want you to remember is to do this from a place of deep love for yourself. Where love is deep, much can be accomplished. I really think that’s one of the secrets, not secrets, of the Art School and the Art School as a profoundly effective sacred container, is that I know if I can get someone in there and I can see them and they can be felt and held and that which is within them feels safe to be seen and expressed in this environment, that that will then take on a life of its own and it will grow in there.

And it’s one of those things that once you have someone in a space like that and once they have felt what it is, for that truth within them to be alive in the world, it’s really hard to go back. You don’t want to go back. And it then begins this process of generating an innate powerful life-affirming momentum, where again, there’s no way out but up.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of The Art School Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, if this podcast has been a meaningful, inspiring, beautiful part of your life, I am so very grateful. And if you would like to join me in this movement, in this rising tide that lifts all ships, the best way to do that is to spread the word.

You can take a screenshot as you listen to the podcast and tag me on social media. You can hashtag #theartschool, #theartschoolpodcast. You can tag me, @leahcb1. I would love to connect with you, and again, am very grateful for those of you that join this community and this movement, whether you have worked with me or whether we have met personally, connected personally or not, I definitely feel a connection and can feel this movement taking on a new life, a new momentum of its own.

So, thank you for all of the ways that you are playing a part in that. And if you would like to connect and you would like to take this work to the next level, if there is a next level this year in your goals, in your dreams, if there is a next level that you just know is available to you within your own heart, within your mind, within your creativity, then I would invite you to join us in the Art School.

It is a sacred container for next-level creative genius. It is a sacred container for learning the meta process of creating whatever it is that you want in life and then being able to take that process, once it’s in your being, and apply it over and over and over again. Not only to creating your goals and crossing those finish lines, but really becoming who you want to be, creating a life that you are wildly in love with and that you love to wake up to, creating such a life that you are looking forward to that compelling future and you are also in love with the process of the day.

This is what it means to honor the sacred twin intention. Not only is it about the sacred goal. But we are all about crushing those. It is also about creating a life that is truly yours, a life on your own terms, a life marked by your values, freedom, financial stability, financial success, creativity, love, joy, inner peace, strength from the inside out.

So, you can email us support@leahcb.com to learn more about options for working with me. We have an upcoming exclusive masterclass that is going to be advanced level coaching. I’m really going to push you hard in this class. So, you don’t necessarily need to be an advanced level coachee or coach, but you need to be willing to jump in at the deep end and you need to be somebody who really loves to be challenged and who does not need white glove treatment, does not need to have someone walk on eggshells around them.

That being said, I’m very deeply loving. But in this workshop, I am coming from a place of deeply loving and going to push and challenge and expect that you can hold your own and ask excellent questions and participate with a full heart, full mind, vulnerable, and courageous and ready to go, ready to hit the ground running.

So, you can also email us, support@leahcb.com if you’d like to take part in that. It’s happening in May. Just four classes. They’re going to be intimate, but again, focused and advanced level. I’m calling this an opportunity to polish your Olympic Gold Medal.

So, if you are gunning for something in your life that is the equivalent of that Olympic Gold Medal and you not only want that prize and to be standing on the podium. But you want to feel that shining gold heart within yourself. You want to feel an Olympic athlete in terms of your mindset, your emotional mastery, your belief in yourself, your love for yourself, and your knowing that once you set your heart and mind on something, you will achieve it, then this masterclass, this miniseries is for you.

Also, I have a book coming out, a combination of poetry and creative invitations, creative prompts. It’s called Wild Blue Yonder. It is available for presale and the official book launch is May 5^th. And on May 4^th, I’d love to invite all of you and your friends to join me on the platform RevelEleven. I will be doing a special presentation about cultivating the creativity to dream big and everything that you need to not only dream big, bit to actually achieve that in the world and to achieve it from a place of love and strength and self-compassion.

Information on all of these things, including upcoming free workshops I offer is available on my website, www.leahcb.com and you can also email us with any questions at support@leahcb.com.

To close today, I want to speak to what I think may be at the heart of what is keeping most people from being specific. And that is this fear about what if I’m wrong? What if I declare who I am and what if I declare with specificity and audacity what I really want to create, what I really want to experience in this lifetime, and what if I don’t get there? What if I am not that? And I want to say to you, the greater tragedy would be to not declare, to not say this is who I am, that I’m going to define my life and define who I am and I’m going to create my dreams and I’m going to do it on my own terms.

Because what if you’re right? What if you do do that? What awaits you? That, to me, that’s your truth. That possibility is your truth and there is no downside to going all in and to developing the love and self-belief it takes to go all in on yourself and all in on your dreams.

I love you guys. Have a beautiful, amazing week and I will talk to you next time.