Ep #88: Defining Your Own Future

Are you by a vision of the future or controlled by memories of the past? Dr. Joe Dispenza poses this question in various forms throughout his writings and teachings. It’s the kind of question that if you take it to heart, really reflect and contemplate, that one question can revolutionize your entire life.

The next few episodes of the Art School podcast are dedicated to taking a deep dive into this topic and providing you the specific resources, techniques, practices and coaching. So that you can become a creative powerhouse defined by your vision of the future and not controlled by a loyalty to who you have been in the past, who other people have told you, you can be in the past, not defined by the results you have or have not created yet.

But instead, creating your future going forward by harnessing the power of your imagination, tapping in to the unlimited possibilities and opportunities that come from really leaning in to human potential and creative potential.

In these next few episodes I’m sharing with you parts of a masterclass that I created and provided to my Art School and Mastermind enrollees. So while you won’t hear the coaching for privacy readings, I am sharing with you so many of the techniques, ideas and practices that I share with my clients.

So no matter where you are in life, whether you’re riding high on the crest of a creative and prosperous wave with the wind at your back, or whether you’re currently navigating some very difficult terrain. I want you to know that you too can learn to use the energy of your vision as the most powerful, dominant energy in your life in the power of your imagination as the most defining force. Learning to do this will change your life in more profound lasting ways than you can imagine. It can also change the lives of those you love the most, and likely many people you may never even meet.

I think these are among the most essential skill sets needed by our generation of wise heart and soul centered creatives, thinkers, visionaries and leaders. These things can be learned and cultivated just like any other mindset and way of being. You won’t believe how much you can change and how far you can go once you really truly deeply decide and commit to becoming a powerful creative. And then decide again, and again, and again to align yourself with that truth.

These are techniques that I have used myself to create so many dreams and so much change and progress in my life, from paintings, to art sales, to clients, to 50k months, to building a seven figure business. They’re techniques, and skills, and practices that my clients are using to write books, to get book deals, to create new bodies of work, to take their creative careers and dreams to the next level. This is even the technique that I used to create our dream house that we just recently moved into.

There’s so much for you here if you lean in, coach with me throughout this entire episode. I hope you enjoy.

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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 everyone, and welcome to the Art School podcast. Thank you for listening in, I so appreciate the audience, the community. And I appreciate those of you who take the time to write in with personal messages and just connect. And then those of you that I ultimately get to meet and get to know as clients to the Art School or as Mastermind clients.

So I just wanted to kick off today by not being remiss and stating my appreciation and gratitude for everyone. I do list in my journal, I just list because it’s more of a meditation, I write down and meditate upon the things that I’m grateful for. And many of you who I’ve never met, I take great joy in writing down that we have some connection, and that that’s made possible through this medium and through you choosing to invest your time in listening in. So thank you for being part of this community and part of my gratitude meditation, including this morning.

So I hope things are well in your corner of the world and that are you are safe. We are partway through the year and you may be revisiting your goals for 2020. I have been doing that too, not that anything has changed. It’s just an evaluation and a review of what’s working, what hasn’t worked, what’s worked well, what would I want to do differently? And what can I put in place to stay on track or even exceed my targets for the rest of 2020?

And then also what can I take away? That’s been a question I’ve been loving, is one of editing and streamlining and paring down and asking myself the question, what is sacred and essential to me? What is essential and sacred? And I’m certainly wanting to create plenty of space throughout this rest of the summer to enjoy the beautiful weather here in Michigan. To have plenty of time with my family out in nature, especially over at the lake, we love that.

I am also taking my children back to my parents’ house, my home where I grew up, my childhood home in Iowa for a week. So everyone, my parents and also the kids are greatly anticipating that. My sister was out with her new baby and her other two littles to visit us, so that’s always amazing and even more deeply appreciated after quarantining and not seeing each other for so long, especially when there’s a new baby in the mix.

So things here are good and as I create this for you I’m looking out the window or my new office and taking in the amazing wild flowers. We planted, guys, we planted like, I think it’s 15 acres that had been in a crop rotation and we, through a government CRP program, a Conservation Restoration Program, we have planted it in wild flowers and native grasses. And it is beyond, beyond beautiful. I’ve posted pictures and sent my family, pictures. And then my sister came and she was like blown away. She said, “The pictures don’t even do it justice.”

So yeah, I am for sure a flower geek and love taking walks out there and I’ll post more pictures too on Instagram in case you are a nature enthusiast and a flower enthusiast too, because every day there is another variety popping up. And it just, it is like a vortex of beauty and peace and magic out there.

I also recently shared a picture of a special corner, the back southeast corner of our farm where we hung a secret destination tire swing. And it’s where I spent, throughout the last seven years that we have owned this property, where I spent a considerable amount of time doing exactly what I’m going to be sharing through this workshop, that I’m sharing with you today, doing my work practices of mental discipline and creative visualization, doing the play of that.

Reconnecting to my values, to my north star, my inner compass and my vision for life, particularly through some really painful times too, through some difficult terrain of my own and I shared more about this in a newsletter. So hopefully you’re signed up for my newsletter, if you’re not, why not? Go to my website, leahcb.com and get on that list, I share a very personal story. And the headline of the newsletter, the title was “Going from Crying in the Back of a Blue Chevy Malibu to Literally Waking Up in the Middle of a Dream.”

And the visualization, the imagination, and also the learning from painful experiences and growing through those experiences and then reflecting on them, and through coaching and deep inner work. And also creative, emotional, spiritual, mental and physical elbow grease, to literally wake-up in the middle of a dream. And not only in the result of it, but truly feeling like I’ve grown into more of who I’m meant to be in that process.

And I never want to share with my clients or with any of you, things that I am not practicing myself and things that have not actually worked for me or worked for my clients. So that’s why I went a little bit more personal with that newsletter, and sharing just a little bit of the story with you now. Because as a coach and as a teacher I definitely want to focus on my clients, on you, on your process, on your dreams, on your vision and result, and I also know there are times when I need to pull back and remember that you don’t actually know me.

And I want you to know, it works, I am sharing with you what has worked for me. And the thing is in the midst of my own dark nights of the soul, I was practicing things I deeply believed in and I thought it was interesting that in those times I could also probably have taught and coached on these things.

But I knew that story is inspiring and evidence is a great teacher for people. So I knew that I was doing it for myself and I was also doing it so that I would have the evidence and a story for you all to have faith in. So that you could have faith also in the process, and believe in the process, so that you would have a reason to keep going beyond when your current level of belief runs out.

So I’m sharing these things because I’ve been there. And I also know sort of the double edged sword of that can be sometimes that people lean back and say, “Sure, easy for you to say. You’re living in the middle of the dream right now. You’re not in debt. You’re not in difficulty. Your relationship is not in jeopardy. You’re not feeling pressure this way or that.” But I want you to know that’s where I created it all, within the thick of that.

I decided to be who I wanted to be and not be defined by circumstances around me. I decided to take control of my mind and my emotions and lead from a deeper truth within me. And also be led by a greater higher vision for my life, that’s absolutely how I created it and it’s how you can create it too.

Again, you may also have already built so many things and are in the middle of a dream right now, and not in difficulty, not in a painful place. And this is for you too, because I am definitely riding high on that wave of creativity, and prosperity. Also feeling deeply the events of this year and that is not nothing as I know all of you are very compassionate, big hearted people out there know as well.

And I – this is like; I’m scratching the surface for what I can do. I am so excited for things like the mastermind, for what the women in this mastermind, so far all women, who knows, we might still have a man in the mix. We start kickoff officially in August, so if you’re interested in that you still have a month left to apply.

This, mark my words, fast forward there are going to be so many works of creative genius, so many lives changed, so many revolutions in people’s lives and income. And just knowing who they are as a person and knowing that they are someone, no matter what they set their mind to, they’re going to create it, no matter the odds, no matter what other people say, no matter whether it’s been done before, no matter whether it’s been done that way before.

There is going to be just a star trail of brilliance, leading back to this incubator of creative genius that is the mastermind for the Art School and is the Art School. And I would love to have you in this group. I would love for you to be able to say, “Hey, I got in on the ground floor. I got in on the fairly early days.”

So if you drew a Venn diagram, and one of the circles is creativity, the arts, another circle is the field of human potential, another circle is entrepreneurialism, making money, building wealth, and another circle is intuition, spiritual evolution. At that intersection in the middle, that sweet spot, that sweet spot is exactly what we are doing in the Art School and in the Art School Mastermind.

So if that’s the kind of sweet spot you are craving and that you know you need, it’s the ideal creative ecosystem to grow your art, to grow your wealth, to grow your life, to tap into your potential and amplify that in the most meaningful and profound of ways. Then don’t miss out on this next round because this next six months for the Mastermind, the 12 weeks for the Art School are going to be the most powerful yet. And I promise, some of the most powerful in your life. So I would love to have you join us.

And without further ado, I’ll let you get on and enjoy this first part of the workshop that I recently offered. I’m sharing with you a portion of the July summer workshop series, the workshop is entitled The Art, Play, Freedom and Abundance of Mental Discipline and Creative Visualization. There are other components to the summer workshop series and the Art School; this is like a fraction of what we do in the Art School. So you could take this, this is a fraction of what I offered for this workshop. And then this is a fraction of what we do in the Art School, and that’s what I bring over and over again.

Also this doesn’t include the group coaching that I do, so if that is something that you want to take a deep dive into, definitely head over to my website and check out the Art School, or consider applying to the Art School Mastermind.

One more short note before I let you launch into the workshop, the way I would suggest approaching this is not just to listen. So we’re going to do the Coach with Me a little bit differently today.

The way I would suggest you use this workshop is to listen all the way through first and then go back through where you’re somewhere where you can sit down and write with a pen and paper. Maybe double up the speed and get to the parts where I pose questions to them. And give yourself to answer those questions, pause the video, answer the questions and then go to the end, reflect on the questions, reflect on your answers.

And then wait 24 hours and go back and read through your notes, what you learned, what your responses were and see if there’s anything that you have to add to that. So that will be your Coach with Me portion. And now enjoy the workshop.

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So this is a very long title, The Art, Play, Freedom and Abundance of Mental Discipline and Creative Visualization. And I felt like especially the mental discipline part, I needed to preface it with the art, play, fun and abundance. So I mean here the collective energetic groan that comes with that, because that’s really why it’s again one of those things that once you have that kind of paradigm shift of, oh, this is not something I do to penalize myself, or another structure I need to force myself into, mutate myself, violence to myself in order to make it work.

It’s really something meant to support your freedom, your abundance, your art, your playfulness and your thriving. And I think it takes pulling back and kind of rising above your life to think about what can I put in play. The discipline is a kind of an infrastructure, what can you put in play and in place that supports that, that supports the flourishing of your creative potential, that supports success, that supports the flow of money, the flow of opportunities?

The flow of experiences that just make you feel like, yeah, this is why I am here. The flow of experiences that make you excited to get out of bed in the morning.

And so before I launch into, I would love to hear, if you guys write in the chat, if you have any preexisting, and again don’t coach yourself before. This is uncensored download in the chat of questions, thoughts, current judgments or biases about mental discipline or creative visualization. Or things that have worked for you, things that you’ve loved, things that you’ve been frustrated with, things that you’ve tried and haven’t worked, things that you don’t understand, or places where you get stuck.

And also just your level of just honestly where you are – where you think you are in that process. Do you feel like you’re pretty solid? Being disciplined, mentally disciplined and by that I mean you have a vision, so, that there is the vision.

And then the mental discipline is what is your awareness of how your thinking currently lines up with that true self. Whether it’s a future self, you want to think of it as your true self, and the discipline is the awareness of knowing when you are thinking in ways that are out of alignment. And then you just get back on the horse, how long does it take you to get back on the horse? And also if you’re not sure too, where your awareness is, a good place to look are your results.

Hey, Kitty. Kitty just joined us. So there is a quote from, we’re going to lead with the scientist’s quote here, let me find that, just one minute.

Okay, so this is from Joe Dispenza’s book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, which I love. “The latest research supports the notion that we have a natural ability to change the brain and body by thought alone. So that it looks biologically like some future event has already happened because you can make thought more real than anything else you can change who you are from the brain cell to the gene, given the right understanding.”

And then from his book, You Are the Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter. He writes, “First every day I would put all of my conscious attention on this intelligence within me and give it a plan, a template, a vision in very specific orders.” So you can hear him talk about his mental discipline there and his creative visualization. He goes on to say, “And then I would surrender my healing to this greater mind that has unlimited power allowing it to do the healing for me. And second, I wouldn’t let any thoughts slip by my awareness that I didn’t want to experience.”

So, again, both the creative visualization and the mental discipline together. And he talks about in his work a lot of times in terms of physical healing. And I think in terms of becoming the creative powerhouse that you’re meant to become, accessing the potential you’re meant to become. That is a reclamation of your wholeness, the word ‘healing’ to make whole.

So I do believe becoming that settling in to your natural innate power is a healing process. You might not be healing a physical illness or a disease, but it is – and if you’ve ever felt creatively disempowered, or disempowered in any area of your life, you’ll know how painful it is. It is a healing.

And then too, the healing and the wholeness that we can bring to the world when we are fully fuelled and funded, creatively, spiritually, financially, and using these processes of creative visualization and mental discipline in order to guide yourself, and cultivate that way of being. And a way of being is thinking, thinking the language of the mind, the feeling the language of the body, that is who you are being. And so who you are being then creates naturally some results in your life.

So I’ve talked so many times in the Art School about what we’re doing is cultivating that way of being in mind, body and spirit, that makes the results that you desire inevitable. And so if you read the newsletter that I sent out last night about crying in the driveway, and anyway I was moving into that house I did not want to move into. And more than it being about the house, it was just the sense of this is so not what I want to create. And why do I feel so trapped and powerless? That was very much about not feeling aligned and integrated with my creative power.

And then so from that place though, deciding to make – like I remember how terrible it felt sitting in the backseat. And in that moment too, is it for sure felt like a low moment, remembering things like when I first heard from Martha Beck that how it’s a scene, it’s a bitter scene. How do you know the ocean, the sea? Because it tastes of salt, and then how do you know truth? Because it tastes of freedom.

So in that moment I knew this is not free, I do not feel free in this moment, so disempowerment cannot be my truth. That must mean that the greater part of me lies with the knowing that I am so creatively powerful and that’s why this feels so terrible. Is because I am not currently completely aligned, integrated, whole, healed with the truth of me, which is that I can create exactly what I want.

So the first part of that, and so for all of you, I want you to think about the first part, where you are holding yourself back from allowing yourself to want what you really want? Because even as I sat there in the driveway, I could hear the voice of, “Oh, but your family is well and you grew up in houses like this, you both grew up in houses like this. There are more important things in life, like the shaming, the degrading.” And so where are you not allowing yourself the vision of what you really want?

So be unapologetic about your desires and about what you really want, because not only is it the thing, not only is it the house, but it’s those images, like our psyche speaks powerfully in terms of imagery and symbols. So it can be those imagery and symbols that are the breadcrumbs that lead you to freedom and that lead you to your greatest creative potential. So it’s important to not judge the symbols, it’s important to not judge yourself for wanting what you want.

And then secondly, there is another quote I love and this one is from A Course in Miracles and it’s, “Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you and it is your acceptance of it that makes it real.” So a couple of things there, first you have to know what you want as your reality, and so, much of our allegiance is to what already is, which is the manifestation and the creation of our past thoughts and feelings, especially our past concept of who we are.

And then so do we want to be, again another Joe Dispenza quote, “Do we want to be defined by our vision of the future or do we want to be defined by our memories and controlled by our memories of the past?” And I think if you really want a more expansive and creatively empowered life you have to first peel off the layers of where you’re judging yourself for what you want, what you want. You have to get clear on what you want and want unapologetically.

And then there is this part about the mental discipline of rehearsal. And I think this is where a lot of people get off track is because it comes down to something like so simple, but also so tedious and that requires a lot of persistence, like practice. And it also comes down to an unreasonable, and seemingly, sometimes dangerous amount of belief that’s required to persist in creating a reality from your vision of the future, rather than what currently is, because we’re all afraid of being crazy. We’re all afraid of who do I think I am. And we’re all afraid of being wrong.

And so it seems so much more responsible to go to what has been done, what we have done, what other people have done, rather than to persist in believing in a future that we haven’t created yet.

And I wrote in that email too about using the vision of the future and using the force of your imagination as the predominant energies in your life, as the predominant creative energies in your life but also the predominant reality in your life. And that’s something else I referenced in the newsletter and why I included the picture of that tree in the back. Because it took mental discipline and persistence and some pulling back and coming out of the day-to-day to come back to what I wanted to create on purpose, rather than to react and stay in the spin of what was.

And to do that when the rest of the world seems to pressure you to continue to be loyal to what’s happened in the past and to what you’ve done in the past.

So one thing that I think where people get off the rails with both the mental discipline process and the creative visualization is because the mental discipline, the creative visualization, I should also add in there that there is an emotional discipline. And that sounds so harsh even, it’s misleading almost, but it’s so much more nourishing than that, it’s deciding your way of being, but particularly what do you want to feel and reclaiming your ability to generate that independent of external circumstances.

So I want you to think of what is a vision that you hold, what is a cherished vision that you hold? What’s the first one that comes to – that’s just you’re dying to create? And first, how clearly can you see it? How clearly do you know what you would be thinking and how you’d be thinking differently in that vision? And do you know what you would be feeling? And that feeling state, that emotional state is key. I feel like that’s something that unlocks the door because an emotion is energy in motion.

And as we all know we can do all sorts of improvements, we can do all sorts of learning. We can offer all sorts of effort. We can do all sorts of self-coaching, thinking different thoughts, thinking positive thoughts. But at the end of the day if you don’t feel different – you could even create lots of different results and not feel any differently.

And then one of the most common frustrations I hear from people is, “I do all this work but I don’t feel changed. I’ve even created this huge thing and I don’t feel it.” And that’s because we’ve got it backwards, we are continuing to outsource our power to the thing and wanting it to change us.

But we have to do the inner work of creating that state of being change on the inside. And the place you begin again is with getting really clear on what that is, how do you want to feel? And it’s okay in the beginning if you’re like, “I am not sure. I know what it isn’t.” Sometimes that’s where you start with, “Here’s what I know it isn’t.” It isn’t this feeling of constantly judging myself. It isn’t this feeling of constantly worrying about what other people think of me or if I’m doing something right.

I’m going to venture a guess that for many of you, one of the feeling states is freedom, freedom to be who you are. And my particular obsession is creative genius and when I go to the tail end of what would be so awesome about that? It would be the freedom to be entitled to the thoughts that you think and love and trust, the thoughts you think and the ideas that come from you and the work that you do and your ability to flow in the world, without the overlay of violence and filter, and second guessing. And oh my God, did I just say that? And oh my God, I can’t believe that.

It would be freedom to flow of who you really are and then it’s that freedom creates momentum. And you start to break down that dam and then with that comes an unleashing of your power. And that creates powerfully, but oh my God, what you create is like the fraction of what it is to just experience yourself in that state of your flowing.

And again come back to it. It’s trust, it’s freedom and underneath it is an unconditional love, an allowing of yourself to just be in the world and flow and then of course make a lot of mistakes. But then not judge yourself, not slow your role because of that. But to be like, yeah, I’m on a mission here, something’s flowing. I am a conduit for some higher energy and potential. I was given this dream and vision for a reason.

Think about that for a minute, whatever your great vision is, if you really knew that that was given to you for a reason, and you’ve never doubted that. What would that be like, to never doubt that, to just flow with it? And if that’s a hard place for you to go in your imagination, think of somebody that you think is a creative genius. And you just wish they would flow and flow more, just whatever they have to create in the world you’re like, “Yeah, more of that please.”

And here’s a paradox, that’s also I have to say that we need to be hard on ourselves for the times that we do doubt because here’s what it does, it’s like the fire that forges a stronger skill set in you to focus and to think greater. It was like the feeling so powerless and trapped and miserable about living in that house without having anything to say about it.

Because it was like there’s more back story, and so I was sitting on the driveway, I’m like, “God, what’s the meaning of this?” Get you, hold this thing out and you take it away and I think, again, the worst part was that I felt like, why do I feel like I’m not the master of my destiny here and cannot control anything?

And so again that comes back to; I decided I cannot use that to be hard on myself, if at the end of the day what I wanted to be was creatively powerful. I had to think about this as how is this happening for me to help me become more creatively powerful, so that I do create an experience, exactly what I want. And I don’t feel like I am the victim of my life and that I can’t have what my heart most wants.

And I think it, for sure all of those times when external reality seems to want to suggest that what we’re doing is not working, are absolutely the times when you go back to that place of where you are led by the vision of who you know you want to be. And it is a place of; it feels sometimes like a deliberate obliviousness to what is. But you really have to lean into the feeling state of what would it be like to be somebody, who even though you aren’t currently, doesn’t look like you’re doing it, you have to believe that you’re doing it.

So one exercise that I have given people many times, and it is a hard one because we want to keep score. And this is how people – this is where they get off the rails with this is when they start to keep score and know it’s not working. The moment you say, “It’s not working,” is like the moment that it doesn’t work, rather than stopping keeping score and persisting in the thought, this is working because I committed, because I’ve decided.

I’ve talked so many times about the importance of committed, this is done, this is happening. It doesn’t matter what things currently look like, it doesn’t matter what people’s opinions of me currently are. I have decided who I am and what I’m creating and what I’m doing. I am holding the vibration of that vision, that commitment and that belief.

I am going to hold that, and now something in the world in reality has to change, and it’s not going to be me, unless it’s you to rise to the level of that vision and belief. That you’re not going to alter your belief and that vision. And that’s the place where things start to – your brain gets scared and it wants to say, “Retreat, retreat, this is crazy talk, this is not working. We are losing money.” And/or you lose money and then you make it and then you lose it. And you’re like, “And I’m here again.”

So again, the exercise I’ve given people is like live for a year in the energy, in the feeling state that we have been of what you want. So let’s say you want to make six figures in a year. What would it be like for a whole year to live as the person who is not only making six figures but making it in a way that feels very aligned with you and your entire life vision?

You’re working in a way that brings you alive, it comes from your naturally – from your gifts, feels like what you’re there for. The rest of your life feels in balance, and full, and thriving, what would it be like to live as that person for a year? Because that’s the energy that actually then creates those results and not the other way around.

So for you again, think about what that vision is. And when I say live in that for a year that would be your discipline, to be aware of how you’re thinking, to be aware of how you’re feeling. And then the actions that flow from that, of how you’re showing up in the world, it’d be very much a year committed to being in process and committed to the effort. What comes up? Lisa says, “That is a lot of work, yes.” Yes, that’s a thought. Yeah, it is a thought. And so then hear this, where you wanted to go.

So it could be, so if you think of your future self, does she think that’s a lot of work or does she think this is similar to my, I get paid for being me thought? What would it be like to just be at home in your life? And would it be a lot of work to be you? And is it the past self that’s thinking that would be a lot of work? Is that really a thought of the future self?

Because I know it was a thought of my past self that should create that much income and more income would be a lot of work, because subconsciously I knew how much I would have to filter and contort myself. And to make myself acceptable, professional and polished, I knew how much energy, mental, emotional, spiritual energy would be drained by me worrying about disciplining people, worrying about making people angry, worrying about screwing up, worrying that they wouldn’t get it.

All thoughts of the past self, whereas if I went to my future self who is like, I love what I do, I love what I do. And I have organized my way, my life in a way that doesn’t do violence to me but is very supportive of me. So that I am not constantly obsessing about how I’m doing, or constantly obsessing about what others think about how I’m doing. And those are just examples I bring up because I realized when my mind went to, that’s a lot of work.

Most of the work was generated because I was anticipating how much I have to overwork to compensate for my lack of belief and me showing up and sharing something that was transformative and incredibly valuable. And also me anticipating the amount of emotional work I’d have to do to not be exhausted by the mental gymnastics of trying to manipulate what other people think of me or worrying about what other people think of me.

Let’s see. Okay, it takes pressure off the action, alright. So, okay, I am going to give you guys an exercise and this really – Betsy, that’s a great question. So what to do when it is really hard to believe, then that is – and we’ll coach too – today too. So if you have something in mind specifically, make sure you jot that down.

When it’s hard to believe, go back to the commitment, go back to whatever breadcrumb you have of here’s the vision, here’s what it is. Go back to the, I made this commitment and now let me do like an imaginative exercise where I assume that’s done. So I assume I’m at A, C is done, that assumes there is a B, that assumes there is a way. And if you hear certain really great artists, athletes, creative people, high performers talk they’ll do this thing, this logical – they’ll just jump right over logic.

It seems like the rest of us want them to explain a piece that’s missing, but they’re like, “I had a thought that I could do it, so I did it.” And you’re like, “But, but, but, wait, wait, wait, what about all the in between parts?” And they’re like, “No, no, it’s really simple. There is a thing you want to create and then you do it.” And you’re like, “No, no, but what about like?” And they’re like – and there is a disconnect because there is something that they aren’t doing, not doing unconsciously that our mind wants to find a rational way to.

And it’s like a completely different model. We’re like, “No, just leap over that.” Like the part where if you’ve ever learned a different language and you have been – you’re starting and you’re surrounded by people and it’s like you understand nothing. And then you persist and persist and persist and you do an immersion program.

And then all of a sudden it’s like that Tower of Babel experience, where all of a sudden light bulbs go on and you’re like, “Whoa, I can understand everyone in here. And look, I’m dreaming in this language.” And I’m having beers with people in this… sometimes that’s easier. It clicks and we can’t quite explain how that happened, it’s more of like an acquisition. So with what’s to do and it’s hard to believe, come back to the commitment. Assume that there is a way.

And then with the belief then it’s like the mental discipline of like – and I’ll talk about these, all these different ways you can play with this. Is to what does work, asking yourself and expecting answers, what will work for me? And expecting an answer, and trusting yourself with the answer. And it goes back to my image about the dam, chiseling, and chiseling and coming at it with the energy of this will work. This is going to click. Some day I’m just going to cross over a line, I won’t even know it till I look behind me. And I’m like, “Whoa, look what I just did.”

And it will feel natural at that point, but it is like, it’s a persistence and it’s a persistence in faith and it’s also asking yourself, “Well, what about this and what about that?” And the other thing that came to mind when I read a question, what to do when it’s really hard to believe is the part of the quote about whatever your acceptance, your mind has reality for you, it is your acceptance of it that makes it real. So your like that acceptance of it that makes it real is similar to your belief question, that acceptance word is huge.

What do you all need for you to really accept something? And what is something – and this is a place I like to start with this. What is something that you currently accept that you don’t even have to think about? You’re like, “Of course, I accept that.” Like the sun coming up in the east in the morning, do you have to do mental gymnastics to convince yourself that that’s going to happen? Even this year, we’re still like, “No, I’m pretty sure, it’s still going to come up, as it has for millions of years.” Something that’s almost so – you take it for granted, that’s almost the energy of it.

And others of you, you do certain things in some areas of your life. My sister was here visiting with her family last week, and she was doing all these craft things with my kids, and I was like, “Gosh, for being an artist, I really don’t like doing crafty things.” I was so grateful that she does and she’s got all this energy and patience for doing all these crafty things with the kids. And I was like, “Wow, I did not get that gene. My mom has that.” I’m like, “I did not get it.”

And so I was kind of watching, how does her mind operate that she just does this and she’s in medicine? And her mind – this is like organizes itself in a different way. And then she said something just in passing as I was making dinner one night, and she is like, “How do you do this all the time?” She’s like, “You just make it look like nothing, just pull something together.” And she’s like, “And you’ve been feeding us three meals a day, amazing meals every day.” And I’m like, “It’s not hard, you just do it, it’s fun and you just do it.”

And so that’s like a little example of those things where someone else says, “Whoa, how do you do that?” And you’re like, “No, not a big deal.” So find that example in your life of something that you accept as your reality and it’s no big deal.

I think, Tracey [inaudible] workshop and Tracey’s talking about working 80, 100-hour weeks, delivering babies, catching babies, going here and there. And we are like, “What?” And then she said, “But I don’t feel like I’m really doing enough” And you’re like, “Seriously. Seriously.” “And I’m on this board and I’m on that board but I’m just not doing enough.” And you’re like, “What.”

So that energy though is an important energy, because it’s that energy that you’re like, “Oh, that kind of ease energy.” Imagine something that now to you seems so hard to believe that you could do it with ease, whether it’s an increased income, whether it’s finishing a creative work. Feel, like go into the energy, the feeling state of that place where you do something you accept as your reality very easily.

Our reality is something we have accepted and it feels easy, and it feels natural, it has a certain feeling to it. And now you go to that place and you pick it up and you move it over and you practice in this new arena. And you practice the feeling state first and then you draw that new activity and your thinking about it into the energy of this.

So I’m going to – before we go to coaching, I’m going to share with you a couple of different – three different creative visualization techniques, and the last one is my own made up one, and I’m partial to that one. We all integrate information differently, so I wanted to present as many different angles as possible. And also ultimately I think the things that have worked best for me have come from that place of slowing down to think deeply.

That one quote, “Whatever you accept into your mind has reality for you.” Is your acceptance of it that makes it real. I’m like, “Whoa, hang on, that acceptance word is huge.” How do you accept something? How do you accept something as your reality? And you all have done it because you all have changed and evolved. You are all not who you are doing what you did when you were seven or 17. And you can also have, if you want to speed up your rate of evolution, you can do that again. But how do you accept that? And your reality, what does it take?

And it was for me slowing down, thinking what does that acceptance feel like in my body? It feels like something becomes second nature. It feels like settling in, talked about this before, sinking back, not over-thinking, flowing, loving. That’s a key one for me, if I can get into a loving space, a heart centered space and drop out of my head, the other thing that really helps you with acceptance is to not be in a hurry. If you know you’re in a hurry, you’re not accepting and you’re not believing.

So that’s a great thing to be aware of, being in a rush, needing it to happen fast, thinking you’re behind are all – is all telling you you’re not in acceptance energy, you’re not in the energy of belief. Another thing that helps me drop back in acceptance, energy and belief is that, another A Course in Miracles statement, it’s, “The infinite patience creates immediate results.”

And that’s another one of those lines is if you think about that, and you take a walk and lots of walks until you’re like, “What does that mean? What does that feel like? What does infinite patience feel like?” And then you feel a shift.

So I actually have four creative visualization techniques to share with you, because my other one would be, to incorporate some movement or meditation and then become familiar with this future self with the vision and the feeling state of that. And either not get up, not stop walking, not go back home, not stop swimming, whatever it is, until you feel a shift.

There is something you are looking for, that which you seek is seeking you, that emotional state, that we are being state, that shift. And it will feel like a lock in. It might feel like you catch a whiff of something on the breeze and it’s here and then it’s gone. But that was not nothing.

You want to open that up and expand it. It was like a window and a portal that opened into your potential possibility. And you want to be like, “Oh, I know that door’s around here somewhere. I can feel my way back into it.” It might just open for a nanosecond but it tells you that it’s there. And it’s like finding your way back to that little energetic portal, opening the door, widening it and practicing being in that more and more times.

So I talked before about how I would go swimming, like when I was not making the money I wanted to make. I would go and swim laps and just think, one of the things, like 50k, that I am getting in this pool as somebody who has 50k months, like on a regular – just something I do. It’s not – I’m grateful, it’s not a big deal, I put things in place. I believe in this work and it’s just I’ve incorporated that into my being and accepted that as my reality. And I get into this pool and I swam as somebody who that’s just totally normal.

And I would just swim until I felt like I had like clicked into place. And you’re searching, you’re searching for something and you’re also knowing you’re going to find it and believing you’re going to find it.

And it is this art, it’s just an art of feeling your way into that place and sometimes it’s a, ooh, not that, that feels like forcing, that feels like my old self, that feels like thinking too hard, working too hard. Which all comes from overcompensating, which all comes from insecurity, which all comes from feeling inadequate, which all comes from doubting my innate genius. Which all comes from doubting that I have divine, a seed, a God seed within me wanting to be born, which all comes from thinking this is all me, and there isn’t some greater intelligence operating from and flowing through me.

That’s when I’m in that grind state versus when I’m moving in the pool I think of it as creature mode, swim like a dolphin, dolphins are not over-thinking it, a dolphin like down in their body and swimming and moving. And that’s how it can be in life, more yourself in the driver’s seat and your brain in the backseat. Like leading with something, that is so much greater than that part of you that wants to over-effort and that is kind of neurotic and self-obsessive and always scanning the environment for threats, always reactive.

And I’ll go for walks like that too, feeling into the energy of that way of being that I want to embody and walking as her. Because there’s something different, I do it like in seated meditation too, sitting there until I click into it and until I can hold it for longer, and longer, and longer. The feeling, I’ll let myself be led by the vision, what would be so awesome about – why that arbitrary number? What’s so awesome about 50k a month earner on the regular? And again, it comes back to, it’s a breadcrumb that leads me to what it is to live in this one life you have and love it.

Love what you have to offer, trust what you have to offer, love the process, including the learning, including the painful points. Love that you can know that you’re a lifelong learner and even take the painful points and then reflect. And then use it to evolve and grow, and use it to grow in wisdom and in truth of who you really are.

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I hope you enjoyed that workshop and took a lot from it. Again, the Coach With Me portion of this episode is to listen through to the entire episode once and then to go back through, take notes, write down the questions. Pause the recording to answer those questions. And then read back through your notes, the questions and the answers at the end. And then after that, wait 24 hours, research shows we forget 80% of what we learn in 24 hours. So the way, the antidote to that is to reflect and revisit what your notes were, what your questions and answers were 24 hours later.

Here is the other key thing to do, pick one to three things that you took from this episode that you can now act upon, integrate and implement within your life, again, within 24 hours if possible, if not, at least within the next three to five days. Again, studies show that our ability to retain the information goes down so much more after that. And not only that, but our likelihood of taking the kind of action that leads to lasting and meaningful change in our life, drops off dramatically after that, but it spikes up if you take immediate action and implement as soon as possible.

I do want profound results for all of you, so not only is the information important, but also these guidelines for implementation are really key.

Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the The Art School Podcast. If you have enjoyed this podcast, if these episodes have been useful for you, the best thing you can do to pay it forward is to share, is to subscribe, and go to iTunes and leave a review.

Also when you’re ready to take this work deeper, there are two ways to do that. You can apply to join the Art School Mastermind, go to www.leahcb.com and you’ll see a link at the top of the page that leads to the Mastermind. Or you can enroll in the Art School, that link is also on my website. And you’ll also see a headline leading you to the Art School.

Enrollment in the Mastermind includes the Art School; the Mastermind is six months long. The Art School is 12 weeks long. If you have any questions at all please feel free to reach out to us at support@leahcb.com, and we will take extraordinary care of you.

And as we close today, one more quote really to pose as a coaching question to you. Is the same quote from the beginning of the episode, “Are you being defined by a vision of the future or a memory of the past?” Answer that question and then know going forward you can decide to change that from this moment forward.

And not only consider whether you’re going to say yes or no to that invitation, but then consider what that means. What action can you take immediately that will demonstrate your commitment to becoming someone defined by their vision of the future? Becoming someone who is defined by the power of their imagination, someone for whom the creative energy of who you truly are and not who you have been, and not who the world has told you, you can be. Is the most dominant and powerful energy in your life.

Have a beautiful, creative, powerful week, everyone. And I look forward to talking with you next time.