650. Art and Spirituality: What Trying New Things Awakens in You

0:06 Hello. Welcome to Soul Elevation: Guiding Your Ascension to New Heights. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin. I'm so happy to be here with you today. It's Friday, October 23rd, 2026. Today, I wanna talk about a couple of things that have come into my life in the last few months that I wasn't really engaging with them to experience them from a spiritual perspective or from a multidimensional perspective, but that's how they've shown up for me. And it's not always about meditating or going on a spiritual retreat or being in silence or being in nature.

0:53 All of those things are… I feel like they're kind of the low-hanging fruit of spiritual growth and spiritual development, and they're very valuable. It's not to say that you shouldn't do those things. But I have found in these unlikely places real spiritual growth and real, a real ability to connect with me in m- in multi-level ways, in a lot of different or multidimensional ways you can think of. But ways that I didn't expect. And so one reason that I wanna share that is just because this can be happening for you, too. If you feel like in order to nurture your spiritual, um, your true spiritual nature that, that you have to be meditating or you've gotta carve out all this time to go on a retreat or you, you know, that you have to do things, you know, you've gotta do an hour of breathwork, and that's how you're gonna engage your soul and your spirit.

1:56 Again, those things are great. They're really beneficial, but there may be other ways that your soul can connect deeply with you, that your soul can sing that are more unlikely. For me, two of these ways that this has shown up is, one, through art, through creating art, and I'll talk about how I don't… You know, this has not been an avenue in my life. Like, I have not felt that I'm an artist per se, so at the age that I am now, you know, I'm 48 years old. And so I, you know, I feel like I had passed the time where I would engage with art and feel like that would be something that I would enjoy or be any good at.

2:46 Um, the second thing has been through Pilates, which I, you know, I, I have a, more of a yogic background. I've spent many years doing yoga, so I had not been super interested in Pilates. I kind of felt like if I was gonna do something like that, I would do yoga because that's got a more inherent spiritual connection there. I've gotten so much out of Pilates, not only for my body, but for my soul and for my mind. So I wanna go into both of those things, but before I talk about those specific topics- I wanna just talk generally about being human and trying new things, just broadly trying new things.

3:29 Because those two examples that have enriched my life may not speak to you, and so I don't wanna get bogged into the details of those two specific things. I feel like in this age of AI that we're uniquely in right now, where it has exploded, and a lot of people are really worried about, for any number of reasons, they're worried about this, this prevalence of AI and where humanity might be headed. And when I think about that, you know, I have those same concerns about the environment and the loss of humanity, the loss of jobs, and all of those things are very real.

4:11 But a bigger question, or a more, maybe even a more hidden question is, what is it to be human? What separates us from machine? What makes us… What is it that we wanna preserve? What is it that we're afraid that we're gonna lose, that we have here on this earth through humans that we cannot, if we let AI take over, what is it that we really lose? That's a big question that I want you to feel into for yourself, and it r- it applies directly to your life. Because so often we get comfortable in our lives.

4:56 We find something that fits for us. We find a pattern. We find a routine. We find comfort in what is familiar. We find comfort in our identity. So I am a computer programmer, or I am a manager, or I am a speaker, or whatever. I'm a teacher. However we identify, that… There is comfort in that. I know how to do that. I do that well. I've been doing that for a lot of years. I've learned a lot. I can apply it. I don't have to try so hard or work so hard because I'm used to it.

5:41 I- there's a pattern. But even in our bigger life, you know, this is what I do on Saturday. I wake up at this time. I make coffee in this way. I make coffee before I do this, and then I do this while I drink my coffee. And then when it becomes lunchtime, then I do this, and I, I go for a walk at this time, and, and so on and so on. These could be very enjoyable things, but we might have found ourselves in this repeating pattern that every day we're doing the same thing, and we have, and we do the same thing at the same time. And even when the weekend comes and we have leisurely time, we're spending it in the same way.

6:25 And what probably has happened is that we have had good results from whatever it is that we've incorporated into our daily routine, and so we think, "Oh, this is how I want to always spend my time." But Are you living like a machine? If you are so deep into your grooves of the comfort zone that you are, for lack of a better, you know, for, uh, for all intents and purposes, you now are a machine. We benefit so much from infusing our life with new, getting out there and stretching ourselves.

7:12 So you as a soul came here in this human body to have experiences, not to lock into the same thing every day. And you have an opportunity every day to break out of the cage that you have put yourself into, and that doesn't need to be some dramatic run off and start a new life thing. It can be I'm gonna try something I never knew I even wanted to try before, or I'm gonna try something I'm not even sure I'm gonna like, but there's something about it that is making me think that I'm just gonna try it.

8:03 I mean, you can always try something and not like it, and give it a little bit of time, and stop doing it if you don't like it. But the way that this showed up for me was, i, I mean, a lot of you who, if this is not the first thing that you're watching of mine, you may know that I, I really love sacred geometry. I've, I see sacred geometry energetically. I see those patterns, uh, with my eyes closed, so I feel this connection with sacred geometry, and I draw sacred geometry. And so I'm very comfortable exploring things from that way. And with sacred geometry, you often use, like, a compass, you use rulers.

8:46 It's very precise and exact, and you're really, um, tuning into the, the angles and the bigger shapes as well. But, um, but there's, because it's so, like, precise, it's a different type of artistry than free flow, than drawing, like free drawing, or even, like, mandalas. And so with mandalas, those are those, like, images that they're usually circular, and they've got a pattern, a repeating pattern through it. But, uh, there's a lot more, like, free style with mandalas. There's more curves, and those, those curves are where it… Not that sacred geometry isn't human.

9:31 I don't… But it's, it's less mechanical, right? It's less precise. There's more of the infusion of the, the artist in the mandala, and I have really never been drawn. I love when the word drawn comes in when I'm talking about drawing. But, um, I've never really felt the pull to doing mandalas as much as doing traditional sacred geometry where you're really only doing angles, and the ruler, and the precision. And there was something that occurred to me, like, a week or two ago where I was like, "I think I'm gonna do a mandala." But there… I wasn't really even excited about it.

10:13 I just felt like I should do it. And it… But it wasn't like a chore, but I wanted to draw, and I just didn't feel like drawing sacred geometry. I just felt, like, a little bit curious about the mandalas. And for a really long time, I have had the opportunity to draw mandalas, and I was not dra- I wasn't like, uh… No, I don't feel any, any resonance with it So I kind of went against the grain and really even wasn't convinced within myself that I was gonna enjoy it, but there was just something within me that was like, "Oh, what the heck, I'm just gonna do a mandala." And one of the things that was holding me back is that I, from a very early age, did not feel like I was good at art.

10:59 And the sacred geometry, again, because you've got these, like, tight parameters that are guiding you, there's not a ton… I mean, the, it's weird because there is artistry with sacred geometry, and there's not that freeform that, um… So I could do a lot of sacred geometry and it would look really nice, but I didn't, I still didn't feel like I was crossing the threshold of artistry. Um, right or wrong, 'cause I could argue that the whole other way, but that's just the, the inner way that it felt. And as I was engaging in this mandala, um, I was ver- I could feel the resistance of like, "Oh, you're not an artist." Like, "This is, this is not your domain, and this is not worthwhile.

11:53 This is not…" I could feel all of those things. But I, I pushed through it, and again, not in like a, an un- not in a way that was like, "Oh, I'm hating every step of this." In a curious way, but also had those kind of nagging, like, things that were telling me, I could s- hear it, like, "You're not good at this. You're not gonna be good at this. You're gonna be frustrated." And, and just doing it anyway. And there was some of that. I was watching a tutorial online that was helping me to, um, to know my way through this. Hello. Hello, Year of the Fire Horse 2026. Good to see you. Thanks for joining. Um, I was using this tutorial.

12:34 So I'm watching an artist who is doing it really well, and, and I can see the difference, you know. Mine was, was not as sharp as theirs and not as confident. But what happened is that, one, I got better as I went along, and two, I could feel myself stretching and growing. I f- I could feel my energy changing in the acceptance of s- of being uncomfortable and of doing it anyway. And there is this growth as we allow ourselves to stretch past our comfort zone. And there's also the untruth of what we're good at, because we can become good at anything at any point in time.

13:23 I, in a totally different way but very similar, I had Dr. Lottie on, um, in the summer And she went back, she went to med school at 52. She decided to become a doctor at 52, and she was born in Sweden, so i- and she was doing this in America, so she had to, before she could even start medical school and do all of the training that has to, years and years of school, medical school, but also, like, the residency and the interns and all of that piece of it, she had to go to community college to get some of the basic chemistry and biology that she needed because she hadn't had to do those types of things in Sweden.

14:08 So she was starting, like, even more baseline than somebody who would have a bachelor's degree that they haven't, you know, that they got 25 years ago or 30 years ago or whatever. So she went through all of that training at 52 And so that's really, really starting over, and having a big uphill climb before you can even start practicing on your own. But I- I've read this book, or I'm reading this book called Draw- Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards, and she talks about how when we're little, we… Everybody loves art.

14:50 Everybody loves being creative when they're little. But when they, um, they, there comes this point in time, which is kinda like later elementary school into middle school, where we start to notice the difference between us and others, and we can see that there are people who are very, who find art a lot easier, and their output is so much better. And we can plainly see, oh, that person's really good at art. That is what an artist is. And then we start to take ourselves out of the, the equation. We get more self-conscious about it, and this is showing up in other areas of our lives at that developmental stage as well. But we start to tell ourselves this story that we are not gifted and that it's not worth our time.

15:36 But art really is something that is, we can do it just for pleasure. We don't have to do it for the result, and that is something that I'm also engaging with, uh, through this process of any sort of perfectionism within me, any sort of, um, anything that I'm coming up against where it's like, "Oh, it's not perfect, so should I just stop? Oh, I've made some mistakes here. Is this, you know, is it even worth continuing to go, keep going?" And there, it, because when you're drawing, and again, drawing, this is just a metaphor for anything that you wanna try that's new, because you're not gonna be great at it when you first start, right?

16:20 You've got to have, you've gotta build up your strength and your practice and your motor memory, your muscle memory. But I'm, I'm working on that within myself of, okay, I know that I've, I may, oh, there's another mistake. There's another mistake. But- What happens if I keep going? Because the finished product is, you know, you're, you're not really gonna necessarily look at every single brushstroke and every single line and every si- It's the totality of it all. So it's like, can I stick with it? Can I adapt it? Can I, can I accept the imperfections?

17:01 Can I see the beauty even in the imperfections? So there are so many different ways that we can become challenged, that we can stretch and grow and live through experience, and it also does amazing things for your brain. When you, in, when you're working in the creative mode, you're working and engaging the right hemisphere of the brain You're engaging the more creative aspects of yourself that often, in today's world, are lying dormant. So you're really activating things within yourself. And one final thing on the art front is that you don't… You may feel like, "Well, I don't even have any supplies for art or anything."

17:48 Get a pencil, get a pad of paper, go online, look at YouTube, and there are all kinds of places to start where you can just start getting a feel for the, the drawing, get a feel for the, um, the cr- getting into the creative mode. And you can slowly add some art supplies. You know, slowly, if you like just being on a pad of paper, you know, maybe you wanna get a sketchbook. Maybe you wanna get a set of colored pencils, um, a compass, something. But it doesn't have to be a, like, oh, let me, um, uh, I've gotta go and get all the supplies and get a canvas and get, you know, and, and I've gotta be great at it the first time I try it.

18:34 You know, this is… Let it be a process, and challenge yourself to enjoy the whole process. Even the beginning when it's like, oh my gosh, I have nowhere to go but up because this looks terrible. You know, there's a, oh, okay, thank you, thanks for coming. Um, so glad you were here. So there's this whole beauty to the whole process. So if you can just immerse yourself in it, let yourself be a beginner. Let yourself feel into that, and know that you will keep getting better. So it will be, even though what you're drawing now isn't what you'd hoped it would be, you know, imagine looking back on that after doing 20 more drawings of different things and then seeing how much, because you will naturally get better.

19:23 It's just experience. So the other piece to this where it's different but similar of how an unexpected spiritual experience and multidimensional experience that I've had has come through Pilates. So I, again, never really expected that I'd be interested in Pilates but, um, a friend of mine was wanting to sign up, and I was like, "Oh, maybe. Maybe I'll try that." So I One of the things that with that particular exercise is that it is very fine-tuned. Like, they, the whole point is to engage s- muscles that you don't use very much.

20:07 And so you've got these bigger muscles that are doing the heavy lifting all throughout your day. So when you're, when you're walking upstairs, when you're lifting something, there are these big muscles. And, and I'm not like a, I was never that interested in, in anatomy, so there, I don't know if it's like the, the glutes maybe. No, the… What are the thigh muscles called? Like, the front of your thighs. That's one example of a, a muscle that, uh… 'Cause the glutes are the back, right? So I can't remember even what the front of the… The quads maybe. The quads. Um, but because the mu- the e- the exercises in Pilates are so minute and they're really specific, so they're… It's like, for example, put your heels together and now push away.

20:55 'Cause I'm doing it on a reformer, so it's a machine. But it's like put your heels together, so you're pushing out with your toes to pull back, and it engages the sides of your legs. And it, that's just one example. There are, like, a million different exercises, and you're finding these finer muscles, even like in your feet, in your ankles, where I feel like I'm activating muscles that just do not get used because we've got these bigger muscles that, that do. They're like the workhorses of the body. But this is bleeding into my time outside of Pilates.

21:37 Because, for example, I can feel automatically when I'm, like, walking up the stairs, I can feel now those big muscles, the workhorse muscles that wanna take over that are always carrying the load, and I can feel myself kinda going, "Oh, let's step more on the outside of my foot To activate other muscle groups and/or step more on the inner part to kind of get the inner parts, uh, inner littler muscles going. And it's this, this tuning in to the, the little details of the body. But this has imp- implications outside of the physical, because this also applies… It's a, it's a metaphor, but it's also an experiential way that we understand that there are so many parts to ourselves, and also emotionally, spiritually, and mentally, there are these big kind of obvious things that we… So for example, with thoughts, there may be the big obvious thoughts that are constantly circling, and they may not be beneficial for us.

22:50 We may have these thoughts that are the big thoughts that are, are under everything. They're doing all the heavy lifting, and it may be it's stuff about our worthiness that, like, no matter what shows up, we tell ourselves this story that we're not worthy or we're not good enough, we couldn't do that. We're, you know, whatever. But it's this constant reinforcement, and it's happening in the background, but it's kind of like the default, and we don't even know that it's doing so much work, that that's where we're always heading back to. But we can become more attuned to the subtleties and start to work other muscles.

23:31 Not just the physical muscles, but other ways of, okay, like maybe at the beginning of this, this live stream when I'm talking about art and maybe you just dismissed it and you're like, "Well, I'm not an artist, so next. I'm not gonna listen to that. I'm not gonna do something like that," but you're… That's that immediate, like, easy muscle of like, nope, I've got m- I'm c- I don't have time for that. I don't have… I'm not good at that or whatever. But there's, there are these other aspects of you that may want to grow and challenge and try something new and expand in a certain way, and those are those quieter parts of you. They're the more suppressed parts of you.

24:13 And so it's this, it's this ability, this, of, of paying attention to the s- the, the subtler pieces of you and exercising them. Like, oh, well, there's this really quiet part of me that, that remembers that I used to enjoy dancing when I was little. I really loved to move and to spin and to dance. But I got to a point where I was too busy to do that. Or I didn't value that anymore. I vali- valued my mind, or I valued some working or something.

24:55 But maybe there's this little quiet part of you that's still there that loved dancing, and so what might that bring into your life if you were to embrace that, and you were to nurture that, and you were to find a way to exercise that part of yourself, to express that part of yourself So there's a lot there. You know, you can take this in so many different directions, that there are these quiet parts of yourself that are here to express, and you may be in such a comfort zone with your days, with your weeks, with your years, with your life, with just how you're used to doing things, that you're… There are things lying quietly within you that you might really get a lot from if you, if you leaned into them and explored them.

25:58 So I encourage you to notice within yourself. And so this can be with quiet time. You can go… You could do a meditation. You could ask before you go to sleep, like, "What is something that is rising within me that wants to be expressed? What would help my soul to be able to move through me more, more readily?" That might be fun to, to phrase it in that way and ask yourself that question, and then release the need to have an answer right away. But, but feel into and pay attention. What shows up in your life? What shows up in your dreams?

26:39 Are you dancing in your dreams? Are you surfboarding in your dreams? Are you roller skating in your dreams? Are you cr- cr- uh, sculpting or doing pottery or gardening? What is showing up in your dreams? What's showing up… What are people talking about around you that's lighting you up, that's like, ooh, wow, I, I remember that time that I took that pottery class and how that felt, and then I just lost time for it, and I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna see what kind of local pottery classes there are for me. Any kind of number of things, but this is the way to let your soul in.

27:20 Let it in and feel it and experience it and let it move through you. Let yourself express. Let yourself be human. You are not a machine. You are not artificial. You are organic. You are a human, and you have value, and part of your value is in your creative expression. That is part of what… Why did you bother to come here? You did not bother to take on a life, a human life, and be an automaton. You came here to create and to express and to experience your soul, so do it.

28:04 Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for liking, subscri- subscribing, commenting, sharing. Please help content like this from real human beings, help it to thrive, help it to grow. So your subscriptions and sharing it, really, that means so, so much. I'm so grateful for you. I bless you. Thank you so much