Epiphanies #2 (“The Anti-Pep Talk Pep Talk”)

This is going to feel uncomfortable to some of us.

There's a high chance you aren't doing this one thing before creating that unlocks your best work.

Handling your consciousness.

This moves beyond the mindset work we see written about so often.

The state of your consciousness is hands down the largest priority before creating anything.

I learned these concepts from David Ghiyam, who teaches The Kabbalah (see below for his work). I recommend it.

I’d even say stop reading this and start his course immediately, it’s that important.

For now, you’re stuck with me. I’ve extrapolated a key ideas to help wrangle ideas to the ground and get them on paper or canvas, etc. They work!

Spirituality may not be your thing. But as a creator, you're tapping into it whether you like it or not. And as an empathic being, you already know that you are living in an energetic playground every day.

Connecting to your Muse is an energetic process. Even if you consider your muse strictly physical, you're connecting to all the parts, seen and unseen.

In Issue 16, we talked about how epiphanies arrive as fleeting whispers and must be honored immediately. We covered the Thunderbird's teaching: spirit speaks quickly, therefore act quickly.

But what if you can't hear the whisper because your head is too damn loud?

What if the static of self-doubt, comparison, and lack is drowning out the download?

Today, we're going deeper.

We're talking about the consciousness you need to hold before the epiphany arrives. The clearing that must happen so you can receive without interference.

This will work as a daily practice so that you're proactively in the right space to receive. It will also work for any specific answers you're seeking.

Gmail shortens emails in awkward places. Read online It’s better.

You're 35 years old, working in the dark bowels of a coal mine in northern France. At 14, you learned how to use a pickaxe. Every day you exist in darkness.

You’re shoveling coal and you hear a voice.

Once. You think nothing of it. Twice. Brush it aside.

Third time, fourth, fifth, you finally ask, "What did you say?"

"One day you will be a painter."

You've never painted or drawn. You visited a fine art museum once, years ago in Lille.

But the voice is clear. Insistent. “Don't be afraid. You will be guided.”

This is Augustin Lesage's story.

The voices told him what to paint, which materials to use, where to place each line.

He started painting massive canvases. Went to war. Came back. Kept painting. Intricate, symmetrical patterns he had never seen before emerged through his hands.

He created from certainty.

Decades later, French artist Jean Dubuffet coined the term art brut (raw art) for artists like Lesage- untrained, self-taught, unaffected by the mainstream art world.

Dubuffet collected their work obsessively because he recognized that:

Well now, Jean. We've all got to make a living. And thriving financially from what you make feels outrageously gratifying.

But here's what Dubuffet understood: creating from pure impulse is different from creating for validation.

One comes from wholeness. The other from lack.

So what is this voice Lesage heard?

The Kabbalists call it the surrounding light infinite wisdom beyond logical comprehension. Lesage called it spirits. You might call it your Muse, Source, Universe, Creative Intuition, God.

The label doesn't matter. What matters is showing up and letting it come through.

There's two key principles in Kabbalah (they are echoed in other spiritual traditions as well) that are highly relevant to creators. Again, I learned this from David Ghiyam’s work…this is not my genius.

First, never do anything, especially creating, from a place of lack.

Second, get completely unattached to the outcome.

Let's say you're stuck. You've run out of ideas. The canvas is blank. The page is empty. Nothing is speaking to you.

Or maybe you've produced work here and there, but you consider them nothing remarkable. You're wondering if you have any talent. You're questioning and criticizing yourself before you even start. And you start spiraling.

Maybe it's time to quit? What am I doing? Why do I think I'm called to do this?

But you still feel the call to MAKE.

This is when consciousness work becomes everything.

The Kabbalists teach about "surrounding light" the infinite wisdom that exists beyond our logical comprehension. It's always there, always available, but we can't access it when we're operating from lack.

The realm of miracles exists beyond logic.

When you demand that things make sense before you accept them, you lock yourself out of the very insights that could transform your work.

You're standing at the door of revelation, refusing to enter because you can't see what's inside.

When you are looking for an answer, pause (a literal, guttural pause), then accept that asking with certainty is the action that guarantees receiving the answer, then let it go.

Because you are asking the question, the solution already exists.

It's not the other way around.

(As a side note, whatever challenge or confusion you're facing exists because it's elevating you in some way.)

Here's the practice that unlocks it:

Never do anything from a place of lack.

What do I mean by lack? Self-doubt. Not believing you are worthy. Believing you have nothing to offer, financial doldrums. The list goes on.

Never do anything from a place of lack. Instead pause. Come from a place of being whole and certain, because you are whole and worthy.

And here's an interesting twist on lack, mind blowing level once it sinks in.

Even if there's excitement and anticipation about something like a new project, a gallery opportunity, a commission you have to get to a place in your soul where you know you don't need it.

You have no emotional attachment to the outcome. You are already whole without it.

This is the hardest thing I've ever tried to practice.

Because we're conditioned to hustle from hunger and to sometimes create from desperation.

We are told to prove our worth through output AND GOD ONLY KNOWS, you have to suffer to get it.

But creation from lack creates more lack.

When you're chasing validation, approval, or proof that you're "good enough," you're creating from a wound.

And wounded creation attracts wounded responses.

The shift: Before you pick up the brush, the pen, the camera pause.

Ask the Creator out loud (Source, Universe, God, Higher Self whatever works for you) to show you what deeply connects to your soul's purpose.

What wants to be made because of that purpose?

What's trying to come through you, not from you. Then get unattached to the outcome. Shake it off like..

Live in freedom; freedom where you genuinely don't need the thing to work out for you to be okay.

From that place, without crisis or panic but with steady certainty, the next steps show up. Ideas begin to flow and you just know what to do. It feels natural, like you were born to make. You feel supported.

Make no mistake: showing up will still be hard. Finding the right words or resolving a composition is work. But the fear won't be standing over your shoulder strangling the process.

Instead, you'll do the hard work without the panic, and the work itself will teach you what comes next. Most importantly, you will create out of wholeness and abundance. Which attracts wholeness and abundance.

As the universe would have it, this principle showed up in my feed yesterday.

Nine years ago on The Off Camera Show with Sam Jones, Will Ferrell articulated this idea with Anti-Pep Talk Pep Talk. (If you're in a rush start at 1:12 and watch until the end. It’s 1:27 min of inspiration).

Alright, founding members. I’ve got a surprise for you.

I’m emailing it to you at 11:00 am CST tomorrow.

I’m adding the bells and whistles to it today and tomorrow it’s yours.

Be looking for my email!! 💝

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Elisa Berst: Art Brut. The Book of Books, A revelatory glimpse into the passions and obsessions of 60 visionary artists through the medium of their personal sketchbooks, treatises, storybooks, grimoires, and journals. 

Maximillien De Lafayette : Augustin Lesage: The Greatest Spirit and Medium Painter of All Time

David Ghiyam: Infinite Soul 1-3, This spiritual practice produces an amazing, irrevocable shift that creates deeper meaning and purpose to our lives. David has been teaching Kabbalah for 25+ years. The courses are pay what you want. You might reach out to their support team because they started a very inexpensive monthly subscription that gives you access to everything. I’m not an affiliate. Don’t go through this lifetime skipping this. 🙂

IG @davidghiyam, Also, free podcast available everywhere.

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