Hello and welcome to the Artist Morning Podcast.
My name is Darius and I'm so grateful you and I get this time together.
Today's podcast,
I'm going to share a story and a lesson,
Which is going to take us to part two,
Which is a guided meditation experience intended to bring that lesson deeper,
Deeper,
Deeper into your heart and spirit.
And then part three,
If you're interested in the description below,
There is a writing exercise intended to help bring your own creativity alive with regards to our theme and our practice today.
Today,
I want to tell you a story about the time where I got very,
Very close to abandoning,
To giving up on easily the greatest creative project of my life.
Almost exactly six years ago today,
It was this week,
I launched,
I created Artist Morning.
Artist Morning has become,
Oh my gosh,
I get emotional.
I feel my eyes are watering up.
Artist Morning has just changed my life in so many incredible ways.
It is a dream come true.
It is a space,
A community,
A platform that allows me to share my gifts with the world,
Allows community to be built around kindness,
Creativity,
Art.
We get over 40,
000 people a month meditating with us at Artist Morning,
Whether it's live on Insight Timer or YouTube.
And almost exactly six years ago,
I got very close to completely giving up on the project before it even started.
Six years ago,
Plus two weeks back,
I was coming back from Costa Rica,
Landed in Toronto,
Airport was closed,
COVID had begun,
And spirits were very,
Very low.
All my photo shoots,
In case you don't know,
I'm a professional photographer,
Were rescheduled.
The whole world was rescheduled.
I was quarantined in my loft,
Terrified that maybe art was done.
Maybe everyone had to take up more practical jobs like farming and factory work,
And art was a luxury that was finished for our planet,
For our species.
That's where I was at truly.
Thankfully I just started Julie Cameron's book,
The Artist's Way.
Thankfully my meditation practice was still going.
And then this really interesting thing happened where I would meditate and then journal through her morning pages format.
And every time I did that,
There'd be this message of,
Hey Darius,
There are other people out there that are scared.
There are other people out there that could use meditation and journal and community.
And I'm whispering because it felt like a whisper,
A gentle whisper.
And I would literally write back in my journal,
I don't know if this is God or some other being or universe or angels.
I just want you to know,
I think you have your lines crossed.
I'm a photographer.
I don't know how to do any of that.
I don't know how to facilitate or make meditations.
So thanks,
But no thanks.
Next day,
Meditate,
Journal,
Same message was coming through.
Next day,
Meditate,
Journal,
Same message would come through.
13 days in a row,
Something was guiding me.
13 days in a row said,
I don't know what to do with this.
What are you talking about?
I'm not ready for anything like this.
I don't have the training.
I don't know where to start.
And on the 14th day,
Because everything was still shut down,
I just said to myself,
What do I have to lose?
Let me try to write a paragraph.
Let me make a logo.
I don't know.
Let me just have some fun.
Woke up in the morning and somehow by the end of the day,
Near midnight,
I wrote the paragraph.
I made the logo.
I got a domain.
I hosted the domain.
I designed the website.
I wrote the content for the website.
I made my first meditation.
And I was like,
What just happened?
What just happened?
I didn't really understand.
And to be honest,
I was scared.
I can't do this.
This is ridiculous.
I don't know how to make meditations.
I have no training in this stuff.
Who am I to even think I can pull this off?
And so for another 14 days,
I didn't tell anyone.
I didn't tell a soul because I was terrified.
And then I listened to this podcast with Preston Smiles and Adam Roa,
And I got so triggered in such a beautiful way.
Because Preston Smiles just so directly said,
If you've been meditating all this time,
If you've been on a spiritual journey all this time,
And then COVID came and you're like,
I'm just going to sit on the sidelines and meditate and pray and just like get all omed out and zenned out.
He's like,
Who the F do you think you are?
You've been preparing for this,
And now you're going to sit on the sidelines.
Get in the game.
Everything up till now was practice.
This is the game.
This is what you've been waiting for.
And I was like,
Oh my gosh,
He's speaking to me.
He knows I've made this thing and I'm sitting on the sidelines because I'm scared.
He knows I'm spiritual and I'm like triggered and don't know what to do.
He is speaking to me and he slapped me in the face.
And I needed that slap in the face.
I truly did.
It woke me up.
And so I remember I had another conversation with my dear friend,
Chris Asad.
And he,
You know,
Where Preston slapped me in the face,
Chris Asad was like this loving,
Like,
Hey,
This is interesting.
This is cool.
Mostly I can feel your joy.
What if you just allowed yourself to play here?
The best thing he could have said.
So the combination of the slap in the face and the permission to play and follow my joy.
And so I launched it,
Except I only told one person to come to the first artist morning.
And it was my best friend at the time,
Lillian Mota,
Who now is my wife and the mother of my kids,
Wild.
And we did this thing together.
I'm like,
I don't know what this is.
Let's just jump on Zoom and test it out.
And she gave me some great feedback and advice.
And I changed some key elements to it.
And then the next artist morning,
There's,
I think,
Like six people.
And the next one,
There's like 10 people.
The next one,
There's 15 people.
The next one,
There are six people again.
I'm like,
I want to quit again.
But I didn't.
I didn't.
And I'm telling you,
That first year was a sweaty year,
Y'all.
Just drenched in sweat.
Not sure if it was resonating,
Activated,
Triggered so many times.
But I just kept telling myself,
Just keep going.
Keep going.
Keep playing.
Keep experimenting.
There's something here.
And so on this sixth anniversary of Artist Morning,
I wanted to share the story.
I've shared it in many different fashions,
But there's something about sharing it in this platform,
In this medium.
You know,
I can't stop thinking about someone perhaps 100 years from now listening to this and thinking about it.
Because I think the lesson is still so solid.
We pray.
We meditate.
We ask for guidance.
But we have this expectation of how our prayers and the guidance should arrive.
And that's not how it works.
I prayed and prayed and prayed for years,
For decades.
Dear God,
Please use me as a vessel for your love.
Use me as an instrument of connection,
Of aliveness.
What is my life for?
What am I here for?
I want to make an impact.
And then God showed up and said,
OK,
Game on.
Let's do this thing.
And I said,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No.
Not that.
That's not what I meant.
That's not it.
I'm not ready for that.
Let's do something different.
What else you got,
God?
And it's comical.
Who am I to say no?
I asked.
I prayed.
God,
Universe showed up and said,
Let's go.
Here it is.
Here is the path.
But God,
I don't see it.
I don't get it.
I don't feel ready for it.
And here is the path.
This is the path that will get you ready for it.
Ready is not a feeling.
Ready is a decision you make to step forward.
And each step you take forward gets you ready.
And so if you're out there listening,
If you're out there and you've had your own whispers from God,
From the universe,
From your angels,
From your higher self telling you about this thing,
This thing that doesn't maybe logically make sense for you yet.
I want to say one,
You don't need to do anything.
That's not my vibe to be like,
You got to do a thing.
And if you want to do a thing,
If you want to pursue in the spirit of adventure and curiosity and play and joy and growth,
Life is precious.
Nobody knows how long we have.
Nobody knows if last breath will find you 50 years from now or 50 minutes from now.
If you're in the energy,
The essence of waiting,
Waiting to be chosen,
Waiting to be picked,
Waiting to be ready.
That's not it.
That's not why we're here.
That's not why soul chose to come here now.
So what would happen if we put down this waiting energy,
Took a deep breath,
Rooted ourselves and remembered who walks with us every step of the way.
And we decided today we are ready.
We found a teeny tiny step that we could take to pursue and explore those whispers,
Those guidance.
Okay,
Thank you for listening to the story.
I feel good to have captured it in this format,
In this medium.
It's a story that has made a massive impact in my life and I think the lives of many others.
We're going to meditate now,
Y'all.
So we've been in our head for a while and I want to slow things down,
Slow things down.
So let's take a few deep breaths to get us ready to move from our heads into our hearts.
Nice and slow here.
And our practice is going to be grounding and calming our energy and intentionally opening our channels so that we can make space for guidance,
For support,
Maybe even for whispers from the universe.
Take a moment just to feel your feet against the ground,
Rooted,
Sitting with a tall,
Gentle spine,
Channels,
Chakras,
Energy centers,
Opening.
Taking deep breaths,
Imagining new creative energy pouring in from the top of your head,
Working its way all the way down,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Down to your feet.
And with each exhale,
We let go of anything we no longer need to carry.
Heart open,
Breathe into your heart,
Imagine it opening in every direction.
Voice open,
Vision open,
Third eye open,
Your crown sitting tall,
Open,
Ready to receive.
Dear universe,
I am here,
I am ready,
I am open to receive your guidance.
Dear universe,
I am here,
I am ready,
I am open to receive your guidance.
Deep breaths,
Continue taking deep breaths,
Imagining a golden beam of light from the sky,
From the heavens pouring in,
In,
In,
In through the top of your head,
Your crown.
There's a transmission here,
The universe is pouring into you,
Into yourselves,
Into your being,
Into your spirit,
Into all parts of you.
Can you feel it?
It's making me laugh,
It's so full of joy and love and guidance.
Are you open to receive,
Dear artist?
Are you ready to receive,
Dear creator?
There's nothing that needs to happen here,
This beam,
This guidance is doing all the work.
You don't need to logically understand it.
Something miraculous is happening right now,
Something incredible within yourselves,
Within your consciousness.
The universe is working inside you now.
The universe is removing barriers,
The universe is opening a path for you.
There's nothing you need to do,
That's not how this world works.
If you choose to,
If you want to,
Step forward down this path,
You can.
The only thing I can tell you about this path is it will be an adventure.
It's not about the outcome,
It's about the treasure of becoming.
The process of becoming is the greatest treasure,
And you are in it right here,
Right now.
I'm going to stay quiet for the rest of the song,
And you get to decide if you are open and ready to receive the guidance of the universe and to step forward.
Forward down this path.
A blessing to be alive,
What a blessing to be alive.
Wow,
How did we get here?
How did we get here?
Sometimes if I'm lucky I get to see and feel through the perspective of my soul,
My soul's and my human body just looking around and feeling and experiencing and just being like,
How did we get here?
This place is so fascinating,
The human experience is so fascinating.
What a blessing.
Thank you dear one for going on this journey with me,
Thank you for exploring,
Thank you for being a part of the Artist's Morning community.
Gotta pinch myself,
How did I get here?
How did this happen?
Wow.
Sometimes if you're not careful your dreams will come true and you will miss it.
You'll miss it because you're so busy thinking about the next dream.
I just want to invite you to slow down,
Zoom out,
And look around your life.
I bet there are so many dreams that have already come to life.
They don't need to be these gigantic dreams,
They can be simple dreams too.
For those that are interested in taking this one step further,
Part three of three of our podcast is a writing exercise that's listed below in the description.
It will help you use your own creativity,
Your own creative spirit to integrate today's lesson and practice.
Thank you once again for meditating with me,
My name is Darius and I will see you next time.
