The Spiritual Artist Podcast

Are you Pushing Too Hard? Practice the Rule of Medium

August 29, 2022 Christopher J. Miller Season 2 Episode 39
The Spiritual Artist Podcast
Are you Pushing Too Hard? Practice the Rule of Medium
Show Notes Transcript

Are you pushing too hard? Or are you not focused enough? 

Podcast Host Christopher Miller explains Chapter 14, “The Rule of Medium,” from his book “The Spiritual Artist.” Achieve The Rule of Medium by practicing presence in your studio. Look for the flow in everyday life and practice The Rule of Medium when driving or walking down the street. When we push too hard, we meet opposition. When we’re not focused enough, we also discover resistance. Take this practice one step further by recognizing the Rule of Oneness. Let someone go ahead of you and feel your oneness with everyone else. When we are in Medium, creativity flows through us.

For more information, visit www.spiritualartisttoday.com

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the spiritual artist podcast. This is Chris Miller. I invite you to join me. As I interview artists from a variety of disciplines, we'll share powerful stories and lessons learned while making their art Good day listeners. This is the spiritual artist podcast, and I'm Chris Miller, your host. Um, I wanted to share an inspiring little story for you today to get you up and going this week. And I want to talk about a chapter in my book called the rule of medium. Now, this is an interesting concept and I'm starting to hear it left and right in different teachings. And I struggled and came upon it when I was painting, which is where I formed my book from. So if you haven't gotten it yet, here it is the spiritual artist it's on Amazon. You can go out and buy it. And we're gonna talk about chapter 14 today. It's called the rule of medium and what that is is that's. When I learned, when I was painting, I realized that there was actually a feeling place, a feeling place it when I was working and that I wanted to acknowledge that place where everything was going exactly as I wanted it, I was listening to divine inspiration. I was hearing, uh, what to do next. And I was in this perfect place. And it it's interesting. What I found is that you can, and this tends to be my problem. Push too hard. Now, pushing too hard is when you force things, when you ultimately go and you try to force results, and it's when you start getting angry or you start getting mad, or you put on paint and you realize it's not working and you get frustrated, that is all pushing too hard. And so what's happening is your expectations of where you're going. Your consciousness is actually on where you wanna be in the future instead of being present. What this is about, it is about being present in the moment in the now the rule of medium is about being right there, right there in that mid ground, where you're just, you're noticing the details of the paint or whatever creative craft you're working on. You're noticing the ceramics, the pottery, the clay, you're noticing the texture and you're noticing how you feel. And you're just listening for divine inspiration. Now the opposite of that, and there's always an opposite to both, to all energies. The opposite is when you're on the other end of the spectrum, and you're not really focused at all. You're kind of half half doing it. Your mind is elsewhere. And usually I find this is when your mind is in the supposed past. You're thinking about something that happened during the day. Some problem that's on your mind, some issue with a friend, some issue with family, or you're thinking about something that could happen down the line. You're worried about a meeting you're gonna have next week or where you're, how you're gonna pay a bill at the end of the month. That's all exactly what it seems to be. That's all exactly what it seems to be. You're not being in the medium. The medium is being present. It's in the state of being present. And so we need as spiritual artists to focus on learning that, feeling, that feeling place, um, of where you're at. And so in the chapter, and I'm gonna give you a lesson plan at the end of this, cuz there is an exercise where I've learned that I can feel for this. I can practice feeling for if I'm in the right place. And you know where that is, that is when I'm driving. If I'm driving somewhere. Now, if you don't drive somewhere, you can do the same activity. If you're walking, if you're walking down a street in a busy city street, there is actually a flow. There is a flow to a city pattern. You'll notice it. When you drive, most cars are following a flow. They're spaced evenly. They're casually going down the street and you can see when you're driving, you can feel it in yourself, but you can also see it when someone's darting in and out and they come up next to you and they're pushing behind your bumper and they want you to move out of the way. Well guess what? They're pushing too hard. They're trying to get to the result instead of being in the moment. And what I believe is I believe that they're going to hit friction resistance by pushing too hard. And then you'll see other drivers, you know the ones, right? You're driving down the street and suddenly turn a corner. And there's someone going 10, 15 miles slower than the speed limit. And they're just paddling along and they're UOB observant they're or they're making a turn and they just stop their car in the middle of the street. And they're thinking about, should I turn here? Those people are not trying hard enough. So practice this. It's an exercise at the end of the chapter. Um, it's about driving and feeling that place. So next time you're walking down the street or driving feel the energy around you and notice about yourself. Be self-aware. Am I pushing too hard? Am I trying to get down? Am I pushing myself up against someone else's car and forcing them to go? Or am I not paying attention? Listening to the radio type, texting, not really being present to what I'm doing because you want to be present to what you're doing when you're driving or walking down the street. But this is a great practice in and out of the studio. All of these rules, all these guides of the spiritual artists are to help you in, in the studio and in life. So notice this, when you start noticing this feeling and I want you to do this this week is check yourself, check yourself as you go through the week and see, am I actually in the medium? Am I in the place of flow? Do I feel right there? Am I present to what is now? So this leads me to something else. I had a little aha moment I wanted to share with you. It's also, there's also a wonderful power that you can do when you're driving. And I, I would like you to try this or when you're walking, it's when you start being conscious of the other drivers and you let them go ahead of you. You don't see this often, at least in Dallas, you don't, but when you're driving down the street and you stop and you wave someone on, you see that they're trying to turn and you let them go first or someone's trying to merge and you slow down just a tad to let them in front of you. Now this is about being conscious and spiritual and recognizing another spiritual truth. So we first talked about the rule of medium, but I wanna talk about the rule of oneness. We are all one. And I believe the reason it feels so good when you do that. And I encourage you to do that this week. Let someone go ahead of you. If you're walking down the street, open the door for the lady, carrying a bunch of boxes or the man that's struggling with his card, let someone go ahead of you and feel that, feel how that feels in your body. Because what it is is you're recognizing the oneness. You're recognizing that everybody is part of the whole, we're all part of this great, wonderful expression of spirit called life. And when we let someone go ahead of us, we are acknowledging the me and them. I see me in you. I see the God spirit love in you. And I'm going to honor it and realize that we can't really get ahead of part of ourselves. We have to go with the flow. And I believe that's what this book is about. When you're going with the flow. When you're acknowledging who you are, divinity and divine intelligence, spirit, whatever you wanna call it, this greater power, God, life force, mother nature. It's working with you. So that that's the lesson in the rule of medium. If you practice the rule of medium and you go at the pace that you need to go and only you can decide that the comfortable place of presence answers come to you, life comes to you. Gifts come to you. So try that next time. I noticed that the other day when I was driving down the street, I, I would let someone go ahead of me. And I was like, oh wow, that feels good. That really feels good. Or I pulled, I actually lowered my window and I gave a couple dollars to someone on the corner and I recognized the God in them and I didn't do it disparagingly. And I looked them in the eye and I smiled and I didn't pity them either. I just shared with him. So these are, this is the lesson for this week is practice the rule of medium. And when you go into the studio and you're painting, and if you feel yourself getting frustrated, either take a break or do some breathing, calm, calm down, focus on what you're looking at. Look at the pain. Look at the viscosity, feel the texture of the canvas. Be present to creativity, be present to the paint. So with that, I wish you all a great week. Something to work on. Follow the homework, read chapter 14. I'll see you soon on the spiritual artist podcast. Thanks for listening. Thank you for listening to the spiritual artist podcast, whether you're following the show on apple podcast, Spotify or Google podcast, make sure you choose the subscribe button. So you'll receive new segments when they're released. Plus check out my new book, the spiritual artist now available on amazon.com in the meantime, be still listen and know that you are a spiritual artist.