5.19 | No More Starving Artists with Nadja Marks Shafton (Part 2 of 2)

>> Isha Vela: Welcome to Waking Up Wealthy, the podcast for visionaries and rebels who are ready to revolutionize their relationship with money and create powerful collective ripples with the money they make. I’m your host, Isha Vela, trauma psychologist, somatic practitioner, financial professional, and minimalist, bringing you practical money tools, unconventional wealth perspectives, and Aquarian era business strategy to guide you in building wealth that’s aligned, ethical, and empowering. Let’s wake up to the true meaning of wealth together. Yeah, I think. Isn’t that like the whole. The whole thing is just giving yourself permission to express, to process, to move the emotion without being fixated or focused on the outcome. Yeah. Because I don’t know how you experience it, but oftentimes I have the outcome in my head. Yeah. And then I start, and I know it’s not going to end up the way that I imagined it. And I was m. Like, what this shit? I get pissed.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: So here’s. Here’s a way to the reintroduction of outcome. Here, here’s what I. Thank you. I’d like to say this. I do have an outcome in mind, but it’s a frequency, it’s not the look of it. okay, I know that I’m alchemizing grief, and I know I want to come out in acceptance, joy, peace, maybe even enlightenment. If you’re listening at home, do yourself a favor and Google David Hawkins map of consciousness, because it’s an amazing map of consciousness where shame is at the bottom, and he measures it in hertz frequencies, so shame is in 20 hertz frequency, and then, enlightenments in 700. And this map has totally shifted everything for me because now I can see what I’m doing as I’m alchemizing on the canvas or in my journal, because I alchemize everywhere I go. So if I’m meeting myself, in shamebe, maybe Isha, when you’re talking about. I don’t know how to, like, meet myself at the canvas. I haven’t done it in so long. Maybe you’re processing shame. So maybe you start in shame, but then the outcome, you might want to find yourself in. I don’t know what? Joy.

>> Isha Vela: Joy and just playfulness.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yes. So that’s the outcome. So the reason why people love my paintings is because they are, literal embodiments of the outcome that I. That is my home base, which. My home base is joy. Love, joy, peace, enlightenment. That’s like my home base when I’m not encumbered by shame and anger and sadness and grief and all that stuff. So the alchemy of these things, which is this is what Frida Kahlo was doing in her paintings, which is why she’s such a freaking legend, because she left it all on the canvas. And then she could walk away from that canvas and be like, now I’m back in joy. I just processed my miscarriage.

>> Isha Vela: Right, right. And you can see her pain there on the canvas. And so it’s like there’s a frequency there, but the frequency is of power.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: That’s it. That’s it. So people look at that Chrysalis painting and they’re like, oh, my God, this touches me so deeply. I’m so obsessed with this. I love this. And I’m like, if you knew the level of grief that I was processing in that painting. But every one of my paintings, I incorporate my guides and my spirit guides and stuff. So, like, that painting has a lot of, rainbow light because. So it’s me telling myself, hey, as you’re liquefying, surrounded by thorns. Because that painting has, like, a lot of thorns coming at it. As you’re feeling this way, I see you, I honor you. Yes, you’re feeling this way. And there’s rainbow light for whenever you’re ready for it, you know? And I’m always kind of putting those little Easter eggs, as Taylor Swift calls them, to remind myself of also the higher end of the spectrum that I’m going to.

>> Isha Vela: Okay, okay. No, and you’re absolutely right when you say that your paintings and Body of Frequency, because they are beautiful to look at. But I think that for me, the way that I became enamored of the paintings is of the freedom that you are. I can see the freedom I’ve worked. Freedom.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I have worked for that freedom. Like, I know how many hours I have put in to work for that freedom. Like, I really do.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah, yeah. And I can taste the liberation in it. And so it’s like, that’s what I want. Right. And this is how we become attracted to things, is because I desire that. Right. And I know that I can get there. And I know that I have it in me and that it is. That’s just something that I like. It’s just kind of the opening to it. Right? The. The moving through the muck or whatever. The shame or the y. This distrust, fear, doubt. Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: But I would love to say. I would love to say something on that. And before I say something on that, you just said, I know I have it in me. So I’ve already been Successful in this podcast because my intention was that you would say that. but I want to speak about abundance because that’s what our podcast. That’s the theme. So when you know that every single piece of emotion that’s coming through your vessel is alchemizable, think about it like this. Think about it. I’m not on any pharmaceutical medicine, but think about if I was like, if I was numb to a lot of this stuff because a lot of us don’t know how to alchemize. So of course we need be okay in this world. So there’s no sh in it. But imagine if I was numb, My paintings, I would. They wouldn’t exist. Like, they all exist. Because I saw shame, I saw grief, I saw heartbreak, I saw rejection. And I went toward it like a freaking buffalo to a storm. Like, that’s the close thing. A buffalo runs toward a storm. So that’s what I do when this comes up, I run toward it. That is the core of abundance. Because every single thing that comes up in my life now, I’m like, freaking alchemizable. It’s alchemizable. It’s another painting. It’s another painting. And now, like, everything. Everything I do, all day is valuable because I’m not inc. Encumbered by it. I’m converting it into value. I’m like, m. You get value, you get value. Like, now I’m in the ring of value. And I’m in the ring of abundance, where everything feeds itself. Like, I’m seeing the snake that like, takes on its own. Its own.

>> Isha Vela: Yes.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah.

>> Isha Vela: Tail.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: It’s like that. Like, so when you’re saying, yeah, I have to get through the muck, like, I love the muck because I’m like, I’m gonna make the best freaking painting out of this.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah. And so I love that you’re saying that because I talk a lot about that alchemy, right? When we talk about being an entrepreneur or moving through the places where you have the fear of visibility or if you, you know, you want to say something and you’re afraid that you’re going to be rejected or all of those pieces, right? There is so much value in the muck. And I talk about that all the time. I just haven’t ever used painting as a way to transmute. Yes, right. I’ve just had my specific way and I like, I go into it, I look forward to it, I invite it, Right. But I haven’t necessarily use painting as that medium, which is like, oh, yeah, Right. It’s like, that’s available to us, too. People use their journals. Right. Everybody has a different way of doing it.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah. And just for those who don’t have, like, the learning curve with painting is a thing. but there’s a couple ways to make that learning curve feel easier. one of them is to cover your white canvas. Like, don’t approach a white canvas. I don’t approach a white canvas. What I like to do is I take shellac. shellac is kind of like an amber resin. You can get it. I know you’re in Bali, but you can get it at, like, home or Lowe’s or something like that. I’m sure they have it. And I do a first passover the canvas to cover it with shellac, a thin layer of shellac. So now I’m not approaching a blank canvas. I’m approaching a canvas I’ve already just been intimate with. Like, I’ve just m. Covered all of it. And as I’m covering it, I’m listening to the music of the frequency that I’m ready to, like. Like, I’m getting myself aroused. Like, there’s an. Little process there.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah. And so that’s one way to make it easier. Like, maybe that’s put on, music. Like, think about it. Like, foreplay. Okay.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: You’re not just going straight into the act. You’re, like, setting the stage. So I’m setting this stage. I’ve got music playing. I lit a candle. I’m calling on my divine guides. You know, I’m like, really? I’m living in my house by myself, which is really helpful. I have my colors all laid out in a rainbow. I know how to access my brushes. And, like, everything’s there. You know, I even might even have some food for myself. So that when I’m really in the act and I’m, like, in it for many hours, I don’t have to kind of stop. Like, the food is already there. So I’m really setting this stage of, like, it’s a ceremony. It’s honestly a ceremony.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah. I was gonn say ritual.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: It’s. Yeah, it’s like, I’m a ceremonialist. I’m not going into this without knowing that I’m, like, in a goddess bath of roses. So it just. That really helps me become aroused to the creative process because I’ve set the stage so deliciously for myself.

>> Isha Vela: Yes. That makes absolute sense. And thank you for sharing that, because I think that, I hadn’t put that together as, like, the invitation there’s an invitation. Yeah, right. There’s the opening of the door. Foreplay, the setup.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah.

>> Isha Vela: The slow introduction.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah. And you say to yourself, you know, because I do retreats. And I had this girl at a previous retreat and she was having aral visceral reaction to her white canvas. Like very, very much fear and all that. And I said to her, and I had prepped her for this. I knew what we were getting into. This was like a real initiation for her. She had a lot of fear around the uncertainty and that kind of thing. so I said to her, you don’t need to put one paintbrush down on the canvas. You can sit in front of your canvas and that’s part of the painting process. Like for you to just sit there all weekend like everyone else is painting. I don’t care what they’re doing. We’re not in comparison. You’re meeting yourself where you’re at and you don’t need to put one paintbrush down on the canvas. And then she’s like, oh, well, I kind of want to put green here. I’m like, then do that. And then she’s like, I kind of wantna put red here. And we were like celebrating her. Cause each thing she did was so sweet and precious because she was like meeting herself in these permission giving moments that most people just like trample right over. Yeah, you’ve got grass as your background. Like, we weren’t trampling over those like little shoots that were coming up. Like, we were like meeting those little shoots and being like, that’s so beautiful. And I knew she was, working through so much. And by the end of the retreat, I didn’t even need to go over to her. She was in her zone.

>> Isha Vela: Oh, wow. Got it. Okay. And what you’re speaking is slow down also. Right. Slowing down, tuning in. Right. Something that I talk about a lot, but with the abundance and with that frequency and with the processing. I think it’s so important to just to be able to feel we need to slow down and to be able to create from that place of that intuitive. Right. We were think like, okay, what wants to happen next? What wants to happen next? What wants to happen next? Right. We have to be tuned inward, meeting yourself where you are. Like you saide.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah, I do a lot of parts work. Parts work is a really big part of my particular medicine. And. But it’s. I don’t quote ifs internal family assist systems because I didn’t learn it from ifs. I learned this from my own Stuff myself and doing it with a lot of clients. And one of the things that I’d like to say about parts work is that, the inner critic is also alchemizable. Everything is alchemizable. The inner critic. If we ask, what are you protecting me from? Like, when you end the civil war inside, what that looks like is. Wait, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t listening to you. What were you saying? What were you trying to say all along? The inner critic just has some information for us. And so, like, fuck you. Go away. Like, I lived a long time with my inner critic, just shutting him out. And I mean, shutting out most of my parts, honestly. And so to say to the inner critic, like, wait, wait, wait. I love you. What do you have to say to me? What are you protecting me from? What are you trying to keep me safe from? And then I like to celebrate that part for being honest with me and foring anything. If a part shares anything with you, like, celebrate the shit out of it, because then it’s going. It’snn give more. It’s going to come forward for it when we celebrate. So that part, So my inner critic does not sound the same as it used to, and that’s a huge deal.

>> Isha Vela: Oay.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I used to think that the inner critic was just something we have to just, like, shut out and just never heal from, but that’s just not true.

>> Isha Vela: Okay. Okay.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: You can have a really beautiful, harmonious relationship with your inner critic. You could even think of it like a dom. Or you could think of yourself as a dom, or it as a dom. Like, you can make all these fun power dynamics with your parts. You can have a lot of fun. This is true. This is true.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah. Can, Can you speak a little bit, Nadja Marks Shafton, to the idea that, you know, I know there’s a lot of artists out there, starving artists, people who believe they can’t make money from their art. let’s go.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I’m so glad you brought this around, because I was like, do not forget to talk about this. Okay? I’m going to reintroduce starving artist. Abundant artist right now. I’m so excited about this. Okay. Okay. I, The way I see it, we’re gonna start with a metaphor. Once I turn on the lights of my own inner being. Okay. My lights are on. And we’ll talk about what I mean by that. But I just want to, for the sake of the metaphor, move forward. So my lights are on now. The Mycelium network that I’m Connected to the other humans that are like, in their own little world. They see my lights are turned on, like in this podcast, they, you know, they see that there’s something here, there’s something on. And so now they’re like looking at me and coming to me and wanting to hear. But what is, what is the light turned on is just that I am radically owning the love that wants to flow through me. Like, it’s just, it’s divine love. It’s a character trait of, of, of the divin of divinity. It’s love. And so to simplify it, the most love is flowing from me. I’m now not stopping it, right? I’m letting it be on my canvases. I’m letting people come into my art gallery. Like, I’m not stopping this love. By the way, I stopped the love for a long, long time. Because if you remember, humans were very scary to me, so I stopped love. Okay? So I was in starving artist. I was in scarcity because I was stopping the love from leaving from, first of all from healing myself and then from being seen. Because if you remember, my journal was vandalized. So I was like, these are my inner pieces. These are my inner works. Like, this is the most intimate stuff that I am. This is my divine essence. And it’s not safe to be seen. So once I stopped stopping the love, and now I’m like, oh yeah, these paintings were just, they were just a product, a byproduct of love. There were just a byproduct of love. They’re just divine moving through me. I really saw, I worked myself to believe that these are happening through me. They’re not. It’s not Nadya, it’s divine, through me, you know, So I worked to my mind to be able to be like, okay, these are able to be seen now I’m not stopping the love. So now the Mycelium Network can engage with me and buy my paintings and come into my field and come get love, my specific flavor of love. Cause we each have a specific flavor of love. Yeah, they’re like, oh, hi, be on my podcast. Come here, come there. Like, now I’m in flow, in reciprocity with the Mycelium Network.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And that’s where abundance is. Now I’m not starving now. I’m not this tiny little isolated thing with my lights turned off. I’m like, lights turned on, flowing the love out. And now obviously other people want love. Like everyone here wants love. It’s. This is the nature of abundance. Once you realize that you can’t unsee it. Nobody doesn’t want love. Like, so now they’re like, oh, I want love. Like, I just got a message from someone who just bought one of my paintings and she’s sending me this video of, like, how much she loves this painting that’s in her house. And, that never would have happened if I kept my lights turned off. Like, she only saw me because I was on and then she was.

>> Isha Vela: And you were willing to be seen because you were willing to have that light be seen after having been seen and having it. Right. Having it crushed or denigrated.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yes.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: So to simplify all this, where am I stopping love from flowing? That’s where I get to meet myself and ask, like, is it safe to flow my love there? And then in opening my flow more and more, that’s where abundance is goingna be in reciprocity with me. I’m going to be giving love, I’m going to be receiving love. That’s all that resources are. It’s a giving and receiving of love. It’s reciprocity.

>> Isha Vela: Amazingazing.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: any place that we make that more complicated is just like, our mind getting involved. It’honestly it’s probably just the scarcity matrix or the survival matrix does not understand what I’m saying. So if you’re listening at home and you do not understand what I’m saying, it’s just, this doesn’t fit into the survival matrix. The survival matrix, it plays by a very different set of rules.

>> Isha Vela: You’re absolutely right. Yeah. And I feel like I just want to leave it here because that is a whole word right there. Like any story you tell yourself or any, complication that you’d sort of toss in. Yes, but da, da, da, da, da. That’s scarcity. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Like, where, where are you not flowing your love? Oh, but I don’t have. No, that’s just scarcity. And I would invite you to work with scarcity as a part of you instead of the whole of you. Scarcity is a part of you that thinks that it’s, providing safety from something. And I just take on all my parts the same exact way. What are you protecting me from? Would you like a different job every single time they say yes? The only time that the part doesn’t say yes is if it thinks that nobody else will do the job like it does. And then it okay, what if I hire someone else to do the job then? Would you like a vacation? Or would you like a different Role. And it always says yes. And then the new role is usually like, I’m the master of abundance. And now you have scarcity has now been alchemized into like this incredible, abundant life force energy.

>> Isha Vela: Yes. Wow. Amazing. I’d love to let the listener listeners know where they can find you, because I know that you have. Your home is open. Your home is a gallery, and then you have retreats. Right. So people can, hire you for. Right. They can do commission work. but there’s. They can go on retreats with you. Lots of ways to find you.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah. I’m on Instagram. It’s my name, Nadja Marks Shafton Nadj a Marks Shafton. M m a r k s s h a f t o n.art and then my website is casanaadia.com and, that’s like the main ways, I think.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah. Because the retreat information is on your website.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: it’s not on my website, but I always post about it on my Instagram. So ye. Part of my evolution is that I’m always becoming better at systems every single day. Exactly.

>> Isha Vela: Communicating in all the ways. Right. Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Perfect.

>> Isha Vela: Thank you so much, Nadja Marks Shafton. This was just full of really, big gold nuggets for me, personal, personally, and I know, that’s it’s been big for the, for the people listening here. So thank you so much for taking the time today.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: You’re welcome. And can I share it? the way that this is like, the culmination of when I first your podcast. So somehow your podcast came into m my world before I ever met you, before I ever was part of the financial vortex that you’re part of. Really? Yes, Yes.

>> Isha Vela: I don’know that.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I don’t know how. Oh, I think it was because I was following Breia from the matriarch, from Katya’s matriarch thing, and you were there. I was like, who’s Isa? She’s really cool. And I looked into your podcast and I heard an episode and I was like, I’m gonna be on this podcast someday. It wasn’t like I’m gonna, like. It was not like I’m gonna force my way onto the podcast. It was like, oh, I’m actually going toa be on this podcast. It’s justnna happen. Like, I just knew it and here.

>> Isha Vela: We are, and we never talked about it. And then I just invited you.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah. So that’s really cool.

>> Isha Vela: I love that. What a beautiful way to end. Thank you, Nadja Marks Shafton.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Thank you.

>> Isha Vela: Love you so much.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Love you.

>> Isha Vela: Thank you. Thank you for listening to today’s. Episode. Remember to hit the subscribe button to get notified of new episodes dropping on the new and full moons of each month. And if you haven’t already, leave us a five star review on itunes to make sure that everyone who needs this transmission receives it. Until the next episode, I’m sending you fierce, fierce love.