5.18 | Tapping Into the Infinite Flow of Creation with Nadja Marks Shafton (Part 1 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.

>> Isha Vela: Hi Nadja Marks Shafton.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Hia.

>> Isha Vela: Thank you for being here and for speaking about abundance and creativity and artistic expression and all sorts of things that we’re go goingna get into today. But when we were just before, as we were prepping, you mentioned that your name means do in Arabic.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah, my name means M. Every country I’ve been to says that my name is there, like belongs to them.

>> Speaker D: Oh really?

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: When living, I was living in Israel and the Arabs said that my name meant do. And in Judaism, in Hebrew my name means movement of God. In Russian my name means hope. And it goes on.

>> Speaker D: Every definition of my name totally resonates with me.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Awesome. Yeah. And one thing, you know, the way that you and I met, we met through my business and. Right, like finance. And I think what was really evident from the very beginning, like we had a very strong connection. And I, for me that connection was around like your, how you expressed yourself, how you painted like this, both the, how prolific you were as a painter and like your way of approaching art and creation. And I was just like awruuck. Ah. By what you created, but also how you created it. And so that was like a natural something that I think lives in me, but that has not been developed. And so I would love for you to speak about your, your progression as an artist, as an expressive artist, but also like how it ties into abundance. Because I know that a lot of people, you know, I hear a lot of people say like, and I’ve said it like, oh, I’m not an artist, or whatever, blah, blah, blah. You’ve probably heard this a million times. So start wherever you wanna start.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Okay, well, where I want toa start is by saying by the end of this podcast, my intention is that you don’t say, I think it’s in me. You say, I know it’s in me because that is the core message that I’m here on this planet. and a big part of my mission on this planet is, recognizing that I’m here to reintroduce a lot of concepts There’s a reintroduction of art.

>> Speaker D: There’s a reintroduction of abundance. There’s a reintroduction of creativity. and that goes on and on as well. I’m really passionate about reintroducing concepts.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Like even the concept of reality show.

>> Speaker D: Like those are ego shows.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I want to have a reality show.

>> Speaker D: Where it’s like the divine reality show.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I’m here to kind of reclaim.

>> Speaker D: A lot of, concepts. So hopefully we have space to flesh all that out because there’s just a lot that wants to be.

>> Isha Vela: I feel the abundance even in the conversation. Right.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: It’sing y I’m like, yes, yes.

>> Isha Vela: M. Yeah, so. So go for it. Reintroduce away.

>> Speaker D: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: So, okay. So the way that I see it very clearly is that we all have a creative flame. Every single person there is. There’s a lot of ways to describe this creative flame. One is a flame, another is creative.

>> Speaker D: Life force energy that that is moving through us, animating us. we could call it spirit. There’s so many different ways to call this. and so I kind of go interchangeably through. You could also call it a fountain. So I like to call it the fountain of youth. Because once you tap into this fountain, another way to say it is maple syrup that is coming through our tree. So once you tap this infinite flow of maple syrup or fountain, and you can really find that tap and actually.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Look at my earrings. My earrings are a faucet.

>> Isha Vela: Oh, wow. I love it.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I’ll with a drop. Once you know how to tap that.

>> Speaker D: Infinite fountain, you have now touched into abundance. Now this is the ground zero of abundance. we all have it. As, as long as you are animated, as long as you are a human being or even nature or animals, you have what I call the divine.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Spark within you or creative life force energy. Like I had this sunflower that I got from Trader Joe’s recently and I cut off the dead part and all.

>> Speaker D: Of a sudden just starts springing new ones. Like that’s inside of each and every single one of us. So when you say I’m prolific, I am prolific. I have hundreds of paintings because I know how to tap my fountain of you, of wealth, of abundance. And let me not beat around the bush. It’s not like everything just gets easy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But this is the ground zero. This is step one.

>> Isha Vela: Mm

>> Speaker D: I’t.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I don’t want to say like now.

>> Speaker D: I’m going to live abundantly for the rest of my life.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: No’s.

>> Speaker D: There’s alchemy that gets to happen on this journey, but this is ground zero.

>> Isha Vela: It’s the foundation. It’s the foundation of who we be. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, I get that. And I feel like that’s very, ah, the way that you explained that is very clear. Yeah, yeah. And, what was your journey to discovering that or uncovering that? Or did you know that already as a child? What was that like for you? Because your mom is also an artist, is that right?

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: My mom is. So I have a long lineage of people who had very powerful life force energy flowing through them. My greatler was, definitely was a prophetess. but she did not have the privilege in her lifetime of really expressing that. But she knew that Hitler was going to rise and she left when she was very young and she never saw her family again. So she had multiple versions of inner vision that was very clear for her and she’s a very powerful woman. And then her son, my grandfather was a prolific photographer. And I have so much. I can. I, owe so much of my artistic eye to him. Like, I was in his dark room when I was growing up. Like, his eye for composition and for connecting to people’s soul was so evident. We traveled a lot when I was growing up and he would, he just had so much joie de vivre, like, joy of life. Like, he would just go up to someone who’s like, painting their nails on the side of the road in some random country and he’s like, my granddaughter wants you to paint her nails too. And then he would take a picture of it. Like he was just so alive.

>> Speaker E: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And then my mom too. So that’s my grandfather’s daughter, my mom. very prolific writer and very spiritually activated person.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Okay, so that’s kind of where it started.

>> Isha Vela: Yes, go ahead. Yeah. You had mentioned you had said the word aliveness.

>> Speaker D: Yeah.

>> Isha Vela: And I think that when you talk about life force. Right. Like, and tapping into that place, like, yeah, so we’re going to come back to that. But yeah, continue.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: It’s totally aliveness. and I.

>> Speaker D: There’s so many places I want to go.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: but in my lifetime, knowing that I came from that lineage, I had a lot of inner power, but I was in a public school with a bunch of kids that were completely not on my wavelength.

>> Speaker D: Like, totally not.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Like, it’s not that they’re better or worse. It’s just like they were so different. And I felt like such a weirdo. Like, it was a major problem during the years That I was growing up where I just felt I didn’t belong. And I felt this deep sense of rejection which ended up manifesting a lot of times. And the worst of the manifested rejection is actually the start of why this is my soul mission in this lifetime. Which that’s how it is, isn’t it?

>> Isha Vela: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: The worst of the rejection was that I was in high school and I just moved from Massachusetts to Florida and I was in this school system and very quickly like I was there for maybe like a few days and all of a sudden like the popular girls who I was like, oh, maybe I’ll.

>> Speaker D: Just hang out with them, maybe I’ll be popular. I’ll try that out.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: they turned on me like hardcore like, like I. It was like the movie the Mean Girls. And what I’m realizing now is the worst thing that they did of all the things that they did was that they took my journal where I had my like, you know, it was me.

>> Speaker D: And my own essence in my journal. That’s how my journal is. It’s like, you know, that’s how probably.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Everyone’S journalist me in my essence. They took that and they like super vandalized it. And that core wound like shattered me like in a huge way. And it’s part of why it was such a self abandonment from that experience. Like I had such a shattering of my own self homecoming because my essence was not safe for me to trust. It wasn’t trustworthy for me. So because of that experience, that’s why I have so many years building back self reclamation and self empowerment because I didn’t realize but it threw me into an outer space moment where I was not with myself anymore. And so that’s why I have so many tools to share on this topic because that’s why I have such an abundance to share. Because I felt such a deep sense of scarcity of like me and my essence is not enough like at all. That’s my friend’s dog. So I just want to show that spectrum of total scarcity and connect and like lack of connection to my own essence.

>> Speaker D: Hi Nova.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And then on the other side of the spectrum is abundance and total reclamation of myself self.

>> Speaker E: Est

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And that’s where I’m hanging out now. So you’re going to hear a lot of empowered talk now. But it’s because I’ve seen that entire spectrum.

>> Isha Vela: M you basically you’ve traveled the spectrum. Yeah, yeah, I like to say that.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Just to finish that up. I like to make that clear because I’ve listened to a lot of podcasts over my life. And I always thought like when I’m on podcasts, I want to make it clear that I’m not above, like I’THIS is. I’m not like I’ve made it and now I get to be on a podcast. It’s like I’m working this spectrum just like anybody is working their spectrum.

>> Isha Vela: Yes.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: From the worst thing to your reclaimed, remembered, fully empowered being.

>> Isha Vela: Absolutely, absolutely. I agree, I agree. And the way that you describe this event of being, having your privacy and this is this essence violated in your innocence in a way. Right. It sounds like it kind of like knocked you out of your body. It kind of like separated this, the spirit from. From flesh, right?

>> Speaker D: Yes. Yes.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah. Wow. That’s so powerful. And that happened in high school?

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yes, that was in 10th grade. And I think for those listening, we don’t know what we don’t know. Right. Like I didn’t know how far into self abandonment that put me.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I. If I went back in time, I would stand up for myself in a way that I did not know how to do at the time.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Like it was such a shattering of my sense of identity and my ego that I had no clue how to like truly stand up for myself. Mmmm.

>> Speaker E: M.

>> Isha Vela: And when that happened, were you already in the visual arts?

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I’ve been painting and drawing for my whole life.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: But I never, it never felt. I never claimed it. It didn’t feel like we are one. It was like it was fun and it was. I mean up until that high school experience, it was, it was very it was important. It was important for me to have that outlet. But now what I, where I am with my art now is such a more intimate, Experience. Experience with my art.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: So I see art as a spiritual evolution.

>> Isha Vela: Okay.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: As so my paintings. And by the way, I. I’ve kept all my paintings since kindergarten. Yeah. And I’ve turned my house into an art museum. And I honor my kindergarten paintings just as much as I do now because I genuinely see that every single painting has been an illustration of myolution, my spiritual evolution.

>> Isha Vela: Absolutely.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And I’m just getting started.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah. Yeah. And so how did you like just thinking about the metaphor you used or how you describe like walking the spectrum, like moving from the place of like self abandonment, scarcity. What were the steps in you walking your way back to abundance?

>> Speaker D: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Oh, wow. Well, I think first step is awareness. I don’t think I had the awareness of how far out I was until I was going through my divorce. I remember, like into my divorce process, I think the term self abandonment started, like, being more prevalent. And I realized that even my marriage was self abandonment because it was like me not feeling worthy. So I kind of dangled the fact that I had this money that, that I used to buy my house to my ex husband. And. And then during our divorce, he ended up going for that, you know, as, as people do in a divorce. And so I didn’t realize how much I had usurped my power. Even the word power, by the way. Power can be used as an egoic sense and it can be, used as a divine sense. So when I’m saying power, I’m really talking about my divine power. So I didn’t realize how much I had usurped my divine power. And even the way I was showing up in my marriage, all over it, it shows me trying to like, be liked, be loved, be accepted. So there’sept. There’s the awareness first, a step of like, wow, yeah, I’m really, rejection and abandonment has been so painful for so long, and I’ve really not gotten a hold of that yet. And so then painting became a reclamation process. It was like, oh, and then I had another opportunity to reclaim. so I’ve been increasing my art skills for many years. So as my art skills got better, my soul was dimming down because the school that I was learning from, he had like a way of being a good artist. And then there was a bad art. There’s like good art, bad art. So my skills were getting really, really great. And I’m grateful, I’m so grateful for that opportunity. But that’s where I realized that skills and soul are both very, very important in this process. Then I reclaimed my soul because that flame I was talking about at the beginning of, of the metaphors, the slew of metaphors, that soul was like, really feeling like the flame. It was like feeling like it was dimming down. It was like really, really quiet. And that kind of scared me, actually, because that wasn’t something that I was used to. So then I went out of that school and I was able to reclaim. I’m enough even if I paint like bad art. Like bad art, you know. And so that was. So I was actually going through divorce and reclaiming my inner soul voice, inner child, inner artist, all at the same time. And my paintings started looking like me in a cocoon. Like I was in a chrysalis. And then it was a whole Series of me as a chrysalis. Like, liquefying. Because for whoever’s listening, I don’t know if you know this, but maybe you’re in this moment right now. But a caterpillar turns into cosmic goo in a chrysalis. And that’s how I felt. I was like, I don’t know what way is up. I, have no idea, but I’m liquefying. And so that’s one of the really powerful paintings that really started this new journey of, like, every painting is literally me leaving my entire soul on the canvas. And, that’s where I started building up my abundance of like. Like, wow, this incredible value that is coming through me onto the canvas. This is on the same level as Frida Kahlo or as Van Gogh or any of the greats. And that’s where I realized an incredible truth, which is that none of us are pedestal at all. We all have the exact same divine essence that’s flowing through us, every single one of us. so my new movement is like, we are equals to Frida Kahlo and Vincent Vanogh and the Rolling Stones and all the greats. Like, we are equals to them because we all have the same divine essence that’s flowing through us.

>> Isha Vela: I love that. I love that. Yeah. Because we tend to set up hierarchies and, Yeah, yeah, we set up hierarchies or we leave ourselves out of the equation altogether.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: That’s it.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That’s powerful. I love the. I love how you describe sort of like, skill and soul and like, it’s. It’s interesting because the way you describe it as feel, like. Feels like they were. Like there were binaries that you were crushing as you were moving through this. It’s’s like, yeah, skill, but, also soul. And you kept bringing in all of the pieces that were missing for you or that, like, you wanted to add in. And then it’s like, yes, and. Right. Like, keep putting in the. And. And deciding that whatever you painted was absolutely beautiful because it came from that place. Yeah, I think that’s. That’s a big deal. we’re saying it with words and we’re saying it very simply. But, you know, a lot of people struggle with that of like. You know, even my kids say, like, oh, but I’m not a good. You know, I don’t draw well or whatever. And I think. I think it’s amazing because I feel the essence in their drawings. But even. Even when we encourage them, you know, and even when we receive accolades. Right. Like it. There is, there are, there are some core wounds that we either inherit and bring into this u. this life. or, or we, we acquire them here on, on, you know, in this lifetime.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: That’s absolutely true. That. And I just speak to that for one second.

>> Isha Vela: Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Or one minute. The water in which we swim has been in a contamination of scarcity and survival for as long as we know. We humans do not remember a time before survival had taken over his planet. And so that introduces a reintroduction of creativity from. As a binary to survival. There’s survival and there’s creativity and they are not in the same frequency.

>> Isha Vela: No.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And so I don’t paint to make money. that’s like something that I’ve been clear about from the beginning. I’m not. And by the way, I’ve been a full time painter. I have not had another job. So it’s not like that’s been simple. But I do not paint to make money because the value that is within me, that maple syrup that’s been flowing is way too valuable for me to keep prostituting for a paycheck for like, the artists in the old days, they used to have to use their creative life force to make a paycheck from the church or from a wealthy family. That was the only option. The Impressionists and the Naturalists were the first painters ever that I know of. I’m happy to be wrong about this, that I know of. That, painted because the life force was telling them to paint that instead of get a paycheck from the church.

>> Isha Vela: Right. Do make a portrait. Do you know, create a fresco. Yeah. It was just like. No, I feel like it was like this, the drive. Right, the internal drive to create.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yes. And they were, they were light seekers. They were looking for light. So Monet like painted a bunch of haystacks that all that all were to depict light that was. And they were so looked down upon during that time period that they actually had to make their own gallery. It was called Salon de Refusee. The Refused. they were called salons instead of a gallery. It was for the Refused painters and.

>> Isha Vela: Wow.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And they were not, they were not incorporated at all into like what was popular at that time.

>> Isha Vela: Yes, yes. Yeah. And we forget that. Right. Because now we appreciate it, but we forget that in the moment they were not popular. Yeah.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: And so as a painter I have been so clear that I’m not doing this to work for someone else. Just like Frida Kahlo, she alchemized all of her pain, all of her life into paintings that now speak to people and make people cry, which is a Spanish. There’s a Spanish word for that called duende. See, when you see like the value of a person leaving their entire soul on the canvas and it just moves you to tears, or like a ballerina or a musician, it just moves you to tears because that palpable visceral connection and intimacy with spirit is so solid. And so that’s why I paint, because of that intimacy with my own spirit. That’s why I do what I do. And so, I’m not doing this to get a ton of commissions. Commissions are helpful. My gosh, they’re so helpful. But I’m always making sure that I’m also bringing my own life force energy to the canvas.

>> Isha Vela: And when you approach a painting or when you like, what are. I’m m just curious as to what your rituals are because I know that when. And you know, in the last year I’ve been receiving more downloads around like what to paint and you know, and I feel very awkward approaching the canvas because it had. It’s been years since I’ve painted.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah.

>> Isha Vela: U. but do you, do you receive like instructions or do you receive like, do this or you know, how is it that you tap into that creative force, that, that life force, the aliveness, the flow?

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: That’s a really powerful question. And I can feel some people listening to this being like, thank you, Isha. Thank you for making it practical. So, I meet myself where m. Where I am. That’s the whole nature of my ritual. So it’s like right now, I mean, right now I’m not in grief, but like, if we were to talk about that time period I was just talking about, I was processing enormous grief.

>> Isha Vela: And the divorce and everything.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Heartbreaking. Yeah. And there were so many things to process. And so I met myself in that. I remember there was one painting, I had like lawyer bills flowing in. And I was so triggered. I was facing scarcity on such. Which by the way, thank God I faced scarcity so intimately because now I have skills to be able to handle that. So I just want to say this to whoever is listening, if you’re facing something right now, it’s because you’re going to master it. You’re going to master it. And right now it freaking sucks. I had so many lawyer bills. I felt so scared. I was still giving in into the belief that I’m a starving artist. I was still believing that artists don’t make money and blah, blah, blah. I was still giving in. I hadn’t transmuted that yet. And so I spent all of New Year’s in the bathtub because I couldn’t face my life. And I just couldn’t figure out how I was ever going to, like, pay for all the expenses that were coming my way. So I, met myself in that, you know. So each painting was medicine for that moment that I was in. So I was talking about a painting that I remember. It was a really pretty big painting, and it was a huge snake. So I get an image. I’m very visual. I got an image of a snake where I’m, like, battling to get out of its mouth. Like, it was like this huge snake. I knew I needed to process some enormous rage and feeling like I was, powerless. And so this huge snake showed itself to me, and I just started painting it. Oftentimes I’ll just get a vision, like, a quick vision, and then I have to figure it out on the canvas. I don’t know how it’s going to go, okay. But I know the emotion I’m working through, and I’ll put on music that even if it’s the same song over and over and over and over, it’s a song that’s going to really help me process the depth of that emotion, that feeling. So I processed everything that came up, and that’s the work of being a human. Like, I know that that’s what we’re doing here. So to be an artist is such a freaking blessing because it gives me time at my canvas to look at myself, to be with myself, and to be intimate with that emotion that I’m experiencing. So if we were to look at. When you’re saying you don’t know where to start, that’s where you start. I don’t know where to start.

>> Speaker D: Feel.

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: I feel this distance. What does that feel like? What does that look like? And then you just start kind of playing in that field, knowing that there’s no right or wrong way to do it. But you’re doing it, and you might hate that. I just posted a painting on, a post on Instagram where, I had a painting which I really didn’t like, and I just burned it.

>> Isha Vela: Like, I saw that right before. Before getting on the. And I was like, wait, why are you doing that?

>> Nadja Marks Shafton: Yeah, because I hated it. I did not like the way I depicted that self. It was a self portrait, and I didn’t like the way I depicted that. And so what I’m saying is let go of the whole like this has to look good or people have to like. You know what I realized? I realized that I was being one of those dance moms that’s forcing their kid to like look a certain so that my reputation would like, matter. That’s what I was doing to my paintings. And I realized, that I was forcing my paintings to look good so that I could look good then. And then I let go of that. So I’ve worked through a lot of these things as I meet myself at the canvas.

>> Isha Vela: Wow. That’s incredible. Thank you for listening to today’s episode.

>> Isha Vela: 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.