The Artist’s Medicine Wheel #HTipT #142

John Paul: Welcome to this weekly podcast of “Hot Tip Tuesday,” presented by the Auspicious Arts Incubator, building sustainable arts

businesses.

Woman: Your body is the key to feeling better, thinking better, and feeling connected. This week on the podcast, John Paul shows us a Native Canadian medicine wheel that explains how to bring body, heart, mind, and spirit into balance.

John Paul: I’m John Paul Fischbach. I’m the CEO and Chief Alchemist here at the Auspicious Arts Incubator. And this Tuesday, I wanna introduce you to the artists’ medicine wheel, and it’s the secret to unlocking the body. Now, as artists, understand that we’re a combination of the body, the heart, the mind, and spirit. Now, when all of these are in sync, we’re powerful creators but sometimes the energy stops flowing

and we get stuck. So this week, I’m gonna share some of the native wisdom that I’ve gathered over the years to unstick when that energy

gets locked up.

This is the artists’ medicine wheel. It helps us balance the heart with the mind, and the body with the spirit. So medicine wheels work going

around the circle, they work because you go in a particular pattern, and sometimes they balance things across the ends of the wheel. So, the

heart is gonna balance the mind, the body’s gonna balance the spirit, that’s the way this particular medicine wheel’s going to work. So, if the

body is open, right, then energy flows to the heart, okay? And then if the heart is opened, energy flows to the mind. And if the mind is open, then energy flows to the spirit, right? So, you can see that we go body, heart, mind, spirit. Body, heart, mind, spirit. And that’s the way this particular thing flows. Okay, so does that make sense?

So let’s look at what we can do to open the body, if that’s the way the energy’s going to flow. So, sometimes we have stress and frustration

and that makes us grip and hold, right, and it’s just because our body is hardwired to protect us. So in times of stress, we grip and we hold, ready for fight or flight, right? But this doesn’t help us as artists. So what we wanna do, since we know that this is the way it goes that if the body gets opened, then the heart can open, if the heart can open then the mind can open, if the mind can open, then we get connected to the universe in spirit and art, right? So opening the body is really the best thing that we can do to help this particular path of the wheel keep moving.

So there are things like yoga and tai chi and qigong that are really great practices for artists, so I would encourage you to develop one of those

practices. But let’s look at some other thing you can do. So, throughout your day, it’s important to continue to open the body. So, simple things work best to get energy flowing in the body and those simple things need to happen periodically throughout the day. So, simple things, simple simple. Breathing, drinking water, vigorous bursts of activity, a bit of stretching. Because sometimes we just get so absorbed in our work that we forget to engage our bodies. So I recommend getting some help to remember.

So there are some really great apps that will remind you to take a physical break. So the one that I use is called Randomly Remind Me,

and every 90 minutes or so, an alarm goes off. And when the alarm goes off, I just check into my body, I have some water, and then I try to do something physical for like two or three minutes, you know, short, short, easy. So, immediately, what happens is I feel better, right? And

then, because I feel better and my emotions have shifted to more positive feelings, when I return to my work, my mind is clear, and because my mind is clear, I feel more connected.

So that’s the artists’ medicine wheel. You can see how it works. You can see how the body is the source of it all. So if this Hot Tip was helpful, please share this video. There’s a longer, more extended version in our membership site, so go back to our website and look at our membership site. That’s a longer, more in-depth version of this particular idea. So when you need practical help for your arts business, always check us out. We’ve got lots of help for you at www.auspiciousartsincubator.org.

Thanks for listening to this week’s “Hot Tip Tuesday” podcast. All of these podcasts in the Hot Tip Tuesday series are curated by myself,

John Paul Fischbach, the CEO and Chief Alchemist here at the Auspicious Arts Incubator and are produced by Alia Vryens. Check us out if you wanna see this podcast because sometimes there are visuals that don’t translate in a podcast and you can see those videos if you

check out our website, www.auspiciousartsincubator.org, and there’s a drop-down menu for quick help for artists, where you can see the

video version of this podcast