Mind, Body, Creativity: The Unexpected Benefits of Yoga on Creative Work

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You know that yoga is good for your mind and body, but do you know that yoga can also enrich and support your creativity? Yoga has changed my life for the better in so many ways. And among them, surprisingly, even to me, yoga has also guided, enriched, and improved my career and my creativity too. How? You're about to find out.

Yoga is a ritual, an integrative mental and physical practice, and I have experienced firsthand how it grounds me in my body, helps me observe and know how I feel, and opens my awareness to what feels aligned and out of alignment for me.

But my purpose with this episode is not at all to convince you that you should have a yoga practice. Instead, my purpose for this episode is to share with you gifts and tools from this holistic system, especially those that you might not expect, so that you can integrate them into your wellspring of resources that help you to build, shape, and live a more fulfilling creative career and a freer, more aligned creative life.

I'm going to guide you through what yoga actually means, what core principles shape its holistic and nurturing philosophy that are applicable to us as creatives, and how yoga as a holistic system and discipline can support you in building a more sustainable and fulfilling career and aligned creative practice.

In This Episode, We Cover:

Yoga as a creative enrichment practice
My journey into yoga and its impacts on my creativity & career
Yoga beyond movement: intro to the holistic philosophy
Yogic principles for a creative life and career
Creativity as a form of yoga
Guided mind-body listening exercise

Episode Summary

In this episode of Called to Bloom, Jen Cavender explains how yoga can support creativity, not just physical and mental well-being. This solo episode reframes yoga as a holistic system that can help creatives stay grounded, make clearer decisions, and build a more sustainable career. Rather than pushing a yoga practice as a requirement, Jen shares accessible tools and core principles from yoga philosophy that can be integrated into everyday creative life and work.

Key Takeaways

Yoga supports creative clarity:

It helps regulate attention, quiet mental noise, and create better conditions for thoughtful creative decisions.

Body awareness reveals alignment:

Tuning into how you feel physically can help you recognize whether a creative choice, opportunity, or direction feels aligned.

The goal is presence, not performance:

Yoga is less about mastering poses and more about becoming steadier, more responsive, and mentally present.

Boundaries protect creative energy:

The yamas and niyamas offer a framework for reducing distractions, acting intentionally, and building healthier creative habits.

Sustainable creativity needs supportive rituals:

Consistent practices can create the stability and openness that allow inspiration to emerge without relying on constant bursts of motivation.

Yoga philosophy can be practical and accessible:

You do not need an extensive yoga practice to apply its principles to everyday creative work and career decisions.

Mentioned in This Episode

Details From Sponsors:

This episode of the Called to Bloom podcast is brought to you by Nectar & Bloom Mentorship.

Explore a multi-day Studio Mentorship for an in-person immersion tailored to you that combines floral design, business strategy, and holistic creative entrepreneurship, or a Remote Mentorship for strategic coaching from wherever you are.

Use code CALLEDTOBLOOM at checkout for 10% off your first Remote Mentorship session purchase.

Resources:

Explore Mentorship — deepen your floral artistry practice one-on-one

Join the Poetry of Flowers — holistic floral artistry online courses to empower your creative practice from anywhere in the world

Discover Tarot of Flowers — a gift of abundant floral wisdom for any flower-lover or seeker
Use code CALLEDTOBLOOM for 10% off your Poetry of Flowers Course or Immersion Pass

Keep in Touch:

Thank you so much for being here, and for being part of this radiant community as we step deeper into our creative callings together.

If you enjoyed this episode:

Connect with me on Instagram: @nectar_and_bloom and @calledtobloompodcast.
Please share a review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Your words help other creatives and seekers like you find the show!

Episode Keywords

yoga and creativity, yoga for creatives, creative career sustainability, yoga philosophy, mindfulness for creativity, creative clarity, mindful creativity, holistic wellness for entrepreneurs, yoga for entrepreneurs, creative burnout prevention, sustainable creative practice, mind-body connection, yoga and mental clarity, yoga for stress relief, mindfulness and creative work, eight limbs of yoga, yamas and niyamas, meditation for creatives, grounding practices for creativity, alignment and self-awareness

Sound Bites

12:46 — “This builds trust with ourselves, which builds confidence, which builds better habits, which builds a better life.”

20:46 — “When you get honest with yourself, you face a lot of scary feelings about what might happen or how changing will be dangerous. But when you move through that and trust in that honesty, things get a lot more clear and a lot easier.”

24:44 — “Contentment is a peaceful and appreciative inner state that elevates our energy and vibration.”

29:36 — "Yoga is a practice that helps you be in relationship with your body and your mind. Similarly, yoga supports you living in relationship with your creativity."

30:40 — “When we really slow down, drop in, and allow ourselves to create in that slow, spacious energy of wonder and curiosity, of real presence, creativity flows.”

32:33 —“Yoga is an act of coming home—coming home to self, to the body, to the present moment, and to genuine, authentic creativity.”

34:47 — “Come home to yourself. Come home to exploring and making what you love to create.”

40:03 — "Just noticing and having a practice of that loving and attentive checking in with yourself here and there throughout your day, is yoga, and it can be truly transformative."

Chapters

00:00 — How Yoga Supports Creativity

02:19 — Yoga as a Tool for an Aligned Creative Career

04:12 — What Yoga Really Means: Union, Presence, and Practice

06:03 — My Personal Journey with Yoga

13:48 — Poetry of Flowers: Courses for Creative Growth

15:28 — Yoga Philosophy and the Eight Limbs

17:46 — The Yamas: Compassion, Truth, Comparison, and Enoughness

23:36 — The Niyamas: Contentment, Discipline, Self-Study, and Surrender

29:36 — Creativity as a Form of Yoga

35:27 — Guided Visualization: Coming Home to Yourself

40:20 — Closing Reflections and Resources

Full Transcript

But my purpose with this episode is not at all to convince you that you should have a yoga practice. Instead, my purpose for this episode is to share with you gifts and tools from yoga as a holistic system, especially those that you might not expect, so that you can integrate them into your wellspring of resources that help you to build, shape, and live a more fulfilling creative career and a freer, more aligned creative life.

Welcome to the Called to Bloom podcast. I'm Jen Cavender founder of Nectar and Bloom, and your host as we explore tools and holistic methods that empower you to craft an inspired career and a fulfilling creative life.

I am a floral artist and educator who left an academic career to build my dream floral design studio. Now I empower flower lovers, florists, and creative entrepreneurs like you to find your aligned path and to build your dream.

Together we go deep into topics covering creative entrepreneurship, health and well-being, sustainability, personal transformation,

The art and business of working with flowers and practices for manifesting a life you love.

If you are ready to feel inspired and empowered as you build your next aligned creative chapter, you are in the right place. Now, let's bloom.

Chances are you have definitely heard of yoga, and chances are you've likely been to at least one yoga class yourself.

You've heard that yoga is good for your mind and body. But what if yoga isn't just a way to relax or a method to center your mind or a workout to tone your body?

Some benefits of yoga are well known and expected, but what if yoga were also a powerfully supportive tool for nourishing your creativity, keeping you inspired, pacing and motivating yourself, and guiding you in building a more successful and sustainable creative career?

I specifically created this podcast for creatives and entrepreneurs like you who are ready to evolve and step into a healthier and more fulfilling way of being, of creating, and of serving in the world.

It is a channel through which I can share with you the tools and perspectives and practices that have changed my life and career for the better. And yoga, not just stretching and breathing, but the holistic philosophy is one of the biggest ones of all.

So of course I want to share with you how yoga can be a huge benefactor in your life and creative work too.

So I am thrilled to sit down with you today to dive into it together.

As an important disclaimer, you do not have to go to a vinyasa class or embark on a deep course of study into ancient texts to benefit from what yoga at large has to offer.

You also don't need to be hard on yourself about starting or not starting a yoga practice. You don't even have to think about that in order to benefit from yoga either.

I'm going to break this down for us today into enriching bite-sized snacks of yoga wisdom that are accessible and applicable for us now, that are drawn from my own studies and practice of yoga, over the past 15 years. In other words, this is not an academic lecture on yoga, but rather a guided journey of empowerment, designed to nourish you and your creative practice with aspects of an ancient wisdom that is truly transformational.

A few quick guideposts before we dive in.

Number one, yoga means union. We think of yoga as the activity of stretching and breathing on a mat, but it actually means to join or to unite in Sanskrit. And this is because the practice of yoga is about bringing the mind and the body together in the present moment.

Number two, yoga asana practice is the physical practice that we most often refer to as yoga. Asana means seat in Sanskrit and refers to each posture in the physical yoga practice because each one is finding a seat in yourself that is designed to help the body open and heal and circulate and grow stronger.

Number three, the purpose of yoga, as it is written in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, is Chitta Vritti Nirodaha, which translates roughly to stilling the changing and fluctuating waves of the mind.

Number four, Yoga as a full philosophy includes eight limbs or branches of practices, and we'll talk about this more in just a moment.

And number five, as a note, if you would like to go into more depth about any of these key pointers by the end of this episode, reach out to me directly. I'll be so happy to point you to useful resources. I'll also be including some of my favorites in the show notes for this episode, so be sure to check there as well.

And I'm going to be illuminating for you how it works and feels in action with a guided visualization exercise at the end of the episode as well. So stay tuned for that.

First things first, a little about my own journey.

I discovered yoga as a little girl when my mom started going to classes with a Hatha yoga teacher named Laurel.

Laurel was a Zen, amethyst clad woman with long hair and a steady voice who had trained in India.

Laurel is forever emblazoned in my mind because at the time I was of a very impressionable age and very interested in and impacted by things my mom found healing and inspiring.

My mom carries a good deal of pain and inherited trauma that I know well through my own healing journey, as I absorbed a lot of it growing up. And so when my mom found things like Ayurveda, which I distinctly remember her reading Deepak Chopra's book, Perfect Health, or Louise Hay, and I actually have in my possession my mom's old copy of You Can Heal Your Life with the big rainbow heart on the cover, or even with yoga with Laurel, I was really absorbing all of that too.

I actually went to my first ever yoga asana class taught by Laurel with my mom, which felt extremely cool of her to bring me along, actually. I was probably about 12 or 13 years old, and I just thought it was kind of a funny, slow, stretching class for middle-aged women, but the breathing and the grounding and the centering effects it had on me really stayed with me.

And I noticed the positive impacts it had on my mom.

Fast forward to my years in graduate school, in my mid-twenties, studying creative writing and in love with, but often on breaking up with carr, writing a thesis, taking out my inner pain and stress on my body through running marathons, even though I didn't realize it. I know this now.

The truth is I had overtrained and overburdened myself with these big races. I was trying to do a triple crown, but I squeezed in a fourth race just because and suddenly I found myself laid up with a mysteriously swollen ankle.

At the time, I was relying on running so much to deal with my inner pain that the thought of not being able to run was intolerable to me. So I frantically searched for other physical movement that would be low impact and that could hold me over while my ankle healed.

What I found were two options that I dove into fervently. One was spinning class, and the other was something called Ashtanga Yoga. I figured spinning would give me a good cardio and then the yoga would, you know, stretch and heal me, I thought. So it couldn't hurt.

What I found was that spinning required being indoors and stationary while being yelled at by an instructor to sit and stand and sit while you pedaled, Ashtanga Yoga, on the other hand, had a rhythm and a physicality and a breathing technique that actually left my body singing when I rested in Shavasana after practice. And I just remember thinking, what is this? I thought we would just be stretching, but people were levitating their bodies and doing all kinds of graceful, powerful, beautiful things that seemed effortless, but looked, and I guess not just looked, but felt strong and peaceful and amazing. Genuinely, I wondered at the time, can strong and peaceful exist at the same time?

After my first class, I was hooked. I never planned to teach yoga, but eventually my teacher at the studio suggested to me to join his teacher training, even if just to deepen my practice. And I thought that sounded okay, so I agreed. I did want to deepen my practice. This yoga thing was not only helping strengthen and rebalance my body while my injuries healed, but it was also giving me a new sense of self, a sense of confidence, and a community of people that I saw and breathed and moved with every day. And that was really grounding for me in a particularly tumultuous time in my life.

From there, I had become both a practitioner of yoga and a yoga teacher, although I still had so much to learn and honestly still do

And now over 15 years later, I am so happily teaching a weekly evening yoga class at a local studio here in San Diego,

And I'm also weaving the teachings of yoga into my work as a floral artist and as a writer, mentor, and podcaster, which brings us to this episode today.

During the decades since I started Nectar and Bloom, yoga has been a companion and a guiding philosophy in the background for me all along.

Some of you remember, but the very first floral design group workshop I ever created and taught was actually called Yoga and Flowers.

It was a workshop where we began with a centering and energizing yoga practice and then brought that harmonized energy and body-mind connection into our design session, creating hand gathered bouquets.

But in a bigger, deeper way, yoga has grounded and guided me to shape a more holistic approach to my work and a more intentional and nourishing structure for my business.

I have gone way off track, tried things that completely overburdened me, expected things of myself that were not sustainable, and learned the hard way again and again how to come home to myself and how to take care of myself as the creative and the heart of this business.

And yoga has been a consistent and guiding current in that process.

During the height of my wedding work as a floral designer, my yoga practice is what grounded me and told me very clearly that I needed to find a different rhythm, schedule, and pace in order to make this work sustainable for me and in alignment with my values.

My practice helps me connect with myself and know what is true for me, helps me keep my body healthy and clears and smooths out my mind, which helps me make better decisions and helps me steer the ship of my business in a more conscious and intentional and fulfilling direction.

On the other hand, the practice of observing myself with unconditional love,

has helped me become more aware of when fear or being triggered are driving me, or when something feels in my gut like a red flag or a misaligned opportunity. Or when it's time to respect my body and mind and prioritize rest or freedom as part of my plan for success.

In a word, yoga is regulatory. It takes the wild oscillations of the mind and provides a ritualized system to follow, even if only for a few minutes of breathing. When we are all shaken up with stimulus and expectations and perceived urgency, the mind is noisy and stressed and unclear.

When we can utilize a thoughtful system of practices and steps and rituals, we are able to mitigate that torrential activity and soften the noise, providing space for clarity and the capacity to listen to what is true and known inside.

This builds trust with ourselves, which builds confidence, which builds better habits, which builds a better life.

It is an upward spiral, and it can start with very small, simple steps.

Poetry is a framework, an art form created from language, sounds, and the meanings words carry that allows us to tell stories and create connection and impact. And flowers are much the same.

With their colors, shapes, scents, and gestures, flowers provide us with a rich vocabulary that we can then use to compose meaningful experiences and atmospheres that transform and bring events and celebrations to life.

As a formally educated poet and a former English professor, when I found myself called to work with flowers, it was a surprising pivot to be sure, but it was also an opportunity to channel what I studied and knew well into my new creative career.

This connection with and background in poetry is exactly why I named my collection of holistic and empowering online courses in floral artistry, The Poetry of Flowers.

Poetry of Flowers provides you with all of the techniques, guidance, and advice that I teach in my workshops and mentorships inside an educational experience that is affordable, portable, and accessible to all.

Just dipping your toe into floral artistry? Perfect way to begin. Not sure you're ready to invest in a mentorship yet? Also, the perfect reason to start out with a Poetry of Flowers course.

Inside Poetry of Flowers, you will find a suite of a la carte video courses with me on topics from how to begin in floristry to hand-gathered bouquet designs to designing large-scale foam-free floral installations or wedding floral design in production and more. Best of all, you can attend the pre-recorded courses at your own pace and from wherever you are in the world.

You can also choose a Poetry of Flowers immersion pass to gain access to all of the courses and resources at our best and most accessible rate all in one.

Go to nectarandbloomfloral.com and head to the courses page to learn more. That's nectarandbloomfloral.com and head to courses.

And as a called to bloom listener, you can get 10% off your Poetry of Flowers holistic online course or immersion pass with code CALDTOBLOOM at checkout. That's C-A-L-L-E-D-T-O-B-L-O-O-M One word at checkout.

And now back to our episode.

So, as mentioned, yoga isn't only the physical practice. It's also a rich philosophy and a complete holistic system for living a better life.

If you've listened to my episodes on Ayurveda, like episode five, which is "The holistic system that reshaped my life and business," or episode 14, "How to optimize your work and well-being with Ayurveda," then you know I'm a big fan of holistic systems that empower us to know more about ourselves, our bodies, and our inner workings, so that we can live a better, healthier, and more intentional life.

The philosophy side of yoga, as I mentioned at the beginning, has eight limbs or branches that contain really beautiful guidelines to follow and values to prioritize for a healthy, peaceful, conscious, and happy life.

This eight-limb system or path of yoga was recorded by the sage Patanjali around two hundred BCE to four hundred CE. He was essentially gathering a great body of ancient wisdom from older texts, like the Vedas and the Upanishads, and also from orally transmitted philosophical and meditation traditions that were passed through the centuries by other sages.

In Sanskrit, this yogic path is called Ashtanga because that is how you say eight limbs in Sanskrit. Ashta means eight and anga means limb.

The first limb is called the yamas, and these are five abstinences or restraints, which are kind of rules of things that you are meant to not do.

The second limb are the niyamas, which are five committed practices or five things you are meant to consciously practice and do. So yamas are the don't do, niyamas are the do.

Then the third branch is what we know the most: asana, which are the physical postures.

The fourth branch is pranayama, which is controlled breathing techniques.

The fifth limb is pratyahara, which is a practice of withdrawing the senses so that you can go and focus inward.

The sixth limb is dharana, which is concentration.

The seventh is dhyana, meditation, and the eighth is samadhi, which is liberation or union with higher self and higher consciousness.

Each limb builds on and deepens the effect of the next, bringing an ever deeper and more subtle journey into self and spiritual union.

We are not going to dive into a yoga teacher training depth but I will be guiding you in an accessible introduction to and interpretation of just a few pieces of the wisdom inside the first two limbs: guidance from the yamas and the niyamas that I have found to be useful and enriching to career and creativity.

So starting at the beginning, within the yamas we have five guidelines:

The first one is a reminder to be kind to yourself and others, to not push yourself to burnout or exhaustion,

to remember to take meals and snacks and breaks, to keep yourself nourished and hydrated, to not be hard on yourself while you're still learning. This is ahimsa. Ahimsa means non-harming and it extends in all directions.

I like to remind myself of Ahimsa when I notice myself being unreasonable with my work and expectations of myself, which many overachievers and perfectionists are prone to doing. Ahimsa plays out in how we speak to ourselves inside as well.

So notice with kindness if that harsh inner critic voice is acting up and instead of giving into them or fighting against them, just notice and be compassionate with yourself that you're having a hard time. See what a shift that makes. Ahimsa also plays out in how we choose to treat, think about, and speak about others. Are we assuming the worst or assuming the best of someone else?

Can we give them the benefit of the doubt? Can we find a kind, grounded, and clear way to communicate our boundaries or expectations when there's a misunderstanding or an interaction out of alignment?

I think of ahimsa as the ultimate reminder to be more conscious about what I'm saying and doing to minimize the harm I may be causing, whether consciously or not, whether inwardly or outwardly.

It is a commitment to reorient toward love and compassion and respect.

And it will help change your relationship with yourself and your relationship with others and the whole world for the better when you do.

The second philosophical guideline is a reminder to speak the truth, to make sure what you say, whether spoken or thought or written in any form, including emails and texting, is honest, clear, and rooted in ahimsa or non-harm. This is Satya

Satya plays out in being upfront and honest with how you represent yourself, your services, and your business, even your pricing. It means living in alignment with yourself, with your values, and with your truth.

This can take some work, and all of these principles are a practice, but the effort toward this kind of honesty with yourself and in your life and work at large is increasingly relieving and rewarding.

Satya asks you to free yourself from self-deception, which translates to not forcing yourself to stay in a role or a job or a relationship that is harmful to you or misaligned.

It also means not lying to yourself about what you really need because you think you don't deserve it yet, or that you're not worthy yet of what you need in order to thrive.

This guideline of truthfulness helped me get honest with myself when I needed to make huge career pivots and shifts within my career in order to live in more alignment and to really serve my purpose.

I am orienting myself to Satya whenever I let go of what I thought I should do or should want to do, what I imagined others wanted me to do, choosing instead to embrace what I know is true for me.

When you get honest with yourself, you face a lot of scary feelings about what might happen or how changing will be dangerous. But when you move through that and trust in that honesty, things get a lot more clear and a lot easier.

The third guideline reminds us to not dwell in jealousy or longing to have or be what we perceive in someone else. Like not scrolling Instagram and feeling badly as the old voice of comparison rears up, but instead being able to admire others with respect to celebrate what inspires us and to trust in our own abilities and gifts.

This principle asks us to respect and always give credit to other people's work or ideas that inspire our own creativity.

This is Asteya Traditionally, Asteya translates to non-stealing, but it expands to not stealing or not coveting in all of these examples. The temptations and triggers to take too much or to feel inadequate compared to others are many.

But when we become aware of this energy and how uncomfortable and icky it actually feels in the body, not to mention how much more balanced and easeful and generous of heart it feels to be gracious and to give credit, then shifting toward Asteya or this kind of honorable truthfulness becomes the easier and more enjoyable choice.

The fourth guideline reminds us to not try to have or hold more than we need, to know how much is enough personally, from how much to work to how much is enough income to how much is enough to expect of yourself. It's also not holding on to things or amassing more than we use or need.

So cleaning out your closet or dry storage or releasing excess or culling through your inventory and keeping your energy light with a light and orderly space around you. This is Aparigraha

Aparigraha traditionally translates to non-hoarding or non-collecting or grasping. And so any action that we practice where we release, where we are moderate, where we don't take more than we need or expect more than we need or want more than we need brings more inner peace.

So now I want to shift our attention to the niyamas, the second branch or limb of the path of yoga.

So while the yamas are kind of what not to do, remember the niyamas are what you are meant to do.

We'll start with the second of the Niyamas, and this is a recommendation to consciously and intentionally practice contentment. We often think that once we have XYZ, or once we're making a certain amount of money, or once we have achieved certain goals, we will then be able to be content. But it is actually the opposite.

Often the joy and the thrill is actually in the chasing of things and the doing and the creating. And once we get there, we just want more or expect more of ourselves. How many times have you achieved something that you had wanted for such a long time and found yourself just moving on to the next thing you needed to attain. We all do it.

And in doing so, instead of feeling content with what we have achieved or attained, we actually just long for another challenge or something greater or something else.

Also, although it might be surprising at first, contentment is a mental state that we choose. If we cultivate a feeling of being content with the gifts and the blessings and the abundance of our lives right now, we immediately feel happier and more fulfilled. Try it. It will shift your energy immediately.

And that doesn't mean you're telling the universe you don't want any more Being content doesn't mean I'm done participating or I'm finished achieving or experiencing or growing. Not at all.

Contentment is a peaceful and appreciative inner state that elevates our energy and vibration.

We feel content because we have decided to feel content, which positively compounds and grows. And this is Santosha.

Santosha is deciding consciously to return our attention to gratitude and noticing the good and the progress and the gifts in our lives. And also actually allowing ourselves to feel content.

This is a spacious and peaceful feeling, and it is right there inside. All we have to do is think of it, try it on, and we feel it. It's not behind the next achievement or booking, although those can be very important and fun and thrilling, but they are not what make us feel content.

Choosing contentment as a place to spend time is what expands the feeling and the experience of contentment.

The third Niyama is a guideline to have discipline, to put the effort in and to focus on what is important.

This also means having the discipline to listen to your body and your own needs. When you are maxed out and in need of rest, or when you are on the verge of burnout, discipline isn't always pushing harder or pushing through. It can actually be knowing when enough is enough and knowing when to pause, pull back, or change course.

This is Tapas Tapas is the practice of having discipline, and it goes hand in hand with having discernment.

We are meant to have the discipline to clarify what is important and what needs to be done, to break it down into steps and make it a manageable process and to do it. It is Tapas that helps us carve out space for a creative practice. And having discernment in deciphering what is important from what is a distraction or a path to depletion is part of having that discipline.

You can see how helpful this can be for building a creative career.

The fourth guideline in the Niyamas is a call to make space for self-care,

to protect time, to journal and read and feed your mind and make space for yourself, to have healers and teachers and guides in your life who help you discover who you really are as you grow and evolve.

This is Svadhyayaya or self-study.

This part of the yogic path asks us to value and practice ways to discover ourselves and to support and encourage our own aligned growth and awakening in this life.

We could argue that a creative practice and a creative career are actually methods of self-discovery.

The fifth Niyama and the last one of these guidelines that I'm going to go into with you today is a call to practice humility, to recognize that we are not alone on this journey or in our callings or creativity, and to acknowledge and be in relationship with a higher power.

For some, this may be source or love or the divine. For others, it's God or other names for God. And for some, it's nature or universal consciousness.

However you know it or whatever you call it, as a creative, you know and feel that there is something greater flowing through us that is helping us to connect and express, that is bringing the inspiration, and that is a part of all of life. This is Ishvara Pranidana, or the yogic practice of surrendering to a higher power.

Even just an acknowledgement is powerful.

Considering at the least, if not embracing, the fact that we are not alone, that we are guided, and that we are co-creating in this life is powerful and empowering. I don't think creativity can ever be fully divested from spirituality, and nor should it ever be.

So no matter what your beliefs are, even if you are an atheist, consider how supportive and connective it is.

Feel how supportive and connective and even relieving it is to become aware that something greater than we are, perhaps just the force of love or a capacity for kindness or experiences of the miraculous is part of and supporting everything, everything we experience, everything we learn, everything we create, everything we do.

So now you have an intentional selection of the guidelines inside the yogic path, and specifically a few that support and offer gifts to your work in building an aligned career and creating meaningful art.

Okay, I feel like this next part of the podcast is the third dimension as we round out this experience. So now that the wisdom and awareness of the larger philosophy are in place, let's step back again for a bigger picture view as we come into the deepest layer of yoga's unexpected benefits on creative work.

Yoga is a practice that helps you be in relationship with your body and your mind. Similarly, yoga supports you living in relationship with your creativity.

So I've mentioned to you how yoga has helped my career and that it can help and support yours as well.

After all, it's a moving meditation and a way to drop in and focus and be present with yourself.

Then I've also shared with you that yoga has helped my creativity and it can help yours as well.

Okay, but these are all expected benefits, right? What about the unexpected ones? How does yoga unexpectedly benefit creativity?

As you know now, yoga is a Sanskrit word that means union. Yoga is a practice of unifying the breath and movement, mind and body, bringing the wild and abundant faculties we are blessed with back into one place, into the present moment, bringing you home to yourself.

And in that way, it is a type of yoga to create.

Yoga isn't just breathing and body postures, it's connecting body and mind, to bring the mind back into the present moment. And that is the same deep, slow energy of creativity,

Of course, we can have frenetic spurts and bursts of creativity. We can lean on scrolling around and looking externally for inspiration. But when we really slow down, drop in, and allow ourselves to create in that slow, spacious energy of wonder and curiosity, of real presence, creativity flows.

We rediscover our own creative wellspring. And in that deep present space, something like a dance happens.

You go into some kind of peaceful, blissful vortex where while you create, you lose track of time. It's like being in love. Time expands or disappears. You are just connected with the colors and textures or the movements and details of the medium you are immersed in. You are creating. And that is yoga too.

Maybe what we've lost or what we lose touch with is just that, the yoga of our creative work, the deeply present, focused flow state of devotion, the deep calm of connecting mind and body

through the act of making art.

And so yoga can remind us of that or give us a word for the experience.

We can get so caught up in the performance of it all, in the demands to show up and create content in order to be visible in our fields, such that we can contort and detach from the original love of what we were creating in an effort to pursue strategies and tricks that might make the algorithm gods favor and share our work.

In all of that understandable and undesirable confusion, we can start to become more desirous of being discovered than of discovering our art through the connective, calm, devoted, and ritualistic process of creating it.

Yoga is an act of coming home, coming home to self, to the body, to the present moment, and to genuine authentic creativity and space to create.

It is a coming home to what actually feels true and aligned.

I read somewhere recently that art is not something that you make to be seen. Art is something you make to embody. Which reminds me, it might have been Rick Rubin. And in his book, The Creative Act, a Way Being, he says that the audience comes last. Make art for yourself. And ironically, when you do that, you actually make the best work possible for your audience too.

He talks about how creativity and art are not tasks or performances, but a state of being.

Embodying art means to drop the mask, the performance, and to go within. This is yoga. Yoga is not a performance, but a courageous practice of going within, observing what is there, and breathing as we expand our ability to be present with what is and where we are right now.

Yoga becomes a framework for understanding or for articulating the act of creativity.

All right, so let's pull this all together as we wrap up this episode.

In one respect, we have the gifts of a physical yoga asana practice for the body and the mind, which supports us feeling better and being more clear in our careers and creativity.

Then we also have the principles and guidelines or values from yoga, that give us a larger philosophy for how to be holistically healthier and more clear and more at peace. These guidelines benefit our mental, physical, energetic, and creative states. Not to mention, they provide structure and support for a career in a creative field, which is inherently a bit isolated and unpredictable in the wide freedom and flexibility that are inherent to entrepreneurship.

And then on a third level, we have an understanding of creativity as a type of yoga itself, a path out of burnout and comparison and chasing a chance to build an audience. And back into the inspiration, alignment, and passion for the creating itself that are natural and spontaneous and truly ours.

Come home to yourself. Come home to exploring and making what you love to create. Share the fruits of what you lovingly create in deep creative rituals and practices instead of generating shareable pieces of what you used to do, distorted by the hope of being seen or performing well.

When we connect and create an alignment, the work and the process satisfy us, not the external response or reception. And art created in devoted alignment and genuine presence serves best and is the most impactful anyway for you and for the people you are trying to reach.

So now as we close, I want to guide you in one simple exercise for experiencing yoga right now, wherever you are, no matter what you're doing, whether you're driving or on a walk or processing stems in your studio or folding laundry. You don't need to stop or sit or be on a mat or anything like that.

This is a yogic internalization exercise and visualization, a guided exercise to experience that feeling of union or connection with yourself, with your body, with your mind that is yoga and that helps you be in a closer, more connected relationship with yourself and with your truth and with your creativity.

So let's begin. First take a nice deep breath in through your nose. And at the top, release it with an open-mouth sigh.

Take another deep slow breath in through your nose and then release it out with a sigh.

Take one more deep, slow breath in through your nose, all the way, filling all the way up, enjoying the sweetness of air entering your body, and then sigh it all out, feeling sensations of relief, release, or relaxation that might start to hum through your body now.

Then I invite you to guide your attention to your heart in the center of your chest.

Feeling your chest expand as you continue to breathe. Now start to visualize a soft golden light starting to gather and shine inside your chest at your heart center. Feel that light shimmer and glow in a way that feels nourishing and radiant.

Feel that light expanding and emanating from your chest, filling you with love, and hope, calm and clarity, warmth and confidence.

As you're feeling that expansion of golden light, relax your shoulders down away from your ears and gently draw them back slightly by bringing your shoulder blades together to allow your chest to lift and open.

Experience how this feels as you breathe and feel that radiant golden light shining from your heart center. Notice how it feels to stand or sit with your chest open. Notice sensations of relief or openness. Benevolence, compassion, confidence, and calm.

Notice how this feels as you walk around, not in some pinched or exaggerated way, but with a gentle lift and openness to your chest, your shoulders relaxed and slightly drawn back. How does this change how you feel inside? How does this change your thoughts or the quality of your inner energy as you feel that beautiful expansion of gold and loving light, radiating from the center of your body.

How might it feel to move around the world with a more open heart, feeling more at ease, more loving, more open to sharing and receiving abundance, more trusting, more open to sharing and receiving love, success, and benevolence?

Now picture yourself moving through your day, glowing with love, radiant with this calm, compassionate, creative light. Imagine things you might do or say, or how you might respond, or experiences you might have.

Visualize and feel into how connected and expansive you feel.

Take your time in these sensations and then take a slow, deep, intentional breath again through your nose, and then exhale slowly and luxuriously. Maybe shrug your shoulders up and down, or take a few circles front and back slowly.

Maybe roll your neck in a semicircle each direction once or twice, slowly.

And now, as we leave this little internalization practice, notice the sensations, shifts, feelings, and sense of connection that you are able to experience through this little exercise of connecting mind and body together, of experiencing that state of union, even for just a few moments, simply through becoming present and guiding the mind and body together.

As you leave this little session, just like a meditation or a physical yoga asana practice, notice how you feel moving forward into your day and into your week.

Notice how you feel in your creative work after an exercise like this. Just noticing, as in practicing a loving and attentive checking in with yourself here and there throughout your day, that is yoga, and it can be truly transformative.

Beautifully done. You just completed another episode of Called to Bloom, another step forward on your creative journey. Finishing any resource that nourishes your being and helps you learn and expand is one of the most empowering things you can do for your business and creative calling.

Now to expand your experience, hit follow so you never miss an episode, and also head over to calledtobloompodcast.com to find show notes, discount codes, and details from our sponsors.

If you're ready to deepen your practice with classes and immersive experiences in flowers and well-being, head over to Nectarandbloomfloral.com and explore my workshops, one-on-one mentorships, poetry of flowers, online courses, well-being experiences, and my original Tarot of Flowers deck.

You can also find me on Instagram @nectar_and_bloom for more inspiration, tools, creativity, and like-minded community.

For now, keep blooming. The world needs what you are here to create.

Cover image by Sposto Photography.