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Find your Art - Gateway to Flow
24 Plays9 months ago
In this episode of The Intuitive Move, we explore how discovering your unique form of art can be the gateway to flow, joy, and personal mastery. Art isn’t just painting or music—it’s anything that makes your soul shine, from science to conversations to building a purposeful life. Drawing on Steven Kotler’s The Art of Impossible, I share my own journey learning ballet at 34 and unpack the four stages of flow—struggle, release, flow, and recovery—showing why struggle is the “good pain” that leads to mastery. With stories from the Beatles, Taylor Swift, and my own life, the episode closes with a guided reflection to help you discover your art and connect with the flow within.
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Transcript
Introduction to Intuition and Inner Voice
00:00:00
Nadia Stejskal
Welcome to a new episode of the Intuitive Move podcast, the place where we shut our minds, open our hearts, so we can overshare.
00:00:12
Nadia Stejskal
I'm Nadia and this is your space to finally trust your inner voice, that voice that has been talking to you for years and we've been taught that that's not ah ah something reliable for us to trust and here we are in 2025 and we finally realized that our intuition was always and has been always right.
00:00:36
Nadia Stejskal
It is us and society who build systems and forms within this you know, unseen world that it sounds like non-reliable and that is like nonsense.
00:00:51
Nadia Stejskal
But actually, how many times have you asked yourself, have you talked to yourself and saying, why have I not trusted my own intuition about this person? Why have I not listened to this voice that told me, don't go there? And I went,
00:01:09
Nadia Stejskal
How many times have you got into deep trouble because you didn't trust your own intuition?
Exploring Intuition as a Free Resource
00:01:15
Nadia Stejskal
So in this podcast, my dream is to explore all this area of the unseen world, which basically is not so unseen because it our intuition has a voice And we can listen to it every single day, every time that we need it.
00:01:33
Nadia Stejskal
It's there. It's available for us. And it's within ourselves. So we don't need to buy anything. We don't need any specific device, nothing. It's all available. It's free. And maybe that's why corporations don't want you to know about it, because they don't make money out of it.
00:01:53
Nadia Stejskal
So here we are talking about our intuition And in this episode, I'm so excited because we're going to explore this topic about finding your art.
What is Art? Creativity and Joy
00:02:07
Nadia Stejskal
And I've been thinking a lot about what art means for me. And I read a couple of definitions in Google. but But basically, to me, finding your art means finding that activity that makes your soul shine that makes your soul or your spirit dance and be happy.
00:02:30
Nadia Stejskal
How many times have you done, have you practiced some activity and you felt extremely happy or or you reach a level of joy or even bliss that you never experienced before at that intensity and you felt extremely, extremely happy and like overwhelmed with joy, by simply practice a certain activity.
00:02:54
Nadia Stejskal
If you talk to sports people or if you talk to dancers, ballerinas, you will see when they talk about what they do with their bodies, with their, yes, and in the case of sports, with with their bodies too, or when they follow the music.
00:03:16
Nadia Stejskal
or even people that work in science, but the fact that they are working and doing some a lot of research and they love what they are doing, that also is an art. So the art of working and finding pleasure in something, the art of having a good conversation with someone,
00:03:37
Nadia Stejskal
There are so many ways in which when you search for the definition of art, you can't see all these things, but art is when you put human human things within any other discipline.
00:03:52
Nadia Stejskal
So the art of reading a book, the art of having a conversation with someone, the art of having and building a purposeful life. So that's what art means for me. And maybe there are some definitions that touch on this, but I want to be clear, art is finding that activity that makes your soul shine.
Understanding the Flow State
00:04:14
Nadia Stejskal
And by finding this activity, we're going to talk about why when we practice and we exercise creativity,
00:04:25
Nadia Stejskal
We can also take advantage of this because imagine if you're finding you're practicing a certain activity, you reach a certain level and you're exercising your creativity.
00:04:38
Nadia Stejskal
You reach a level of flow. What does this mean? It means that you are working at a state where everything becomes so easy.
00:04:49
Nadia Stejskal
And when you reach that level of flow, Everything that you get done is done very quickly, very efficiently, and in the best way because you're at that level. It's like being high but with productivity, basically.
00:05:08
Nadia Stejskal
So I want to... talk about this and I want to invite you to listen to this episode. We're going to talk about practicing creativity to put ourselves and make us reach that level of flow.
00:05:23
Nadia Stejskal
And by the way, we you might think that finding that level of flow is like an art of magic or like it's just something that it happens maybe. And actually, you can be trained to reach the flow state as well.
00:05:41
Nadia Stejskal
we can put ourselves in situations where we get exposed and we'll have to follow a few little steps, but we'll be able to train us ourselves to find those activities that put ourselves in the state of flow.
00:05:59
Nadia Stejskal
And I'm going to talk about in this episode about a book that I loved. I listened to it in Audible, And I listened to it, I think, all at once because it was really good.
00:06:12
Nadia Stejskal
I was driving down south and I put the book and I could not stop listening to it. The book is called Art of Impossible by Stephen Kotler.
00:06:24
Nadia Stejskal
And this book, I loved it so much because it talks about the flow state and how you can get trained to reach it and all the steps around it.
00:06:37
Nadia Stejskal
why don't we go a little deeper on the topic of flow? So when we think about flow, or what do you think about flow?
00:06:48
Nadia Stejskal
So when I think about flow,
00:06:51
Nadia Stejskal
I think of what comes equals equals what goes. And I actually associate flow with with a (stationary) state.
00:07:02
Nadia Stejskal
And I also associate flow with with a high return.
00:07:09
Nadia Stejskal
reaching that flow state costs a lot of money, but if we think it in money, it costs a lot of energy or money, but then once I'm there, I'm able to multiply many times the investment that caused me to get there.
00:07:26
Nadia Stejskal
And so the flow, I also associate it with synchronicity. So when you are in your flow state, you'll be able to see around you events that you didn't see before.
Steps to Achieve Flow
00:07:41
Nadia Stejskal
So let's get on to the examples and the steps for you to find your art, find your flow state And find those activities that make you super productive because that's your superpower. Finding your art is a superpower and you can work around anything that you want. You can produce and create anything that you want.
00:08:10
Nadia Stejskal
So the first thing that I wanted to remind you is that is isn't random, it's not magic. You can create, you can learn about this.
00:08:21
Nadia Stejskal
You can follow these steps and you'll be able to reach the flow state. So the first step that the art of impossible, the book that I mentioned before,
00:08:33
Nadia Stejskal
it says that the first step is the struggle. Of course, we had to struggle. we had to suffer. There is always a suffering step.
00:08:44
Nadia Stejskal
But at the same time, it's not a like a ah high level of suffering. Think of this. So if we are going to intentionally enter in this or going through in these four steps, we are choosing this.
00:08:57
Nadia Stejskal
So it's actually like a good pain. Have you ever heard of that? I love saying this, like a good pain. It's the same as when you work out and then your muscles are sore at the following day.
00:09:10
Nadia Stejskal
I love that pain because it means that you worked out. So this is the same. It's a good struggle. It's a good pain. So the struggle is that stage where you get started. And actually, now that I'm thinking, if we put an example such as learning a new sport or learning a new discipline, then we'll be able to understand.
00:09:31
Nadia Stejskal
So if we bring everything to the example of learning ballet at 34, the struggle, so that's the stage that I am right now, the struggle.
00:09:42
Nadia Stejskal
I'm learning all the positions all the movements, all the basic movements, at least for one year. I'm still in the struggle most of the time.
00:09:56
Nadia Stejskal
And this is all out of my comfort zone. This is not easy for me. So that's where the struggle stage is. When you put yourself in a new situation, you suck at it and that's okay because you're just started. So it's like a retraining your ego to be bad at something.
00:10:16
Nadia Stejskal
Because you can't be good at everything. We are maybe used to being specialized and being experts in our own field, but that's not okay. like That's not normal to be an expert in all fields.
00:10:29
Nadia Stejskal
So you put yourself out of your comfort zone. You try to learn. Sorry, correction. You learn a new skill. You go, you find that you invest your resources to learn that skill And you keep keep going through the struggle stage, step one.
00:10:48
Nadia Stejskal
After you struggle enough, then you you'll have to you' start having some little returns. And that's the best part.
00:10:59
Nadia Stejskal
The struggle is like you put energy, you invest, invest, invest, invest. invest So you're like investing everything.
00:11:07
Nadia Stejskal
But then the the release, the next step, the second step according to the art of impossible book, the release is that step where you start, okay, you're not investing so much more.
00:11:20
Nadia Stejskal
You're basically flat. And that step is about letting go and about shifting your focus. Maybe in the but previous step, in the struggle, we were focusing on, oh my God, I'm suffering. This is so hard.
00:11:36
Nadia Stejskal
You were so focused on getting over this struggle stage. In the release stage, You shift your focus. Maybe instead of focusing on struggling and the pain and all the suffering, then you start focusing on enjoying.
00:11:54
Nadia Stejskal
And that's when you start having returns. All the investment that you did with the struggle, you start getting some little returns. The dividends are paying back.
00:12:06
Nadia Stejskal
you go through the release, you let go and you start investing all the energy that you were investing before. That's great because that's preparing you to the next stage, which is the flow.
00:12:21
Nadia Stejskal
But before, so I want to explain in a little more depth what is happening. So why we shift from the release, from the let go, we decide to focus. Because when you shift your focus, you put the intention where you actually want your focus to be.
00:12:42
Nadia Stejskal
And it's kind of like... Yeah, so making your focus more efficient. So think about your focus as energy, as money. So if your focus is 100% during the day, if maybe you are 80% focused on struggling or in how bad your life is or in your pain, and also looking at other people's content and scrolling on Instagram or in your phone,
00:13:40
Nadia Stejskal
So you have to go through the suffering. You have to go through the struggle. You make the decision. Okay, I struggled enough. I learned enough skills.
00:13:52
Nadia Stejskal
You make the the the decision to shift your focus. And you persist. You need to persist enough until you find your purpose.
Broadening the Definition of Art
00:14:04
Nadia Stejskal
Because you you'll find your purpose in that way. And then you'll find the state of flow. And the state of flow is that state that you reach where everything becomes effortless.
00:14:20
Nadia Stejskal
Yes, so you'll find... Deep work sessions of two hours, say, for example. I want to make that clarification. So the state of flow is not something permanent. It's not designed for you to be permanently in the state of flow.
00:14:37
Nadia Stejskal
It's designed for you to have cycles these cycles of struggle and release and flow, that will happen many times, maybe once a day. Hopefully that will be really good because that means that you'll have flow state once a day.
00:14:55
Nadia Stejskal
Or maybe this, depending on how long the struggle and how long the release stages are for, and depending on how many times you get to do this in a week or in a month, then that will be the same amount of times that you'll find the flow state.
00:15:15
Nadia Stejskal
But again, this is the flow state is not designed to be permanent. It's okay to not be at flow. In fact, the next step, because after flow, we need to recover.
00:15:29
Nadia Stejskal
You've been working in, well, I say working, but you can also be maybe performing, dancing, running. it This can be applied to sport, can be applied to disciplines, can be applied to art and creativity.
00:15:44
Nadia Stejskal
And also when we say art and creativity, we're not only talking about like painting and music. No, we're talking about everything that we said before, the art of life, finding art anywhere.
00:15:59
Nadia Stejskal
In every discipline, we can add the human part. That's art. So the art is blending the human and your ways with whatever you're doing.
00:16:12
Nadia Stejskal
So art can be applied to science. I know this is kind of contradictory, but I fully believe this. And in fact, engineering, the discipline that I studied, is the art of combining all those science and facts and hard hard science into results and into solving problems.
00:16:34
Nadia Stejskal
And when you put the human, and I know now everything is with software and computers, But that also needs someone to decide, okay, we combine these factors, we we make this decision, and I decide that the way in which we solve this problem is this one.
00:16:51
Nadia Stejskal
And that combination of hard science is unique depending on the person that decides to do it and depending on the theory that they are following. So engineering is also an art.
00:17:04
Nadia Stejskal
With that said, everything can be art. And that's why I want you to open your mind and don't think about only painting. If you like painting, go ahead and book a paint and sip and paint session as I did last year. And I painted thanks to those sessions. So there is like a franchise that has these
00:17:29
Nadia Stejskal
places where you go drink and paint and they provide all the elements the canvas the paintings and the brushes everything is provided and you only go with your friends or by yourself and you paint and even even have a teacher that guides you if you want to paint what they are explaining so go ahead if you like painting if you like music go ahead and learn music and even more produce music, go ahead and do everything that you like. If you like traditional art, excellent.
00:18:05
Nadia Stejskal
Here we are talking about expanding. If you like that, that's great. But here we want to expand We want to find our art. We want to find our purpose. So
00:18:15
Nadia Stejskal
we were talking about the steps. Let's review the steps. So the first step to find your flow is the struggle.
00:18:24
Nadia Stejskal
You need to put yourself, learn your skills, go out of your comfort zone and go ahead and suffer. Remember, this is a good pain. Second step is the release.
00:18:36
Nadia Stejskal
Let go and shift your focus. Maybe instead of focusing on the struggle and on the pain and even on the results. Remember the episode where we talked about being a perfectionist and we focus too much on the results that we forget to enjoy life?
00:18:54
Nadia Stejskal
So this is the place where we shift our focus from the pain to ourself, to enjoying, to the present. And also you focus so much on finding your passion that you persist and persist so much so that you are able to find your purpose.
00:19:18
Nadia Stejskal
So the release step is between the struggle and the flow, and it sends you to the flow state. And the state of flow is that state that where effortless action makes you produce an amount of work that you never thought that you were capable of doing.
00:19:39
Nadia Stejskal
Think of high-performance sports people. Think of the best, the most creative people in the whole world. Think of the Beatles.
00:19:50
Nadia Stejskal
Think when they were producing those songs. Think that they were in the state of flow, but they did not reach that state of flow, you know, from one day to the other.
00:20:02
Nadia Stejskal
It took years. They went in in on concert. They gave they produced so many songs until they found each other and they found their ways.
00:20:14
Nadia Stejskal
And I strongly recommend you watch the documentary. i what What's it called? the documentary about the Beatles. um So watch it and they you can see all the backstage how everything was in the, you know, around making music. So everything that they did was for them to produce, to create those songs that until this day they are a piece of art.
00:20:44
Nadia Stejskal
And think of Taylor Swift. Think how she found a way of making making songs maybe in one hour. Like, how can you do that? And that's possible because when you find first, you find your procedure, you find your techniques, I imagine.
00:21:00
Nadia Stejskal
And you have all those words. She has them inside. And then she has an idea and boom. drops a song. the I know it sounds impossible. And even I think she did this when she was very little, when she was like 14 or 15 year old, she was making songs in one hour because I think she wanted to be with a guy and that didn't let her. So she was like with a lot of feelings and she took all those feelings and went ahead
00:21:33
Nadia Stejskal
and drop a song, basically. So imagine all these people in the whole world that, yes, we are able to see them because they are famous and popular and all the eyes are on them.
00:21:47
Nadia Stejskal
But you'll also be able to find your flow if you put yourself through...
Discovering Passion and Achieving Flow
00:21:54
Nadia Stejskal
These situations, you need to put yourself, first expose yourself to different situations.
00:22:01
Nadia Stejskal
Because maybe you started listening to this episode and you are, I don't know what my passion is. I don't know what my art is. I know nothing. So that, if you feel that, yeah my advice to you is put yourself into different situations from now in until the next six months, you'll go ahead and you'll do one different activity every single week.
00:22:29
Nadia Stejskal
And I'm not talking about going skydiving or scuba diving every weekend. I'm talking you can do these things like scuba diving and all these adventures. Go ahead.
00:22:41
Nadia Stejskal
but also going to a new class. Like it can be some physical activity or it can be some mental activity. Go to a new club, practice chess or practice, go to the casino. If you've never been there, go. Expose yourself to different situations and it needs to be one different thing every single week.
00:23:07
Nadia Stejskal
And even in less than six months, I per promised you in three months, you'll be exposed enough to different situations where you will be able to tell me, oh, I found this activity where I made, thought that time stopped.
00:23:26
Nadia Stejskal
Like, everything felt so different um or the opposite. Maybe you felt like time flew. You were practicing and enjoying an activity so much that maybe you thought that it was five minutes, but in reality, two hours went by.
00:23:43
Nadia Stejskal
So when time goes fast, that's a sign for you is an activity that you're enjoying and you're probably close to finding your passion and your flow state.
00:23:57
Nadia Stejskal
So this topic, oh my God, it's been 25 minutes and I ice could talk about it for hours. I'm so passionate about it and My message to you is that you can make the flow state happen to you if you follow the struggle, the release, you accept and you focus you put your focus on what's important and you persist and persist.
Importance of Recovery and Reflection
00:24:25
Nadia Stejskal
The next step will be the flow state for you. After the flow state, don't forget to recover. You need to rest and you need to integrate and absorb everything that you learn.
00:24:37
Nadia Stejskal
And I'm hoping I'm inspiring you enough to want to find your art. And now in the next section, going to invite you to go on a journey within yourself to find your art.
00:24:54
Nadia Stejskal
For that, we're going to do a guided reflection.
00:25:01
Nadia Stejskal
If it feels safe, I invite you to close your eyes
00:25:07
Nadia Stejskal
And start connecting yourself with your breath.
00:25:15
Nadia Stejskal
Inhale.
00:25:20
Nadia Stejskal
And exhale.
00:25:24
Nadia Stejskal
can repeat at least three times.
00:25:30
Nadia Stejskal
And with each exhale, let your body soften.
00:25:40
Nadia Stejskal
Let yourself arrive in this moment fully.
00:25:50
Nadia Stejskal
As I mentioned before, this is a reflection journey and I'm going to invite you and I'm going open some doors within yourself so you'll be able to find your art.
00:26:07
Nadia Stejskal
For this moment,
00:26:10
Nadia Stejskal
I invite you to think back to a moment where you were absorbed in something and you lost track of time.
00:26:25
Nadia Stejskal
Maybe it was painting. du
00:26:30
Nadia Stejskal
Maybe it was writing, dancing, cooking.
00:26:41
Nadia Stejskal
gardening or decorating your nails.
00:26:49
Nadia Stejskal
Notice how your body felt.
00:26:54
Nadia Stejskal
Your mind was clear. Your mind was focused and very light.
00:27:07
Nadia Stejskal
That moment
00:27:10
Nadia Stejskal
That's flow.
00:27:14
Nadia Stejskal
That was your genius peeking through.
00:27:26
Nadia Stejskal
Now that you could remember what flow felt at least once. It will be much easier to find it again in the next activities that you'll do in life after you listen to this.
00:27:46
Nadia Stejskal
For finding your art, I also have a reflection for you.
00:27:53
Nadia Stejskal
You can ask yourself, what activity makes me feel alive?
00:28:05
Nadia Stejskal
Don't think about what you're good at. Think about what makes you feel alive.
00:28:11
Nadia Stejskal
And don't think of others. Think about you. Which activity brought you joy so much that you were overflown by it?
00:28:24
Nadia Stejskal
What's the first thing that came up? Trust that.
00:28:32
Nadia Stejskal
Try to think how it feels, how it smells, how it looks like.
00:28:43
Nadia Stejskal
You were able now to feel that, to find your art, even a little sign that can teach you, can bring you closer to finding your art.
00:28:58
Nadia Stejskal
I invite you to do a visualization now. See yourself doing that activity now and feel the energy moving through you.
00:29:13
Nadia Stejskal
The same energy that moved through you when you were practicing it.
00:29:22
Nadia Stejskal
Think about the energy flowing in you like a river flowing in the middle of the earth.
00:29:32
Nadia Stejskal
You're opening something and you're leaving it open. It's not going anywhere.
00:29:50
Nadia Stejskal
Take one last deep breath.
00:29:58
Nadia Stejskal
And when you're ready, you can open your eyes.
00:30:05
Nadia Stejskal
But don't forget to carry this feeling with you.
00:30:11
Nadia Stejskal
Flow is always available.
00:30:17
Nadia Stejskal
And your art is your key.
00:30:25
Nadia Stejskal
So that was the reflection exercise or the guided reflection. And I really hope that now I opened up a gateway and I invite you to remember that activity that you enjoyed so much, but maybe you were not able to practice it again.
Flow State and Life Goals
00:30:48
Nadia Stejskal
And remember, you can have goals and maybe this finding your art is not directly that goal, but you can use finding your art and finding this state of flow.
00:31:02
Nadia Stejskal
to go through the cycle many times and every time that you go through a new cycle, you can get closer to your final goal or to your big purpose. For the moment, it's good to have one purpose but other little ones so you have these little directions and visions that broken down in a way that can give you direction in every single day because we can't be, you know, living the day thinking on 100 years from now. We need a little guidance from our vision to bring it it in our daily life.
00:31:41
Nadia Stejskal
And this flow, exercise and steps that I shared before can help you find, can help you remember and learn a way of reaching that state of flow almost in any area, in any discipline that you are passionate about.
00:32:02
Nadia Stejskal
I hope that with this episode, I opened up a gate and I made you curious about trying new activity and you're going to enroll to that activity that you were always expecting thinking about but you never took the action so this episode is your sign to enroll into that activity so you'll be able to find your art and reach a state of flow in your life if you like this episode I really invite you to share it with your friends and I hope you can listen to it in the next week's episode see you next time