The Possibility of Openness

I am very fortunate to be part of a faith community that welcomes openness.  I have experienced grace and acceptance for being imperfect, human and open about my feelings.  What I realized yesterday is that even though there may be people in our community who choose to be more private about their inner lives, our community creates a space for openness to happen.  To exercise that choice is almost irrelevant.  The miracle lies in the possibility for safety and love when we are ready to open up. 

I think life offers us this possibility at every moment, really.  I just happened to become aware of it yesterday through the experience of community.  Bottom line: even when our circumstances do not feel safe or loving, we can invite ourselves to consider the possibility of openness.  It’s there.

I have an exercise for you.  Go to your room, or your bathroom, or your practice room, or your basement, or your closet and sit down.  Breathe.  Create a little bit of space around yourself to be safe and honest for a minute.  Relax into the possibility of security . . . and then openness. 

Breathe again. 

Now, breathe again.

I don’t know what you are off to do next, but you have just entertained the possibility of openness by creating a sense of more security in yourself.  I trust that if you are practicing or off to practice, you will feel more able and willing to be where you are – whatever level of playing.

Everyday Victory

My understanding of victory has changed a lot over the past few years.  I used to think victory had most to do with big accomplishments and milestones.  Although accomplishments still fall under the umbrella of victory, they are no longer its only defining moments.

Victory has turned into an every day event, and I have learned that we get to experience as much victory as we can stand.  In fact, I believe it would be possible to experience continuous victory if we so choose . . . why not?

So, victory now has more to do with a feeling, an experience of victory.  It has become the subjective victory of love and affection, as well as the objective accomplishment.  It lives in the mind as much as in the physical world and has an awesome effect on our quality of life.  We get to speak it, feel it and share it.  We get to witness it in others even if they can’t witness it in themselves. 

Allow yourself victory today – and every day.  If you can pick up your horn to play, call it victory.  If you practice with a sense of inspiration or can make it out of bed to practice at all, call it victory.  Make some moment of your experience a victory and then do it again.  You might find that you’ve already accomplished the most incredible victory of your life, and from there, I promise, you’ll “accomplish” more than you ever dreamed.

Noticing Fear: Rejoice!

"If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands,
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands,
If you're happy and you know it, then your face will surely show it,
If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands."

We all know the song.  But could we sing the song cheerfully if we substituted the word fearful for happy?

My theory is that we should be celebrating if we know we are scared.  If we don’t know what we are feeling we can’t embrace the positive aspects of the emotions or guard against their detriments!

Take my friend, for example.  She has been keeping a deep secret about herself from her best friends that she finally found the courage to share.  Not only was this secret causing a great deal of inner distress, but eventually caused emotional damage in her relationships because she had actively lied about it for so long.  She told me that she now realizes her fear around the “issue” was bigger than she first thought.  Strangely, her realization made me feel happy to be able to name fear in my own life.  Weird, I know.  It became clear that even when fear feels horrible, I might consider jumping for joy that I can recognize it – lest it fester away at my insides and cause unnecessary problems in life.

As a musician, you can apply this idea to your performing and practicing.  When you feel ________ (name your emotional drug of choice), you can give it space, embrace it or shove it down to your toes.  It will surface one way or the other.  A jazz teacher once taught that when you feel nervous before a performance consider how much energy is available to you at that moment.  Getting up on stage is not like taking a nap; you don’t want to be a limp noodle!  Fear generates energy you can harness to broadcast your talent to an eager audience. 

In your practice, start to notice when you feel uncomfortable feelings.  They are trying to tell you something, and most likely their messages won’t be as bad as you imagined.  Fear of sounding bad will keep you from learning to sound good.  But, you’ll have to face your fear of sounding bad in order to get past it.

So, if you have fearful feelings, angry feelings, sad feelings, take heart that you are noticing them.  And if at all possible . . . “If you’re fearful and you know it, clap your hands!”

Unique

Think about this: your voice is unique. 

I mean it, take a minute to absorb this statement . . . your voice is unique.

........hhhmmmmmmmmm……….

Like a snowflake or a fingerprint, there will never be another voice just like yours.  Ever.

Last week someone made this point when we were talking “voice stuff,” and something hit me like a ton of bricks.  The voice is more than precious – it’s a miracle!  I had never stopped to put Unique and Voice together consciously.  This changes my process of relating to the voice - profoundly.

Knowing this, I want to care for my voice with more tenderness.  I want to talk about it with integrity and soak up compliments when someone hears its unique qualities.  I want to explore its power and give it proper rest.  I want to use it to express gratitude and empathy and love.  I want to know what it’s capable of, which means doing my vocal exercises religiously.  And more than those things, and more than ever, I want to help other people find their unique voices – however I am capable of doing that today.

Take another moment to breathe it in . . . your voice is unique.



"Unique New York.  Unique New York." -Will Ferrell, Anchorman

The Inner Work

It has recently come to my attention that outward movement, the "doing" of my life, needs attention.  In the past I would have secretly cringed at the suggestion that I wasn't active enough or "doing" enough.  What I've learned in the past two years is that the inner work of self discovery is as important as what we produce in the world, and without attention to our inner landscape we are building on sand.  Or, dare I admit, quicksand as was the case in my own life.

An ancient parable says . . . and let me paraphrase here . . . that a man who builds his house on a solid foundation will not be swept away by rain and wind, but a man who builds his house on sand will be swept away at the first bit of inclement weather.  Oh how true!

One of my students is a great example of building a foundation on solid ground.  She will be graduating from college in May, and moving into the next phase of her life.  Over the past year she has taken a great deal of time figuring out what makes her happy, how she would like her life to look, setting goals for her education, and diligently taking one careful step after another through the process of moving toward these goals.  I don't think she would have been able to do these things without her faith and the grounding she has in her inner self.  She doesn't claim to have all the answers, but she knows who (and where) she is and what kind of person she wants to become.  She inspires the heck out of me! 

We all have to do the inner work.  So, if you feel like you are building on sand, take more time to figure yourself out.  You won't regret the time spent, because the end result - no matter how big your house ends up being in the end - will be of quality.  You will be proud of what you are building, and when the wind blows you will feel fortified from the inside out.  There is nothing in the world that can substitute for awareness of your inner world, absolutely nothing.  Like an education, a house build on solid ground can never be taken away from you or destroyed.

Right or In Relationship

In a recent relationship seminar, I learned that in romantic relationships we are either right or in relationship.  If we can get our awareness around that, it changes the landscape of how we interact, how we care and ultimately our purpose for being in relationship.  It can also be used as a framework for understanding how we relate to ourselves and our voices.

Let's start by breaking down the word relationship.  It is a noun, but not a tangible object.  The noun relationship is a nominalization, or a concept instead of something you can hold in your hands.  If we look at the verb, to relate, then it's easier to talk about changing our concepts of relationship.  Instead of being in relationship with people or things, we are actually in the process of relating to people and things.  This shift in language changes our perspective dramatically.  You and I and everything else are constantly in the process of relating, which, when realized, not only gives us the ability to make better relational choices, but shows us how much responsibility we are willing to take for our part in the game.

How often are you trying to make yourself "right" during the day, or during your music practice?  Yes, let's agree that there is correct pitch, rhythm, technique and interpretation, but on the way to mastering these elements of music, are we coming from the perspective of making ourselves "right," or are we relating to our instrument?  As you are on the way to discovering the master musician within yourself, you get to choose how you relate to the process - moment by moment.  A great deal of effort would be saved on the way to greatness if we choose to relate more positively toward practice, toward ourselves, and toward whatever is happening in the moment.

Take for instance the feeling of frustration during a practice session.  We've all been there, right?  Not only are you practicing music in that moment, but you are also practicing frustration.  Your brain is learning to equate practice with the feeling of frustration - they are becoming synonymous in your neurology, or literally hardwired together in your brain!  Would you really wish that even on your worst enemy?  Then why do we do it to ourselves?  My theory is that we have not taken the time to consider how we are relating to practice, and even more globally how we are relating to life.

You get to be right or you get to be in relationship.  You get to defend yourself and what you know, or you get to discover how you are relating to the profound gift of right now.  Our voices deserve to be related to in love.  When this happens, well . . . watch out world, you ain't heard nothin' yet.