My life and work feels MIRACULOUS after making the following change:
I went to another open mic to play piano last night. It was a different one. A tiny, super packed out little pub.
I am chill up until the point when I walk in and see how busy AND intimate it is.
I can barely concentrate and stare through the barman for a second before gathering myself and blurting out that I want an orange juice, which I never drink.
I almost didn’t go up to the woman running it. I was technically too late. I could have just left it. And it was like a wind at my back that carried me over to her anyway. She said she’d squeeze me in.
Great.
But when we sit down I notice something.
I notice where my mind wants to go and where it has gone the last few times: it wants to obsessively picture the piano keys and play the song internally over and over and over and over again because it’s convinced I’ll forget it. It wants to hyper-fixate on that particular part that I froze on, the last time I played.
It is absolutely DESPERATE for certainty. And I realised how untenable that desperation now was. I couldn’t actually run it anymore. Because it just isn’t who I am anymore.
I am not someone who believes they are gonna forget a song that I wrote, that I have played a trillion times. I am not someone who bends to that kind of mental gymnastics.
It was like every cell of me saw and felt how absurd my mind was being.
And I gave it up.
I handed it over.
And tears pricked at my eyes because this kind of surrender still really gets me.
How simple and beautiful it is to feel the holding on the other side of the mental grip.
Something clicked when I played that night. My hands relaxed more. The expression of the music had space to come through instead of me just white knuckling to get through it.
Every time I have gone to play I wanna walk out as soon as I walk in. Same goes when I read my poetry. It is still utterly vomit inducing.
I actually consider it. I consider what it would be like if I just… walked out. And the pang of self abandonment is worse than the spicy as fuck exposure of staying.
It won’t get easier for me. I won’t let it get easier. That’s not the goal.
The point is that I lean into the edges that I think will kill me and I become more of myself.
My mind gets even quieter.
My body lets go even more deeply.
I get closer to life
Closer to God.
And I get to be in a state of gooey-hearted flow in my day to day, more and more, as a default setting, because in choosing not to collapse into what is easy (walking out of that pub, walking out on myself) I get to experience true EASE.
Every time I actively lean into the spicy spice
the noise in my mind goes down another handful of decibels
the grip in my body melts off
the addiction to distracting myself drops back even further
The fear of failure, of not being enough, of not “living up to the mark” loses its power.
I get more free.
It transfers into my creative work and business
into putting offerings out into the world
into the uncertainty and exposure of it all
into my leadership and the way I show up for clients
into the way I hold myself under pressure.
When I am not protecting myself
I allow myself to be fully supported
and it is the most miraculous and beautiful thing.
And it is what I walk others through.
I hold people through the moments where they abandon themselves to fear, so that they learn how to stay, and keep staying.
Because who you are in those moments
and how you hold yourself
is what sustains momentum
is what creates results in your business
is what allows you to LIVE in flow
and stay connected without flopping in and out.
When you hold this kind of standard for yourself
you don’t doubt your potential
or your ability to fulfil it
it’s not even up for debate
You ARE potential.
I went to another open mic to play piano last night. It was a different one. A tiny, super packed out little pub.
I am chill up until the point when I walk in and see how busy AND intimate it is.
I can barely concentrate and stare through the barman for a second before gathering myself and blurting out that I want an orange juice, which I never drink.
I almost didn’t go up to the woman running it. I was technically too late. I could have just left it. And it was like a wind at my back that carried me over to her anyway. She said she’d squeeze me in.
Great.
But when we sit down I notice something.
I notice where my mind wants to go and where it has gone the last few times: it wants to obsessively picture the piano keys and play the song internally over and over and over and over again because it’s convinced I’ll forget it. It wants to hyper-fixate on that particular part that I froze on, the last time I played.
It is absolutely DESPERATE for certainty. And I realised how untenable that desperation now was. I couldn’t actually run it anymore. Because it just isn’t who I am anymore.
I am not someone who believes they are gonna forget a song that I wrote, that I have played a trillion times. I am not someone who bends to that kind of mental gymnastics.
It was like every cell of me saw and felt how absurd my mind was being.
And I gave it up.
I handed it over.
And tears pricked at my eyes because this kind of surrender still really gets me.
How simple and beautiful it is to feel the holding on the other side of the mental grip.
Something clicked when I played that night. My hands relaxed more. The expression of the music had space to come through instead of me just white knuckling to get through it.
Every time I have gone to play I wanna walk out as soon as I walk in. Same goes when I read my poetry. It is still utterly vomit inducing.
I actually consider it. I consider what it would be like if I just… walked out. And the pang of self abandonment is worse than the spicy as fuck exposure of staying.
It won’t get easier for me. I won’t let it get easier. That’s not the goal.
The point is that I lean into the edges that I think will kill me and I become more of myself.
My mind gets even quieter.
My body lets go even more deeply.
I get closer to life
Closer to God.
And I get to be in a state of gooey-hearted flow in my day to day, more and more, as a default setting, because in choosing not to collapse into what is easy (walking out of that pub, walking out on myself) I get to experience true EASE.
Every time I actively lean into the spicy spice
the noise in my mind goes down another handful of decibels
the grip in my body melts off
the addiction to distracting myself drops back even further
The fear of failure, of not being enough, of not “living up to the mark” loses its power.
I get more free.
It transfers into my creative work and business
into putting offerings out into the world
into the uncertainty and exposure of it all
into my leadership and the way I show up for clients
into the way I hold myself under pressure.
When I am not protecting myself
I allow myself to be fully supported
and it is the most miraculous and beautiful thing.
And it is what I walk others through.
I hold people through the moments where they abandon themselves to fear, so that they learn how to stay, and keep staying.
Because who you are in those moments
and how you hold yourself
is what sustains momentum
is what creates results in your business
is what allows you to LIVE in flow
and stay connected without flopping in and out.
When you hold this kind of standard for yourself
you don’t doubt your potential
or your ability to fulfil it
it’s not even up for debate
You ARE potential.
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