The (Long) Story that Sticks

I was talking with a friend yesterday about singing.  It's one of those things that I know I need to do.  It's also the absolute scariest thing for me to do. Singing does create the most exhilarating feelings.  It's also the most horrifying thing I can think of doing whilst others are present.   It's hard to convey the depth of the fears that I hold around singing.  The story I hold of the fear it brings up has grown to be ridiculously large.  Perhaps by sharing the story, I can begin to grow beyond it....I hope.

I sang a lot as a child.  I would set up my wooden toy box as a stage.  I would perform dramatic concerts for audiences filled with my beloved stuffed animals.  My treasured microphone could be tuned to project my voice over the radio, and was truly the coolest toy a kid could ever hope for.   I always wanted to be a singer.  I couldn't begin to count how many sleepovers consisted of long days and late nights performing the hits of ABBA and Grease.  As I entered high school, I began singing for school events such as Homecoming coronations and Prom.  I loved it.  It was scary, but thrilling.  Sometimes a bit of fear would prevent the performances from being as good as I may have hoped, but it was manageable.  (The one exception was when I sang horrendously at my high school graduation, but I contribute the failure of that performance largely to the fact that I'd been crying for hours beforehand and continued to cry throughout the song).

Then came college.  I didn't audition for band or choir when I first started college because I just didn't think I'd be good enough to compete at that level.  I'd come from a very small town with a small talent pool.  I figured that being good back home had little meaning in the larger world.  After I had Hannah and went back to school at the age of 21, I decided to major in Music.  I began taking voice lessons, which also meant I had to sing for student recitals and masterclasses.  Masterclasses were hellacious.  As students, we would sing a piece in front of all of our peers as well as the entire vocal faculty.  Following the performance, we would be critiqued by each of the faculty members while still standing on stage in front of the audience of our peers.  The intention was that we'd all have the benefit of learning from our peers mistakes as well as from our own.  Seriously??  This was the beginning of a big dropping point for me.  For one thing, I had lost much of my musical confidence being, as they say, the small fish in big waters.  Being a young single mom had somehow taken a toll on my confidence, as well.

These recitals and masterclasses all run together for me.  They are all one long lump of embarrassment, disappointment, failure.  The physical reaction to the fear I'd have as I prepared to perform and as I attempted to perform, was astounding.  My arms would go numb up to my elbows.  My head would spin.  I wouldn't feel connected to my body.  I couldn't catch my breath, nor could I find my voice.  The sound that came from my body was something I was unfamiliar with.  And it was something I hated.  It was weak.  It shook.  It was quiet and off-tune.  Despite all the "relaxation" and "visualization" techniques that my voice teacher would provide me with, the same thing would happen each time.  The performance was always followed by irrelevant and painful critiques of my failed performances.  These critiques were, of course, witnessed by a large portion of the students in the music department.  Humiliation.  Following each performance, I'd sob for hours.  The frustration was so intense and seemed so insurmountable.  I tried over and over again, but it didn't get any better.  The physical reaction to other performances that I'd attempt were the same as the ones I experienced while in college.  The fear grew larger and larger.  The fear of failure in front of an audience wasn't just a fear created in the back of my mind.  It was something that I'd experienced a multitude of times.  This same fear still strikes me, a full 12 years following my college graduation, every time I sing in front of almost anyone.

There have, thankfully, been a more and more exceptions as the years have passed.  The two times I sang for weddings since college, I've taken beta blockers.  They are fabulous little pills intended for those with high blood pressure.  They are also, however, prescribed for those of us who experience physical performance anxiety.  They work wonders.  They erase all the physical symptoms of fear, but they do not erase the fear itself.  The emotion of fear is still just as intense.  The taste of failure is still ever present.  And without beta blockers, still after all of these years, the fear is strong enough to make me lose my breath and make my voice quiver even when I sing in supportive groups of friends.

So, when people say, "Why don't you just sing??!!"  This is what I can't adequately explain.  I'm so freaking scared that it's paralyzing.  And yet, I know I need to get past this.  And the only way to work through the fear, is to face it head on.  To stop letting it stand on me.  To rise up and chase it.  I know I can't waste any more years preparing myself for this battle.  Somehow, I just have to find the strength to do it.  I'm just not sure how.

Spiraling Outwards

Isn't it interesting how frequently patterns repeat themselves in our lives?  And isn't it even more interesting how often we make the same choices that we've made in the past, even if those choices didn't lead us to the places we want to be in?  Here's to those moments when we see a pattern a choose a different path this time around, even if the old path looks rather appealing.  Here's to breaking out of the round and round of the circle and spiraling outwards instead.  May we all make new choices in all of the areas that haven't worked for us in the past.  May we all find ourselves in amazing new places that we didn't even realize existed. 

Mantras...especially on bad days

 On Saturday I got a letter from the IRS regarding the tax return that I was expecting to receive before the end of this month.  (I filed in February!)  I bought my first house this year, so I'm supposed to be getting that beautiful $8000 tax credit.  The letter basically stated that in order for me to receive that credit, the IRS needs me to provide them with papers that, in my case, don't exist as my house was owner financed instead of being financed through a bank.  The letter put me in a crazy freaking out spin because I really need that credit.  Without it I would owe the IRS $4500, which I most certainly don't have.  I spent all of Saturday afternoon freaking out and being very crabby and irrational.  (Hannah would be happy to confirm the truth of this statement...I was really no fun at all).  But then, I went to the gym and made myself say mantras.

Saying mantras and all of that positive shit is not what I've programmed myself to do when I'm freaking out.  I just want to be pissed and freak out.  I'm discovering, however, that forcing myself to say mantras is especially important on bad days. In addition, saying mantras while doing cardio is not only great for my work outs because I work harder, but it's also a very effective time for me to say mantras.  There's just more force behind them.  And, they worked!  I felt exponentially better after my mantra workout.  The IRS wants to give me my full return.  I am a money magnet.  I have so much prosperity and abundance in my life that it's overflowing and I can spread it to others.  And, if the IRS chooses not give me the credit, it's really not a big deal.  I'll just have to pay over time.  It's most certainly not worth being upset about. My life is beautiful with or without my tax credit.

So now we know that mantras can indeed change my feelings about reality.  I wonder if they can bring me my tax return.

Changing Reality

I have a quote posted on a wall in my bedroom that I rarely even notice is there.  It says, "Wonderful one, are you beginning to understand that it's not reality that changes, it's what you believe that changes reality?" -Byron Katie

I've been thinking about the power of the mind and of mantras.  Mantras are defined as "a sound, syllable, word or group of words capable of creating transformation."  I am loosely referring to mantras as anything that we say or think repeatedly and with intention. 

I've gone through brief periods of time in my life when I've said mantras.  It seems to me that they actually do spur change.  Perhaps if we repeat something frequently enough, we really can transform our reality.  Or perhaps, through the repetition, we simply convince ourselves that what we're saying is true, leading us to make different choices which in turn change our reality.  I don't know how mantras work, but it indeed appears that they do.  I wonder, then, why I never seem to continue saying them on a regular basis.  I'm committing to saying mantras for 5 minutes every morning for a month. We'll see what happens. 

Back to the Beginning

So, it seems that I have strayed a bit from my intentions to blog regularly.  There are two reasons for this, and it is my intention not to let either of these reasons stop me again.  One is that my blog exposes me...the insecure pieces of my inner being....the pieces that only those closest to me are generally allowed to see.  The other is that the next steps in my process are very scary to me and have been sitting in front of me...looming larger and more formidably than the Great Wall of China, for most of my life.

Why is it that exposure is so frightening?  You'll all still love me if the things I write sound dorky, right?  And you'll all still love me if I mess up, right?  And you'll still love me if my voice shakes when I sing?  So why is it that it remains so scary to show myself?  And why is it especially scary to show myself to my own mom?  (Sorry mom, but I have to admit that I had a very hard time making myself blog when I knew you were reading it.  But you can go ahead and keep reading while I go through my process if you discover that I'm blogging again.  That will just be part of my process, too).  I don't know the answer to this question.  Maybe I'll never discover the answer, because maybe it won't be a question anymore.  Perhaps by taking my steps towards living my path, it will become an irrelevant ponderance of my past.

And, why does that Great Wall seem so large?  Can I shrink it down to a little row of bricks that I can step over?  Or better yet, do cartwheels upon?  I hope so. 

I find it interesting how blogging somehow helps me to find clarity and deeper understanding of my own hurdles.  Journaling does this as well, but it doesn't carry the depth for me that blogging does.  It is quite clear to me that the reason for this is that in order to do what I'm meant to do with my life, I need to expose myself.  My path requires it.  So the blog, like streaking naked through cyberspace, is it's own baby step in my process of learning to expose myself.  Scary.  Or as Christine would say...Not scary... Exciting and invigorating! (Maybe it really will help me to learn to take the emotion of fear and channel it into the sensation of thrill?  I'm workin' on it).

So, back to the beginning with me.  I started this blog with the intention of using it as a tool to assist me in living each moment of my life to it's fullest potential, of leaving my fear based "what ifs" behind me and of fulfilling the purpose(s) that I was given in this life.  I will find a way to live my path with joy, thrill and invigoration...and I hope you all will too!!