Last night we read Lent by Shauna Niequist and talked about the things in our lives that have control over us. We talked about the danger of a quick tongue and sharp words. We talked about disciplining children and how to love each other. And from my side of the circle, I talked about the ways I’ve given up control to negative self-talk, resulting in a series of destructive self-fulfilling prophecies.
Example: I think I am not worthy of a cute, clean, tidy home. That depresses me, so I don’t feel like cleaning. Leaving me with a messy, dirty house. Proving that I’m not worthy of a cute, clean, tidy home.
I know. I’m twisted. And it permeates every area of my life.
I don’t deserve to be a professional singer because of all the ways I’ve mistreated my body and voice. Years of imperfect behavior means I can’t access areas of my voice as I used to, resulting in few viable vocal “prospects” or performance gigs. Therefore I find nothing to stop me from all sorts of general debauchery that leaves me sounding like a frog. And in the end, after all this bad behavior, I conclude that I don’t deserve to be singing those professional-level performances anyway.
You would think that knowing I do this would stop me from falling into such mental traps. But it doesn’t. All these horribly cyclical things happen over and over again.
Earlier today I watched a TED Talk by spoken word artist Sarah Kay. In addition to her work as a poet, she teaches and works with young people, helping them develop their artistic voices. First of all, she says, you must say to yourself “I can.” There’s no way to begin until you at least believe that you can. The second step... well, I don’t actually remember the second step. But the third step was definitely something along the lines of: “Grow; develop; move forward.”
Basically, her premise is that after step one and step two (whatever it is) the temptation will be strong to write the same poem over and over again. The poem people respond to. The poem that gets the applause. That is why step three is so important, why we must always be reaching deep, looking outward and pushing forward.
Well, she was definitely speaking my language. I’ve been struggling for months for a breakthrough in my writing, not to mention my actual life. Because the problem is larger than writing. I’ve been trying to regurgitate inspiration the way Sarah Kay warns against. I’ve closed my mind, content with experiencing the same things over and over again. In ways that really matter, I haven’t taken any risks that might change me. But change, after all, is a necessary ingredient to growth.
After sharing with my group yesterday, I read Love Song for Fall from Bittersweet, again by Shauna Niequist. As usual, through her words of struggle and triumph, I heard my own voice speak out in urgent clarity. And perhaps you need to hear the words as I heard them:
Find a reason to inspire change. Use a season, a relationship, a song – use anything you can find and squeeze the change out of it. Force yourself to sit and do the hard work. Write. Dream. Work out. Sing. Teach. Imagine. Just sit down and do it.My friend Micah is a working pianist, director and composer in New York and once told me that in order to succeed in music, he had to force himself to be his own best friend. He had to be his publicist and agent and number one fan. And even though he carried all the insecurities of a natural-born artist, those other parts of him would never let on. They protected him. One time he told me – ‘Don’t you think Dawn Upshaw has an agent? Of course she does, she’s Dawn Upshaw. I just need to be that for myself.’
Sometimes we need to be our own best friend. We need to lie down next to ourselves and hold on tight. We need to tell ourselves that it’s going to be okay, that we’re worth it and the world just sucks sometimes. We need to be our own mothers and our own fathers. We need to tell ourselves to wear our hats in the cold and take an umbrella in case it rains. We need to love ourselves enough that we can stick out the lonely nights. We need to take ourselves out to dinner and drinks, and go home at the end of the night – just us.
And when one of those voices says something cruel, tell it to shut the hell up. You’re worth it.
Another excellent, thought-provoking post. I particularly like the layers of meaning in "shut the hell up." Perhaps that's exactly what you're trying to do - get the hell to shut up?
ReplyDelete--Ryan