Then again, maybe I will.
I believe that whether you ask for directions or not, sometimes the universe knows you are lost and points a way home.
I had yet another experience like that this week.
I have been having tremendous trouble with performance anxiety lately when it comes to music. My band has been limping ever more slowlyover the last several months due to a number of big changes in my life - especially work. Through all these changes I have felt compelled to keep Prosolar Mechanics afloat, despite little time and almost no energy. To keep writing, recording and performing music has been my mission, but I have failed.
I hate to fail.
This has been rather painful for me, and like most people, I tend to avoid pain in my personal life as much as possible. For the past two months, whenever I have attempted to play guitar or sing, or lately, to even listen to any music at all – and especially music I wrote, recorded or sang – I would get stomach aches or just cry. I would feel extremely fatigued and come upstairs to bed and sleep even in the middle of the day. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t sustain my focus long enough to get past the fear and frustration. So I either avoid trying to play, or listening to any music at all, or I just try and then get very upset. Depressing. Frustrating. Maddening.
It got so bad that I actually consulted a psychologist this week about my problem. I think it must be similar to what men feel with impotence or what athletes go through when they can’t get their game on. And with the psychologist (who is also a musician), I came to the conclusion that due to the extreme pressure of my career and other things going on in my life at the moment, I have to put music down. Give up. I don’t currently have the space in my life right now to be creative. I have to re-arrange some things, especially work related things, so I can be less fettered and emotionally harassed.
I didn’t realize that these kinds of pressures were bad for creative work, as throughout my whole life music has been a preferred method for processing some of my most painful experiences. I wasn’t happy about this conclusion but I couldn’t deny that reaching it felt like coming to the end of a pretty straight road – you know where it’s leading the whole time you’re on it, whether you want to look that far ahead or not. I also felt relieved. To stop torturing myself would be such a treat…
Music has been much of who I am, though I am not a very talented musician. I have always worked hard to come up with interesting songs that were authentic. And I always chose to work with people who worked the same way. Anyone whoever liked me as a musician really liked what I had to say more than how I sounded, I think. I am pretty raw, emotional and accessible. So I think that makes people feel like they can connect. Connection - communication - had really been the point of it all for me. So, why would I give that up?
I guess that’s part of my problem too. In my work I have to be so intimately connected with other people that it’s very difficult to save anything for myself at the end of the day. I am emotionally exhausted, and when I get home I don’t want to process or feel anything else.
So on Tuesday, after speaking with the psychologist, I decided that I just couldn't do it anymore. I was done with music. I wanted to stop failing for awhile. I planned to focus on doing things I could feel good about. If the other pressures in my life let up and the muse comes back, well then I guess there’s no question then what to do.
But as I lay in bed Tuesday night, something just didn’t feel right. Like deciding to give up is not the same as deciding to let go. Just a feeling I had, but with no answers.
Wednesday I went to work and met with one of my girls. She is turning 16 and announced she is getting an electric guitar for her birthday – because of me. I didn’t know what to say to that as she caught me completely off guard. I knew she loved music, but I thought she wanted to learn to DJ. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took her to the music store to pick the guitar out. I had a quote written up for her father and then we went to my place, so she could see my amp and guitars.
I brought out my Guild Starfire – the most beautiful guitar in the world. I showed her some chords, but then she insisted that I play it. So I did. We talked a lot over that guitar, and a lot about how music saves you from yourself. It turns you from your worst enemy back into your best friend.
The next night, I went to meet with two other girls – and the younger of the pair, the 13 year old, brought her guitar with her. She’d gotten it for Christmas and had also received lessons, but gave up because she got too impatient. She wanted to go to my house and see my guitars. So again, I brought both of them back to my house. They insisted I play. I felt so stupid! I was so irritated that I am out of practice and I didn’t know what to play for them. But I played anyway, and we talked. And we talked a lot, about how music is such a vital means to accessing your most inner self.
I used to say sound is the mainline to the soul. And what I began to understand last night during the session with the two girls was that I had been cut off from mine. That hurt. I had to find a way back, because I needed to show them the way. And when I imagined being those kids and dealing with the intense pain they deal with every day, I realized that I actually know the way because I’d already been there.
The road is quite straight, and I know where it ends.
I had yet another experience like that this week.
I have been having tremendous trouble with performance anxiety lately when it comes to music. My band has been limping ever more slowlyover the last several months due to a number of big changes in my life - especially work. Through all these changes I have felt compelled to keep Prosolar Mechanics afloat, despite little time and almost no energy. To keep writing, recording and performing music has been my mission, but I have failed.
I hate to fail.
This has been rather painful for me, and like most people, I tend to avoid pain in my personal life as much as possible. For the past two months, whenever I have attempted to play guitar or sing, or lately, to even listen to any music at all – and especially music I wrote, recorded or sang – I would get stomach aches or just cry. I would feel extremely fatigued and come upstairs to bed and sleep even in the middle of the day. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t sustain my focus long enough to get past the fear and frustration. So I either avoid trying to play, or listening to any music at all, or I just try and then get very upset. Depressing. Frustrating. Maddening.
It got so bad that I actually consulted a psychologist this week about my problem. I think it must be similar to what men feel with impotence or what athletes go through when they can’t get their game on. And with the psychologist (who is also a musician), I came to the conclusion that due to the extreme pressure of my career and other things going on in my life at the moment, I have to put music down. Give up. I don’t currently have the space in my life right now to be creative. I have to re-arrange some things, especially work related things, so I can be less fettered and emotionally harassed.
I didn’t realize that these kinds of pressures were bad for creative work, as throughout my whole life music has been a preferred method for processing some of my most painful experiences. I wasn’t happy about this conclusion but I couldn’t deny that reaching it felt like coming to the end of a pretty straight road – you know where it’s leading the whole time you’re on it, whether you want to look that far ahead or not. I also felt relieved. To stop torturing myself would be such a treat…
Music has been much of who I am, though I am not a very talented musician. I have always worked hard to come up with interesting songs that were authentic. And I always chose to work with people who worked the same way. Anyone whoever liked me as a musician really liked what I had to say more than how I sounded, I think. I am pretty raw, emotional and accessible. So I think that makes people feel like they can connect. Connection - communication - had really been the point of it all for me. So, why would I give that up?
I guess that’s part of my problem too. In my work I have to be so intimately connected with other people that it’s very difficult to save anything for myself at the end of the day. I am emotionally exhausted, and when I get home I don’t want to process or feel anything else.
So on Tuesday, after speaking with the psychologist, I decided that I just couldn't do it anymore. I was done with music. I wanted to stop failing for awhile. I planned to focus on doing things I could feel good about. If the other pressures in my life let up and the muse comes back, well then I guess there’s no question then what to do.
But as I lay in bed Tuesday night, something just didn’t feel right. Like deciding to give up is not the same as deciding to let go. Just a feeling I had, but with no answers.
Wednesday I went to work and met with one of my girls. She is turning 16 and announced she is getting an electric guitar for her birthday – because of me. I didn’t know what to say to that as she caught me completely off guard. I knew she loved music, but I thought she wanted to learn to DJ. I didn’t know what else to do, so I took her to the music store to pick the guitar out. I had a quote written up for her father and then we went to my place, so she could see my amp and guitars.
I brought out my Guild Starfire – the most beautiful guitar in the world. I showed her some chords, but then she insisted that I play it. So I did. We talked a lot over that guitar, and a lot about how music saves you from yourself. It turns you from your worst enemy back into your best friend.
The next night, I went to meet with two other girls – and the younger of the pair, the 13 year old, brought her guitar with her. She’d gotten it for Christmas and had also received lessons, but gave up because she got too impatient. She wanted to go to my house and see my guitars. So again, I brought both of them back to my house. They insisted I play. I felt so stupid! I was so irritated that I am out of practice and I didn’t know what to play for them. But I played anyway, and we talked. And we talked a lot, about how music is such a vital means to accessing your most inner self.
I used to say sound is the mainline to the soul. And what I began to understand last night during the session with the two girls was that I had been cut off from mine. That hurt. I had to find a way back, because I needed to show them the way. And when I imagined being those kids and dealing with the intense pain they deal with every day, I realized that I actually know the way because I’d already been there.
The road is quite straight, and I know where it ends.
