With great jazz playing fresh in my ear, I can play from inspiration,
instead of fear…
hey, that rhymes….so fun.
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GET A DIVORCE FROM UNLOVING PARENTS
I have read many self-help books written by people who had the parents we all wish for—these books are helpful because they describe a parenting style—supportive and loving—that sets the tone for a child to develop into a competent adult with high self-esteem.
And in describing the parenting style it empowers the reader of such books to clone, as it were, that style—becoming their own loving parent—the one they never had.
Even better, I have read self-help books by people who had horrible abusive parents…and these people become best selling self help authors, just as the ones who had loving parents.
So, which one are you? As you see, it matters not what circumstances you came from—either upbringing can lead you to the success and joy you want as an adult
Get a loving divorce from un-loving parents – by releasing the defeating messages, your parents’ legacy.
Have you ever heard a successful person credit their parents’ unconditional love as the key to their success? Have you felt jealous? “You see, they had good parents so naturally they have a happy life, are wealthy, have a wonderful partner….Wish that was true for me.”
Guess what, just as many successful people had awful parents who told them they were no good, grew up in foster homes with no parents to speak of, or with criminal drug addict parents, or worse.
How is that possible? Because you can use your past as you choose to use it. Those who’ve succeeded at their life’s mission in spite of “bad” parents, have decided to make that the very reason, or motivation for their own success—their key to empowerment. But they’ve become their own unconditionally loving parents, by the way they think and the way they treat themselves.
Learn to release the messages from those who raised you—messages limiting your joy, success, ability to live the life you want and deserve. Conversely, keep any helpful, encouraging messages from mom, dad, and others you met in childhood, highschool, college, or elsewhere.
Keep in mind, the “divorce” from those who raised you cannot be an angry one, because then they still have emotional hooks in you. Make it a loving divorce, acknowledging those who raised you did all that they could with what they knew at the time.
Accept Compliments: doing so fosters your enjoyment of the transformational process.
Compliments are a form of prosperity, of wealth, even better than the material kind, and they lead to more treasure—material and spiritual.
Do you shun compliments for what you’ve done, feeling “I did not do that well”, or “That person does not know how much better I can do”, or “That just was not very good so I don’t accept their compliment”. Well, this will keep you performing poorly. Learn to accept compliments with grace—they are a gift—better yet, give one back. The good vibes keep flowing with mutual compliments. Rejecting compliments, outwardly or in your own thoughts or feelings, hinders the flow of creativity and energy.
So, rejoice in the ability to accept a compliment—respect the giver as the insightful person who loves and cares to support your good efforts—and love yourself for those efforts. Your powers of productivity and love will double or triple. With that power you can hone your skills, increase your self belief, and sustain energy for intensive training, practicing, art or whatever you have planned for the day.
Not pursuing your passion is a form of self-abuse…
Isn’t it? You have that passion…think back: When you were about 6 or 7 what did you get engrossed in? What could you do for hours and not even notice the time passing? Then life happened and you had to earn a living, have kids and all. But here and now is a fresh new chapter in your life, in which to pursue your passion; are you not in anguish if you don’t do it? And isn’t that anguish–from denying your passion–a form of self-abuse? That is, aren’t you the one deciding to deny yourself the pursuit of your passion? Further, if you are abusive to yourself when practicing or pursuing your talent, critiquing every line, every note, every move of the foot, isn’t that self-abuse? When you chide yourself for not practicing your art, ask yourself this:
Am I avoiding my art practice because I can’t stand another session of cruelty inflicted on me from my inner critic?
I found out why I never wanted to practice, when I realized what I was saying in my head, and sometimes out loud, was so counterproductive and downright abusive, cruel and sadistic. I thought about some bad boss or parent who treats a person like this, and then says, “What is the matter with you? Why are you so lazy?” I don’t approve of those people, yet I was being just like that to myself. NO MORE !!! When I stopped it, I increased practice time from 0 to 3 hours. When I not only stopped being cruel, but started being kind and loving and gentle to myself when practicing, and caring for myself as one would a little child playing with a new discovery/instrument/color crayons… I increased the time to 6 hours a day. Now I can keep going indefinitely. My plan is to play 6 hours a day for the next 600 days and see how my jazz riffs and improvisation are at that point. THEN let that critic try and tell me I suck at jazz guitar. HA! The silver lining in playing music or doing other arts is that you find out that cruel person is in there, and you cannot allow it anymore. If you did not do your art, that person would be in your head being cruel all the time —you would not notice the damage being caused. The art is the vehicle that necessitates you becoming the person you want to be, the kind of person you would admire, respect and cherish. When you decide to create beauty and meaning with your art, you have an automatic inner therapist/coach who helps you to release the baggage, low self-esteem, and soar with your talents…
The following is an excerpt from “Unstuck” by Jane Ann Staw which discusses this issue. This book is great for those faced with writer’s block and similar afflictions:
(When afflicted with writer’s block), “to write is self-punishment, each word a weapon that will be used against you. Understanding this danger, you can begin to see that it’s not because you write best to deadline, or because you are discouraged, that you cannot sit down to write. It is because writing exposes you to a barrage of your own insults and criticism. Knowing, even unconsciously that we are setting ourselves up as targets for such abuse we…” (would be crazy if we DIDN’T avoid writing).
From The Book called “Unstuck”
Trella’s Positive place
From the book “Unstuck” and revised by me, replacing writing with music
Deep compassion practice:
A relationship with practice and music so that the thought of practicing no longer causes a spike of fear
So that the minute the flow of music, the desire to learn or write music slows down, I will no longer panic.
So if I get up from practicing and have a twinge of malaise about the progress made today, I won’t sink into a depression
Now after struggling with learning jazz guitar about 6 months…I have the stability and leisure to sit back and begin to examine my relationship to my music and practicing to understand what it means to me and asks of me, and to be confident that me and my music can live a long and companionable life together.
So far my jazz guitar playing has shifted from dysfunctional and impossible to possible and at times even satisfying.
But what a shame to stop here, to leave uncharted all the territory on the other side of what is possible.
Why limit my discoveries?
What if ahead lay serene mountain valleys or meadows blazing with wildflowers or jungles that dazzle with the songs and colors of exotic birds
What it, instead of finding jazz guitar –gigs-busking— tolerable, I could eagerly anticipate its company or experience deep happiness in my guitar’s company
The relationship between music and musician lies somewhere between the relationships of friends and that of lovers. It is a relationship that varies over time as well as from musician to musician.
For blocked musicians the relationship becomes clouded with anxiety or fear and often with anger or hatred—fear of no skills coming from the hours of drills etc. anger toward yourself when not picking up the guitar and practicing…
Once this negative connection between music and musician has been established, it is difficult to mend. One or two wounding experiences with the guitar and we become negatively conditioning
Each bad encounter reinforces—the turbulence we feel toward or about the music/guitar /performing, until a psychic battle royal is fought every time we want to play or learn on the guitar
What is needed is a storehouse of good experiences with the guitar –many good ones to counter one or 2 bad ones.
To get the good experiences going do this:
Think small-learning just what I am playing right now no matter how long it takes
Create a safe place to practice
Speak kindly to myself and recognize and embrace my own guitar learning process
Once there are lots of good experience about being able to sit down and learn or get better at things from my guitar lesson, to write songs and practice songs for gigs, I can begin to redefine or recast my relationships with the guitar as a partnership between my guitar learning process and my hopes and dreams.
One morning while struggling to improvise with scales, patterns, following the 3rd , and arpeggios, a voice spoke to me, the sweetest, kindest person came to reassure me, saying;
I know this phase of jazz guitar is difficult for you but don’t worry. It doesn’t matter if it takes you longer that it takes other musicians. Everybody’s different everybody learns guitar at their own speed. Just because your hands don’t’ fly across the fret board doesn’t mean you’re not a musician.
As I listened to the voice I went into a state of deep relaxation, and the words written above were internal truths, verities that emerged as a result of all the work I had put into my guitar up to this point.
my response reflected a sense of my uniqueness as an individual guitarist. The words are an acknowledgement of my own particular struggle and relationship with learning guitar and making music my life
Even thou taking a long time, I know I am a musician.
Even if I struggle more or longer to pluck the right strings and make the pick behave, i am still a musician
The voice is telling me and repeating over and over again – I am a musician I am a musician I am a guitarist, I am a guitarist I am a guitarist
Whether or not I am successful at it
Whether I have bad days or not
Whether sometimes I have trouble sitting down to learn on the guitar
Or get lost now and then
What the voice was saying was that I have carved out peace with my guitarist self, and that peace is holding.
Whatever strategies I have devised to keep from getting mad and not practicing, or thinking I may never make it and will quit my journey to get to jazz improvise and accompanying myself on jazz songs and original jazz songs– to know deep within that I will get the skills I want, and more importantly, the flow and fun that I want while playing and singing jazz at home and in public, these strategies continue to work and to hold
Whatever style, pace or schedule I have evolved to practice, I am a guitarist, I embrace my music as my own, my skills in my hands and voice as my own
Whether I play in spurts, want to practice scales or arpeggios more than songs or vice versa, the essential thing if I want to become a jazz player is that I remain intimate with my process and embrace it with love and self-nurturing and kindness to myself.
That I practice and play gigs at my own pace, in my own time, and that I resist the temptation to compare myself to other guitarists or imagine they would think this or that if they heard my playing.
This means, when playing guitar /singing or both, I remain fully who I am
I will be who I am and play guitar naturally from within myself instead of from without. I will no longer play the role of conductor, flourishing my wand to create desired results. Instead I will play from the spot in the very center of the orchestra, in a spot that will no longer allow me to distance myself from the other musicians.
From this spot, with the notes and phrases washing over me, I will play as much in response to the music of the other musicians as to the written page- the drill, the list of things that I judgmentally tell myself I must master right now before the next lesson.
I no longer try to remain in control, to make demands on myself and achieve the mastery that I once pushed myself towards. I am now able to let myself be.
When blocked
we spend energy insisting that we change everything about our playing –the last thing we want to do is be more in touch with our self
Far from accepting anything about my guitar playing, I am convinced that unless I effect dramatic change I will never be able to improvise, get the music life and jobs I want
Accepting myself is the furthest from my mind.
But only by stopping trying to reengineer each and everything I play, and accepting my presence in the playing of the guitar will I be able to make any real progress.
I will refrain from trying to twist and turn myself into the guitarist I want to be, and I will become more and more relaxed and able to play and flow in my hands and and thoughts and feelings, and have fun – AND….begin to play better
EXERCISES
- once week either before or after I have played guitar, take some time to think about what I like about the way I play guitar—once I have isolated a few things, think about them while practicing or performing
- Take stock of how I have been playing this week- is it easier to sit down and begin? Anything different from prior weeks? Whatever is different, take stock and write it down and allow myself to feel grateful for the changes.
- My pick isn’t getting as twisted going back down the scale, I noticed Herb Ellis way with pick and tried it.
- I forget less of the notes in each scale pattern
- I have played longer per day
- I enjoyed a feeling that I could combine things henry gave me and be able to improvise once I learn the foundations of each of those things – patterns of scales and how they fit, and in what key, with the chords I am playing, arpeggios, where the 3rd of the chord is.
- For areas where I am still stuck, do the following
Note on paper what they are and instead of getting angry, practice compassion – tell myself –it’s hard to improvise, but at least you are learning the tools that when fully incorporated will empower you to improvise. At least you are playing guitar and you are learning… I know you feel anxious when working on some things from the lesson or trying to play a song for a gig a better way – but look how much you have improved in the past 2 months in spite of this anxiety
- when playing guitar imagine I am a coach helping a tennis player when an important match—encourage, reassure and offer tips on strategies—the goal is to make the player feel as much on top of the game to win
- If I become angry or frustrated or apathetic while playing guitar, imagine a good friend tells me she is having trouble at work—what will I say to comfort her, help her work through her anger and disappointment she feels –now repeat those words to myself
