Nearly every time she asks me this question, no matter how well my week is going, how happy I feel, it is that moment when her wise gaze casts a clear, soft light on some deep hurts that I forgot that I was carrying around in my emotional Red Rider wagon.
It’s good that I forget. If I thought about them all the time (like I did in my twenties), I’d be a non-functioning, narcissistic mess. (Yes, I was kind of like that in my twenties.) We’re not supposed to think about our hurts all the time. That’s why God gave us denial and subconscious minds.
This is also why I take time each week to go in and address these forgotten things in the presence of a wise witness who, as my Uncle Joe Bill Jessup likes to say, has seen the monkey dance.
(Speaking of a witness, can you draw the connection to how these things come up when we stand in front of people to sing, act, whatever?)
The hurts and wounds we sustain in our lives, either by the wrong that’s been done to us, the wrong we’ve done, or our reactions to the wrong, have a way of hiding out in our souls. They then mysteriously coordinate to run a background software that, in turns, tells us how grandiosely special we are and then take out the Louisville Sluggers they have hidden behind their backs and beat the emotional tar out of us. It’s a complicated, masochistic kind of dance, and we all know it. Especially if you have a passion to perform. We performers live on the Island of Misfit Toys.
I want to share a few keys with you that have helped me on my way.
Look outside. When the junk starts talking in your head, when you are feeling less-than, constricted, and on the verge of hopeless, you have to actively look out. Number one, log off of Facebook, then ask yourself, whom can you help? Whom can you encourage? Who could use a phone call (not a text) from you?
You will not feel immediately better. You will feel like crawling back into your cave to sort through all the various crap-pieces that you think this time you will finally figure out. You won’t. You’ll just get your head stuck farther up the wrong end.
Look outside and give help to someone else, ask for help when you need it, from others, from God, and keep your focus outward.
This exercises your trust. While you are giving, taking care of those around you, you somehow get taken care of in the process. That bit of info you needed drops in somehow, the light bulb finally hooks to the current. Sometimes you even experience a quiet healing without even noticing it. This isn’t easy, and it feels counter to our nature when we’re down, but it works.
Outward focus is also key to effective acting and singing technique.
Cut Yourself Some Slack. I am writing this one to myself. I will go through a day and be completely unaware of all the ways I’ve been cruel to myself, criticized myself, and withheld forgiveness from myself.
In the end, it’s really super prideful because all of these self criticisms are based on the assumption that I know best…I know best what I should be, accomplish, do, etc. I don’t know. I believe God knows, and if I trust myself to Him, He will carry me where I need to be. I didn’t make myself. I’m not making my lungs breathe, my heart beat, or my cells divide, so why do I think I have all the wisdom it takes to direct my path? I don’t.
Think back for yourself on an instance in your own life when something seemed to go very wrong, but in the end turned out to be exactly what needed to happen. Whether or not that was Plan A all along, something unexpectedly good was made from what seemed to be a crappy situation.
So I will commit to you if you will commit to me to lay off the self-meanness as much as I’m aware of it. It ain’t never helpful.
Sing. One of the great delights of my life is hearing my wife, Melissa, sing in the shower. She revels in music. She loves and enjoys it, I believe, at a deeper, higher, fuller level than I, who live by music, do.
There are few things more healing, more beautiful, more a gift than music . And we all have it. This point came home to me so clearly when I had the privilege of performing in Pippin with Deaf West Theatre. Not only did I learn more about storytelling from my deaf colleagues than I ever learned in class or on stage before, but I also saw that we all embrace and feel music whether or not we can hear it with our physical ears.
We know the world vibrates. Science has shown us what appears solid is not solid at all but made up of all kinds of intricate, mystifying energy. It’s a miracle, and so is our gift to sing. Music is a higher reflection of what’s going on around us all the time. Why do plants thrive when they hear Mozart or Bach? We all know the answer.
So when we practice or perform or just sing in the car, let’s keep that in the forefront of our minds and hearts. We are given the gift of singing, so lets revel in it, appreciate it, and enjoy it.
Happy July, everyone. Thanks so much for reading.
