Noah’s been wanting to decorate for Christmas since Halloween. He could NOT understand why anybody would wait until after Thanksgiving to haul out the holly.
Seriously, he woke up Thursday morning and said, “We get to decorate for Christmaaaaas!”
I can remember losing my mind about draping lights all over everything when I was a kid. It’s terrific to get to live it through Noah and Jude’s eyes.
We finally got the tree up and ornamented yesterday evening.
After being waylaid by a Saturday urgent care trip to see about an ear infection, a rogue LED on our pre-lit tree that never got resolved (even after Melissa and I undertook the Sisyphean task of replacing every unlit bulb in the strand), and general exhaustion, extracting the Christmas bins from behind the I’ll-get-to-that-someday boxes was going to be a mythic test.
That’s what I thought, anyway.
The true trial began when I tried “decorating” with the boys while Melissa braved the elements (mostly human) to source a new air mattress from Big Lots. My brother Ben’s visiting from Spain, and our current one’s motor gave up the ghost.
But yeah, placing fragile, tinselly things around the house in tasteful locations with 4- and 5-year old humans full of testosterone and opinions — I went ahead and pulled down the bourbon and the “Dad — Aged to Perfection” tumbler Melissa got me on my last birthday.
While I coaxed Noah into the half-bath to help me put the Santa toilet seat cover and rug into their coveted positions, I heard a loud crash on the kitchen tiles and Jude’s voice say, “Sorrrryyyy!”
I emerged from from the toilet room with wide T-rex eyes and saw that one of our Christmas cocoa mugs lay shattered on the floor.
I calmly said in my whispery Daniel Tiger’s Neighbohood Dad voice, “That’s all right, son. It was an accident. We’ll get this cleaned up together.” Then we sang a situationally themed song about the learning moment.
Nope. That’s not what happened.
I don’t remember my exact vocabulary, but the subtext was, “Why can’t you listen to me? I TOLD you to come into the bathroom with the Christmas towels! SEE? This is what happens when you don’t do what I say. This is the opposite of fun, and I’m pissed about it because Bing Crosby’s whistling “White Christmas” on the Alexa cube, and we should be happy, dammit! And LISTEN TO ME!”
The thing I’m grateful for is little Judelet’s ability to say a hearty sorry and move on.
He knew it was an accident, and he wasn’t beating himself up about it.
But in these moments of exasperation, it’s like someone pushes my reactivity-bot button, and up from the bile center come phrases like, “Why would you DO that?”.
I can feel how ugly and damaging it is when it comes out — like I’ve slimed the boys and myself at the same time. It’s not who I want to be, and it’s not how I want to affect them.
“I’m SORRY, Daddy!” Jude repeated.
I’m grateful for his sense of self. HE knew he was just trying to put the mug on the counter near where the coffee cups go. HE knew it was an accident.
It was just the moment I needed to regroup.
“I totally forgive you, Jude, and I wish you’d waited for me like I asked.”
We swept up the ceramic and finished turning our toilet into Santa Claus.
And I took a generous sip from my tumbler.
That moment wasn’t about Jude not listening to me. It was about me not feeling listened to.
It was also me telling myself a story of inadequacy. “If I were really an effective dad, my boys would listen to me and do what I say.”
And I made up a terrifying future scenario when I would yell at Jude to stop running in a parking lot only for him to ignore me and careen into danger. (Although the exact opposite thing happened that very morning after church.) Disaster outcome planning is rarely open to countervailing evidence.
But think about those three needs:
You need to be listened to.
You need to feel effective and adequate at your tasks.
You need to have some reasons to believe things will be okay.
Now think about how these needs get challenged every time you walk into an audition room or put your finger on the red circle on your phone screen and pretend you’re singing to somebody.
We ask ourselves, “Are the table people listening to me? I don’t know if they are. How can I get them to listen to me? I know, try harder.”
If we feel unheard and unseen, we can do the time-tested kid logic of, “If I’m not being heard or seen, then it must be my fault. I must be bad at this. There are other people who are so much better, clearly. I’m sure they get listened to.”
Or we hurl the blame outward. Also ineffective.
And that quickly leap frogs to, “This will always be this way. This is what auditioning is like. This is what being a singing storyteller is like.”
So we do one of two things.
We armor up. We don’t let ourselves want the thing, and we offer up half-alive songs what might sound just fine, but there’s no open door into the heart. The unheard, unseen, inadequate, always-like-this story goes on.
Or we quit.
But there is another way that brings satisfaction and joy to your work.
Here you go —
Listen to YOU. Are you even listening to the words you’re singing? I bet if you do, that story might come alive, and you might start to have a little fun.
Along with that, let everybody off the hook. Nobody has to listen to you. But I guarantee if you’re having you’re own auditory party over there, I’m gonna be all “I’ll have what she’s having.”
Assess your skills well. Do you need to bolster your tools? Are there things you need to integrate and gain confidence with? When you watch yourself back on video, are you meeting your own aesthetic standards?
This is a helpful question, and it gives you something to DO. You can get to work, and you can get better by spending 7 minutes a day on that technical skill.
Then you have evidence to show yourself — I am effective. I do have these skills. And when I don’t, I have the GRIT to acquire them.
And then open your heart. Prepare the hell out of your work. Then “connect, George, connect.”
Don’t perform. Prepare and connect.
Imagine there are French doors, latched at your sternum. Open them up, step out on your balcony, and say, “You’re invited in here!”
There’s nothing more beautiful than your soul, so trust the inward welcome.
Listen to you. Bolster your skill for your own satisfaction. Prepare and connect.
Because there is only one you, and folks need to hear the beautifully crafted story only you can sing.
Love much,
Dan
PS I’m writing a book!
The focus is on telling you all the things I say in lessons that make people say “I wish I’d known that before!” in a systematic fashion while sharing my experience of singing as a way to heal.
Sound good to you? Let me know. Send me a quick email back and tell me if that’s something you could use.
Also, if you’ve got a singing while pretending issue you wish you could solve with a book, let me know! Any idea you have — I’d love to say thank to you in the acknowledgements 🙏📚.
Send me an email and tell me your ideas and what you need. What have you been looking for that you can’t find? Email me back by clicking here.