Staying Tuned

Several years ago, I noticed that without giving it much thought, I had started signing off my monthly email music newsletter with “Stay Tuned,” before my signature. At the time, it felt correct but innocuous, and nothing more than “keep an eye on this space, as there’s lots happening.” Which, to be fair, is usually true, and this space is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

But what I wasn’t paying as much attention to at the time was the many meanings of staying tuned. Certainly as a guitar player I am often tuning and retuning the instrument to account for the various travails of climate and life. And as a therapist, I’m often counseling clients about “staying tuned” in other healthy personal ways that usually have to do with self-cafe, and paying attention to their feelings. And this, for me, is where it all starts to get pretty interesting.

We know that the universe runs on vibration, and that our somewhat puny human senses are only able to pick up on so many of them. Much of the light that exists is lost to us, sadly, and yet we still perceive a world full of vibrant color. Same with sound and smell. There’s no doubt that my dogs can hear and smell things I cannot, but that doesn’t mean those vibrations/smells don’t exist. I’m just not tuned to them, because my sensors work differently.

Humans have this amazing guidance system whereby our emotional reality (feelings of the moment) always follow our thoughts. You know this implicitly, and watch: First, imagine a delicious physical experience you’ve enjoyed. Maybe it’s a long shower, maybe it’s in the bedroom. Just bring it to mind for a moment, and notice how that memory feels….Now remember a time when you’ve stepped in dog poo. And what that was like.

Your feelings do a 180, right? From ooh, delicious ….to ewwww gross!!! Just by reading a few words, which trigger a few thoughts and memories, which have strong emotional connections. Knowing this fascinating thing about our brain-body connection, we can use this same mechanism to “tune” ourselves towards feeling really good, nearly all of the time.

Without going too far down the rabbit hole here, you’ve perhaps read my other writings or simply are familiar with things like the law of attraction. It’s the most powerful law in the universe and simply states: like attracts like. If I show up to my first day at a new school wearing a particular band t-shirt, I will, by the end of the day, have connected with at least one or two people who also like that band. They will have seen the shirt and said hello. Same goes if I join the chess club. Or hang out by the dumpster smoking cigarettes. Wherever we go, we have a vibe going on, and we are likely to meet others with a similar vibe going on. Like attracts like.

When it comes to things manifesting in our lives, we get what we think about whether we want it or not. Knowing this, I spend a lot of time paying really close attention to what I let myself think about, based on how it feels when I think about it. I used to spend hours paying attention to the “gigs other people were landing that I was not,” feeling crappy about my musical trajectory. Then I learned to stop focusing on that. Instead, I paid more attention to the gigs I was getting, or the ones I wanted to some day get, and let my emotions follow those better feeling thoughts. Because the law of attraction doesn’t miss, and if I can already get myself feeling good and hopeful (even if the current reality of gigs is not where I want it to be), then the universe brings me more and more and more reasons to feel good and hopeful.

Learning to feel gratitude for future blessings is the most powerful magic in the universe. The more I practice it, the better I feel in this very moment. And then, lo and behold, the great gigs start coming in too. And by that point, they’re just the cherry on top. Because I was already feeling great, staying in tune, by purposely focusing on things that feel good. Even if they are things that haven’t yet manifest yet.

I keep looking around the corner, and feeling for what’s coming. And I’ve never been happier. And more excited. I encourage you to join me. It just takes practice. Stay tuned.

The Experience that is Folk Alliance International

Folk Alliance International (FAI) happens once a year, often in Kansas City, and is the single largest gathering of folk musicians in the world. And “folk” is used broadly enough to explain the fact that over the course of four music-filled days, I saw everything from an electric funk/blues trio to a show-stopping trio of female voices using only one acoustic guitar. Folk Alliance brings together two gigantic groups of people in the world: Artists (songwriters, players) and Industry folk (talent buyers, managers, booking agents, etc), and from Wednesday afternoon through very late Saturday night, all sorts of schmoozing and music-making mayhem ensues, while very little sleep happens to compensate. By Sunday morning, most of us are heart-filled bleary-eyed zombies making our way through the airport with our instruments, ready to sleep for days and absorb the many experiences and conversations that just occurred.

Like most conferences, FAI includes interesting panel discussions during the day on issues relevant to the songwriter, touring musicians, or what-not. There are always enough choices at any one time that rather than struggling to find something to attend, it’s a battle to be in more than one place at a time. The keynote speakers are usually names you know, or will soon, and all of them have been selected with wisdom and care. Panel discussions run between 10am and 4pm, and, when mixed with a nap here and there, make up the bulk of the day.

From 6pm-10pm, you can roam the roughly dozen or so ballrooms hosting the Official Showcase Artists - these up-and-comers who have been selected among the many applicants. No matter which ballroom you attend, you’re sure to catch a highly-talented songwriter. The acts range from solo performers to full bands, and the Official Showcase concerts rotate every 30-45 minutes.

THEN comes the madness, and typically my favorite part of the week. Each night at 10pm, everyone heads for the elevators. That’s because every single room on the top three floors of the hotel have been turned into mini-concert venues, and now host concerts from 10:30pm until 3am, nonstop, rotating every 15-20 minutes. You can imagine the scene in the hallway, as musicians and industry folk make their way up and down, snaking past each other with our instruments, darting past doorways through which lovely sounds can be heard every single time. Some folks are headed for a particular room, following their map, as there is a rhyme and reason to this all, and you can seek out a particular artists to track. Others are simply wandering, blissfully, from one lovely showcase to the next, trusting fate will lead them to the next wonderful song or conversation in the flow.

After four straight nights of this, up past 3am and happy to do it, I met more folks than I can remember. I caught enough new music to keep me busy the rest of the year, and came away with an exhausted body, but a supremely inspired heart. For anyone even loosely inclined to attend, this is an annual event - next year is hosted in Montreal. And there are smaller (1/10 the size) held throughout the year. Colorado’s region is part of SWERFA, held in Austin each September.

Thank you, kind folks that help this event become what it is. It’s one gigantic family, and one I’m grateful to be part of.

I'll Be Happy When

How many of these thoughts sound familiar - I’ll be so happy once I get on vacation. I’ll be happy once I land that job. I’d be happy if I was dating someone. I’ll be happy once I make that salary. Or write a great song. Or lose ten pounds. Or quit drinking. Or control my anger. Or overcome my anxiety.

If you’ve been a human long enough to have a few birthdays, then you’ve entertained thoughts like these. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with thoughts like these. We have all been well trained to concern ourselves principally with the current state of affairs only. Our current weight, salary, circle of friends, etc. Because that’s what IS in this very moment. Why would we not look there? Open up any newspaper or social media app and you are instantly inundated with the “problems” of the world, and ourselves. We sadly aren’t very often hit with many solutions to said problems, but rather problems on steroids. The problem is that our obsession with what currently IS, coupled with our fascination with the disease of the world means that most of us are focusing on things that make us feel badly, nearly all of the time. And instead of focusing elsewhere (say, on pleasant-feeling thoughts), we simply anesthetize ourselves to the discomfort, and go on talking about and living in the problems of the world, thereby magnifying their very existence.

Two interesting things I have learned in my life regarding this “I’ll be happy when” fallacy: The first is that it’s not true. That sense of happiness, even if it did follow that date (or job offer, or new car, etc.), was temporal, eventually leaving to be replaced by some other feeling. Or the job wasn’t what I thought. Or the weight went back on. Or the date started talking.  That’s the first problem with this conditional style of living (the kind where I have good things happen so then I feel good, and vice-versa). It doesn’t last. There’s not a way to sustain the positive conditions long enough to promote only good feelings. And any attempts in this regard often lead to destructive and addictive patterns.

The second problem with “I’ll be happy when” thinking is that is brushes over one vital truth: it is actually possible to feel happy right now, right this very second. I may not be able to drop the ten pounds this very second, but I can find ways of thinking about that topic that absolutely feel better, and move me rapidly towards “happiness.” What I want and WHY is a very useful place to focus. But beware this common pitfall. Let’s use the weight example, and this first one is not helpful: I want to lose ten pounds because I am currently a fat ass and feel bad. Here’s a better way of following up the WHY: I want to lose ten pounds because I love how I feel when my pants are a little looser. I love the energy I feel in a lighter body. I love the way it feels to move and dance in a lighter body. I love the confidence I feel when I walk through the world in a lighter body.  This kind of thinking orients you to the very feeling you’re trying to conjure, right this very second. Can you feel it? Keep it going. What you want, and the WHY underneath it have some powerful magic that is directly related to moving in the direction of what you want.

So catch them, when you can, these sneaky little, “I’ll be happy when” thoughts, and see if you can reorient yourselves right here and now to the feeling of happiness.  It’s always there, waiting for your to discover it again and again. Peace and joy, ease and flow. Right now.

Dreams, not Resolutions

Happy New Year, dear hearts, and welcome to 2024! It is of course that time when our news sources and social feeds are full of remembrances of the year’s big events, notable celebrity passings, and the predictable myriad of suggestions on self-improvement. Join this gym! Eat fewer carbs! Walk more steps! Give more to charity! Be a better human.

I’m all for exercise and generosity of course. But the problem with this “Resolution Mindset” is that it is purely rooted in not-enoughness, which always feels bad. The underlying vibe is that we didn’t measure up last year, we didn’t do enough, we ourselves, just as we are, weren’t enough in some form or fashion, and so we need to do better. We can do better. We should do better. What the heck is wrong with us?

Sound familiar? Most of us have been fed this from day one when it comes to New Years and resolutions. I have another idea. Instead of focusing on what we should improve upon, my simple focus turns towards this: What is it that I want? Since I’m the captain of my ship, where exactly would I like to sail? What kinds of things would I like my nest to be feathered with this year?

The Dream Big game is one of my favorites to play, but it takes a little practice to get good at it. And by “good,” I simply mean that you play the game in such a way that it actually lifts your mood. You can feel the excitement of it, and the energy starts to gather momentum. And the simplest tool for getting that going is by completing the sentence, “I want X because….” The because is really REALLY important. More on that later.

This can sound like, “I want to travel because I feel so alive when I am visiting someplace new.” Then stay with it, milk it, keep it going. “I love meeting new people, and trying new foods, and walking around places that I’ve never been. It’s fun to purposely get lost in a foreign place and know that you’re on one big adventure.” Stringing thoughts together like this gets the ball rolling. Can’t you feel it? The momentum builds, and those eager feelings of anticipation start to gather like we know those seeds we’ve planted are about to poke through the ground.

And the topic doesn’t have to be something big like travel. It can be something more immediate like, “I want to feel more relaxed, and take more deep breaths, because I love the feeling of calmness and peace that comes over me when I tend to my body in that way. I feel more at peace when I slow down, and I love that feeling of noticing my surroundings, and settling into this very moment.”

What stops so many of us from Dreaming Big in these ways is that we instead say to ourselves, “I want X but…”. I want to travel, but I can’t afford it. I want to learn to speak French, but I never have the time. I want to make more money, but I’m stuck in this dead-end job.” And those thoughts, common as they are, keep us stuck. Feelings of stuckness breed more stuckness. It ties a horse pulling in one direction to a horse pulling in the opposite direction. This always leaves us feeling crappy. And deflated. Just like those old, familiar New Years Resolutions.

So this year, starting with today, let’s all just Dream Big. I want this because. And I want THIS because. And this and that and all of it! The world is your oyster, dear hearts. And the secret to making the supportive evidence show up even more abundantly is rooted in your ability to play the dreaming game. Have fun with it. Give yourself permission to really go for it. Since you can be, do, or have anything at all, what would you like it to be?

I want this, because…