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Tag: life lessons

Safe Places

We all want to feel safe, and there are many places in our lives that can provide that feeling. Feeling safe affects our well-being on all levels, from the primal to the emotional to the intellectual. Many of us rarely have the opportunity to let down our protective barriers or relax our emotional suppression; to wear our vulnerability on our sleeves. How often do we truly offer, without reservation, to be and hold that sacred safe space for others?

The Death of Your Old Story

Every lifetime has its ups and downs, peaks and valleys, flurries of activity, lulls and stagnation; times of stillness, contemplation and regrets, gratitude and love… but ultimately, it all ends. A forest, a community, a nation or empire; a civilization, a religion, a species — all of their stories eventually come to a close. That which endures through the ages is subtlety, energy, the building blocks for what’s next, fragmented timelines, and relics of what once was.

For each of us, on the winding road toward discovery, wisdom, meaning and making sense of this singular lifetime, we are endowed with unique capabilities. We can choose to free our minds of relics, fragmentation, and stagnant energies.

Deferring the Ideal Self

You cannot wait to start living your best, most inspired life. Waiting to start exercising or cleaning your house on a regular basis, flossing your teeth, pursuing that PhD, or setting aside a percentage of your income for something, invariably defers other things that you will not believe are related to — or connected to — both your ordinary and ambitious goals.

How you do anything is how you do everything. Take a look at your life and you’ll realize how true this statement is.

Face-Flattening Exercises

Like many lifelong-learners, I’ve suffered through periods of outright analysis paralysis. I’d study and absorb everything I could about what I was really excited to do (or be), what I wanted to do (or be), or what I was interested in maybe trying one day (to be)… It really never ends. And today, there’s an absolute glut of information and resources at our fingertips that can and will keep us floating around in existential limbo forever. Undoubtedly, I learned and personally grew the most by actually doing something. In hindsight, I should have resisted and complained less, and embraced the process.

Life is Music

7 years ago today, I was working with my longtime friend Mark Greenhalgh, a fellow music producer and lifelong percussionist, on the Fleshwound album. We were trying to hammer out live drum tracks, to replace my originally programmed ones.