I learned early in my touring days that being a sponge to wisdom is an incredible way to live, and makes the most of this very exciting life and career I’ve been blessed with. Here are the quotes that I’ve come across (or come up with) over the years and that I find myself using almost daily to help guide and shape my actions and experiences.
When you work and live in one place, you have the gift of predictability and control over most of your daily life. While that level of predictability is nearly impossible on the road, there are practices that allow us to retain some agency and continue to create a healthy and productive life while traveling every day. After all, unpredictability is part of the magic of travel life, and finding ways to accommodate it allows us to enjoy all the twists and turns.
Goodbyes happen every day and to varying degrees throughout our year. They span from finishing a great meal to losing a loved one. Through regular journaling I found that being intentional about this process was comforting and helped me ease the transitions from life with something to life without it.
Once the worrying brain has found something to attach itself to, it can spend hours hypothesizing and constructing elaborate tales of possible outcomes. It wrongly convinces us that somehow fixating on the future will change the course of action. While experiencing worry is a natural response to uncertainty, it doesn’t need to consume the amount of energy or number of hours it often does.
If you have experienced tragic loss you know there are no words to describe the anguish and the all-consuming weight that bears down on you. We’ve just passed the 6-month anniversary of my friend Kim’s death and the experience has evolved in different ways, so it is time to write again. Some aspects are worse. Some are better. Here are my experiences with grief, as they present themselves further along in the process.
Grief is volatile and all-encompassing, physically and emotionally, and we are at its mercy. I welcome you into this space because I believe there is healing in sharing, for all involved, and simply composing this has already given me the ability to write the more hopeful "next steps" included further in.
I strongly believe that “life is a journey not a destination”, but this doesn’t give me much day-to-day guidance. Where do worthwhile hustle and healthy productivity fit in the mix? When do we push, and when do we sit back? Surely our destinies are not written so entirely that we should just be along for the ride. Where do ambition, activism, and goal-setting fit?
If you’ve experienced emotional lows in your life (as many of us have after this year), you’re probably aware of what is now being called “toxic positivity.” To find the good in every moment sometimes just isn’t possible, and to push that narrative can sometimes be even more harmful.
We’ve all been given a glimpse of a horrifying scenario and have been given a second chance. So now what? We want pre-2020 back, but not all of it. So what do we change? What do we take with us, and what do we leave behind? After living with the absence of so many things, I suggest we have a very rare opportunity to examine our lives and intentionally decide what gets added back in and what doesn’t. Now is the time to give this some thought.
“A year in parenthesis” We’re officially one year into this pandemic. And while we may be eager to forget it ever happened, I suggest that we still have the option of being changed for the better. In my last few posts I outlined the struggles that I and other musicians are facing in the absence of being on stage. So much of our self-worth is tied to the adrenaline rush and feedback we receive, and without them things begin to crumble and our motivation can slow to a stop. (I’d love for you to take a second to check out…
