Meanwhile, the small, childlike voice of your essential self says, “I want to create something I am proud to call my own, and sound like a human being again when I write. It’s like I’ve forgotten what it’s like to be me.”

How is it that we can end up with the demands of the outer trappings of our lives leading us one way, and our innermost desires – the thoughts and feelings we are hiding from – leading us in another?

From the moment we are born, we live in contact with a world of ideas being absorbed into our brains, becoming part of our habitual thinking. We also have an innate intelligence that is present inside us before, during, and after all the habituation. If you’re like me and have lived most of your life without consciously examining this innate layer of intelligence (which some call “intuition”, others call “heart”, and others call “soul”), at first it might seem downright outrageous to even consider that there might even be a distinction between what we’ve been taught to believe versus what we know in our hearts to be true.

All of the “learning” that we do in school is basically training the social self. If we were really lucky, we had one or two outlets in our childhood which allowed us to explore the expressions of our essential self – a sport, a musical instrument, dance, visual arts, collecting comic books, or staring at the sky. And when I say “if we were really lucky”, I mean that many of our essential self expressions are not easily accepted in social settings or approved of by parents, and not always encouraged in school.

The essential self speaks through passion, imagination, and hard-to-explain joy. Not all “extracurricular activities” allow kids to explore their passion, or connect with the real reason for doing the activity. This is why I’m more than a little amused by the current obsession among Harvard undergraduates to remain “as busy as possible”. At the highest level of our education system, we are perpetuating the myth that our self-worth is tied to how much activity we do.

But the essential self is about being. It speaks subtly and sometimes quietly. Especially when compared to the volume and frequency of signals that feed our social self’s neverending list of “have to…” and “should…” statements, the essential self speaks like a whisper, or like a cool breeze, which is felt long before it makes an audible sound.

Just as music is the silence between the notes, our essential self needs space to express itself between the fast-paced demands of the social self’s thoughts. The essential self is persistent. If you don’t create the space to feel what your essential self is trying to say, it will find a way to speak more loudly to you. It may even find a way to stop you in your tracks, through immobilization of your body by pain, forcing you to get still and listen.

Everyone’s essential self speaks in a unique way, discernible only to you. So how do you start to decode the language of YOUR essential self? What are some clues that your essential self is speaking to you?

Ways the Essential Self Says “YES”:

- You feel, in your heart, that you are OK, even though “Everybody Else” is telling you something different.

- Your body is in great physical shape – you are sleeping well, eating what you need, are pain-free and feeling energetic.

- You can’t explain in words why you feel good or why you are drawn to something that makes you happy. You just do it and it truly makes you feel good inside.

- Your mind is clear, your mood is not dependent on what other people do in response to you, and you are at peace.

Ways the Essential Self Says “NO”:

- Every time you drive to the job that you hate, your stomach starts to hurt.

- Your body feels stiff, immobilized by pain, or numb to any sensations at all.

- You have lengthy explanations – full of quotes from other people – about why you keep doing the thing you know you hate doing and secretly wish you could stop doing.

- You forget things associated with the work you hate doing, your mood is very susceptible to fluctuation based on how other people respond to you, and you feel a vague sense of discomfort that you can’t quite name.

Notice that the essential self speaks in a dialect that involves YOUR BODY as well as your mind. The social self is a PhD-level expert in THE MIND. It could care less about how the body feels, unless it serves one of its purposes as a symbol of something to the outside world. The social self teaches us to override internal signals in order to get what it thinks we need. The problem is, the social self on its own isn’t a reliable guide.

Any form of body movement helps us connect with our essential self more. If you’re avoiding exercise, chances are your social self is afraid of what the essential self might have to say if you tried. By the same token, if you’re an exercise “freak”, examine your body’s reaction when you give it rest and allow it to be totally still.

Making music – from a simple humming sound to clapping your hands or tapping a rhythm on a tabletop - connects us with the inner vibrations of our bodies. Sometimes simple music is best for this purpose. When you’re heavily involved with the mind in trying to control the sounds made by a musical instrument, especially if you’re a “trained” musician, sometimes you forget to feel your body. You are engrossed in “figuring out” how to make a sound, and how to make it sound “right”.

OK, this is all great in theory. But how have I personally experienced my essential self?

I’ll tell you three brief stories of life transitions that I have made and how. While I didn’t call it “my essential self” at the time, I now realize that I’ve been listening to my life in this way for many years, learning to trust more and more each time.

- I was standing in the Operating Room in January 2000, a third year medical student on vascular surgery rotation. With a patient’s leg open, I watched as our Fellow leave the O.R. to throw up in the sink outside, and return immediately afterward to finish the surgery because he “couldn’t” take the day off. I saw a fourth-year general surgery resident excuse herself from the same surgery, to lie down on a gurney outside the O.R., so she wouldn’t faint out of exhaustion on top of the patient. I watched these people and decided that my life was not going to be about this kind of self-sacrifice. I wanted to work with people in some other way. I didn’t know what, but I did know – without a doubt – that I would not be continuing in a residency after graduating from medical school. Everybody Else thought I was crazy.

- I was living in Cleveland in late 2003, and was on the phone with a fellow venture capitalist (who’d also opted out of a residency after medical school) about fifteen years my senior. He was living the dream I imagined in my head when I set out on that career path – he had all the material trappings of a “good life”, including the house in the hills, the many cars, the expensive man toys. I thought that anyone with his level of “success” must have gotten there through belief in his own dreams. I found out that his real dream was to be a musician, but he never got over his fear to really go for it. He was good. I heard him play. I asked him why he was a venture capitalist. He explained that everyone in this business had “a number”, some goal that they’ve set (in millions of dollars). Quite calmly and rationally he explained that once he got to his number, he would stop. THEN he could start doing his dream of playing music. I was stunned. I thought, “Really?? And what if you DON’T get to your number?” I even said out loud, “If I had twenty million dollars, I’d start a violin school.” And then it clicked. I didn’t need twenty million dollars to start a violin school! What was stopping me? Within two months of that conversation, I had given notice to my partners that I’d be leaving the firm. Within five months, I had moved across the country to California (with my house in Cleveland still on the market). Within three more months, I started teaching my first students.

- Fast forward to this past year, 2009. I had been sitting on top of another summit, having gotten to many of the goals I’d pictured in my mind when I started my violin school. I was financially self-sustaining, I had many students, I had my own studio space, I had built a performing group that was beloved by audiences, was able to play in tune and was disciplined. I had built “an institution”. But I was exhausted and confused by the feeling that my work, which had started out as my passion, had somehow become a spigot through which my life force was being drained. My social self was so frightened of what might happen if I listened to my body and took some time off. “Won’t people think I’m lazy?” my social self said. When I finally gave in to the immobilizing pain in my body and took one month off from teaching last June, doing yoga again and correcting my posture, I started noticing new opportunities arriving in my life, calling me to make the deep changes my essential self so craved. It was a slow process of discovery, but I knew from my teaching and learning to play the violin, that small steps taken consistently over time eventually lead to dramatic results. For me, it was a question of where my small steps were taking me. Was I still pointed in the right direction for my essential self?

In January of this year, I let go. I changed directions. I am still working on deciphering the language of my essential self, discovering it each day. When I get still and check in, I know that I am pointed in the right direction because it is where my essential self feels calm, at ease, at peace.

Ask me again in five years to make sense of this recent transition. I can’t wait to tell that story, because I’m already writing it with every step I take right now.

**At my Free Sampler Evening this Thursday, I’ll teach you ways to hear YOUR essential self, and also HOW TO USE YOUR BODY’S KNOWLEDGE to bring each day more in alignment with your essential self. Hope you’ll join me!***

Photo credits (used through a Creative Commons license):

Girl in school: http://www.flickr.com/people/seeveeaar/

Baby joy: http://www.flickr.com/people/seandreilinger/

Jump for joy: http://www.flickr.com/people/cdell/

Pepper in mouth: http://www.flickr.com/people/wstryder/

Bed of nails: http://www.flickr.com/people/zawtowers/

So if you’re reading this, that means you’re curious enough about life coaching to see what more I might have to say about it (hopefully you’ve read Part 1 of this series on “Life Coaching Basics”). Keep your eyes, ears and heart open, and see if what I’m about to show you resonates with your soul.

When I first saw this model of change presented by a Martha Beck life coach, something clicked inside me. Big time. The key word for me was “CYCLE”, as in cyclical and constant. I had always thought that changes were simply jarring or inconvenient events along a linear path, and that someday, if I just found the RIGHT changes to make, I would no longer need to keep changing. Yes, this after making two major career shifts and multiple geographical moves within the past decade of my life. I somehow still believed that there would be an END to the change, if I would just get it “right”, and that I had somehow failed because I was feeling a sneaky suspicion that it was time for yet ANOTHER change.

“Just when the caterpillar thought the world had come to an end, it became a butterfly.”

Sitting there in the workshop, I was holding on tightly to what I had created, afraid to let go because of what it would mean to all the other people in my life, who were so delighted with the image I projected and what I was providing. I felt so much guilt for not being able to share in that same delight, and, most of all, not knowing how to say what I knew to be true for me. The truth was not always a neatly tied package, ready to be presented to others. The truth was sometimes full of uncertainty. But I did not feel safe – and did not have the skills at the time – to stand in my own uncertainty and proclaim it as my truth. It led to all kinds of messy stuff that brought me the lessons I am able to share with you today. I struggled, I stumbled, I took out my pent-up anger and deeply held secrets on many people in my life. I confused a lot of people. I might have even scared some.

But once I embraced this model and actually allowed myself to go through some of these squares, everything indeed began to change.

Square One – Death and Rebirth

Mantra for Square One: “I don’t know what the hell is going on, and it’s OK.”

This model for change is a central metaphor for Martha Beck’s life coaching model, and one which I find to be useful in my own work. It starts with a catalytic event in our lives – a crisis (some external circumstance we didn’t ask for), a choice (an internal shift we decide to make), or an opportunity (an invitation to change provided by an external source). Any time one of these types of events happens in our lives, we are plunged into Square One, like it or not. We are like caterpillars, lazily munching away on our leaves and getting bigger and rounder each day, but then someone or something suggests, “It’s time for you to make a cocoon.”

Imagining what it must be like for a caterpillar to voluntarily sign up to weave a coffin for itself is beyond what any of us humans are taught to prepare for. But something enables the caterpillar to muster up the courage – and vision – to withdraw from the world it knows, and to imagine a future that is totally different. One with bright beautiful colors, a completely different shape, and the ability to fly.

The price the caterpillar must pay for this vision? Willingness to let go of everything it once knew to be true.

An article Martha once wrote in O Magazine revealed to me something I did not know about caterpillars becoming butterflies. Once the caterpillar goes inside the cocoon, it does not simply grow wings on its caterpillar body. It completely dissolves. Into SOUP. It becomes a gooey, unrecognizable pool of liquid, from which the DNA then reorganizes cells into the form of a butterfly. The caterpillar not only has to succumb to the darkness and warmth of the cocoon – leaving behind its earthly existence – but it has to lose its form completely, in order to make the journey to life as a butterfly.

Square One is a time of grieving and dissolving of old identities and beliefs, letting go of what we thought we needed, or what we know we no longer need, or what we have outgrown. The pain we experience is temporary, but the suffering caused by holding on to our ideas of how things “should” be, can be more prolonged and more painful if we do not go through the Square One process.

The work in Square One is internal and subtle, which is why it’s underrecognized in our culture. We don’t see examples of Square One coping in advertising, on television, or in stories of our media superstars. Yet it’s probably the most important piece of work for transformation. Indigenous cultures often had rite-of-passage rituals in which elders would help adolescents re-enact the journey of transformation so that they would not fear it as they entered adulthood. We, as modern people, have lost a connection with this essential part of our human journey, and it’s up to us to teach ourselves, with the help of those who have survived changes we feel too fearful to face on our own.

Square Two: Dreaming and Scheming

Mantra for Square Two: “There are no rules, and it’s OK.”

Once the grieving and dissolving process has run its course, the mind is clear to envision a brand new future. The catch? You can’t force the transition from Square One to Square Two. Another reason why this model isn’t hyped up in the press. There’s no “quick fix” or “formula” to get you through…it’s just allowing a process to occur, and doing the work. Sometimes the work is actually allowing yourself to do nothing! Or to do less. A sure sign of moving into Square Two is  a completely different hairstyle, or a new wardrobe. The essential self is feeling free to play and experiment again, and is sending signals outward to create a new social self to match.

Square Two is a lot like music improvisation. Now that the judgments have been dissolved in Square One, there is room to create. And play. And dream. And see what happens. Some of the ideas will actually land with a big “YES!” and become worthy of wholehearted pursuit. They may seem like “Wildly Improbable Goals”. These are the ones to pay greatest attention to. Even though so many of us are taught from a young age to discount or ignore our deepest desires, this is one of the ways our essential self communicates through us. Listen deeply while you’re in Square Two, and you’ll hear the sound of your own soul singing.

Square Three: The Hero’s Saga

Mantra for Square Three: “This is much harder than I expected, and it’s OK.”

So you thought this was all going to be easy? Here’s where your commitment to your essential self is tested. It’s where courage and determination meet. Once you’ve freed your mind to imagine the seemingly impossible but strangely appetizing vision of your best life, it’s time to take action.

Did you know that as soon as the butterfly cuts open the cocoon, its wings are folded and wet, and it needs to struggle to break free from the cocoon, periodically stopping to rest and then gathering strength again before it’s able to take flight? Did you know that if you try to do what you think is “helpful” to the butterfly, by removing the cocoon before the butterfly has struggled with it, the butterfly will die? Interesting, huh?

This is where the “hero” part comes in. You become your own hero by taking your own steps, making your own “mistakes” (which are really the golden nuggets of learning), and experimenting with different steps toward your Wildly Improbable Goal until you’re flying on your own. It’s really a matter of the old-fashioned ingredients of practice, perseverance, and learning through trial-and-error, all while facing your fears and doing it anyway.

The keys here are tiny steps (much tinier than you think), celebrating your progress (more often than you think), expecting to make “mistakes” (more than you might imagine), and enjoying the process more than the applause you’re expecting get after your final performance. This is because the truth revealed in Square Three is that we must set Wildly Improbable Goals for ourselves, identify the smallest steps we can possibly take each day toward those goals, and then remain unattached to the outcome. Along the way, we’ll learn more about ourselves, perhaps revise our final vision, and encounter more situations that will require letting go of our tightly held beliefs about the way things “should” be, so that we open ourselves to the beauty of what is. Right here. Right now.

Square Four: The Promised Land

Mantra for Square Four: “Everything is changing, and it’s OK.”

I’ve resisted this concept the most out of the three squares, and I still wonder why. Maybe it’s because I felt so betrayed at having held on to the idea of there being a so-called “Promised Land”, which I then realized I had mistaken for the shallow vision constructed by the ego. “The Promised Land” for the ego is defined by material things, and often instructs you to accumulate as much stuff as possible (or climb to the highest summit) and hang on to it for dear life until it’s taken away from you, either by someone competing for the same position, or by the untimely arrival of your own death.

Maybe it’s a matter of reframing the “promised” land as something other than “being done” or “arriving”. The promised land, as experienced by your essential self or soul, is a feeling of peace, joy, and freedom that is indescribable in words. I believe we can move through many promised lands in our lifetimes. We may have even missed several opportunities to visit our promised lands because we were too busy wondering when we were going to get there.

For me, it’s best to think of Square Four not as any kind of destination or endpoint, but as simply a new set of wings to take me to the next level. The feeling of soaring freedom and the joy of seeing my whole life from the vantage point of an eagle are reminders to keep taking those tiny steps that gave me my wings in the first place.

Having survived and thrived through many trips around the Change Cycle, I also know that another Catalytic Event is just around the corner. Instead of dreading change, I now look forward to the adventure, I treasure each and every moment in each Square, knowing that I’m gaining skills – and letting go of old beliefs – that help me be a gentler guide for myself, and others, each time around.

Next in this series: “The Language of the Essential Self – Part 3 of 4”

Photo credits (used under a Creative Commons license):

Square 1: Brenda Anderson http://www.flickr.com/people/curiouskiwi/

Square 2: http://www.flickr.com/people/taniwha/

Square 3: Jessica Bayne http://www.flickr.com/people/jessicasays/

Square 4: Harald Hoyer http://www.flickr.com/people/hhoyer/

It seems like a simple question to answer, but it’s the kind of thing you only really know after you’ve experienced it for yourself. It’s like asking someone what it’s like to get a massage. You can describe it to them, but until they’ve gotten one, and depending on their particular masseuse, they won’t truly know what it feels like.

This is the first article in a series of four designed to describe life coaching for you, as best I can through stories and explanation. But remember the caveat: if you’re wondering whether reading an article or doing a web search on “life coaching” can really give you the answers you’re looking for, you’ll never fully know until you experience it for yourself. And it depends on who you are and the coach you work with. So if you’re curious, I encourage you to find a coach you feel an inexplicable but real connection with, and experience it for yourself. I’ll also teach you some tools in these articles, so you can try them at home on yourself. Just keep in mind that reading about coaching will not have the same effect as doing the actual work.

The simplest way to describe a life coach is that it’s like having a personal trainer for your well-being. Like a personal trainer helps clients achieve optimum fitness through their bodies, a life coach helps clients achieve their optimum well-being in any and all aspects of life. Some people say, “Isn’t that like therapy?” The difference between a life coach and a therapist is like the difference between a personal trainer and a physician. Life coaches and personal trainers deal with healthy clients to help them maximize their potential, while therapists and physicians deal with diagnosing and treating illnesses. So, life coaching is not meant to be a substitute for getting treatment for a diagnosed illness, although it may help you deal with the realities of being ill.

OK, so you’re feeling pretty good about most of your life and might be wondering, “How do I know if I need a life coach?” I like to think that anyone, regardless of their situation in life, could benefit from the techniques used in life coaching. It’s a matter of being open enough to allow something – or nothing – to happen. Sounds a little bit like music improvisation, doesn’t it? The lesson from improv is  that if you are truly open and connected to yourself and others in the present moment, the only thing that can happen is creativity. If a coach and client are in a place of openness, connection, and presence, the process can help anyone achieve more balance, experience less stress, and be more joyful in meeting the everyday challenges in your life.

How I found life coaching

The way I’ve experienced the power of life coaching is through the amazing Martha Beck, life coach and author of many books as well as a monthly columnist at O, the Oprah Magazine. What she does is probably best described as providing modern-day, evidence-based, practical steps to transforming your life through spiritual enlightenment. Only she doesn’t call it that. Maybe because “enlightenment” doesn’t market itself well in America, land of Goals and Winners and Rugged, Rational Individualism. Our culture teaches us to buy solutions, and we want results…tangible ones, preferably that photograph well, so we can post them on Facebook and get lots of “thumbs up” signs from our Friends from high school.

I’ve been enrolled in Martha’s yearlong Life Coach Training program since last summer. I’d read her articles in O Magazine for many years, and I would describe myself during that time as skeptical but open to the possibility of all this “self-help” stuff actually being able to work in my life. Meanwhile, for years I’d been reading lots of books, poetry, and blogs in an attempt to access more inspiration and ideas to help me change my own life.

It wasn’t until last year, when I hosted a workshop presented by one of Martha’s Certified Master Coaches that I was inspired to actually read one of Martha’s books. And I couldn’t stop reading them, one after another – Steering by Starlight, Finding Your Own North Star, The Joy Diet, Expecting Adam, Leaving the Saints – devouring her unique combination of rational skepticism, intuition, mysticism and humor. I felt like I’d finally found someone in the “personal development” field I could identify with. With her Harvard education, her ability to describe her own experiences with unexplainable mystical phenomena, and her resilient courage to face her own inner truth in deciding to leave the Mormon Church (and then to write about it), I could no longer find a rational reason not to believe her. My heart wanted to know more about what she had discovered. Reading her materials and then hearing her coaching model was like coming home, to a strangely familiar place that I had never been allowed to visit before.

What I love about her coaching is her belief that each of us has our own “North Star”, which always points toward the life of greatest joy, peace, and freedom for the soul. My metaphor for this is The Music Within Us. If we learn to recognize the sound of our own voice – the sound of our soul, the sound of our truth – we will create our own beautiful music with our lives and be able to share it with everyone we encounter. I see Martha’s work as an elegant process that combines elements of mindfulness meditation, deep listening, imaginative inquiry and deliberate practice, all corroborated by scientific and empirical evidence with thousands of real clients (if you care about this sort of thing).

Life coaching basics – Who is leading your life?

My own life began to change the minute I saw these four words at that workshop I hosted last year: “social self” versus “essential self“. I’ve written a personal essay on my own experience distinguishing between these two selves in my life. In brief, I think of the social self as the conglomeration of identities we take on via education, social systems, and roles that we acquire throughout our lives. It’s what “Everybody” expects us to do. The social self needs to belong to a group, to fit into a category, to possess certain attributes or things, or to be doing a certain job, in order to be strong. The social self believes that we “should” do certain things, or that we “have to” be a certain way, or that we “can’t” think certain things, in order to be accepted.

Often, as adults we can no longer distinguish whether our actions are driven by the social self or the essential self. We have been living by default, or by habits we no longer remember acquiring. Everything is fine until something – a catalytic event – in our lives causes us discomfort, suffering, or trauma, and we are asked to consider our options. More on catalytic events in Part 2 of this series, “The Change Cycle”.

I like to think of the essential self as the essence of the soul. And our soul knows. Setting aside the philosophical question of whether or not you believe in the presence of a “higher consciousness”, we can all agree that we’ve experienced times of peace (or joy or happiness) and times of suffering. We also can agree that as humans, we prefer the feeling of peace over the feeling of suffering. This experience of feelings and emotions is our soul speaking through our heart, mind, and body. We can live our lives in resonance with our essential self, where we feel in tune with our soul’s desire for joy, freedom, and peace. Or we can live large portions of our lives out of tune with our essential self, saying or doing things that we know, somewhere deep inside, are not true to the desires of our soul. Our bodies carry these out-of-tune melodies, or discordant harmonies, in the form of pain, fatigue, or illness. More on how the essential self speaks to us in Part 3 of this series, “The Language of the Essential Self”.

It is ultimately a choice we make about how to live, but sometimes we need the guidance of an observer to help us discern the truth of our essential self from the many voices of our social self vying for our attention. This is how I see the role of a life coach – someone to help you hear your own thoughts out loud (sometimes just doing this helps clarify the hilariousness of the social self’s demands), someone to help you question whether these thoughts resonate with your soul, someone to hold a space for you to listen to your own truth, and someone to lead you back to the truth of your own internal guidance.

A life coach does not have the answers! By helping you see yourself more clearly, and ask yourself the right questions, a life coach helps you tune into your own true answers – the ones only your soul knows for sure.

Ignite Bay Area – Tuesday, March 2, 2010, 7:00pm – 10:00pm, at Automattic Lounge, Pier 38, San Francisco

Can’t wait to meet you all at Ignite Bay Area tomorrow night! Tickets are SOLD OUT! But you can watch the live webcast right here: http://www.livestream.com/ignitebayarea

I’m on at around 8:30pm PST. But you don’t want to miss the stellar line-up of speakers! So tune in at 7pm tomorrow…

Free Sampler Evening – Thursday, March 11, 2010, 7:00pm – 8:30pm

Wondering what it means to “listen to your life”? Curious what “life coaching” is all about?

Learn how these techniques can help you take better care of yourself, so that you have more to give you everyone and everything that matters to you.

The event is for you if you are…

- a prospective one-on-one life coaching client

- interested in attending a future workshop series offered by me

- just curious to learn more

Space is limited. RSVP to reserve your spot.

Movie Screening: “Oh My God” – Tuesday, March 23, 2010, 7:00pm (doors open at 6:30pm)

Come and see this beautiful film made by Peter Rodger, who traveled around the world asking people the question, “What is God?”. You’ll recognize the faces of Hugh Jackman, Seal, and Ringo Starr, but the beautiful images of nature and the faces of humanity are the real answer to this eternal question.

Read more…

AND….for those of you who like to plan in advance:

“Music Improvisation for Everyone” Workshop: Saturday, April 17, 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Save the date! More details on this workshop coming soon…

The central theme we explored was music as sound organized in time. So, what is sound? What are the ways we organize things? And what happens when we play with the timing of things? Can a human make the same sound as a piece of vibrating metal? Can two humans make the exact same sound? To answer these questions, it helps to move your body, close your eyes, and let your mind get out of your way.

I took video of the class, but I think the best story is told in sound, so I’ve included some audio clips.

We had a whole range of levels, from a self-proclaimed “tone deaf” man to a woman who has been doing both theatrical and musical improv for “gazillions of years”.

It started out with James sitting down at the piano when he walked in the door, before the class had started. (Yes, that’s me, occasionally “ooh-ing” along with him.)

“Imagine” before class (2 minutes):

Imagine improv

We eased into a place of deep listening by doing a Pauline Oliveros exercise called “Extreme Slow Song”, composed by having all participants sing a familiar song as slowly as possible (using one whole exhale per syllable), while walking slowly around the room in any pattern.

“Extreme Slow Song” excerpt (2 minutes):

Extreme Slow Song 2.6.10

After a couple of hours of exploring the varied terrain of sound organized in time, the 8 of us (plus 16-month-old Lillian) created this piece spontaneously.

“Free Improv Circle” (3 excerpts, each under 2 minutes):

Free Improv Circle 2.6.10

Free Improv Circle 2 2.6.10

Free Improv Circle 3 2.6.10

And sometimes, great moments emerge without any facilitation at all, like this clip from my recorder being left on long after the class was over…obviously, the music-making wasn’t over quite yet:

“After Class” (3 minutes):

After class piano and voice 2.6.10

My greatest learning from this weekend’s class was that music means something different to each of us. And, it does mean something to everyone. Each of us has certain lifelong memories associated with music. Maybe we’ve loved it for as long as we can remember. Maybe it was never allowed in our house. Maybe it was an important escape. Maybe it was our only way of expressing ourselves. Or maybe it was something that only “other people” could do. Maybe we were once told by a teacher or other adult that we were “tone deaf”. Perhaps that prevented us from ever trying to sing or participate in anything vaguely “musical”. Maybe we allowed that label to cause us to question our own sense of hearing. (By the way, the man who started the class calling himself “tone deaf” turned out to be able to match a pitch without any trouble at all! I was all set to go through an “intervention” to show him how he could do this, but I did nothing! Which means he has been walking around for most of his life believing something about himself that isn’t actually true. Interesting, isn’t it?)

I discovered that as adults, we still have the opportunity, if we choose, to peel back the labels, and examine the thoughts we still hold as a result of them. We can choose to ask, “Does this label still serve and support me today?” Maybe it does, but maybe it’s outdated, or untested, given your current reality. What I observed on Saturday gives me the suspicion that if more of us could peel back more of those labels, we might unleash more of what we already have within us to offer the world. And I’m talking about the kind of stuff that we can’t buy and can never have too much of – love, light, listening, joy.

Take it from the great (and deaf) percussionist Evelyn Glennie, who gave a moving TED talk (see the video below) on how she listens with her whole body, and how she overcame the perceived limitations of being deaf, learning to play music, and eventually studying at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Whenever I hear people ask me, with expectant looks on their faces, to confirm the things they believe they cannot do in music (or in life), I think of Evelyn Glennie, and I remember, “We truly have no excuses…and no limits!”

Enjoy the sound of your own music!

I’m sharing a few brief audio podcasts on my musings today about the metaphor of “The Music Within Us” as the unique vibration we hold within our hearts and our individual power to create a lasting effect in the world.

Sit back, enjoy, and allow the sound and rhythm of these words sink in awhile.

I was more in the former category for most of my life. I saw improvisation as something Other People did. Those Other People included Jazz People, People Who Could Play Anything By Ear, People With Talent I Don’t Have, or People Who Have The NERVE To Be Joyful And Free.

In other words, I secretly wished I had what it took to be one of those Other People.

I found out, first a couple of years ago and then again last year, that the only thing standing between me and being one of those elusive Other People was just trying. The very first time I ever played anything on my violin that I hadn’t heard before or that hadn’t been written down was in the recording studio with a dear friend, in 2008. I’d hired him to make a recording of my students, and he came away from the session convincing me to come play for him. My heart leapt at the invitation, but I did the usual, “Nahhhh…I could never do THAT” routine.

Luckily he was persistent, and I was curious enough that I actually tried. The very first melody I improvised now appears on a CD he produced and distributes (listen to the clip “Johnny’s Blues” from the CD 900 Miles). In many ways that first time was the best, most spontaneous and pure session I’ve recorded. I’ll never forget the sheer terror of getting in front of the mike, headphones on, and nothing to rely on but my ears and my command of the instrument. I’ll also never forget the importance of the support, encouragement, and non-judgment that my friend provided during the session. There I was, free falling, flying for the first time, and he loved everything I did! Even when I didn’t. It kept me going, which is what led to the creation of some great moments, now appearing on that CD.

A few months later I left the improvisation behind to focus more on the “real work” I had created for myself, which really amounted to staying busy and constantly having something to show other people. The safe, predictable route. The consistent, long-term buy.

But last year taught me again how important it was to keep improvising. And this time it wasn’t in the recording studio. It was in my life. I found myself stunned by a depletion of enthusiasm and energy around the job I had created for myself. I denied and resisted it at first, but then recognized the need to understand it, to get closer to it.

I started to listen to my body. I started to do nurturing exercise instead of spinning my wheels on the Spinning bike.

I started looking for new models of how to live. I connected with freedom, joy, and creativity.

I started to tell the truth…slowly at first, then gradually with more clarity and confidence.

And I found music improvisation again. I entered a whole new realm of intention with my music, surrounded by teachers and fellow students seeking ways to bring healing sounds into the world. I learned to play the hand drum with Glen Velez. I was opened by the pure love and range of expression shared by cellist David Darling. (And now I can say I’ve studied with two different Grammy-winning artists.)

I discovered my voice. I didn’t need my violin or any fancy instruments to make music. In fact, it’s been through voice, breath and simple sounds that I’ve felt the greatest freedom to play. And I discovered that it’s through improvisation that we uncover our own true voice. There’s something about the combination of safety, love, encouragement, listening, and playfulness – all within the special boundaries created by the medium of music – that unleashes our deepest longings as human beings.

We long to connect. We long to be free. We long to express. We long to move. We long to create something together. We long to share moments of spontaneity with other human beings.

All of this is why we all need a little improvisation in our lives.

Join me this Saturday, February 6, for my second public workshop, “Music Improvisation for Everyone“. Give it a try…you might hear the sound of your own joy.

Most of the world cannot begin to imagine what you are going through right now, or what you have been going through for most of your life. Because of your position in the limelight, with all cameras pointing on your every move, gossip mongers foraging for table scraps falling from your every misstep, and would-be corporate sponsors hoping you’d remain constant as the next horse to bet on, we now get to see the part of your life you hoped would stay private, hidden away, silent. And it isn’t pretty. It doesn’t play so well on the billboards, on the covers of magazines, or on websites touting you as a role model for young people, young African-Americans, young athletes, young dreamers of all kinds.

But I beg to differ. I am reminded of a phrase spoken to me by a wise teacher: “We inspire others not through our perfection, but through our imperfections.” I’m here to say – at some risk to my own reputation, no matter how small in comparison – that how you face this colossal challenge, this deep well you must dive to the bottom of, this unfathomable darkness, could in fact serve as your greatest gift to the world.

The few conversations I’ve had with people about your current challenges have indicated to me that they don’t  understand how this could have possibly happened to you. They don’t really care. They’re just all too eager to drop you from their list of admired public figures, and let you figure out your own mess on your own. They don’t want to see how you got to this point. They just want it all to go away. But you can’t do that. It’s your life, and it’s not going away.

I have no idea what it’s like to be the top golfer in the world, to carry the weight of “legendary” status as you do, to be held up as The One to beat, to be in demand with every breath you take. I also have no idea what it’s like to have the responsibility of your own family – a wife and two children to whom you’ve promised yourself.

But I do understand something about what it’s like to be trained from early childhood to do something well. To take pride in yourself through your performance, your skill, your ability to compete. While you were in your garage with your dad at age two, swinging a golf club, I was in my home in Libertyville, Illinois, practicing piano and then violin every day from the age of three. I enjoyed performing, I enjoyed competing, and I enjoyed doing well. I reached my own peaks – Carnegie Hall at age eight, Pope John Paul at the Vatican at age eleven, the Kennedy Center at age thirteen, international competitions and performances as a way of life. I also knew that I was not in “full throttle” mode, that our family held back from the complete sacrifices that other families made for their children’s musical development, that we were striking our own definition of balance throughout those years.

I also understand something about having parents – so loving, so hopeful, so proud, so dedicated – cheering me on at every moment, making my success the center of their own lives, and investing every cell of themselves in my future. I understand being raised to value myself through my performance on the various playing fields that life presents – climbing higher and higher towards whatever summit was next, whether it be the education ladder or the career status chain. I reached my own summits there too – I graduated with honors from Harvard, I completed medical school without really even wanting to practice medicine, and I managed to prove everyone wrong when I started as an unpaid intern and eventually got hired and promoted to partner level at a venture capital finance firm, right out of medical school.

I understand something about reaching the “summit” and then having to hold on, stay there, or keep going higher (perhaps by growing wings if necessary), because that’s what life was supposed to be about. I was told that my purpose in life was to climb to the highest summit I could find. And then what? No one ever mentioned that. But I didn’t question it either, until I stood there with my own two feet.

I understand something about feeling like you have no space of your own where you can be silent, check in with yourself, or feel anything – except when you’re “on”. Maybe that’s why you filled your calendar with tour events and competitions. Maybe that’s where you felt most safe. I understand having a job where every day you’re on display, and how you do everything matters, to the point where all of your training, all the hours and years of practicing, are called upon in every moment. Sometimes you yourself even marvel at where it comes from, how you manage to finesse things, pull them off and impress other people (they’re smiling and clapping, aren’t they? they’re paying to see you, aren’t they?) while inside, you feel disconnected from it all, as if it’s all happening outside yourself. Mostly you wonder how you’re going to find the time to just breathe and create the inner life you know is yours but you’ve never allowed yourself the space to consider. Does any of this sound familiar?

I have no idea what it’s like to have taken on the responsibility of your own marriage and two kids. I have not had the same faith to make those promises to anyone yet. I’m trying to learn first by making promises to myself before I venture into that territory. But I do know something about putting myself out there as a role model for so many other people – children, their parents, even their grandparents. My next step out of venture finance was to start my own entrepreneurial venture. As the founder of a school and the one-on-one mentor to children, every time I stepped in to my work, I faced a sea of expectant looks that I was determined not to disappoint. I had been trained for too long, I had become too good, I had accumulated too much to consider letting them down.

So imagine – and I’m sure you can – what it felt like, once I had reached another summit, accomplished another set of goals, only to realize that the view from the top wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, and not knowing what to do! Not knowing how to come down gracefully. Not knowing how to admit what I saw from where I stood.

I know what it’s like to have created something – a phenomenon, really – with the gifts that you have been given, and the hard work you put in every day of your life, and to watch other people – people you loved – become attached to their experience of “it”. Only the “it” they are attached to is YOU. And all the while you know that you’ve sacrificed a core part of yourself that you have every right to cherish and to express in the world – your freedom.

I have no idea what it’s like to carry multimillion dollar endorsement contracts, see your face on TV, billboards, and products. Or to then have your personal phone messages, your quiet moments of desperation, splattered on the cheap pages of tabloids and the internet, for all to see. I’m lucky in this sense, enjoying the privilege of relative anonymity, and being able to walk down any street without being recognized.

But I understand the need to find outlets for expressing your confusion, wrestling with difficult emotions, grappling with the things in your heart that you struggle to understand. I understand the need to be heard. I understand the lengths you might find yourself going to in order to feel heard. My outlet is writing. I discovered blogging several years ago, and tiptoed into the waters of this new medium. My first attempt was an experiment in giving a slightly more personal take on my business. I would slip in links to articles that I found interesting, tell stories that illustrated the points I so desperately wanted to convey in my teaching, and publicize events related to my school. I never went off-script, always remembering that this blog was part of my public performance. I never shared my struggles, the moments that caused me the most turmoil, or the situations that caused me to ask the deepest questions.

For awhile I swallowed these stories. I journaled privately about them. Or I called a friend and talked their ears off. I wore out more than a few friends during that time. But no one ever told me I could feel exhausted. No one ever told me I could choose my time on the summit, that I didn’t have to stay there if I didn’t want to. I kept thinking my life would mean nothing if I didn’t find that highest peak possible and just plant myself there, digging in my heels, just because I could.

So I kept on swallowing. Pretty soon I didn’t like what was spilling out the corners of my mouth, into the relationships I really cherished in my life. I felt disconnected from the people I wanted to feel closest to. I had nothing to say, because I was too full of the pain and confusion that I thought was mine alone to deal with. I didn’t want to live that way.

So I returned to writing. Unlike you, Tiger, I found my refuge not in gratuitous sex with strangers, but in pouring my emotions onto the page. I created a completely private blog, read by only one other person. It was important to me that someone else besides me read my writing. I needed even this tiny way to feel heard. I dumped all of my juiciest stories there every day. No boundaries, no editing, and no holds barred. I recognized it as a dumping ground for all the piles of crap that otherwise would have accumulated in my heart. It was safe. It was private. It still is.

I discovered my longing to be a writer. I discovered that I was already a writer – I wrote every day. Knowing what I knew about practicing violin and piano every day, I took great comfort in my daily writing. It gave me the place of expression I so longed for. It gave me a sense of voice, when for so long I had stayed outwardly silent.

And it gave me a place to make mistakes, without blame or judgment.

I’m not sure if you count among your aspirations in life to have an integrated feeling of “what’s outside” accurately reflecting “what’s inside”. But I do. I didn’t like living a double life, holding all of these painful thoughts secretly, dealing with them privately. It felt inauthentic and also unnecessary. I dreamed of a world that would be freed by the great gift of truthful expression.

So I started another blog, called “Truth Love Beauty”. This time, it was public, although I did nothing to publicize it. I kept writing on it, nearly every day. I chronicled the real emotions I was facing as I journeyed toward freedom. I didn’t have a script. It was not a performance. It was practice. I was bearing everything to the tiny universe of people who might find my blog and read it, but mostly I did it for myself. I was surprised to see that some strangers actually found me! I was humbled by their words of encouragement and support.

Two weeks ago, I made the next big step toward integrating what’s outside and what’s inside by bringing an end to my school, and making room for something new to emerge. I launched a new website, put a new face on my previous brand, and stepped through all my fear by placing links to both of my blogs on the home page. I stand here, squarely in the unknown, with the strength of commitment to my own integration and full expression as I offer myself in service to others.

And it’s not all pretty! Already I’m being tested in my resolve of not editing, not scripting, not having any agenda other than to share openly what it feels like to be me on my particular stretch of the path. I feel blessed to live in a nation that values freedom of expression, open exchange of viewpoints, and the opportunity for all voices to be heard…even on a tiny blog in the corner of the internet.

Today I step into more of my own power in writing this to you. I, having faced some miniature slings and arrows of my own, so tiny in comparison to what you have faced and will face, am here to say that you have the right to work through your mess. You have the right, as we all do, to express your joy as well as your pain, to celebrate your triumphs as well as your deep disappointments, to take every morsel of crap in the truckload of crap that has been dumped on your doorstep, and own it as uniquely yours.

If you have the courage to do the work – to roll up your sleeves and dig your shovel into the massive heap of stuff staring you in the face – you will find the treasure of yourself again. You already know what it means to work from the inside out. Now it’s time to go from the outside back in.

Tiger, we are all waiting for you. I, for one, am still cheering for you.

With love and admiration,

Lisa Chu

In the meantime, please visit The Music Within Us blog and the Truth Love Beauty blog for my previous writings.

Thanks for checking out my new site!