Snowed In and Breaking Through

Well, it's January 24, and I'm sitting in my girlfriend's house in DC in the middle of a crazy big snowstorm. The snow has stopped falling, the sun is bright and some streets are somewhat plowed, but everything is still pretty much shut down.

It's beautiful. It's an amazing vacation. It's time to enjoy being with the people you love and doing nothing, just being. Movies, coffee, crosswords, relaxing.

Unless that's not where your mind is at. If you're a musician, today may be a day that your church gig was cancelled (like mine). Maybe Friday or Saturday night you had a club date, or a theater performance, or a private party gig, that was cancelled because of the snow. I myself am waiting to see what happens with a school concert I'm playing on Tuesday morning, not to mention my band auditioning some new bass players Tuesday night as well as playing for a handful of prospective clients, a night that could turn into a few thousand dollars in bookings.

When most of the jobs you do only pay if you show up – which is how most artists live, it can be hard to enjoy an unexpected snow vacation (or any time off for that matter). When you come from a mindset of scarcity then every job you've booked is precious, and could be the last, and every job that is cancelled is a disaster, a huge wrench thrown into the works of your life, and a sign of just how hard it is to make a living doing this thing we say we love. Choose a mindset of abundance, though, and you will know that the money that is meant to come to you will come in the way that it's meant to, and that there is plenty of money out there for you, for everyone.

For me, this weekend has become transformational. I spent a few hours feeling quite stressed about the gigs that would hopefully not, then maybe, then probably, then almost definitely be cancelled. As that progression...um...progressed, it became clear that what I was doing with all the stress was trying to control what happened. I got an email about snow cancellation policies from my church and responded saying that the policy was confusing, and asking about what kind of compensation would be given if church was cancelled with this much notice, or that much notice.

I was trying to control what happened. But it was out of my control. The policy was pretty much out of my control, but the policy didn't really matter anyway: 2 feet of snow were coming, and there is no convincing or figuring out I can do to make gigs happen that are clearly going to be cancelled.

This attempt to control is resistance, and it is what causes all pain in the universe, all stress. The opposite of resistance is acceptance, and this is where the transformation is.

In accepting that gigs would be cancelled, that the money from those gigs wouldn't be coming to me, I started being able to truly enjoy this new moment. I realized that, when someone asks me how I'm doing, the measure of how I'm doing doesn't have to be how much I'm working and how much money I'm making. That in fact, there doesn't have to be any measure of how I'm doing, how my experience of life is.

I can experience life as GREAT, by choosing to, no matter the circumstances. Life isn't about gigs, work, money, business or busy-ness. They are a part of life but they are not what life is about.

You get to say what life is about! It is your CHOICE! 

If you are reading this and having trouble taking in that gigs and money aren't what life is about, that life can be experienced however you choose; if what I'm saying offends you, scares you, or makes you upset, my challenge to you is to look at what you are choosing to make your life about, how your are choosing experience life, and make a different choice.

These snowed in days are an AMAZING opportunity to have a breakthrough in your experience of life and your relationship to your work and yourself. And the more gigs that have been cancelled, the more money you've "lost" from this snow, the bigger the opportunity is the bigger breakthrough.

I choose for this weekend to be a celebration of time with the love of my life, time with myself, a celebration of relaxing, doing creative projects for myself (even just writing some music on GarageBand on my iPad), of simply enjoying life on its own terms, without measuring it by the amount of work I'm doing or money I'm making, any more than I'm measuring it by how many pages of a book I read each day or how many shrimps I eat each week.

What experience of life will you choose? What will you learn from this amazing weekend and how will you take it into your life going forward?

What if nothing was off limits?

I recently posted on Facebook to celebrate my happiness at how well I did in business in 2015. After what felt like a slower year, I had cleared $60,000 for the third year in a row. I posted:

Cleared $60k this year and it ain't over yet! Whoo hoo! ‪#‎nonstarvingartist‬

I got a good number of likes, one or two congratulatory comments, and then 3 or 4 more comments. The additional comments were from friends and colleagues, other artists, who considered it wrong, impolite, tacky, or inappropriate to discuss money. One posted an article where Emily Post (I think) broached the subject about whether money is still a taboo conversation topic, wondering if maybe that time had passed, only to confirm that it is, indeed, still not cool to talk about money. And there were a few "You tell 'em, sister!" and "haha, just desserts" replies and likes to those comments.

(Okay, those were not direct quotes that I just put in there but that was the spirit I read from them. I'd hate to use quotation marks when I'm not actually quoting without being clear about it.)

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and to disagree with anyone else's, so I'm not going to be defending myself or attacking anyone else, even faux-nicely. What I will do, since as a coach and an artist I'm interested in possibility, is get curious.

What would be possible if nothing was off limits?

What if, when you had a success you wanted to celebrate, you could share it, no matter what it was?

What if, when you had a fear that was weighing on you, you could voice it, whatever it was?

What if, when you had a creative idea burning inside you, you could let it out, no matter what it concerned?

What if you could be your true self and truly share and connect?

What if, when you just booked a commercial that will pay your rent for two months, you could say exactly that to your friends? What if that job paid $3000 for a day of work, and you could say exactly that to your friends? What if, instead of the conversation going on inside your head and in your community being about struggle and scarcity, you were to share yourself as a shining example of success? To open up possibility to those around you? To show them what's possible, from abundance, because from a context of abundance, your success doesn't lessen or make more difficult anyone else's, but in fact pulls it closer to yourself and those around you?

Might you shake your community? Might you inspire others to see that maybe what's possible for you doesn't point to what's impossible for them but instead toward what is possible for them? Might you start to transform your world and theirs, one small (or huge) step toward more success and happiness for everyone?

What if, when you were afraid or sad about the big project you're working on, you could say exactly that to a friend? Or a loved one? Or a colleague? Or someone you just met? What if, instead of feeling the pressure of pretending that everything's okay, and the self-loathing that comes with thinking you're the only one who doesn't have it together, you shared honestly? 

Might you discover that you're not alone? Might they discover that they're not alone? That it's okay to be scared sometimes (or much of the time)? That we can accept and love ourselves in all our fears and successes, in all our breakdowns and breakthroughs? 

Might you find a new closeness with this person, and then with that access, to every person? Might you cause that possibility in the person you're talking to?

Might you have a breakthrough where you realize that fear or undesirable feelings don't mean failure, don't mean stop, and that you can in fact keep working on this next great project of yours? Or even that the discomfort and fear you're feeling are actually the signs that you're going in exactly the right direction? That they are telling you that you are right up against your comfort zone, about to break into the unknown, where possibility and breakthroughs live?

What if nothing was off limits? 

What if you could talk about sex, shake off repression, live more freely, have more fun and funny conversations, accept yourself and others for being a human in a sexual body, and feel more self-love (and maybe have more sex)? 

What if you could talk about religion, learn about people who are different than you and accept them, find useful kernels of wisdom in other traditions, find new sources of inspiration and connection, foster appreciation one person and group at a time, and be the cause for world peace?

What if you simply knew that every part of every person, including you, was okay? That nothing was taboo, shameful, or wrong? 

That you're not alone. Not the only one feeling what you're feeling, or dealing with what you're dealing with.

What could you create then? Move past? Conquer? Transform?

Try it out this week. Be brave. See how the world changes.