Recently I had a beautiful discovery. It sort of swept me off my feet.
The month of September was one of the hardest months of my life. I was steeped in depression and anxiety and it was scary and lonely. It felt like it came out of nowhere because this year has been a year of transcendence and forward motion. In January I declared this year to be the year of imagination and singing - I have kept that promise and the outcome has been unimaginable.
There came a moment at the beginning of this year when I decided to veer away from the path of resenting my work and being totally devoured by it and into the unknown. I dared to pursue the thing that really made me the happiest AND believe that I could also experience the feelings of abundance and financial security in my life
at
the
same
time.
Little did I know this commitment to a radically different attitude towards my life would actually take me into some deep, dark and painful places. And little did I know that the times when I dug deep for perseverance would actually make me more capable to take on bigger challenges down the road.
This year, I have actually designed my life and my business around supporting the pursuit of my singing career. In the same year, I have also:
Bought a house (tiny)
Gotten a dog
Aligned with my partner on marriage and babies (woot!)
Made major strides in my vocal technique and entered the audition circuit (this meant spending considerable TIME and MONEY each month on studying singing)
Made a significant portion of my income from gigging
Got a job teaching voice at a college
Quit my job
And
Established and maintained a successful voice studio.
Oh, and I only work to make money 23 hours per week. I have seriously rocked it this year, and I am so proud of myself.
It is imperative, however, to acknowledge that it was hard. And it wasn't hard because the work itself was hard. The actual act of sitting at the keyboard, pressing the keys down and matching the pitch with my voice is not hard. The act of planning my schedule out each day and week and month is not hard. The act of writing the studio policies that are true to my philosophy of teaching is not hard. The act of doing the laundry, taking the dog for a walk, bringing up difficult conversations with my partner, and managing my budget are not hard. These are basic "adulting" skills.
Convincing myself that I do indeed deserve to have the singing career was hard.
Convincing myself that making time to plan my day so I can be as efficient, effective and relaxed as possible is important because I deserve to be successful and at ease was hard.
Convincing myself that I deserve to teach what I want, how I want and I don't have to cater to the attitudes and beliefs of my students, their parents and my colleagues about music education was hard.
Convincing myself that I deserve to have time in my week to be able to take care of my home and my family and have a satisfying career was HARD (is still hard).
But I am doing it. I am doing all of these things. And even though my conditioning and my habits sometimes keep me from acting on these beliefs I do believe these things and I see a light at the end of the tunnel.
And when I realized that I had experienced this extremely challenging time with my mental health while also totally achieving my goals I felt a sense of freedom and accomplishment that I had never encountered before. I realized, without even knowing it, I had tricked myself into taking major professional leaps and I landed this acrobatic move with two feet planted firmly on the ground. The period of time from the end of August to the beginning of October felt like I was flying through the air having just catapulted myself off a balance beam, and suddenly I descended, made contact with the mat, looked back and realized "holy shit I just did that!!!"
Know that you can do this, too. Keep your eyes peeled for my new program ALIGN coming soon.
