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Posts Tagged ‘taking risks’
It’s Okay To Change The Plan … right?
Go with the flow, unless you’re caught in an undertow. In which case, it’s best to swim parallel to the shore until you’re out of it.
I learned that lesson the hard way back in 2003, when I went swimming in the Netherlands on a rather windy day and had to be rescued by surfers. Growing up near Peggy’s Cove, Nova Scotia (where people, usually tourists, drown because of the fierce waves) and spending many summers in Inverness (where ‘undertow’ is a season in August), it didn’t strike me as being that dangerous that day. My friends were out much further than I was and there were lots of people out riding the waves. I could see everyone laughing and having a good time, so why was I struggling to keep above the water?
Despite being raised in the Maritimes, I didn’t know you could swim out of an undertow. I thought you could only swim against it. That, however, is how you drown. You’ll never be stronger than the sea when it’s tugging, but you can get back to the shore if you’re clever enough to leave a different way than you came in.
That’s where I see myself right now. Back in January, I wrote about my plan for 2011. At the time, it made perfect sense and the vision was clear, so I dove in. I was starting to get pulled in deeper with commitments that were part of the plan, but full of relentless struggles and threats to my health and well-being. I decided I needed a different way out and then new options presented themselves; ones that weren’t part of the plan and would require me to take a leap of faith on my own. I chose this alternate path. The shore is still there … there is a little more distance to cross, but I’ll be in a much better condition when I get there.
In less obscure phrasing, since becoming recently unemployed and attending the Canadian Music Week conference this week, the band and I have decided to reschedule the CD release for the end of the summer. This will give me more time to strengthen my musicianship in writing for the album, as well as film projects, while building the webcast and button services into real businesses so that I can be self-sustaining and create jobs for other people too.
I’m feeling more resilient already :)
Meghan Morrison
www.meghanmorrison.com
@MegsMorrison
Tweet Hashtag #aiimm to share your own Adventures In Independent Music Making
Image “The Wave (1896)” by William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905). Public Domain Image.
Are My Instincts To Be Trusted?
I walked out on my job this week… with no back-up plan.
(yikes)
I kept my grandmother’s navy blue sweater in the office (it was always too cold in there) and I would always hang it up on the coat rack before leaving, so that it would be there for me the next day. I decided to wear the sweater home, at the end of what became my last shift, because the weather turned much colder after such an unusually warm morning (I hadn’t brought enough layers).
In the moment of making that decision, a strange feeling came over me: I got the sense that I may not ever be going back to that office again… and I haven’t. It was the same kind of instinctual guidance that also led me to pursue music in Toronto (you can read more about that decision in the first article of my column for WomensRadio , entitled “Learning My Lessons“, which was published last week).
Are my instincts to be trusted?
I wondered for a long time if there was a difference between following one’s heart and following one’s gut. The expressions seem to be used interchangeably. The more I talk with people and the more decisions I make, the more I see that there is a difference to me.
My friend and former neighbour, Justin, used to sit down with me and discuss theories of spirituality. From him I learned that some philosophies suggest the ‘gut‘ is one’s ‘ego center‘ and that the ego is not by nature a bad thing (though we are socialized in Western culture to believe otherwise). It is simply the ego (one’s sense of self).
My other friend, Rory, reminds me that as humans on Earth, we need an ego. If a person didn’t have a sense of their material self, their mortality, they would literally run around like a free-form energy ball until they got hit by a car or ran off a cliff, as lemmings do. So, an ego is a good thing, but a person can become destructive and desperate when that ego is out of balance, leading to poor self-esteem, narcissism, god complexes, and self-centeredness.
Knowing from my background in health sciences, as well as first and second hand experiences, that many chronic conditions of the digestive system are related to stress and unhappiness, I err on the side of caution when consulting my ‘gut’ for guidance. Is it my true nature speaking to me? Or an imbalanced ego? Instead, I view my “gut” as a smoke detector: It tells me when danger is present. My heart, on the other hand, is what guides me on how to resolve the situation and maintain a path that is true to myself.
Justin introduced me to an exercise of asking myself questions that, for a time, totally changed the way I approached problems. Simply put, the practice involves focusing on the heart and asking it an honest question. If I didn’t know what question to ask, I just talked about whatever was coming to my mind and observed how my heart muscles reacted. Feelings of calmness or glowing are signs of encouragement. Cramping or weakness are signs of problems. When I couldn’t make a decision about something, I generally asked “is this the right thing to do?”. If I got a calm or glowing feeling, I would feel the answer as a yes. If I felt cramping or weakness, I knew it was a no.
In reflection of the past weeks’ events, I have come to realize that I have fallen out of this practice and reading a WikiHow article on “How to follow your intuition” (in preparation for this blog today) reminded me of the importance of asking my “self” questions. Not to just think a thought in my head, but to genuinely ask on a deeper level and really listen for the answer.
Now what?
What am I going to do now? I’m not sure. I’ve got a lot of questions to ask myself right now. On a deeper level, though, I’m not worried. I have a feeling it is all going to work out for the best.
Financially, I can start pursuing my button making business more fervently (if you need 1″ promo pins, contact me!) and start seeking official sponsorship for the webcast; there will also be networking opportunities with industry folk at the Canadian Music Week conference later this week; and there is always the option to busk, if I have to (though it’s still a little cold for that).
There is also an opportunity to start scoring for film, professionally, in the near future. It’s still new, though, so I don’t want to put all my eggs in that basket yet. In the end, I like to think of myself as a creative problem solver. That means I can figure it out, right? (a calm, peacefulness exists in me now, so my heart says yes).
‘Til Next Week!
Meghan Morrison
www.meghanmorrison.com
@MegsMorrison
Tweet Hashtag #aiimm to share your own Adventures In Independent Music Making
Image “Heart” by Leland Francisco. Used with permission: CC-BY-2.0