Concert on 6 March 2010 / The Fruit Salad Principle

On Saturday, I did my second concert at Baran's, exactly three months after the first one, again showcasing my originals. I can't say this often enough, but what a breeze working with Wayne and Charles!!! They're not just great musicians, they're really easy-going, relaxed guys, and extremely professional. They know what they're doing, and they look like they're having fun on stage. I included six songs we hadn't done the last time, and that felt good. I also tried some new approaches on the night, most of which worked out well.

The audience was smaller than the last time, but because the restaurant is so cosy, it still felt good. I'd thought of cancelling it the week before, but after weighing up all the pros and cons, I decided against it; I wanted to do the show, for many reasons. I have clear music goals, and I'm on a journey. Because the journey always lasts longer than the reaching of the destination, you need to immerse yourself in it, 100%!

It's what I call the fruit salad principle: about two weeks ago, I took some fruit to the kitchen at work, and stood there making a huge bowl of fruit salad. Different people came into the kitchen and chatted, and eventually we were a group of four women, shooting the breeze about this and that, mainly healthy eating, exercise, weight loss, body image, etc. I took part in the chatter, all the time carrying on peeling, cutting, dicing, (nibbling) and adding one fruit after the other to the growing, fragrant, colourful pile in front of me. One colleague commented, when she saw how long it was taking me, that the break would be over and I would've spent most of it making the salad, not eating it. I said, "It's a philosophy I apply to everything in my life: the journey itself has to be as satisfying as the destination."

At the same time, I must admit I'm struggling to keep focussed and to apply the concept of "There are no problems, only opportunities." I intrinsically believe it, and it's helped me through many rough patches, but the one I'm going through now is testing me on many, many fronts. My teenaged son decided to stay with his dad, and hasn't been living with me since just after mid-January. I've experienced many things, but this is the hardest, by far. Harder than divorce, harder than a miscarriage, harder than losing a business. The cruellest irony of my life. But it doesn't end there: three weeks ago, a 7-year relationship came to an end, last week my washing machine broke, and today, my car; my daughter's got tonsilitis and I came home today with such red eyes, I think I may have picked up conjunctivitis.

Right now, it all just feels a bit too much. I believe I do possess the tools to handle all these issues - I just can't seem to find the toolshed!

There is a wonderful Mind Power exercise that we're advised to do just before falling asleep, because it involves connecting with your subconscious mind and your intuition, as you slip from a state of wakefulness into sleep. There are a few steps:
1. You contemplate the fact that you have a subconscious mind, and that it has access to all kinds of knowledge and power, tapped into universes we can't even fathom. The idea is to step out of the intellectual realm (where we keep hitting obstacles, barriers) and into the emotional one, where there's a conviction that defies logic.
2. You state clearly what you want from your subconscious mind - "answers, solutions, insights". You then affirm that you have already achieved your goal/found your answer, thanks to your subconscious mind. You repeat, at least ten times, "My subconscious is now bringing me...".
3. You give yourself over to sleep, fully relaxed and confident that everything will unfold as it should, that the answers will come.
4. You then relax in faith, fully expecting the answers to come. At this stage you're working with faith as an energy vibration. "These vibrations will attract the appropriate solutions and answers, just like a magnet attracts metal filings. A mind that vibrates with the belief that answers are coming to it, naturally draws those answers. If you had the correct... solution, imagine how you would feel: excited, overjoyed, relieved. Feel those sensations now. Let your mind play with those emotions in a relaxed way. Drop off to sleep with the assurance that the answers are soon to be yours."
You then have to be vigilant for the answers when they come - could be in the form of a hunch, a dream, a sudden brainwave, your inner voice, or some other way. With practice, it becomes easier to recognise/identify the messages. John Kehoe, from whose book, "Mind Power into the 21st Century" I've quoted in this post, says we'll know when an idea has been sent by our subconscious mind by the feeling we have when we get the idea - the "exhilaration, the certainty, the overpowering sense that 'this is it!'".

(Amazingly, just as I was typing the previous paragraph, in this edited version of this post , the Michael Jackson song, "This Is It" started playing on tv! I suppose now that I've shared this exercise with you, I owe it to myself to apply it properly and LIVE IT!)

Now that I'm alone, I've gone back to doing more of the Mind Power exercises more regularly. I like this exercise. I fall asleep this way every night. The solutions will come. They always do.

Time is my best friend.

Now to try, round 2, to upload pics of Saturday's concert.