Epi 54 – Give yourself permission to free your voice with Elisa Keeler
Copyright 2019 © All Right Reserved Living on the B-Side | Website Designed by Tracey White
Hey everyone, today’s blog post centres around a theme that’s been on my mind a lot again—holding on. If that is for one second, one hour, one day or longer.
Often times in life we are going through challenges that test our resilience, even under super tough conditions.
I have talked about this before during one of my solo podcast episodes, in which I shared lyrics from the song ‘Hold On’ by Wilson Philips. This is a timeless song that is so true and relevant today.
And this is what I would like to discuss in this post today.
Let me give you an example of what happened to me, an example from the past:
My week wasn’t that great overall, it tested me and got all the gremlins out. I could feel them creeping out of their little shadowy corners. Whilst, I was holding up pretty well during the week, and I was proud of myself for that. I wasn’t falling into their traps; I wasn’t allowing them to sit on my shoulder and talk all that negative stuff to me.
And then Friday hit! Getting out of bed, I already felt a little low on energy and not in such a motivated mood. Then technology issues with my laptop hit me, yet I stayed pretty calm and dealt with it.
Next up was a Zoom call, a planning session in the mastermind I was in at that time, and even though I did not feel 100% I was committed to show up. My laptop again decided to not work, to give me troubles, and for about an hour I did all I could to troubleshoot it. I thought to myself that all I want is to be in this Zoom call! Why isn’t it happening?! I started to tense up more and more, my emotions started to flare up big time. Frustration set in, but eventually I made it into the Zoom room.
Sadly, by that time I was so overwhelmed with emotions – frustration, disappointment – and the limiting beliefs came flooding back. The gremlins were out, they were having a wonderful time and were partying on my behalf!
If that wasn’t enough, one of my clients for my business at that time emailed me and I could tell from this one email it is going to be ‘one of them days’.
By that time, I was over it. I had enough, could not pull myself out of this black hole that I was in, it kept getting worse and worse, and I was angry. Being close to tears, the rest of the day was not great to say the least. I did my best to stay focused, stay as positive as possible, but it wouldn’t work. And all this trying, it felt it made things worse.
There was this quiet voice though that said to me: ‘’B, you have a choice. The choice to step away if today is not serving you, right?! You don’t have to force yourself. Be honest with the people around you and tell them you are taking the day off because you don’t feel well.”
To cut a long story short, I ended up on the couch that night, watching a paranormal TV show with my cat snuggling up to me. I needed that break to zoom out, to forget about the world for a little while and calm down.
After a good night of sleep, I was able to process what happened the day before. And this is what I discovered:
I had two choices, and picked the one that was least beneficial for me.
I realised that I was actually holding on too tight to an outcome that I wanted and imagined, instead of loosening my grip to allow a new choice and outcome to come through.
Often we hold on too tight because we feel it is our responsibility or duty to do what we are supposed to do, or promised to do. To put our heads down and grind away and deal with whatever is coming our way.
We are in too much pain, discomfort or routine to realise that this ‘holding on’ isn’t allowing us to do our best, be our best and hence make our time an enjoyable one.
Maybe we should instead say to ourselves: “Okay, I surrender. What I am currently doing is not working. I will step away and see how things will pan out.”
I would like to go over some lyrics of this song and show you what this song made me realise. First up these lines:
“I know this pain
Why do you lock yourself up in these chains?
No one can change your life except for you
Don’t ever let anyone step all over you
Just open your heart and your mind
Is it really fair to feel, this way inside?”
In this example, I locked myself up in my own chains. I let people (and technology) step all over me, and that did not end up well, right?!
It would have been better to step away and hence not inflict pain on myself. And if I repeat that, then I am locking myself up even more. To make a change, I need to do it myself. I am the only one that can see the patterns (chains) I put on myself and change them.
And then this part of the song:
“You could sustain
Or are you comfortable with the pain?
You’ve got no one to blame for your unhappiness
You got yourself into your own mess
Lettin’ your worries pass you by
Baby, don’t you think it’s worth your time
To change your mind?”
Again, I had a choice and I choose to stay in the unhappiness. I choose to stay in that state of mind of “oh, I have to deal with this stupid day that I’m having.” Instead, I could have taken the day off. I could have said ‘no’. I could have made a different choice.
Here’s to more happiness, joy and gratitude for the one life I have, we have!
The key takeaways from this day (and song), and others in the meantime, are that:
If you’re feeling down and out, if you feel like your live is constantly on repeat, that there’s nothing you can do to change ‘’the button on your iPod or on your Spotify, you can’t pause it, you can’t rewind it, you can’t skip it’’ – try to breath and remember this:
Press play on this Wilson Philips song (or another that carries the same message) and remind yourself that there is always a choice that you have. And if that is to listen to music to help you get through the day, make a nice cup of tea, read two or three pages in a good book. There are some things that we can change our lives. And if we just hold on one more day, tomorrow might look completely different.
Love Music? Love expressing your life through it? Awesome, you are at the right place. It’s all about using songs/artists to share what we’ve experience in life.
Copyright 2019 © All Right Reserved Living on the B-Side | Website Designed by Tracey White