Bask in the glorious paradox of our humanity

Have you ever wanted something, but actually not?

Have you ever been so vulnerable that you actually felt really brave?

Have you ever wanted to be adventurous, but not outside your comfort zone? 

Humans can hold opposite emotions at once. Our paradoxical nature is as beautiful as it is confusing.  

The more we can embrace our duality, the more integrated and powerful we become.

It’s not this OR that. It’s this AND that. 

Music can capture that complexity so well…Echoes and Rhymes’ song For Love is a wonderful example.

Songwriter, Edith Lundahl, breaks it all down for us on the Self-Help Songwriter Podcast. We love breaking down break-up songs! This one is written in a way that doesn’t reveal too many details, but just describes a particular flavor of emotional torment and longing. 

We discover that there is inherent strength in showing weakness. When you are able to be really honest about something you’re not proud of, it’s a bid for connection and an opportunity for healing. Not only that, it’s honoring yourself and honoring your true experience. Living honestly is one of the bravest things you can do.

There’s an energy of opening when you decide to be honest and vulnerable. Life can respond to the authentic you, which makes chances of happiness much greater. You’re able to receive what is meant for you. You’re motivated by love and its children (positive emotions). Not fear and its children (negative emotions). Fear is welcome aboard but it cannot steer the ship!

Although the two primary emotions, love and fear, seem opposite, they are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other.

It is our curse. 

And our blessing. ;)

Because it’s only in the full expression of our human complexity that we feel most ALIVE! It allows us to feel what we know: that we exist in multiple dimensions at once. 

Now go make a list- what songs allow you to feel two or more feelings at once? Share your answer with me in the comments or on my instagram. You can always take this a step further and journal about those emotions. 

Some of mine are: Because by the Beatles (pretty much the whole Abbey Road album) and Kacey Musgraves’ Happy and Sad (DUH!) 

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If you want to take control and learn how to CREATE a song that combines your unique emotions, come to my Blooming Soul Song workshop on Monday March 21st!

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The Only Way Out is IN.

My Blooming Soul ethos (which I also apply to my songwriting) begins with acceptance. 

The thing is, you probably can’t get to where you want to go from where you are right now in just a day.

There will probably be many steps in between now and then. You WILL get there. But you must walk the path.

I like to call it climbing the emotional ladder. It’s gotta be done one step at a time. One of my favorite examples I like to give for this step is how anger is often an improvement from sadness. It has agency, it has power. But, you don’t want to stay there. Keep climbing! 

In order to do that you have to meet yourself where you are - where you actually are. That means: Acceptance!

Don’t judge yourself for the emotions that you’re feeling.

They’re necessary to your path. Judging our emotions can really affect how we process them, or not. Or even if we SEE them in the first place. Lean into acceptance, lean into surrender. Going IN is the only way OUT. 

My favorite Eckhart Tolle book is A New Earth and at the end of it, he explains the Three Modalities of Awakened Doing. They are:

1) Acceptance

2) Enjoyment

3) Enthusiasm.

“Performing an action in the state of acceptance means you are at peace while you do it. That peace is a subtle energy vibration which then flows into what you do. On the surface, acceptance looks like a passive state, but in reality it is active and creative because it brings something entirely new into this world. That peace, that subtle energy vibration, is consciousness, and one of the ways in which it enters this world is through surrendered action, one aspect of which is acceptance.”

So even if you cannot enjoy what you are doing, truly accepting what you’re doing is a beautiful act of peace and self-love. 

I go deeper into this on my new podcast episode this week. Come and join the conversation

Blooming Soul Practice

I’d like to invite you to reflect on

1. What emotions you have a hard time accepting, and therefore a hard time moving through

2. What song can support you in accepting or going INTO that emotion? It might even be positive emotions, maybe you’re resistant to feeling proud of yourself or believing you deserve love (Lizzo is good for that, Diana Ross- not so much). Let music help you soften your resistance. 

Share your experience with me - tag me on Instagram (@selfhelpsongwriter) with the song & the emotion!

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If you want to hear more about climbing the emotional ladder and my songwriting origin story (and MORE), listen or watch Sydney Weis interview me on the most recent episode of her Seek the Joy Podcast on Youtube, Apple, or Spotify.