Feel and Heal with Music

I used to believe that music is something we do. Now I know that music is who we are. [singlepic id=205 w=320 h=240 float=center]

Last night I performed with Randy Bales (guitar, vocals) and Cathy Luo (percussion, bass) at the unique, cozy, and inviting Angelica's Bistro in Redwood City, California. (See this NY Times article about the "rebirth" of downtown Redwood City.) I've written a bit about the experience of preparing for this gig. Last night the learning continued, as I recognized that I had always seen music as a set of skills I had, a job that I did, a responsibility like my education. I was very dedicated and disciplined about practicing and building my skills in music, and I had many opportunities to perform on great stages around the world as a very young child. As with most of my accomplishments in life, I never acknowledged myself. I went through life seeking acknowledgment from others, believing that the more I did, the more likely I would be to receive what I most wanted. What may appear to an outside observer to be ambition, determination, and drive, was in fact the passionate pursuit of acknowledgment from others.

I did not realize at the time that what I really wanted was to acknowledge myself, and to believe in myself without needing to constantly seek approval. I did not have that skill, because I was so busy practicing how to see what was missing from my life. I was so busy doing more, that I failed to receive the acknowledgment that was already available to me at every step of the way. Even if others were acknowledging me, I could not see it for what it was, because I had not honed those skills of recognition. I knew how to receive criticism, and I knew how to drive myself to do more. Those were my greatest skills.

In my recent journey with personal growth through music, I have come to experience, in my body and spirit, the deep acknowledgment of self that can come through making music. You cannot "do" music. Everything you offer in music-making is an expression of who you are. There is beauty in all of it. But if you are doing music in order to receive acknowledgment from others, you will miss a very fundamental opportunity.

I have learned, by total immersion in my greatest fears and weaknesses, to acknowledge myself and others through the experience of music improvisation. The backdrop of this was my extensive training in classical music - as soloist, accompanist, in a violin ensemble, and in symphony orchestras. I learned a toolbox of skills during those years. I learned a certain auditory and visual vocabulary.

What I didn't learn was to acknowledge the tender human part of myself and others through music. Improvisation - starting with the beautiful emptiness of not knowing, then being thrown into a brand new sonic world and just feeling my way around - has introduced me to this human dimension of music. Having no time to be self-critical, having no script to reassure me what the "right" notes are, listening intensely to others, owning what I feel and offering it in the moment -- all of these have begun to show me, very gently and gradually, who I am. As I face my fears, I also face an opportunity either to acknowledge myself including all of my imperfections, or to fear the withdrawal of acknowledgment from others. The old me still surfaces as a habit of criticizing myself, judging the weaknesses in my performances, and wondering why I have the audacity to believe I can do this.

Now, I choose to acknowledge myself. I choose to honor the process and the courage it takes to do something brand new. I choose to dare to trust myself. I choose to risk my significance in the world. I choose to be gentle and kind to myself through all of this.

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Music is healing because it allows us to feel. As listeners, we love music because it goes straight to a part of us that we feel deeply, yet conceal, suppress, or avoid in our daily lives. As makers of music, we heal because we tap into those feelings and give them expression through vibration. We share our story. We share who we are in sound.

I've always had a rich tone and fire to my violin playing, but I have never seen my violin as a vehicle to transport me to the place of my greatest vulnerability, to observe myself, to feel deeply, and to heal the pain of the past.

For me, music is so much more than performing and practicing. It is feeling and healing.

Enjoy these audio clips from our live performance last night!

Singer/songwriter Shawn Evans joined us onstage to perform his original song, "I Believe", which I had never heard before. Wish you could see the visual of this, because we were all standing and moving with the groove of this uplifting song!

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These three clips give you a taste of Randy Bales' vocal expression and range (and me playing around on my violin). All new songs for me!

"Comedown" by Bush:

[audio:http://www.themusicwithinus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Comedown-6.4.10.mp3|titles=Comedown 6.4.10]

"Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd:

[audio:http://www.themusicwithinus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Comfortably-Numb-6.4.10.mp3|titles=Comfortably Numb 6.4.10]

"Fire and Rain" by James Taylor:

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Top photo credit (used under a Creative Commons license): Ginny http://www.flickr.com/people/ginnerobot/

Bottom photo credit: Gabe Wachob

Revolutionizing Medicine...One Belief At A Time - Episode 3

Welcome to a weekly podcast where I'll take physicians' commonly held stressful beliefs and go through an inquiry process on each. I have recorded the questions so that you can listen and follow along, providing your own answers to the questions. It's important to find YOUR OWN answers that feel true and genuine in your life. I've provided the recordings as a tool for slowing yourself down and taking the time to allow these questions to sit inside. [display_podcast]

*This process is based on The Work by Byron Katie. For more information, visit www.thework.com.

Today's belief is "Patients demand my time."

The questions:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you know that it is absolutely, 100% true?
3. How do you react, and how do you behave, when you believe the thought, “Patients demand my time”?
4. What is the payoff you get for believing the thought, “Patients demand my time”?
5. What are you afraid might happen if you didn’t believe the thought, “Patients demand my time”?
6. Who would you be, and how would you behave, if you didn’t believe the thought, “Patients demand my time”?

Now turn the thought around, as I have done below. Find three genuine examples in your own life for how each of these turnarounds is as true as (or perhaps truer than) the original thought.

Patients don't demand my time.

I demand my patients' time.

I demand my own time.

Another possibility, not covered on the audio:

My thoughts demand my time.

10 Lessons I'm Gladly Unlearning

Martha Beck did a fabulous column in the 10th anniversary issue of O Magazine, listing the 10 rules she's glad she unlearned. I will replace her past tense with my ongoing "unlearnings", as I find my life these days to be a daily practice of retraining my brain after years of being wired to believe certain thoughts that just aren’t absolutely true.

1. Mistakes are bad.

The only thing bad about mistakes is thinking there is something bad about making them. Being afraid of making a mistake is one of the most paralyzing, unconscious drivers of inactivity, discontent, and generalized resentment among people I've seen. Becoming impervious to what is considered a “mistake”, being open to admitting it, observing that there are no true mistakes in life, and maintaining a cheerful lighthearted ability to keep going, is what I'm learning to do now.

2. It's wrong to be wrong.

Sometimes, you'll be wrong about something. That's fine, and my experience is usually you survive it. But you inflict another layer of pain to deal with when you make it wrong to be wrong. It's like the double whammy that prolongs, amplifies, and propagates the original pain of just being wrong.

3. You need to be "musical" to make music.

Labels - often the ones that were mentioned in passing during our childhood by a single person who made an impact at that time - can stay with us as beliefs about ourselves long after the fact. They can serve as reasons or excuses that we never try for something we really long to do. I've seen this in countless conversations with people when I tell them that I teach music. Grown adults - some in their 70s - carry around the shame (or pride) of being "tone deaf" or "unmusical". Some actually believe that there's an absolute truth to their label, and want to start arguing with me about the possibility of their claims. I’ve seen from experience with people from 2 years old through 82, that anyone can make music. It is innate to our being, and I want to remind as many people as I can of this.

4. Old means wise.

The number of years of your life does not necessarily correlate with the level of wisdom or quality of your life. People tend to give advice based on what they have done themselves, or what they regret not doing. I've met both cheerful, free-spirited people in their 70s who are learning and active in their bodies, and people in their 30s who have such a resigned attitude and closed sense of possibilities that they have no joy. I’m not convinced that we will all learn to be wise with the mere passage of time. I believe we need to choose learning, choose mentors, choose influences in order to continuously create peace, freedom, and joy as we grow younger toward death.

5. Status and power make life easier.

I've met people with great resumes, high-paying executive positions, at the top of their industries for decades, but who feel a hollow sense of purpose and connection to their lives. At one point in my life, I was fascinated by people who had attained these high positions of status and power. Now, I wouldn't trade places with one of them for anything. On the other hand, spending time with people who are genuinely gentle with themselves through crises, catastrophic losses, and myriad apparent “failures” has been an eye-opening view into the real joy of being able to face the full range of human experience with acceptance and peace.

6. Building means never destroying what you’ve created.

I used to see life as a linear path of continuous building to some peak, followed by a steady decline or stagnation toward death. I was afraid of taking “steps backward” and therefore felt guilty when I faced loss or departure. Now I realize that creativity and change require SPACE, and often there is something occupying the space that needs to be let go. Realizing that the “letting go” step is as important as - or perhaps more than - the “putting in” is a huge shift in thinking for me. But I've found it to be true!

7. Starting over is a bad thing.

Similar to above, being afraid to abandon one path in order to start over is such a killer to creativity. There is a freshness and freedom that comes with starting over. Constantly abandoning what's not working, and starting over with renewed energy, is the cycle of life for any living thing, down to the cellular level. I'm practicing being gentler with myself when it's time to start over, beginning with the way I wake up and greet each morning…with gratitude.

8. Having qualifications makes you better at what you do.

There was an obsession in my Harvard and medical school days with the number and types of qualifications people had. I was led to believe that this list of qualifications actually meant something about the person. However in meeting people who liberated themselves from systems that valued qualifications (therefore appearance) over substance, and learning from their generosity of spirit, I've come to trust myself and others more. I don’t jump to quick conclusions based on the number of letters after a person’s name or the number of framed pieces of paper on their office walls. And this is such a peaceful, loving place to be.

9. Relaxation is for the weak.

I have had to learn how to relax, and I have a newfound respect for actually being able to do it. I also recognize that relaxation is powerful! Truly allowing my entire body and mind to relax actually takes new skills that are not easily practiced in our day-to-day lives. We have to create space in order to relax, and it takes conscious intention to do this. Ever notice that when we take vacations, it’s not until the sixth or seventh day that we completely settle into the sensations of our bodies, and connect with our surroundings? Or that by the time we get home, we may finally feel ready to begin our vacation? I have a newfound respect for the art of relaxation, and I’m noticing that time passes, life happens, whether we are fighting it every step of the way, or relaxing into it with the ease and peace of a yogi. It’s up to us how we want to live. I’ve decided to choose peace.

10. Working harder leads to better results.

This is a huge unlearning for me, and one my brain wants to resist with all its will. In other words, my brain wants me to work hard at everything. Even relaxing takes on epic proportions if I let my brain do the directing. I’m beginning to see that meeting each challenge with minimal resistance, greeting each part of myself with curiosity rather than shame, and allowing life to unfold, in all its mystery, leads to a better experience than any goal I could ever work myself toward.

Learning to play again

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How the mind gets in the way

Two different days. Same scenario. I am rehearsing for an upcoming gig I've been graciously invited to play with a singer/songwriter/guitarist and a bass player/percussionist/backup vocalist. None of us has ever played together before. We met at a jam session and our lead guy summoned us together to join him for his gig.

The difference between the two days? How wild my mind was the second time around. And how it prevented me from going “full out” with my expression. Interesting to notice. I’ve talked before about the freedom of the first take, and how I’ve found that when I’m totally open, not trying to “get it right” or worried about “playing the wrong notes,” I usually create something very interesting and often artistic. The minute I start redoing, rehearsing, recreating, researching – in the sense of trying to “live up” to the quality of the previous takes or the original version of the song done by the “people who knew what they were doing” – I lose it. I start trying way too hard. I start thinking, second-guessing, and measuring. The sound becomes stiff and artificial.

I've played at six different jams in the past two weeks. I'm beginning to see that there is such a difference between playing from a place of pure listening and ownership of everything coming out in the moment, versus needing to know what you're doing. I used to play mainly from this latter place. I either "knew" a piece or didn't. I had the confidence that I could learn anything if I just practiced it enough. But this confidence didn't make "on the fly" or improvisational sessions possible for me. These weren't fun because I was attached to the idea that if I just had more time to practice, I would know enough to be able to join in. In fact, I always felt slightly underpracticed. Not quite as good as I could be. My so-called confidence was something I held in private, something that was conditional upon my having more time to prepare.

Aside from instilling an obsessive work ethic that served me well at things like getting into Harvard, getting through medical school, and impressing people who think that the more degrees you have the better person you are, I haven't found this constant feeling of slight inadequacy to be that useful.

In fact, here are some of the ways it has made my life more difficult/less enjoyable/less peaceful:

• Not wanting to approach new people with my services/skills/ideas until I have developed them to perfection. By the way, when you’re creating and inventing, there is no perfection, so this is a formula for never putting your stuff out there.
• Constantly questioning how I can do more, how I can measure up to “Everybody Else” who seems to know what they’re doing better than I do. I’ve talked in previous posts about the plague of believing “I am never doing enough”.
• Not celebrating or acknowledging the small steps I am taking in completely new directions, because I am preoccupied by a greater vision of how things “should” be. I get so lost in an idea of what I want to be, that I totally miss what I actually am right now. There’s nothing wrong with having visions; I just need to remind myself to bring my attention back to the tiny beautiful little things happening right now, which are often drowned out by the volume and intensity of my big future vision. Funny how the mind blurs those lines, isn’t it?
• Becoming a bystander versus a doer. I’m trying to find a new balance point between observing and doing. I’ve previously erred on the side of doing more than I needed to, and now I’m finding a new dynamic state of doing and observing.

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Bringing "play" back into "playing music"

I can't tell you how antithetical this is to the way I have lived for the majority of my life. It's only now in my exploration of what play means, for me as an adult, that I see how I have forgotten what it's like to play.

Remember when play used to feel like this?

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We all have that pure joy somewhere inside us.

My little musical excursions into improvisation are like baby steps for me to train a completely new way of being. I remind myself to be gentle with the child in me who is learning to walk again. I’m discovering – actually, in a way, I’m teaching myself - what it’s like to FEEL my way through musical situations – and life - without a piece of paper in front of me, and just my body to guide me.

Talk about a practice in relaxation! I often have no idea how my fingers or my vocal cords are finding notes. When I let go of needing to know, they just get there. And sometimes they don't. But my ears guide them back again, as long as I keep my mind quiet. If I spend any time in that mode of slight inadequacy, thinking I need more practice, or more time, I've lost the connection to the music. The reality is that the music is happening right now, and I don't have the option of considering "what if" I had more of this, more of that, a little better this or a little less of that. I'm either part of what's going on, or I'm lost in my own head, and not connected to the music.

Great metaphor for life, too, actually. If we spend all our time planning, wishing, wanting things that aren't there, worrying about the future, believing we can use our cleverness to outsmart this moment, we miss the opportunity to connect with the music of our lives. We are somewhere in our minds, sitting it out, dreaming about how much we would be able to do if only we had more time to practice.

And then we miss the chance to just listen and play.

Photo credits (used under a Creative Commons license):

Cat playing guitar by Andrew: http://www.flickr.com/people/fozzeee/

PLAY sign by Ed Schipul: http://www.flickr.com/people/eschipul/

Girl in pure joy by Jesper Sachmann: http://www.flickr.com/people/sachmanns/

Revolutionizing Medicine...One Belief At A Time - Episode 2

Welcome to a weekly podcast where I'll take physicians' commonly held stressful beliefs and go through an inquiry process on each. I have recorded the questions so that you can listen and follow along, providing your own answers to the questions. It's important to find YOUR OWN answers that feel true and genuine in your life. I've provided the recordings as a tool for slowing yourself down and taking the time to allow these questions to sit inside. [display_podcast]

*This process is based on The Work by Byron Katie. For more information, visit www.thework.com.

Today's belief is "I am surrounded by illness and suffering."

The questions:

1. Is it true?
2. Can you know that it is absolutely, 100% true?
3. How do you react, and how do you behave, when you believe the thought, “I am surrounded by illness and suffering”?
4. What is the payoff you get for believing the thought, “I am surrounded by illness and suffering”?
5. What are you afraid might happen if you didn’t believe the thought, “I am surrounded by illness and suffering”?
6. Who would you be, and how would you behave, if you didn’t believe the thought, “I am surrounded by illness and suffering"?

Now turn the thought around, as I have done below. Find three genuine examples in your life for how each of these new thoughts is as true as the original thought.

I am not surrounded by illness and suffering.

My patients are surrounded by illness and suffering.

My thoughts surround me with illness and suffering.

Why I Love Conan O'Brien (& I Don't Even Watch His Show)

I recently started following Conan O'Brien on Twitter. I figure it's the least I can do, since I never watched him when he was on at 12:35AM, and I watched a grand total one whole episode of the Tonight Show, AFTER the J-- L--- controversy. I have loved Conan since I read a transcript of his June 2000 commencement speech at Harvard. I remember getting the email of the transcript (this was before YouTube), sent by my Harvard classmate Ann, who was in London about to leave her job at an investment bank and enroll in culinary school in France. I remember printing it out, and highlighting certain passages of it, before posting it on the wall next to my desk, in my Ann Arbor, Michigan apartment. And that's when my love for Conan began.

Not only was it unusual to have Conan's brand of humor in the context of a Harvard ceremony, but it was also unheard of (at that time) to hear a person stand behind a podium and talk about his failures. He went in chronological order, covering each stage of his hopeful steps toward being a working comedian on television. At one point, with nowhere else to turn and his fledgling cable show having been cancelled, he even got a temp job at Wilson's House of Leather. As a Harvard graduate.

The highlighted passages on my faded print-out still ring like a soliloquy by my beloved Conan:

"Needless to say, I took a lot of criticism, some of it deserved, some of it excessive. And it hurt like you wouldn't believe. But I'm telling you all this for a reason. I've had a lot of success and I've had a lot of failure. I've looked good and I've looked bad. I've been praised and I've been criticized. But my mistakes have been necessary. Except for Wilson's House of Suede and Leather. That was just stupid."

"I've dwelled on my failures today because, as graduates of Harvard, your biggest liability is your need to succeed. Your need to always find yourself on the sweet side of the bell curve. Because success is a lot like a bright, white tuxedo. You feel terrific when you get it, but then you're desperately afraid of getting it dirty, of spoiling it in any way. I left the cocoon of Harvard, I left the cocoon of Saturday Night Live, I left the cocoon of The Simpsons. And each time it was bruising and tumultuous. And yet, every failure was freeing, and today I'm as nostalgic for the bad as I am for the good. So, that's what I wish for all of you: the bad as well as the good. Fall down, make a mess, break something occasionally. And remember that the story is never over."

And that message has always stuck with me. I sat on the floor reading it as I entered my fourth year of medical school, wondering how I had ended up there. I pulled it out when I was having thoughts of leaving my job in venture capital, but was gripped with the fear that I would be letting others down. I've since realized that each time I picked up and left, I was still suffering from my own version of the white tuxedo. I wanted to make "clean" breaks with my past each time I left a career. I wanted to shed the identities that I had so carefully cultivated, but I would leave only to start putting on another one. All my life I've desperately wanted to have an identity that other people could understand, while also struggling to be free to understand myself more fully. I always felt that I was more than any job title or industry, but never got comfortable with just being "me". I didn't feel I ever knew my own full potential, and I wanted to live my life trying to find out.

It would require embracing my own definition of failure and allowing the possibility, knowing that I would survive.

I love Conan more than ever now that he has gone through the storm of being booted out of his Tonight Show gig and emerged as an independent roadshow star. Watching his video at Google shows that he has the resilience of someone who doesn't feel entitled to stardom, but has the steadfast belief to put his craft out there for whomever will receive it. Using his name recognition and social media tools, he has jumped headfirst into the arena of internet marketing, selling out his roadshow within a few hours using only one Twitter link to a website selling tickets.

I particularly love his grasp of the whole "smart" crowd that populates the employee ranks at Google, even as he makes jokes at their expense. He can laugh at himself, which is a lesson we can all hope to learn.

I love that he continues to live the lessons he talked about way back in 2000. He continues to get into new white tuxedoes, unafraid of getting splashed with mud. Sure, he gets pissed off like anyone of us would if our brand new jacket were soiled, but he's got an inner source to tap into, a humility and humor reserved from all those years of failing. He isn't afraid to pick himself up, and change jackets.

Maybe this time around, he'll just be happy wearing a T shirt.

Doctors On The Brink of Burnout: The Way I See It

OK, Docs. This is what I see. I’ve been reading the blogs, studying the published research papers, checking out the advice you’re giving each other for dealing with the health care system. I hear you. There are many things about the system that seem broken. You are tired. You feel overworked and underpaid, and when you look out on the horizon, all you can see is things getting worse, not better. You feel powerless and voiceless as other stakeholders make policies that have a profound impact on the way you do your job. You see your job as sacred. You went into medicine not just for the money, but for the nobility of doing something good for other people, and for society. You feel that your job is special. It's more than just a job. You think it's not so unreasonable to expect to be rewarded for your efforts and personal sacrifices. Now you’re being herded like cattle into a holding bin, while still being asked to hold yourself to the idealistic standards that you believed when you went through your white coat ceremony as a medical student. I’m not in your shoes right now, but I offer the perspective of an observer. I did go to medical school, and saw too many of you around me who were burnt out and walking around like zombies during the most vibrant years of your life to want to be like you. So I chose to walk. Some might say I copped out. Others might say I made a wise choice, getting out early. I’m not here to debate my choice. I’m here to offer you a different way to look at your life.

I’m here to remind you that you can choose, over and over again in life, no matter what other people tell you.

No one in my life ever told me that I could choose what to believe, and that this simple (but by no means easy) choice could give me the power to change my life. Maybe it was assumed that the minute I stepped out of my parents’ house, I would adopt a whole set of independent beliefs based on being “out there” in the world.

It wasn’t like that for me.

Long after I left home, long after I left school environments, I was still unconsciously believing things that I had never stopped to question. They ranged from simple things, like, “You’ll never get a good job right out of college, even if it’s Harvard,” and “You’ll never make a living as a musician,” to more complex things like, “Life is just a series of tests. You win some, you lose some. Hopefully you win more than you lose. Then you get weak and die.”

Sure, it may look like I’ve broken down many beliefs in the process of making some bold changes in direction during my life. I said “no” to a residency, I actually did get a job out of medical school (and it paid really well), I believed in myself enough to move across the country to follow a dream.

But I'm beginning to see that it doesn’t end with just taking the big steps.

It’s the little steps that count even more. The many small decisions you make in each moment of each day add up to your experience of life. Time is simply the sum of many present moments. And if we remain unaware, these moments still go by without the benefit of our attention.

I’ve been trying to strive for “the next big step” in my life for quite some time. I’m just beginning to learn what it’s like to take the tiny ones. I’m learning what it’s like to celebrate myself, before expecting others to celebrate me. I’m learning how to listen to myself, before I run out to check if someone else will tell me I’m doing it right (usually I expect to be wrong). I'm learning that there's nothing wrong with being wrong, as long as I am open to it and keep learning. I’m learning how strong my muscles of self-care need to get, in a culture built on teaching us to face outwards and seek any sign of reinforcement, even if it’s a blinking red light on my Blackberry, or one more follower on Twitter, or an upward-sloping line on my web stats page for today.

Looking inward at yourself, asking the questions that can be answered only with the heart’s truth, and sitting with your own answers – I believe these are some of the hardest jobs on the planet right now, no matter what you happen to do to earn your paycheck.

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