This weekend I decided to use some "free time" to shoot a video tour of my studio space in Mountain View, CA, The Cradle of Manifestation. It turned into a self-coaching moment for me when I realized that I was holding onto some things from the past. (At the end of the second video you'll see me get pleasantly surprised by the unexpected arrival of a friend...hence the abrupt ending. I finished shooting it this afternoon with the last two videos.)
Hope you enjoy! ...And stay tuned to see how my vision for this space evolves, now that I have created some emptiness in which new growth can occur.
Ever think about what happens as soon as you open your eyes each morning? What thoughts go through your head? What do you do as the first thing each morning?
When I switched my first-thing-in-the-morning ritual from a REACTIVE one (playing snooze tag with my two alarm clocks and checking my email on my Blackberry), to a PROACTIVE one (creating a series of personal practices gathered from my various teachers), my energy completely changed, and my life started to change perceptibly also.
What a difference a few weeks makes! It seems like my musical world is expanding at breakneck speed, and relationships and opportunities are arriving effortlessly. All the while, I'm having so much fun, it almost seems criminal. Really! I have such a strongly ingrained belief that "work" is "hard" and "having a life" means "struggling" that doing what I'm doing right now has triggered a part of my brain that wants to cry out, "Danger!! This does not compute!!".
Luckily, I now notice that this is an ancient part of my brain reserved for true fight-or-flight situations that I rarely encounter in this corner of the world I call home. Right now, in this moment, I'm sitting in a chair in front of a computer. I'm breathing. I'm surrounded by beauty. The sky is clear blue, the birds are singing, the sun is shining, and the trees are silently growing outside my window. There's nothing dangerous about being at peace. Sorry, brain!
Here are some of my latest improvisation videos from this week's open mic nights. In each case, I had never heard the song before and just started from a place of listening.
"Rooster" by Alice in Chains, with Randy Bales, at Angelica's Bistro in Redwood City, CA:
"Knocking on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan (performed with two strangers who asked that I remain onstage to join them after seeing me perform with Randy!) at Blue Rock Shoot in Saratoga, CA:
Do you ever notice that we put off taking action towards our big goals because we think everything in our lives needs to be perfect in order to get started?
I invite you to consider that every big goal is accomplished first by the decision to go toward it (step one), and more importantly by the accumulation of many small action steps taken consistently over time.
Don't delay for one more day. Choose one small action today that you can take in the direction of your goal. Do it today. And then do one more tomorrow. And repeat.
You might have seen my opening video blog on Friday before I started the all-day process of cleaning my closets.
Here are the video highlights of my closet cleaning day....to see all 7 episodes, visit my youtube channel here.
Today I'm tackling the task of going through my bedroom closets and acknowledging which of my clothes and shoes and purses are truly current with who I am and who I want to become. Here's my opening greeting video blog...with more to come throughout the day!
I wrote a post on my Truth Love Beauty blog about my recent first ever experience with jazz, which you can read here.
For you, I made this little video: