The Importance of Being Important
Everything I needed to learn, all the messages of healing and happiness, were in my songs, but I wasn't able to hear them.
Until a few short years ago I believed I was a failure, that my life didn't matter and no amount of success I achieved had anything to do with me.
Then I heard a meditation teacher say, "Remember, you're the most important person in the room", and I was spun into an emotional crisis. The very notion seemed wrong, mean, and counter to everything I believed. It was a heretical idea, and at the same time it sounded revolutionary, like the answer to a question I hadn't known to ask.
“What’s so wrong with being the most important person in the room anyways?”I wondered, and that was when the door to a whole new way of being opened and pointed me here, to this one infinite and perfect moment; and now, at the still point of everything.
Knowing we are the most important person in our life is ground zero, the beginning of each step we take, each decision we make. You, the one reading this sentence, taking this breath, sitting in your body, the skin and bones of you, I want you to know, you’re the most important person.
Not more important, not less important, simply most important.
This memoir is about my artist's journey along a path to spiritual and creative recovery, but moreover, it's about what I've learned over the past six years from the time I went into my office and closed the door and wrote the first draft of this book. It's about how I shifted my thinking and feelings and dropped into my body; it's about how from that moment I understood that I am responsible for all my choices, including those with heartbreaking consequences.
Even now, as I move towards releasing the 12 songs I recorded to accompany each chapter of the book, I continue to understand how imperative it is that each of us face the importance of our one life first. It's the key to personal happiness of course, but equally, living our best life is what brings us into connection with every other life around us. It's at this perfect and balanced central point of our own being that we're able to feel infinite compassion for everyone, and to know we belong here, and to know we're all in this together.
Book , Songs for the Book Release Summer 2023.
Mining for Gold Lyric Writing:
Tap Into Your Source of Creativity and Write Great Lyrics
If you want to develop a good working relationship with your imagination, to find your lyrics and to write a song or poem that you can share with a special someone and perhaps even the world, then this is the book for you.
The process takes you through six steps and each stage flows easily from one into the next. The result is writing that is both authentic and emotional. You'll learn to circle in and out of your imagination and the more often you practice, the sooner you'll take the reigns of your creative journey. It will become natural to you, like slow breathing, simple and restorative.
When we use our creative muscles we're building our connection with our innate joy. Our attention moves into the centre of our consciousness and we find ourselves in the place where our personal myths and symbols are formed. Here is the world of imago, here is where our individual experience is made visible through our awareness, where knowing is centred in our feelings, and where we live simultaneously in spirit and matter, led by intuition and personal wisdom.
The deep, sometimes hidden and often unconscious material that lies within our imagination, can be difficult to access, but this is the content we need in order that our creation be meaningful not only to ourselves but to everyone else. When we do locate an idea it can be difficult to collect it, carry it out, spread it onto the page and shape it into a form we enjoy. The more you practice the Mining for Gold Lyric Writing process, the easier it will become to move into your imagination with the purpose of finding material for your creative project.
Part of my mission as a teacher and creative mentor for almost four decades has been to help students move through creative blocks to uncover their personal messages, whether it be a song or poem or play or book. I've found that in each and everyone one of us is a story waiting to be born, if only we will listen.
Rule number one in Mining for Gold Lyric Writing is: "There are no rules! " In your imagination, everything is possible. Every step you take is your choice, and remember that your desire to write is real and it matters. May each step you take be your favourite.
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A Guide to Your Creative Genius
We are, every one of us, creative. Our nature as humans is to create.
We are creating our reality in every moment, and in order to do that we don't need to win awards, be internationally celebrated or offer the world our earth shattering visions.
On the other hand we can do that if we want, devote every moment of every day to our inspiration, like, say, William Blake for example, who was an exceptionally inventive person, most would agree, and made his living as a print-maker while also leaving us with some of the greatest poems of the English language. We could be like Blake, if we choose. Or we could choose to create a peaceful home existence, or a new recipe, or a new way of seeing our circumstances.
Sadly, most of us have been convinced that these choices aren't available to us. We were taught to ignore our little artist voice and eventually, finally silence her. Not being good enough was the story we came to live by and we lost our connection to our personal muse. We stopped everything.
Cultural programming is the big reason many people don't follow their creative instincts. Many of us were told as children that our imagination is fantasy and fluff and when we grow up we’ll need to get real. Many of us had a teacher or someone we respect declare that we couldn’t sing, dance, draw, ________ (fill in the blank)…and we believed them.
When I began teaching drama classes I wanted first and foremost for my students to be confident and stand up for their self-expression. And I discovered that given the right circumstances everyone has the capacity to reach inside themselves and find their authentic voice.
Believe it or not, you are a creative genius. You're creating all the time. In this book are reflections of what I've learned as an artist through my research, teaching and my work as a performing songwriter and author. I filled the pages with passages to inspire your own contemplation of your creative journey, Whether you've always secretly wanted to sing, draw, dance, write or start a new business, I want you to know you can learn to walk through whatever is stopping you. Maybe you carry fears around self-expression, maybe you can't connect to your body, or maybe you don't love yourself at all. Whatever stage you're at, this book will help you discover the personal joy and fulfillment of tapping into your natural creativity, as well as the potential of that creativity to transform your life.