Hey Jeremy, Do You Have a Wife?

I was asked this question yesterday by a second-grader, in the middle of my discussion with her class in which I was telling them that I was retiring as their school counselor after 11 years. As you can imagine, I bring a lot of music with me to the school, so I’m used to spending time with these little ones singing songs, and having “freeze dances” intertwined with the lessons I’m teaching them related to our Social-Emotional Learning curriculum. It’s been a dream job, and it hurts to leave, but the time is also perfect, and so very right.

In the midst of me breaking the hard news to these kids I’ve known for a couple years, this splendid little one interrupts with the seeming non-sequitur, and it threw me. Jeremy, Do you have a wife? “No, I have a husband” was the true response. Perhaps the right response. But instead I said, “let’s talk about that later.” And I carried on with what I had been saying about my leaving. Interestingly, a minute or two later, she chimed in with the same question, and I used the same answer. But I went home that night pondering.

For context and as a reminder, I was married to Lisa before I was married to John, and many of the kids at the school are aware that I have a now 18-year old daughter who once walked these same halls. The implication and natural assumption, of course, is that Jeremy has a wife, and is straight. At least that’s what you assume when you’re seven years old. (Or 37, let’s be honest).

The evening’s pondering started with me wanting to show up fully and authentically as myself and answer her question straight up (pun-intended). But I’ll admit I also had a slight flash of Floridaphobia, and a vision of Evangelical parents raising hell over me discussion my sexuality with their second-grader. But that flash-phobia was sudden, and this is Boulder.

So, after conferring with her teacher this morning to make sure that she too thought I was on the right track, I re-connected with that sweet little girl, the one with the perfectly innocent question. I knelt down next to her and said, “I remembered your question yesterday, and I know I didn’t answer it directly. So I would like to do that now. The truth is that I don’t have a wife, I actually have a husband.”

“Oh.” she said. “What’s his name?”
”John,” I said.

“Oh.” she said, and smiled. “Jeremy and John. J and J.” Her smile growing.

Then she turned and walked away, still smiling.

I’m really going to miss this job.

The Next Logical Step

You may have noticed that being a human is pretty fascinating, often confusing, frequently absurd, and commonly hilarious. One frequent source of amusement to me has to do with a particular ability of our human mind to do three interesting things: to remember, to be present, and to future cast.

I, for one, have been deeply encouraged by the trend in the Western world towards both kindness and mindfulness in the past several years. Thanks to luminaries such as Eckhart Tolle, Joe Dispenza, and many others, we seem to be coming more fully into awareness of the present moment, and the inherent power of it.

The trick for so many of us seems to be that of those three points of possible focus (past, present, future), only two of them are usually helpful: present, and future. And yet it’s so oftentimes our awareness of (and subsequent obsession with) the past that keeps us stuck. We keep explaining (to ourselves, any anyone who will listen) WHY we are where we are, as if getting someone else to understand our predicament makes it more justifiable that I keep focused on said predicament.

The future is made up of NOWs, which is the best news of all. Because NOW is where all of our power resides. Nothing that came before is relevant, when the only things that matters is what you do (and more importantly, how you feel) now. It’s essentially the only question the universe is ever asking: What Now?

Don’t tell my why you’re stuck, or who was mean to you, or who inflicted the childhood trauma that obstructed your path to greatness. (Ok, when I’m listening as your therapist, you can tell me as much of that stuff as you like!) Otherwise, I’m much more interested in what now. What’s your next move? Knowing everything you now know, what’s the next most logical step?

Because in asking this question, it galvanizes my focus to this moment and the next. Where am I going? What’s the thing that I want to do the most right now? And in the moments I can let go of the past and stop arguing for my limitations, and refocus on what I’m doing next and where I’m going, my energy shifts dramatically. Now the train can move forward again. And moving forward is fun. Always.

So, dear hearts, I encourage us all today to stay focused on only two out of the three possibilities: Where you are right now, and where you are headed next. And please, for all of our sakes, spend a moment imagining that awesome future, and let the exuberance infect your being. Our emotions conjure powerful magic that influences your next logical step. That’s how we stay tuned. And always, stay tuned.

Staying Tuned

Several years ago, I noticed that without giving it much thought, I had started signing off my monthly email music newsletter with “Stay Tuned,” before my signature. At the time, it felt correct but innocuous, and nothing more than “keep an eye on this space, as there’s lots happening.” Which, to be fair, is usually true, and this space is definitely worth keeping an eye on.

But what I wasn’t paying as much attention to at the time was the many meanings of staying tuned. Certainly as a guitar player I am often tuning and retuning the instrument to account for the various travails of climate and life. And as a therapist, I’m often counseling clients about “staying tuned” in other healthy personal ways that usually have to do with self-cafe, and paying attention to their feelings. And this, for me, is where it all starts to get pretty interesting.

We know that the universe runs on vibration, and that our somewhat puny human senses are only able to pick up on so many of them. Much of the light that exists is lost to us, sadly, and yet we still perceive a world full of vibrant color. Same with sound and smell. There’s no doubt that my dogs can hear and smell things I cannot, but that doesn’t mean those vibrations/smells don’t exist. I’m just not tuned to them, because my sensors work differently.

Humans have this amazing guidance system whereby our emotional reality (feelings of the moment) always follow our thoughts. You know this implicitly, and watch: First, imagine a delicious physical experience you’ve enjoyed. Maybe it’s a long shower, maybe it’s in the bedroom. Just bring it to mind for a moment, and notice how that memory feels….Now remember a time when you’ve stepped in dog poo. And what that was like.

Your feelings do a 180, right? From ooh, delicious ….to ewwww gross!!! Just by reading a few words, which trigger a few thoughts and memories, which have strong emotional connections. Knowing this fascinating thing about our brain-body connection, we can use this same mechanism to “tune” ourselves towards feeling really good, nearly all of the time.

Without going too far down the rabbit hole here, you’ve perhaps read my other writings or simply are familiar with things like the law of attraction. It’s the most powerful law in the universe and simply states: like attracts like. If I show up to my first day at a new school wearing a particular band t-shirt, I will, by the end of the day, have connected with at least one or two people who also like that band. They will have seen the shirt and said hello. Same goes if I join the chess club. Or hang out by the dumpster smoking cigarettes. Wherever we go, we have a vibe going on, and we are likely to meet others with a similar vibe going on. Like attracts like.

When it comes to things manifesting in our lives, we get what we think about whether we want it or not. Knowing this, I spend a lot of time paying really close attention to what I let myself think about, based on how it feels when I think about it. I used to spend hours paying attention to the “gigs other people were landing that I was not,” feeling crappy about my musical trajectory. Then I learned to stop focusing on that. Instead, I paid more attention to the gigs I was getting, or the ones I wanted to some day get, and let my emotions follow those better feeling thoughts. Because the law of attraction doesn’t miss, and if I can already get myself feeling good and hopeful (even if the current reality of gigs is not where I want it to be), then the universe brings me more and more and more reasons to feel good and hopeful.

Learning to feel gratitude for future blessings is the most powerful magic in the universe. The more I practice it, the better I feel in this very moment. And then, lo and behold, the great gigs start coming in too. And by that point, they’re just the cherry on top. Because I was already feeling great, staying in tune, by purposely focusing on things that feel good. Even if they are things that haven’t yet manifest yet.

I keep looking around the corner, and feeling for what’s coming. And I’ve never been happier. And more excited. I encourage you to join me. It just takes practice. Stay tuned.

The Experience that is Folk Alliance International

Folk Alliance International (FAI) happens once a year, often in Kansas City, and is the single largest gathering of folk musicians in the world. And “folk” is used broadly enough to explain the fact that over the course of four music-filled days, I saw everything from an electric funk/blues trio to a show-stopping trio of female voices using only one acoustic guitar. Folk Alliance brings together two gigantic groups of people in the world: Artists (songwriters, players) and Industry folk (talent buyers, managers, booking agents, etc), and from Wednesday afternoon through very late Saturday night, all sorts of schmoozing and music-making mayhem ensues, while very little sleep happens to compensate. By Sunday morning, most of us are heart-filled bleary-eyed zombies making our way through the airport with our instruments, ready to sleep for days and absorb the many experiences and conversations that just occurred.

Like most conferences, FAI includes interesting panel discussions during the day on issues relevant to the songwriter, touring musicians, or what-not. There are always enough choices at any one time that rather than struggling to find something to attend, it’s a battle to be in more than one place at a time. The keynote speakers are usually names you know, or will soon, and all of them have been selected with wisdom and care. Panel discussions run between 10am and 4pm, and, when mixed with a nap here and there, make up the bulk of the day.

From 6pm-10pm, you can roam the roughly dozen or so ballrooms hosting the Official Showcase Artists - these up-and-comers who have been selected among the many applicants. No matter which ballroom you attend, you’re sure to catch a highly-talented songwriter. The acts range from solo performers to full bands, and the Official Showcase concerts rotate every 30-45 minutes.

THEN comes the madness, and typically my favorite part of the week. Each night at 10pm, everyone heads for the elevators. That’s because every single room on the top three floors of the hotel have been turned into mini-concert venues, and now host concerts from 10:30pm until 3am, nonstop, rotating every 15-20 minutes. You can imagine the scene in the hallway, as musicians and industry folk make their way up and down, snaking past each other with our instruments, darting past doorways through which lovely sounds can be heard every single time. Some folks are headed for a particular room, following their map, as there is a rhyme and reason to this all, and you can seek out a particular artists to track. Others are simply wandering, blissfully, from one lovely showcase to the next, trusting fate will lead them to the next wonderful song or conversation in the flow.

After four straight nights of this, up past 3am and happy to do it, I met more folks than I can remember. I caught enough new music to keep me busy the rest of the year, and came away with an exhausted body, but a supremely inspired heart. For anyone even loosely inclined to attend, this is an annual event - next year is hosted in Montreal. And there are smaller (1/10 the size) held throughout the year. Colorado’s region is part of SWERFA, held in Austin each September.

Thank you, kind folks that help this event become what it is. It’s one gigantic family, and one I’m grateful to be part of.

I'll Be Happy When

How many of these thoughts sound familiar - I’ll be so happy once I get on vacation. I’ll be happy once I land that job. I’d be happy if I was dating someone. I’ll be happy once I make that salary. Or write a great song. Or lose ten pounds. Or quit drinking. Or control my anger. Or overcome my anxiety.

If you’ve been a human long enough to have a few birthdays, then you’ve entertained thoughts like these. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with thoughts like these. We have all been well trained to concern ourselves principally with the current state of affairs only. Our current weight, salary, circle of friends, etc. Because that’s what IS in this very moment. Why would we not look there? Open up any newspaper or social media app and you are instantly inundated with the “problems” of the world, and ourselves. We sadly aren’t very often hit with many solutions to said problems, but rather problems on steroids. The problem is that our obsession with what currently IS, coupled with our fascination with the disease of the world means that most of us are focusing on things that make us feel badly, nearly all of the time. And instead of focusing elsewhere (say, on pleasant-feeling thoughts), we simply anesthetize ourselves to the discomfort, and go on talking about and living in the problems of the world, thereby magnifying their very existence.

Two interesting things I have learned in my life regarding this “I’ll be happy when” fallacy: The first is that it’s not true. That sense of happiness, even if it did follow that date (or job offer, or new car, etc.), was temporal, eventually leaving to be replaced by some other feeling. Or the job wasn’t what I thought. Or the weight went back on. Or the date started talking.  That’s the first problem with this conditional style of living (the kind where I have good things happen so then I feel good, and vice-versa). It doesn’t last. There’s not a way to sustain the positive conditions long enough to promote only good feelings. And any attempts in this regard often lead to destructive and addictive patterns.

The second problem with “I’ll be happy when” thinking is that is brushes over one vital truth: it is actually possible to feel happy right now, right this very second. I may not be able to drop the ten pounds this very second, but I can find ways of thinking about that topic that absolutely feel better, and move me rapidly towards “happiness.” What I want and WHY is a very useful place to focus. But beware this common pitfall. Let’s use the weight example, and this first one is not helpful: I want to lose ten pounds because I am currently a fat ass and feel bad. Here’s a better way of following up the WHY: I want to lose ten pounds because I love how I feel when my pants are a little looser. I love the energy I feel in a lighter body. I love the way it feels to move and dance in a lighter body. I love the confidence I feel when I walk through the world in a lighter body.  This kind of thinking orients you to the very feeling you’re trying to conjure, right this very second. Can you feel it? Keep it going. What you want, and the WHY underneath it have some powerful magic that is directly related to moving in the direction of what you want.

So catch them, when you can, these sneaky little, “I’ll be happy when” thoughts, and see if you can reorient yourselves right here and now to the feeling of happiness.  It’s always there, waiting for your to discover it again and again. Peace and joy, ease and flow. Right now.