"Attraction": What We Attract With Our Creative Choices
By Linda Dessau
I used to be a jazz singer. Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah
Vaughan, they were wonderful and I strived to sing like they did.
But no one impressed me as much as Billie Holiday.
The tragedy and the talent meshed together into a musical offering
unlike any I'd heard. I was inexplicably drawn to the drama and the
heartache.
Louise Montello points out, in her book, Essential
Musical Intelligence, that I was drawn to those songs for a reason.
They corresponded with how I was feeling about myself and my life,
and the real or imagined conflicts or unresolved issues that were
going on for me.
Later, I found myself still listening to music that
was at a different 'frequency' than me, simply out of habit. I either
didn't notice that all the songs I was choosing were focused on 'negative'
topics or content I didn't agree with anymore, or sometimes I was
drawn to the music or musicality of the performers. Or it was simply
habit.
There was sometimes a 'coolness' factor - maybe the
performer emulated a quality I wanted to possess. Maybe it was their
version of success I was after.
A common concept in the personal growth field is that
whatever we put our attention on, we unconsciously manifest into our
lives. This is the purpose behind the gratitude list - taking time
each day to focus on what we're grateful for. It helps to balance
out the time that most of us spend lamenting what we DON'T have.
Last night I saw the new movie, 'What the Bleep do
We Know?'. My mind is still reeling from all of the scientific evidence
that supports the notion that the possibilities, for all of us, are
infinite - AND definitely within our control if we choose to think
a certain way.
One of the most fascinating and concrete examples
came from a Japanese researcher who documented how water crystals
changed depending on which thoughts were directed towards them. For
more information about the movie, see http://www.whatthebleep.com.
This is not to say that we shouldn't ever sing sad
songs, that we should only paint with pink and yellow, or that we
should use our computer to filter out negative words in our writing.
It's not to say that we should in ANY way censor our authentic expression.
My point here, as it with many of the topics I speak
about, is that we should consciously choose and be aware of what we're
expressing. AND, as an experiment, we can choose to try and manifest
what we want by describing THAT in our art, instead of focusing on
expressing our feelings about what we don't.
Today I experiment with choosing songs, both to listen
to and to sing, which evoke images of things I want to create in my
life, or things I'm grateful for.
I have a very special collection of songs that I listen
to every morning. Every song in there is very deliberate. Some of
the songs remind me to be grateful, some songs remind me to celebrate
and all of the songs connect me in some way to my spirituality.
(c) Copyright 2005, Genuine Coaching Services.
Linda Dessau, the Self-Care Coach, helps artists
enhance their creativity by addressing their unique self-care issues.
To receive her free monthly newsletter, "Everyday Artist", subscribe
at http://www.genuinecoaching.com/artist-newsletter.html
