Tag: songs

  • today is gentle

    “Not everything in life will be comfortable, but then again, comfort is subjective.” – Hannah McPherson

    Today, you could say I woke up on the wrong side of the bed.

    My dream was truly wonderful, but the moment I woke up the house was chaos.

    Now, as someone who likes it when life is gentle, today was the opposite. However, I took the opportunity to practice gratitude. I took a deep breath, said “okay, this is the moment, but this doesn’t have to last the day.”

    My new mantra today will be “Today is gentle.”

    Why? Because when your nervous system is under attack, there is no stopping the discomfort and displaced feeling until you’ve convinced yourself that you will be okay.

    I’m already bracing for “the worst day ever” in my mind, so by introducing this mantra, I am telling my body to stop bracing for pain and start embracing the possibility of miracles.

    By miracles, I mean an easy day at work, I mean problem resolution without strenuous effort, I mean things turning in the right direction after a little disruption.

    In doing this, my entire demeanor will change from being on guard and in panic state to something softer and more open. I will be attracting these good things with my own mentality.

    Instead of worrying over every outcome, I will be accepting and loving towards myself and others so that positivity can shine through, even if things are hard.

    We create our own comfort.

    Today could go either way, but I have a feeling it will go much better if I change my own mind about how it turns out ahead of time.

    If you ever have a hard morning, don’t let it sully the endless possibilities of the rest of the day. There is beauty in it all, even in the discomfort. It is our job to find the beauty and bring it into our perspective, in order to keep from being swallowed by all the harshness of life.

    As someone who values feeling safe, snuggled, and cozy; life rarely offers this opportunity without a little effort on our part. Don’t be afraid of the effort it takes to regulate yourself, because on the other side, there is comfort waiting.

    The song attached is about always reaching for the next great thing. It came on as I wrote this post.

    I wrote it about our need to find our next happy moment, our next success, our next plateau. In waves, there are troughs and crests, we always want to be at the crest, but when in the troughs, we forget that we are bound to rise again.

    It is important to remember that it is all part of the process, and the pain will pass.

    “There is always a new horizon, there is always another for finding.” – Hannah McPherson

    The song also talks about how we find that next horizon on the other side of a hard choice, but sometimes the hard choice is the guiding light of loving yourself enough to get through discomfort.

    It mentions that there is no way to heal your mind, because the thing is you’ll always need healing. Healing is a task you come back to over and over for different things, or the same thing, but you’ll always want it and need it. The key is to grow through it. The key is to keep showing up.

    This song stood out to me because it was originally written about my writing journey and where I’m at in my career, keeping up with my household, growing up in all sense of the word and where I thought my life would be.

    Here’s the thing: it will always require work and that work may not always be comfortable, but if I stay true to myself and take care of my needs, working out those goals is totally reachable. Once they’re complete, I’ll have new goals. So, the process will start again.

    Which leads me to the cover image: subjective comfort. What is comfortable to you, may not be comfortable to someone else. You have to find your own vision for comfort. Whatever it looks like to you, it is up to you to attain it. The world is not set up to freely give comfort, though we are sometimes rarely gifted with a kind gesture, it still comes at the cost of the giver.

    You are always the first option for being the giver of your own comfort. When no one else is offering it, offer it to yourself.

  • I AM THE MOUNTAIN

    “I was panicking, and I thought to myself, ‘I am the mountain.’ – Suddenly, I was unmovable. I was solid. I was ancient.” – Hannah McPherson

    Today, I was having a particularly hard time at work with a rush last minute deadline. I could feel the panic welling up in my chest like a tidal wave.

    Before I could react further, something inside me simply said, “I am the mountain.” – Now it has become my new mantra.

    It also became this song. Now I have an anthem.

    I keep repeating it in this post because I’m still trying to get it to set in. There is so much power in being a tall standing, unshakable, larger than life mountain.

    To be a solid form of land and rock that strikes the sky with its peaks, to be older than anything that could stand on it, out of this world structure of nature, is to be untouchable.

    I think mantras are very important to training the brain for positive and imaginative thinking. They are keycodes to bring you back to a moment or a feeling, especially if they’ve been picked up in a moment of inspiration or connection. They don’t have to be cosmic in nature, but I find it is fun when they are.

    If you repeat things to yourself, your brain gets to really dive into the meaning making process, adding layer after layer of emotional and physical and mental memory to your understanding of whatever it is you’re repeating.

    This can be said for positive and negative things.

    If I had simply reinforced my panicking with a mantra of, “I am panicking” then I don’t think I would have made it confidently striding back into the building but rather would have spiraled into a sort of impulsive need to jolt from the property.

    So, if you’re going to repeat things, try to find things worth repeating. If you’re going to tell your brain what to do, make sure it has an effect on you that is desirable to you.

    The brain listens to the body. Today, my brain told me I was a mountain, and the body listened.

  • CHOICES

    When all your paths cross somewhere in a yellow wood, diverged from what you feel you should, focus on everything good that brought you through it

    Crazy how we ended up here my dear, all the right things suddenly appeared, every possibility laid out before ya, the universe said, “honey, I adore ya.”

    So if you can see the forest for the trees, do it all and do it how you please, it’s not about the legacy you leave, but it’s in the love you release

    When it’s time to make a choice try to block out the noise, and follow where your heart might take you, remember it’s all up to you, and it really doesn’t matter what you do,

    Crazy how we ended up here my dear, all the right things suddenly appeared, every possibility laid out before ya, the universe said, “honey, I adore ya.”

    So if you can see the forest for the trees, do it all and do it how you please, it’s not about the legacy you leave, but it’s in the love you release

    Make a way, take your place, disappear without a trace, it’s all your day, it’s all your day,

    Crazy how we ended up here my dear, all the right things suddenly appeared, every possibility laid out before ya, the universe said, “honey, I adore ya.”

    So if you can see the forest for the trees, do it all and do it how you please, it’s not about the legacy you leave, but it’s in the love you release

  • the clock is unforgiving

    “breaking down and breaking ground, bucking up, riding the crowd, reaching for the crown, something dark trying to be let out, but I serve the light now, nobody ever did the same as me thanks to different dreams, nobody knows how I do it, making art and making music and expressing myself, but I’ll tell you the secret, living life with no regrets, the way I spend my time holed up in my room, wishing for something better to do, so I make my way, and transmute my pain, into something from which I can gain, and maybe someday somebody can relate, instead of waiting for a later date, because time is ticking and the clock is unforgiving,

    the clock is unforgiving, so you better be living, making the most of the time you’re given, find out what is and isn’t fitting, and go out there and get to living,

    I lay awake at night and contemplate this very plight, calculating exactly how much time I have between now and when it’s over, knowing that every passing second I get a little closer, but no one really understands, how it’s all in your hands to make the most of it, to shape and mold it, each day is clay and you’re the sculptor, got to ignore all the vultures, and vulgar opinions that keep you stuck in your head, when it comes to yourself, make the bet, make the bed, and when you get your chance, live life like it’s all you’re gonna get

    the clock is unforgiving, so you better be living, making the most of the time you’re given, find out what is and isn’t fitting, and go out there and get to living,

    the clock is unforgiving, so you better be living, making the most of the time you’re given, find out what is and isn’t fitting, and go out there and get to living…”

    This is one of my favorite tunes I’ve written. Ai made the artwork (a clip from a little music video visualizer) and it made the voice and music. I am an artist who thinks it’s great that we have Ai to make our dreams a reality.

    The lyrics are 100% original. That’s what matters most to me. I just save time with representation of my writing.

    This song was written from a place where I felt like time was creeping up on me, but in actuality, I have my whole life ahead of me. I often think about how other people may experience this feeling of running out of time to follow our dreams. The key is to stop worrying, and just go out there and get to living.