WRITEOUS CHICKS  NEWSLETTER - October 2009 

“Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.” – Lululemon water bottle

My friend Karen got me the Lululemon water bottle with lots of inspiring quotes on it for my birthday last month.  I love my Lululemon water bottle.  I call it my self-help water bottle.  I love self-help.  I am a self-help junkie.  If I could mainline self-help, I would.  I like, and possibly need, to have constant inspiration and uplifting messages coming at me, because, my mind does not necessarily default this positive place.  Some places my mind likes to default to are feelings of hopelessness and victimhood and depression.  So I have to help it out as much as possible.

I carry my Lululemon water bottle around with me almost everywhere - to yoga, meetings, and prop it up on my desk during the day.  Since I got this water bottle, I feel so good that I am saving so much money now that I am not buying bottled water, am helping out the environment, am drinking so much more water now than I used to pre-bottle, and also, I am face-to-bottle with positive quotes all day long.  I like to pick up my water bottle at random times and discover a new quote.  This week, for the first time I saw this one:  “Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.”  This is my new favorite quote.  It struck me as so simple and yet so amazingly true.  And if this is true, then if you want a better life, you just have to like yourself more, and why not really go for it, really go for the full, awesome, big, bold juicy life of your dreams and desires, by LOVING yourself.  Like, a lot.  Like, more than anything else in the whole-wide-world.  Just totally, completely, absolutely, cherish, nurture, and adore yourself, and see what happens…

Let me just say that I have had moments, long moments, of being pretty self-loathing.  And when I am in that state, it is really hard for me to handle anything; even the smallest disappointments like just missing a subway can feel like the most painful affront to my soul.  What I am learning is that self-love is at the core of building a super-strong foundation for yourself so that you can handle the ups and downs of life, without feeling like you are at the mercy of the world, being tossed around by some crazy topsy-turvy and mean roller coaster ride. 

What I have seen, through teaching my classes and talking to friends, is that we are all so unmercifully hard on ourselves, we can all love ourselves more, and there is always more love, and compassion, and forgiveness that we can bestow on ourselves.  And loving yourself means being on your own side, even when you make mistakes, even when you are a flawed imperfect human being, even when you feel like you are filled with darkness when you wish you were always bright and cheery, even when you are at your worst, and lowest, and feel like a fucked up mess and are scared that you always will be.  Loving yourself means that you can expand your heart enough to hold all of yourself in it – the light and the dark, the joy and the pain, the beautiful and the ugly.  Knowing that no matter what, no matter what the roller coaster of the world, and circumstances that can be shitty, and other people, throw at you, you will never ever betray yourself or turn against yourself.  You will remain centered and secure, safe and strong in your own self-love.

I have worked hard at loving myself and have come a long way.  I still have moments of disliking myself and all that comes with, but they are fewer and farther between.  Recently I had some disappointments that a few years ago, and possibly even six months ago, would have taken me out, would have left me curled up under my covers crying for days, and exercising my right to take mental health days off from work.  But I love myself so much more now than I did then, that I don’t get wiped out so easily anymore.  I can feel the sadness and disappointment and pain and still love myself, and know that I can take it and I will be OK.  I can hold it all in my heart and not let sadness and disappointment and pain convince me that I am unlovable, or not deserving of love, from others and most importantly, from myself.

And here’s the thing:  when you love yourself, you can handle everything more, the bad and the good.  When you dislike or disapprove of yourself in any way, it is extremely difficult to be resilient and rebound from life’s challenges.  But also, when you dislike and disapprove of yourself, it is extremely difficult to allow great things and people and circumstances into your life.  Because you feel on some level that you don’t deserve it, so you sabotage yourself or push it away or terrorize yourself with thoughts of worry and unworthiness so much, that even if whatever that great thing is does squeak through your self-hatred and into your life, you don’t let yourself enjoy it for one second.

So practice loving yourself.  Love yourself a little more today than you did yesterday, a little more in this moment than you did a moment ago.  Be ever generous with the love you give yourself.  Be kind to yourself where before you would have snapped at yourself, be soft and gentle where you used to be hard and harsh, forgive yourself where you used to be unforgiving.  Practice and grow your love for yourself stronger and stronger all the time.  This love will waiver, and harshness and hate will try to sneak back in and still, love yourself then, and through that.  Go back go back go back go back to it always.  And watch yourself become strong and stable where you used to feel weak and insecure, and at the mercy of others and life.  And watch yourself being able to handle the sadness, disappointments, and pain better, and being able to handle more wonderful things in your life, and allow them in, and enjoy them, knowing deeply that you are worthy of it all.  And watch…with anticipation, excitement, and joy…as your life just keeps getting better…and better…and better….

Wishing you a magnificent October, and so much love for yourself!

Lots of love!

 Jen xoxo

Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Garam

The Great Work by Hafiz, from “The Gift”

Love

Is the great work

Though every heart is first an

Apprentice.

The slaves beneath the city of Light.

This wondrous trade,

This magnificent throne your soul

Is destined for–

You should not have to think

Much about it,

Is it not clear

An apprentice needs a teacher

Who himself

Has charmed the universe

To reveal the wonders inside his cup.

Happiness is the great work,

Though every heart must first become

A student

To one

Who really knows

About love.

*******************

My yoga teacher, Robin Pickering, then talked about how we can envision everyone on similar paths, climbing up the steep face of a mountain, some a little ahead and some a little behind.  She said that you can have teachers who are at the top of the mountain, who have reached the peak, but sometimes, the best teachers are the ones who are just a few steps ahead of you, who can say, “This is the best handhold,” or, “Be careful of that loose rock.”  They have just been exactly where you are, so they can give you the most specific instructions for how to chart your course.

She asked us to picture our teacher, and the one who came to my mind was one who is really far ahead of me, whose wisdom helps me immensely.  But it got me thinking to also keep my eyes peeled for those teachers who are just a few steps ahead of me on the mountain who can help boost me up a little higher.  And also, to remember to look behind me and see who is two steps back, who I can reach out to and lend a helping hand.  So we can all help guide each other up the rough terrain of the mountain, and enjoy the views together.

Photo Credit: Laurie Scavo www.lauriescavo.com

“…to just really be a bruise, to be a wounded, exposed nerve to the world so that you can cure and somehow bring a common connection between us all through sound.”

-Maxwell, on the purpose of making music as a service and not out of being wrapped up in your ego, at the BLACKsummersnight Listening Party & Press Conference 4/28/09

This summer, I blogged about Maxwell’s Q&A at the BLACKsummersnight Listening Party & Press Conference, and there are so many juicy goodies in this interview that I want to return to it.  And also, not that I’m counting down or anything, but I’m going to see him in concert at Madison Square Garden in 17 days and 5 hours and 29 minutes…

In this interview, Maxwell talks about how some artists today get so wrapped up in their egos that they forget that making music is a service, and that the purpose is to heal.  And you do this, he says, but putting yourself out there as “a bruise…a wounded, exposed nerve to the world.”

This reminds me of when I was a rehearsing an emotional scene for a play over 10 years ago before I retired from acting, and my director saying that in life when you are crying and in pain, you put your head down and hide it from the world.  When you are acting and you are crying and in pain, you have to hold your head up and let the world see you like that.

This is what I strive to do in my writing – take the pain I have experienced, that I want to stuff down and hide from others and from myself in my life, and crack it open for the world (or whoever is reading my blog etc…) to see.  And it is totally hard and scary to do this.  The times that I have been the most open in writing, say, my Writeous Chicks Newsletters, like the ones about my depression or anxiety or insecurity, I will sit at home alone in front of my computer scared to put myself out there so much, wondering if I can really go through with it and press Send and usher my vulnerable, exposed words/wounds out into the world of my email distribution list.  But the ones that I have been the most scared to send have been the ones that I’ve gotten the strongest response to, and received emails from people thanking me and telling me how much they related to my writing.

Sometimes I put myself out there and it is not so well-received.  A few months ago I performed a story at a venue where I’ve kept my stories pretty light and comedic in the past.  But this time I wanted to delve deeper and talk about something that was difficult and painful for me, in a very open and honest and put-it-all-out-there kind of way.  As I told my story, the audience was silent, and I was unnerved that I wasn’t getting the laughs that I usually did.  After I finished speaking, I stood in front of the crowd feeling like a wounded, exposed nerve, and a very vulnerable one at that, and I walked off the stage in a daze.  I got lower scores on this story than I had on my previous stories, and although a few people told me they liked what I had done, it definitely wasn’t the positive response I was used to.

I continued to feel completely raw and exposed and didn’t even know when the event had ended, and had to ask my friend if it was over.  The next day I felt humiliated, and berated myself for putting it all out there like that.  But then, I remembered my intention, which was to do just that – to take a risk and put myself out there.  And I was able to shift from humiliation and self-reprimanding, to feeling proud of myself for my courage in admitting to and sharing my pain, and lifting my face up in a world that encourages you to deny and hide your pain, and keep your head down.

Maxwell splits his heart open and pours his pain into his music, which is in part why people resonate so strongly with it.  He also pours his joy into his music, and holds the whole range of human experience, the light and the dark, within his songs.  And because he puts it all out there, we then, as listeners, can connect to something within him that is also within us.

In writing or music or whatever form you are creating in, challenge yourself to be a bruise.  Sometimes you won’t go far enough and sometimes you will go to far and feel like a raw open wound exposed to the world.  Keep returning to the goal of healing and connecting, and eventually you will strike the right balance.  And keep heaping compassion on yourself as you do this and you will find that exposing your bruises and wounds will not only heal others, but will ultimately heal yourself, too.

I joined Twitter after having resisted it for a long time and it is SO FUN!  Follow me & Writeous Chicks here:

http://twitter.com/writeouschick

Look forward to seeing you on Twitter, tweet tweet!

xoxo,

Jen

WRITEOUS CHICKS NEWSLETTER - September 2009

Yesterday I saw the movie “Julie & Julia.”  Everything I had heard/read about it said that the Julia part was great and inspiring because she was driven by her passion and her desire to help people, but the Julie part was lacking because she was only driven by her desire for recognition and fame.  However, I didn’t feel this way about the movie, and I enjoyed and was inspired by both women’s stories unfolding.  I thought that Julie was definitely driven by more than just the ambition to catch-up with her established fancy Cobb-salad-eating corporately vice presidential friends and be famous for something, and she seemed to be fueled by a desire to add meaning to her life that was suffering from listless, passionless, ambivalent fatigue.  And as I watched the movie, I learned from both women, and found myself cataloging their lessons in my mind as the movie played on.

1)  Live In Gratitude

Julia Child’s character was bubbling over with gratitude throughout the movie.  Everything she experienced was THE MOST AMAZING THING EVER!  When she tasted food, she savored every bite.  When she prepared food, she delighted in every step of creation.  When she moved into her Parisian home, she ran around it throwing open windows and exclaiming, “It’s Versailles!”  Her husband Paul said that Parisians were known to be unfriendly, but Julia brought out the best in everyone so they were the opposite of that to her.  She was so grateful for every interaction with the Parisian shopkeepers that they couldn’t help but return her energy of kindness and generosity.

It’s easy to get jaded.  The fast pace of life contributes to this – running around, feeling overwhelmed, being overscheduled.  It’s easy to focus on the negative and what’s going wrong.  But running around in a busy tailspin and making ongoing mental notes of everything that’s going wrong blocks from our vision what’s going right, and all there is to be grateful for.  You truly have to slow waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy down to see, smell, taste, touch, feel, appreciate, and delight in all of the simple pleasures in life.  But when you do slow down, the payoff is tremendous – there are boundless simple pleasures to enjoy and be grateful for. 

Julia Child had a child-like appreciation for things in life, and noticed these simple pleasures in the way that we did as children, before we got busy, and jaded.  And you don’t have to live in Paris or be a famous chef to follow her lead, to savor every bite of a meal, to enjoy a conversation with the person who made your coffee instead of grunting a half-hearted thanks, grabbing it without making eye contact, and racing out the door to catch a subway, to deeply connect with the people, places, and things in your environment every single day.  That kind of gratitude adds excitement and adventure to everything it touches, and will deepen and enrich your life immensely as a result.

2)  You Don’t Have To Have It All Figured Out Already - Experiment!

I have often felt like the clock is racing ahead and I fell behind long ago on some invisible timeline and I can never catch up.  It can seem like “everyone else has it all figured out,” and you are the only one who is struggling to find purpose, direction, and a meaningful path in your life.  And comparing yourself to others who are “ahead of you” on the invisible timeline always leaves you finding yourself lacking. 

However, first of all, everyone else doesn’t already have everything all figured out, and we are all searching on our own time and in our own way.  And Julia Child is a great example of someone who discovered her life’s passion on her own timeline.  She didn’t graduate from college with a degree in culinary arts and several impressive cooking internships already under her belt to immediately begin her rise up a culinary org chart at age 21.  She came to cooking in her late 30’s, and the movie showed her process of experimentation and discovery to get to this place.  Earlier in her career, she had worked as an advertising copywriter and in the government.  Where the movie picks up in France, Julia is continuing on her career exploration.  She liked hats, so she took a hat-making class.  It wasn’t for her, but she didn’t berate herself that she was falling behind on a timeline, and that her established friends were racing ahead of her.  Instead, she tried something else – playing cards, which also turned out to be not her thing, but no worries.  She moved onto cooking and at last it was a love connection!

Again, we can learn to employ Julia’s child-like sense of play, joy, wonder and experimentation as we search for our own true path in life.  There is no need to berate yourself for “wasting time” if what you are doing at the moment isn’t your true life’s passion, or if maybe you haven’t found it yet.  No worries, just keep trying, playing, experimenting, and learning what you do and don’t like.  Step off the Universal Timeline that compares you to everyone else, and instead make the choice to boldly accept that your pace and process of discovery, growth, achievement, and living, is absolutely perfect for you.

3)  If Someone Thinks You Can’t Do Something, Prove Them Wrong

When Julia attends Le Cordon Bleu, Madame Brassart, the school’s proprietress, seems to have it out for her and does not think she will succeed in a cooking course for “professionals.”  On the first day of class, all the students are masterfully and speedily chopping onions while Julia tentatively slices a few slivers.  She goes home and practices her speed-dicing skills until her table is piled high in a mountain of expertly diced onions and her husband can’t even walk in the kitchen door without crying.  When Julia fails the final exam she asks to take it again and then passes it.  Throughout her time at the school, Madame Brassart’s lack of belief in Julia only serves to fuel her own belief in herself even more.

When confronted with harsh criticism and/or someone who believes you will fail, you can do one of two things:  prove them right or prove them wrong.  People believing in you feels great and can motivate you to new heights of achievement.  People not believing in you feels terrible and can motivate you to curl up in a ball under your covers and give up.  Don’t give anyone that kind of power over your life.  Let all feedback – positive and negative – push you on to realize your dreams.  And, if you let it ignite you rather than stop you,  it is the negative criticism that can powerfully fire you up more than anything else to reach your goals.

4)  Never Give Up, Even In The Face Of Seemingly Insurmountable Obstacles

It took Julia over 7 years to write “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and many times it looked like her dream would not become a reality, but she stuck with it.  When she first got involved in this project, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle had already written an early draft of the cookbook that had been rejected because it was not American enough for Americans.  They could have thrown in the towel at this point, but instead, they asked Julia to collaborate on a rewrite with them.  Julia then slogged through a painstakingly slow process of testing recipes and writing the book over years and years.  Though there was no instant gratification in sight, she continued to have a positive attitude and maintain her connection to her enthusiasm for her project, even when she was doing the “grunt work” parts.  At one point when she had to type up a section, she didn’t bemoan this fact but rather, she cheerily exclaimed, “It will give me something to do in Oslo!”

When the first publishers who expressed interest in her book later rejected it, she didn’t let that stop her from believing in her vision, and she went on to find another publisher, get an even bigger advance, and see her book become published.  The final scene of the movie shows her unwrapping a package, seeing her book in print for the first time, and her and her husband Paul exploding in joyous laughter.  The movie ends with a freeze frame on this moment, her vision realized.

Achieving a dream can take a long time, and along the way, you can lose the connection to your enthusiasm and your intention and let obstacles stop you.  However, if you can step back and see the larger perspective and look at your whole life, the obstacles you confront today appear to be only little blips on the way to the tremendous joy of living in pursuit and realization of your dreams.  And if the road is long, arduous, and fraught with obstacles that make you want to give up but you don’t, then savoring your success will be all the sweeter!

5)  Writing Has The Power To Transform You & Your Life

I’m not talking about external transformation, like how Julie lived in a crappy apartment over a pizza place and worked at a miserable job trapped in a cubicle, and then she started to blog and got a book deal and then a movie deal and presumably a much nicer apartment, although that can happen.  I’m talking about inner transformation.  About how Julie was unhappy, lost, and felt like she was drowning, and then she started writing, and writing gave her life meaning, purpose, and direction, and saved her.  She felt alone, and then sharing her writing with others brought her connection.  Through her writing she confronts things about herself that she doesn’t like, like her meltdowns and her taking her husband for granted, and then once she sees these things, she can change them.

This world can be isolating.  It can leave us feeling separate from others and even from ourselves.  How many times have you felt like you don’t have a voice, even in your own life?  Like you have so many thoughts and opinions and wishes and hopes and dreams that just wither and die in your mind?  How many times have you felt dissatisfied with something or someone, but you muffle the voice inside that wants to say how you really feel and you remain mute, the nice, good person, doing the nice, good, right thing?

Writing is so powerful because through it you can reclaim your voice and therefore, one word at a time, you can reclaim your life.  You can build a bridge of words back to your true self, you can speak up and say this is what I’ve experienced and this is what I think and this is what I feel and it matters and I matter.  You can take up your rightful space in the world, and in doing so, you can reach out and connect to others, and then, as a result, we are all a little more powerful and a little less isolated.

A million things can happen in the course of a day to leave you feeling tossed about by the world and powerless in your own life.  Picking up a pen or turning on your computer is a simple way to take back your power, raise your voice, and claim your life as your own.  Every time you return to your writing, your writing returns you to yourself, and in this way, it will transform you and your life, from the inside out.

Have a delightful September and savor every sip of this crisp, delicious fall air – bon appétit!

Lots of love!

Jen xoxo

Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Garam

Some fun, exciting news about my Health.com yoga dates article, “Sick of the Same Old Dating Routine? Yoga is the Hot New Way to Get Close”…

* It was mentioned on celebrity/style website “The Frisky,” on the same page as Jessica Simpson and Heidi Montag!  http://tinyurl.com/n5mcol

* Love, sex, and relationship blogger “Ask Bella More” wrote about it  http://tinyurl.com/nn2hgq

* Jordann Rawls wrote about it on Examiner.com http://tinyurl.com/mxzush

* And special thanks to my friend Amanda for mentioning it on her blog “Cake & Carrots”  http://tinyurl.com/nazogo

YAY!

Enjoy this yummy rainy cozy day and have a deliciously delightful weekend!

xoxo,

Jen

I’ve started picking an internal theme song for the day.  I often feel like I am in the movie or music video of my life anyway, and have songs running through my mind or through my headphones throughout the day, so this is a fun little way to make it official.

Last week, my first Internal Theme Song of the Day was “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey.  On Wednesday it was “Break My Stride” by Matthew Wilder and I highly recommend watching this video if you, like me, desperately longed to be a Solid Gold Dancer at any time in your life.  Or if you still long for this…  That night, I walking home from the subway singing “Break My Stride” out loud (sometimes my internal theme songs leak out externally), when a car drove by BLASTING “Don’t Stop Believing,” and I felt like the stars were somehow aligned and all was well in the Universe. 

Yesterday’s song was “Right to Be Wrong” by Joss Stone.  I especially like these lyrics:  “I’ve got a right to be wrong, my mistakes will make me strong.  I’m stepping out into the great unknown, I’m feeling wings though I’ve never flown…Got a right to be wrong, I’ve been held down too long, I got to break free, so I can finally breathe.  Got a right to be wrong, gotta sing my own song, I might be singing out of key, but it sure feels good to me.”  Sing it, Girl!  I like it in part because I’m working on my wings…

Today I started out my day having a POWER breakfast with some POWER ladies, a group of fabulous, inspiring, supportive creative friends, which gave me such a BOOST right at the start of my day, and made today’s theme song choice obvious:  “I’ve Got the Power” by Snap.  Which reminds of when my sister was on a mission to bring back “Oh, Snap!” (It never took off as a revival.)  And also brings back vague memories of wearing a wool sweater, short pleated skirt, and green lollipops and dancing to this song for dance team or cheerleading in high school.  Or maybe it was just playing in the background when I was standing around a keg holding a red plastic Dixie cup post-game.  Ahh, the early 90’s….

And this leads me to Part Two of the Internal Theme Song Du Jour – The Dance Break.  By no means is this required, but if you can take a 5 minute dance break to your internal theme song that’s the bonus track!  You can do this walking down the street or on the subway, in your chair at work, or, if all else fails, in your mind.  Or, one of the most fun ways to do it is to blast the video on YouTube in your co-worker’s office and have a GROUP dance party (I’ve done this and it’s a great way to get a boost during a slump without sugar or caffeine!).

Also important to note is that this is a low pressure thing, so no need to come up with a new song every day if you don’t feel like it.  You can stick with your Internal Theme Song Du Jour for a day, a week, a month, a year, whatever!  It’s YOUR LIFE so create YOUR OWN PLAYLIST!  You can play your song in your head on your commute, while you are doing errands or mundane tasks, or while you are someplace you don’t want to be – it’s like affirmations, but set to music!  Try it, it’s fun!  And it will launch you into the starring role in the MUSIC VIDEO OF YOUR LIFE!!!

What’s your song today?

TURN IT UP & ROCK IT OUT!!!

I wanted to share an article I wrote for Health.com entitled “Sick Of  the Same Old Dating Routine? Yoga Is the Hot New Way to Get Close,” which I am so excited to report is currently being featured on the homepage of Health.com!!!  If you are thinking about going on a yoga date, read this first for tips and cautionary factors to consider beforehand, and if you never ever plan on going on a yoga date, please check it out anyway just for fun!  AND, if you enjoy the article, please share it with others and forward to friends and/or post on Facebook, Twitter, etc.!

http://tinyurl.com/yogadates

Thank you & Namaste!

xoxo,

Jen

“I’m a really, really insecure person at best…”

- Maxwell, Q&A at the BLACKsummers’night Listening Party & Press Conference on 4/28/09

A few years ago, I blogged about how John Mayer gets anxiety attacks.  And lately, with all the Michael Jackson coverage in the news, it’s been mentioned a lot that Michael Jackson was extremely shy.

OK, these are obstacles.  Big obstacles.  If you have “crippling anxiety attacks” as John Mayer’s were described in a September 2006 issue of Rolling Stone, one could assume that you might not be able to perform in front of huge crowds, have your albums go multi-platinum, and win Grammy Awards.  and if you are extremely shy, maybe you are just not meant to be the greatest pop star of all time.  Or maybe just maybe, you would be able to perform in front of thousands upon thousands of people, wow crowds, and maybe even become the King of Pop.  Maybe, despite all the obstacles that would seemingly make these things impossible, you can, and you do anyway.

In a recent Q&A at the BLACKsummers’night Listening Party & Press Conference, Maxwell confessed to being a “really, really insecure person at best,” and this is what he tweeted before his dress rehearsal for the BET Awards in June:  “on the STAGE gettin’ ready to do the dress rehearsals… so NERVOUS…”

I have long been fascinated by insecurity and fear, and how it can stop you.  Or not.  In my own life sometimes I will hit a wall of fear that is so scary it makes me want to stop, drop, and roll under my covers, question if it’s worth it, and be tempted to just give up altogther on that particular hope.  And it is easy to think that if you are at all insecure, shy, nervous, anxious, or fearful, well, maybe that big bold dream just isn’t for you anyway.  Maybe it’s for those totally secure, calm, fearless people, and you, well, you can stay hiding out, snuggled under those covers, and settle for a listless life devoid of meaning, in which your dreams are absent, having been chased away by your fears. 

But who are those supremely confident, ever-unflappable people?  Does anyone really not have to walk through some form of fear or insecurity on the path to their dreams?

Whenever I’ve performed or spoken in front of large groups, and even when I teach small groups, I often get very nervous (the heart-racing-difficulty-breathing-sick-to-my-stomach variety) beforehand.  A calm then sweeps over me once I get onstage or get started, but I’ve wondered if there are certain people who are extremely successful at what they do who just get to skip the fear step.  I’ve wondered if there is a way to override those nervous jitters and instead only embody complete confidence and calm at all times, in all situations, even in the most jitter-inducing of circumstances.  Seeing people who just SHINE, or ROCK, or do whatever they are doing to its fullest and most radiant expression, I’ve longed to know, what is their secret?

And the secret is this:  these people are often insecure, shy, nervous, anxious, or fearful.  But they do their thing anyway.

Maxwell describes himself as insecure.  Watch this video for “Pretty Wings” and see if it appears that he has anything at all to feel insecure about, or if “insecure” is one of the top five adjectives that comes to your mind to describe him.  Personally, I think, “dizzyingly beautiful, amazing voice, off-the-charts-talented, soulful, and sexy.”  Insecure doesn’t make it anywhere close to my list.  Or check out this performance for the CBS Early Show and see if you could guess that he ever gets nervous before performing.

In this recent Q&A Maxwell said, “I’m a really, really insecure person at best,” and he then continued with a laugh, “I mean, I know I front hard on that stage, let me tell you, it’s all fake.”  That’s the other piece of the secret:  sometimes you really do just have to fake it ’til you make it.

Fear, shyness, insecurity, anxiety, and nervousness can be obstacles that stop you in your tracks, propel you into hiding under your covers, and chase away your dreams.  But they don’t have to be.  John Mayer gets anxiety attacks.  Michael Jackson was shy.  Maxwell is insecure at best.  But they all stepped through their fears to share their incredible gifts with the world.  Don’t let those things stop you from sharing your gifts with the world.  Just take a deep breath, front if you have to, and step out into your spotlight to rock.

This is how it started:  two weeks ago I was listening to Pandora.com as I was getting ready in the morning and Maxwell’s song “Pretty Wings” popped up, reminding me how much I love Maxwell.  I didn’t realize it was a new song and thought maybe it was just one that I had missed in the past.  When I got to work, I told my co-worker, who sits behind me and gets to hear about all my musical loves, about my excitement over hearing that Maxwell song.

“You must be really excited for his new cd then!” my co-worker exclaimed.

“What??!?!”  I had had no idea that Maxwell had a new cd coming out after the 8 years since his last one.  I had been excited about creating a new Maxwell station on Pandora; now I was over-the-top about the news of his new cd.

This is how it really started:  In 1998, I graduated from college and moved to New York City to go to acting school full-time, and into an apartment on the Upper East Side with two of my best friends from high school.  One of my roommates had Maxwell’s cds “Urban Hang Suite” and “MTV Unplugged” and introduced me to the wonder that is his music.  She had been introduced to Maxwell’s music by her ex-boyfriend who had played his cds when they were still dating, while they were making out.  I imagine that that guy smartly put Maxwell’s cds on permanent rotation in his bedroom cd player.

In my first New York City apartment, Maxwell cds were often playing, for musical enjoyment purposes not making out purposes, although I did go on to follow in my roommate’s footsteps and make out with my own boyfriend circa 2000 to the live version “Whenever Wherever Whatever” on the unplugged cd.  I played Maxwell’s live version of “This Woman’s Work” off that same cd as emotional preparation when I was acting in plays where I had to be sad, crouched down backstage in the dark, or in a green room, listening to it repeatedly before going on.  I had a painful break-up with boyfriend circa 2000, wrote a play about him, and used the aforementioned version of “Whenever Wherever Whatever” in the play’s soundtrack.  Years later, I’ve happily divorced that beautiful song from the painful memories of the break-up and can deeply enjoy it once again. 

In August of 2001 Maxwell’s last cd “Now” came out.  I got it right away, and listening to the songs ”Lifetime” and “Get to Know Ya” made me feel happy, and hopeful.

And I remember a mix of Maxwell songs on the soundtrack of my first few years living in New York City in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, woven in with the experiences of my 20’s when I was new to the city, everything was an adventure, and I was guided by my dreams.

This February, I was meeting my Dad and Stepmom for dinner at a French bistro in Manhattan.  I got there early and was waiting at the bar when “Ascension (Don’t Ever Wonder)” came on.  I felt flooded again with that same sense of happiness and thought, “I love this place!”  After dinner I stopped at Barnes & Noble on my way home to buy my very own copy of “Urban Hang Suite,” because I have not lived with that Maxwell cd-owning roommate since Maxwell’s last cd came out.

Back to Summer 2009, for the past two weeks, I have been so excited about Maxwell’s new cd coming out, and have been listening to his music practically non-stop.  And here’s the thing.  Sometimes music can bring you so much joy, and just make you feeeeeel soooooo goooooood.  And Maxwell’s music does exactly that.  Several times over the past few weeks, I’ve been walking down the street when I’ve noticed anxious thoughts creep into my mind, and I’d start down the path of worrying about some insignificant thing that is a waste of my time and energy, but a familiar and seductive pattern nonetheless.  And several times I’ve grabbed for my iPod Shuffle in those moments, shoved the headphones in my ears, and pressed play to “Pretty Wings.”  I’ve discovered that hearing it just melts away my anxiety, and makes it pretty much impossible to give any time or energy to a negative worried thought, because all my energy becomes captivated by the music instead.  And on a crowded subway, I will throw in those headphones again, and blast “Pretty Wings” or “Fortunate,” and suddenly I am literally bursting with energy and excitement (and sometimes dancing), oblivious to space-invading rush hour commuters, transported into a whole nother, more joyful, zone.

I got his much-anticipated new cd “BLACKsummers’night” yesterday, and today, I took what I called a “Maxwell Half-Day” at work, and went to see a free outdoor concert that he was doing for the CBS Early Show.  I had wanted to go to his concert at NJPAC in Newark which was the closest show to NYC listed on his tour schedule, but it had sold out the week before.  However, the same day I found out that that show was sold out, I learned about this free NYC one.  Walking from the subway to the outdoor plaza where the CBS concert would be this morning, I was so excited that I started having difficulty breathing and I had to pop a Tums.  It was an amazing, joyous show from an amazing, joyous performer, and it always inspires me how something so simple as a song, has the incredible power to transport, transform, uplift, and even, when needed, to cure anxiety.

Stay tuned, there is a good chance I will write more about Maxwell, and this just might turn into Maxwell Week on my blog…