Doing things we love

Doing things we love!

This week while I was running with a group from a Running Room had done I talked with. I talked with one of the runners about doing things for our selves, things we love to do, things that make us happy.

The 2 of us discussed how when you are depressed you lose all motivation and how the things that you once enjoyed doing fall by the waist side and that even doing those things which used to give us so much joy could leave you feeling guilty and even selfish at times and just seem like such hard work todo.

I explained to her that only way that we can all be the best people we can be for our family's and friends is to be the happiest people we can be and everything else fall into place. Doing things we love todo and things that make us happy is what life is all about and once that happens all the pieces in life magically fall in place.

Here is a small bit from my book were I worked on doing something I love to do now.

So now here I am sitting with this bass in my hand. I have no clue what to do with it!! I have no idea where to start and what to play. I have trained myself to just work on stuff and play for everyone else my whole musical life, just like I have been living for everyone else my entire life. And that was it! The trigger with music was the same trigger in the rest of my life. It was no secret, but I suddenly saw it, sitting with my bass on my lap and the music stand in front of me with books piled on it.

Being so depressed taught me what a dead end street it is to live for everyone else. Now I’m learning that the one thing I thought set me free was actually part of what was destroying me.

I had learned how to change my way of thinking and how to stop myself from spiralling, but how was I going to fix this? Where do I start? All I could do was sit and stare at the music stand with all those books on it. Books I bought so I could make other people happy by learning what was in them, so I could impress them with my talent. Not my talent to play music, but my talent to make people happy. To make them like me. So I grabbed all those books and put them away.

I began just like I did with my thought records: I started to practise, practise, practise. I picked up my Beatles fake book and started to work on chord melodies for While My Guitar Gently Weeps and Here, There, and Everywhere. I took my time and enjoyed doing it, planning each note and each harmony I played. I took the proper time to get it the way I like it to sound and then memorized those passages. I played them the way I wanted them to sound, getting out my feelings and making these songs mine. I gave them the proper time to sound good. Just like, when I write my thought records, I give my feelings and thoughts the attention they need. Learning to love yourself and enjoy yourself is a long battle and the more I played the more I noticed that time just flew by. One hour, two hours, three hours went by like nothing and I actually enjoyed myself playing my bass. I came up with some very good-sounding versions of these Beatle songs.

One day my next-door neighbour was outside. I asked her if I could play these songs I have worked so hard on for her. She said she would love to hear them, so I got my bass and my amp from my office and she sat in her chair on her back porch. I looked over at her and I was overcome with emotion. My neighbour Josie has cancer and we love her so much. She is part of our family and I just wanted to play for her and make her happy. I started to play and I started to cry! Playing meant something to me! I couldn’t believe it. I wasn’t empty. I wasn’t spiralling at all. Every note I played had meaning and I loved what I was doing so much I was crying. I finished the first song and played the next one and the tears were pouring down my face. I finished those two songs and I was overwhelmed at the emotion I created in myself by just playing these songs. I asked Josie what she thought and she said that it was beautiful!! That she loved my playing and would love for me to play for her again.

I left for work with a smile on my face.

That moment changed the way I feel about playing music. I was overwhelmed by the fact that I could feel, after everything I have been through, being afraid to show emotion and the hard time I had going to my safe place and just letting go. Now it just pours out of me and I just let go! I don’t go crazy and I am not afraid of it at all. I can embrace it and enjoy it. If music makes me feel this way then I need to give it another chance. I need to keep practising and learning to love it again.

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/why-i-run-my-story/9781773022192-item.html?ikwid=Why+I+Run&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=0