Mistaking the What for the Why

March again… The second pandemic-stricken March.  It’s a year since my last live concert. And my next one, if it happens at all, will be at the end of May, fifteen months later. A bit of a change in a performing artist’s life!

It can be scary, not knowing when you can resume your work. You can get so stressed and apprehensive!

I interact with many people from different walks of life every day, and the general mood worldwide is not one of optimism and lightheartedness at the moment. But there we go, the situation is what it is. The thing we need to remember now is, that if we cannot control the things that happen outside of us, we can still control the way we personally react to them. This is much deeper than it might seem at first.

For me, this challenging new situation came with a few hidden gifts also. I had to completely rethink my work, my daily activities, my priorities. I had to manage my time and my tasks over months and months with no structure nor deadlines at all. That was a big learning curve for me, and it made me much more focussed, and stronger. And strange as it may sound, it helped me get clear – at last! –  about what I want to do with my life! I’d been asking myself many questions, and doubting everything, and not finding any answers, for the last 10 years.

Of course, I was singing a lot, travelling, working with amazing musicians, but somehow I kept wondering if that was really what I was meant to do?

And at the end of last year, it suddenly dawned on me that being a singer has – unconsciously –  always been a means to an end for me, and not the end itself. The result of me being a singer is that I can meet people, and be there for them, both when I’m singing for them and when I’m teaching them to sing. The real purpose of all that is the communication, the joy, the emotions, the wholesome vibrations I can bring when performing; and the education, the coaching, the skills, the self-development, the encouragement, the inspiration I can bring when teaching.

The spotlight for me is not so much on me singing, as on the people around me. And exactly this realisation is what was missing in my life. Now everything has fallen into place. I always loved teaching people to sing, because I love to see them flourish, and grow, and expand their consciousness, and be happy. Also, my vocal coaching often spreads into life and health coaching, naturally.

I actually don’t care in what way I help people, as long as I can help them. And it’s been like this since my childhood… Only, I had never put this into ordered thoughts and words before, so I kept focussing on the means instead of the end.

I’m so much happier now that I became aware of that. So much so, that all my fears about work and money and the future have turned into ideas and plans and action.

It’s only been a shift in my mindset, but it has changed the whole world for me.