Happiness Part IV

I am first and foremost a Momma during this particular season in my life, but during one season in my life I was primarily a performing musician.

As a performing musician you learn first hand how important your thoughts are....whether conscious or subconscious.
You have to learn to control them completely or your subconscious self can take over and erase the hard earned memory of your musical score or destroy a performance by making you believe you aren't capable.

A while back, I was graduating with my Bachelor's degree in Piano Performance and Pedagogy. I had spent countless hours and years even to audition for the next step in my education...the Masters program.

The day came for me to audition and I walked into the room feeling confident, excited and completely ready. I greeted my panel of judges who had become like family to me by then.
They knew me, my strengths and weaknesses.
They knew my musical voice.
They had already heard most of the performance I had prepared for this particular audition.
They were cheering for me....and I knew they were.



I began my performance and something crazy happened...My mind went completely and utterly blank.
I mean, pitch black.
The keys on my keyboard, that were so familiar to me suddenly looked foreign as if I had never even seen them before in my life.

I couldn't go any further and therefore, I failed my entrance exam.
I was devastated....to say the least.
The chance to fulfill my strongest desire was blown and the worst part was -
I did it to myself by failing to control my inner voice.

My subconscious thoughts of insecurity or any possible chance I would fail lead me to actually fail.

I know this experience applies first hand to our daily lives.

So here are our questions for today:
3. Do your thoughts make you happy?
4. Do you speak (whether aloud or silently) positive thoughts or negative thoughts?

You might find these questions to be silly, but have you truly listened to your inner voice and the things it says?
"I'm not skinny, thin, or fit enough"
"I wish I was as pretty as she is"
"I can't do that"
"That's too hard"
"I'm not smart enough to figure that out"
"I can't __________ like her."
(you fill in the blank)

Statements such as these are all lies.
Lies that keep us from succeeding.
Lies that keep us from being truly happy.

You can't allow these thoughts -or any like them -to exist and that's a hard task to achieve, but with practice we can all get closer to taking full control of our inner voice.

You are capable of succeeding whatever you put your mind to...
and that includes happiness.
When you hear negative thoughts begin, replace them with positive ones.
Come up with a positive mantra or saying that you can repeat out loud to yourself when these thoughts arise.
Write yourself positive notes reminding yourself of your strengths and talents.
YOU are the master of your own fate. 
Don't ever forget that!

And if you want to know the end of my story...
After LOTS of time studying the ins and outs of my inner voice and practice in controlling it, the panel of judges for my Masters entrance exam attended my final solo concert for my Bachelor's degree and counted that as my exam.

In the end I passed and became the Masters student I dreamed about!!!