Things run in cycles – what was will cease to be, before coming around again into its time, back into existence. But we must learn to prepare for these times of opportune conditions so that we are prepared to capitalise on them while the going is good, before the season changes and the window of opportunity closes again (until next time). This is magic: working with the elements of nature, the stuff of life, the swirling fields of potential.

The cycle of life is represented by the seasons of nature – we sow the seed in spring, tend the garden in summer, harvest our produce in autumn and this sustains us through the fallow ground of winter. By seeing in advance that winter will come, we know to work hard in spring, summer and autumn.

This applies not only to the macro-version of this that plays out in our lives (working hard in our youth to prepare for our old age) but also in many micro-aspects. For example an artist may experience inspiration and energy in her youth, followed by a time of success where the world opens their arms to her endeavours. This may be then succeeded by a (seemingly) long winter where neither does she feel inspired nor does the world pay her and her art much attention.

But if she continues to work and to hold on for better days, eventually her inspiration and desire to shine returns, and fresh new art follows. This new spring may be followed by another summer of growth and in turn by an autumn of harvest in the form of recognition from the world.

We see this cycle play out time and time again for many artists and public figures. Take Leonard Cohen’s long roller-coaster of a career. Of late he has been more popular than ever after some years in the career wilderness. However, while he is obviously enjoying his renaissance, at his age, he must be well aware that even this latest triumphant career upturn will not last forever.

To develop a sense of where we are at in the various cycles of our lives, the little ones and the big ones, is a useful skill indeed. Sometimes it’s easy – it’s not hard to tell when it’s time to move house: for whatever reasons, usually practical, you just know it’s time to go. However at other times it can be more difficult to know how to read the signs accurately. For example: if you have been feeling sick to death of your boyfriend for a few months, is this a sign it’s time to end the relationship or is it just a natural energetic fluctuation in an otherwise healthy relationship?

Here enters free-will. We have the ability to step in and put to use the “stuff of life” to attempt outcomes. You can work for the outcome of becoming a free-agent again, or for the outcome of seeing the relationship through to a return to fun and fulfilment.

This is the magic of our lives … but the magician gambles because we do not always know if our work will actually deliver the outcomes intended and, if it does, whether those results will bring us the benefits we hoped they would.

Personal Development for Musicians: Developing Plans for Success

As a musician, I often find that I’m struggling to remain a well-rounded person. I’m a classical pianist, and for the most part, that translates to a large number of hours spent in the practice room. While that’s great for my technique and musicianship, it’s not so wonderful when I start to think about other aspects of my life. Because I’ve focused so much on practice, it’s easy to feel that I’m underdeveloped in other areas – and that has led me to spend some time and energy on personal development. Although it got me far outside of my comfort zone, I identified several areas of my life that seemed lacking in attention and proficiency. It wasn’t easy to start developing these areas, but it’s been well worth the investment for me. Here are some of the areas of my life that I’ve been working on (besides being a musician, of course) – and I’ve found that development in these areas has helped me to feel well-rounded again.

Written Communication

I’ve always enjoyed creative writing as a hobby, but I’ve realized that professional writing is a useful skill to have when you’re a musician. I’m always interested in finding extra work because, as you know, it can be difficult to make a living on a music career. With writing, I’ve found a way to earn money and use my musical expertise at the same time. There are plenty of ways to do this, which include blogging and guest blogging, writing articles for music publications, writing reviews of other musicians’ performances, developing a web page, and more.

To accomplish this goal of improving my writing skills and becoming a more marketable professional, I picked up a professional writing minor while I was earning my degree in piano performance. It was extra work, but putting in that time and effort has helped me to develop personally and professionally. Other options for improving writing skills include online or distance classes, community college courses, local writing seminars or retreats, and more – just look around to find opportunities near you. If you’re not interested in developing writing skills, try putting some time into a favorite hobby that’s fallen by the wayside. Not only can this become a marketable resource, but it can also help you dissolve the stress and monotony of music practice.

Physical Conditioning

Ever since I can remember, I’ve blown off steam by running. It’s just the most natural way for me to get exercise and reduce stress. I haven’t given it up yet, but sometimes it’s tempting to use that time for practice even though I know I can’t keep practicing without taking a break and expending some energy. I’ve also learned that cardio isn’t enough, so I picked up yoga on a friend’s recommendation and have been doing it ever since. Yoga helps me stay attuned to my body and its role in my performances, which has greatly improved my practice stamina and ability to focus. I would recommend yoga for any musician because of its calming and strengthening effects on the body and mind, but there are also other ways to engage in physical conditioning. Tennis is great for increased hand-eye coordination and strength, as are many other sports, so find something that appeals to you and get out there.

Relationships

When I spent the majority of my free time in the practice room, I learned the hard way that friendships need significant time investments. I was unwittingly alienating my friends, erasing myself from their radar screens, and limiting my social interaction. Even outside of the personal value of good relationships, networking is an important dimension of professional success, so being able to relate to others is a necessary skill. While I was studying to earn my piano performance degree, I joined two campus organizations: one professional music fraternity and one service organization. Getting involved in the ongoing professional conversation is important, so try to find a local group that includes other musicians. It’s also socially enriching to volunteer, and there are plenty of opportunities to do that no matter where you live. You can join a service organization with some of your friends or try something completely unfamiliar, but either way, you’ll be contributing to the common good and to your own personal development.

Bio: Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she writes about education, online universities, and what an online degree means in an increasingly technological world. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

But, having decided that I believe this (belief is a choice remember?), I cannot then stray off into beliefs that contradict this.

Therefore I do not believe that all the Christians (or Jews, or Muslims) will get to go to Heaven (if one even exists) at the expense of the other two and also of the Buddhists, Hindus and all the rest. If He is Love, then why would he send perfectly decent humans off to the eternal deep-fryer just because they were born over here instead of over there?

What I do believe is that legitimate spiritual growth and connection to God is available via all the great religions and many of the lesser known and, yes, downright kooky, ideas and practices that exist. Basically, to me, if it’s all about love, compassion, forgiveness, joy, peace and unity then it’s all about God. Different names and practices are just the logical extension of the human race’s former inability to travel with any great efficiency. The race as a whole is still struggling to play catch up with the rapid advance of technology, which has rendered previous limited worldviews obsolete.

So that’s what I mean by Rebel Zen – “Rebel” as in “Choose Your Own Path”, “Zen” as general stand-in for “Spirituality” with a particular emphasis on being chilled – as opposed to being all hung-up about a bunch of labels, rules and arbitrary stuff that God probably doesn’t give two hoots about…

P.S. Love is All You Need.

I don’t think he wants you to wear a particular kind of hat or go to church on a particular day of the week or call him by a certain name or even call Him a He at all – you can call Him a Her and that’s ok too.

I believe He gives us choice and I don’t think he will condemn you for making the “wrong” arbitrary choice. In fact I am unconvinced that there is any condemnation at all; fire and brimstone just reeks too badly of manipulative medieval, fundamentalist clap-trap to me.

Maybe there’s bad Karma – but who’s to say God’s dishing that out? Maybe it’s actually beyond His control?

Certainly misery, pain, fear, hate, despair and terror exist –but I suspect God – who embodies the opposite of these things – has nothing to do with this and perhaps has little or no power to stop it from happening. The Yin Yang model suggests that joy and despair, hate and love, evil and compassion are simply the opposite halves that together form the whole we’ve been lumped with.

These days we can choose. Well, we always could, and everyone has always been called to make a spiritual choice, but these days we are presented with a spiritual supermarket – a pick n’ mix of religions, philosophies and belief options. Traditional religionists probably don’t like this, but I do. I think it’s a very, very good thing.

And I believe God agrees with me.

It’s Always Been A Matter Of Choice

While my Pick n Mix idea might sound like some cutting-edge shit to say, in fact it’s nothing new. People have always been faced with spiritual choices:

• should I go with what my village’s local church says is gospel or shall I run off and join the slightly different Church down the road?
• Should I pay lip service to belief in order to be a functioning member of society while secretly doubting either parts of the deal or indeed, the whole job lot?
• Shall I stand up for change and be called a dangerous heretic and/or become an agent for change?
• Shall I just defy the crowd and state that I think it’s all a load of bollocks?

We were always faced with choices and always will be.

The thing that’s changed is that the range of options we have to pick and choose from is much larger. We can now access as much information as we could possibly ever use on all the big religions, plus all the little ones, plus all manner of non-traditional options like all the varying ideas that get lumped together under the banner of New Age beliefs.

For example I have chosen these days to incorporate the Christian teachings and models that I grew up with and Zen and Taoist flavoured New Age ideas. I did it to resolve internal conflict between my Inner Child, still in the thrall of the Church I grew up with, and my much more liberal adult leanings. I mixed the two, added mental images of Jesus and some old fashioned prayers to my meditation and general open-mindedness towards all things New Age and voila! Inner child is cool with it; inner turmoil resolved.

And yes, I believe that God is ok with that.

Seamus Anthony

My Music Marketing Epiphany

As a writer I am kind of happy with this series, nice combination of can’t-help-myself sales hype-type and genuine reflection.

By Seamus Anthony

It has only been recently, mostly I think, as a result of becoming a father, and realising what a massive responsibility this is, that I have truly come to understand and appreciate the concept of “legacy”. Before that I was so intently pre-occupied with the wonder of my own (or other people’s) navels that I barely gave it a thought.

I would never have admitted it, but, mostly, all I cared about was finding ways to “feel good”, be it through romantic relationships, interesting work, stage performance, alcohol, meditation, adventure, sex or what-have-you. All very well, but somewhat lacking in big picture consciousness: the fact that we are here in this Life to help and look after each other, the Earth and those who will come after us, not just to mindlessly seek pleasure.

Perhaps this is just a more grown-up way of seeking pleasure: discovering a need to feel good through living an upstanding life, but truly, I think it is deep need that must be met. I cannot be happy unless I am living as the best person I can be (and always improving what that means) and I cannot succeed as a father, partner, friend, relative and member of society unless I am happy. The Dalia Lama says (I think it was him) the purpose of Life is to be happy. And he’s right – imagine if we were all happy!

A happy person does not become a despot, an abuser, a war-monger or a thief. On a smaller but more common scale, a truly happy person does not have dominant habits of criticizing others or indulging in behaviours that cause harm.

A happy person is not afraid of death, but looks it square in the eyes and says “Come what may; I am at peace with the Universe and myself, and I know I am walking a righteous path”.

Personal evolution seems to move slowly sometimes and even as my daughter came into this world, it still took time to come to this more conscious point. It’s not like your child just pops out and suddenly you go “Whoa – that’s it: I have completely changed as a person as of this moment”.

Well, maybe that happens for others, but it wasn’t that way with me. It really took one and a half years (of generally pretty loving and responsible parenting, I would like to give myself) to really start to ‘get’ the nature of the beast; to start to even get an inkling of why so many other dads seem so serious. Why they wouldn’t come out to party with me. Why they put up with their mundane-but-respectable jobs that they were obviously bored with.

I still don’t 100% agree that it’s the best thing for our children to be so damn serious and caged-in all the time (too fear-based), but I do now understand why they choose to be this way: legacy. They are extremely serious about leaving a legacy of having done the right thing by their children, and this is their way of doing so, and kudos to them.

Like A Dad in the Headlights

Once I came to appreciate the concept of legacy, I was instantly smitten with the darkest self-loathing and anxiety I have ever experienced. After years of pretty much embodying the first card in the Tarot deck – the light-hearted fool – suddenly, I discovered that (gasp!) I cared.

Suddenly everything mattered a lot more than it ever used to – especially everything I personally did and said.

A good thing right?

Well, yes…

But nevertheless, this scared the crap out of me and I promptly shut down.

Not that most people could tell from the outside. After all, I had too much to do: a toddler to rear, bacon to bring home and passions still demanding to be expressed – but inside – I was a deer in the headlights.

Habits Are Hard To Break – Until You Break ‘Em (then they’re easier)

So my first reaction: I decided to change some of my self-indulgent habits – and then promptly re-discovered that habits are, in fact, extremely hard to break – until you break them, that is. Then they’re pretty much broken.

You can break your bad habits. I’ve done it (smoking). People do it all the time. But that doesn’t make it easy.

Here’s a trick that worked for me with smoking  – you have to associate more pain with the bad habit than pleasure. If you can genuinely do that, then it “just” takes applied strength and patience with yourself. Easier said than done, I admit, and yet to be proven in other areas of my life.

Many times I have woken up with a hangover or otherwise fallen short of my own new-found high-standards and proceeded to beat myself up mercilessly about it for days (and maybe that helped) but now I am kinder on myself. I guess I can afford to be as I look back over the past year or two and see a real positive progression. I’m no angel, but I am a hell of lot happier with myself than I used to be and getting better all the time.

Yep, I am coming out the other side. And in contrast to my initial catatonic state, I often feel positively loose and limber with the belief that whoever we have been in the past, we can choose who we are going to be today and in the future.

I used to be a fun, but self-centred kid; now I am a fun, but family-centred man, corny as that may sound.

Anyway, all of the above is pretty much a spontaneous ramble. I didn’t sit down to write an article but rather to write a list of what I would like my legacy to be, so here goes:

I would like people to remember me – actually no – stop. Let’s rephrase that.

I would like people to know me now and remember me after I am gone as:

A man who puts others and his responsibilities first.

A man who is always looking for ways to help others and to make powerful contributions to the positive evolution of Life on Earth.

A man who forgives others.

A man who tries to be the best man he can be, and who tries to better what this means every day, but who can forgive himself, ask for and accept forgiveness when he lets others down.

A man who refrains from unhelpful criticism and instead uses his words to encourage and build others up.

A man who believes that anything is possible – and who actively goes and proves it.

A man who is in awe of the Great Mystery of Life and who does not take life for granted.

A man who has found God and, in doing so, inner peace.

A man who chooses to be happy and feels free to do what makes him happy so long as it does not cause him to harm others or neglect his responsibilities.

A man who believes that there are two paths to choose from, the Path of Love or the Path of Despair, and who chooses the Path of Love. A man who may sometimes lose his way or stumble, but who always gets up, returns to and continues down this path, towards the Light.

A man who knows that whoever we have been in the past, we can choose who are today and who we will be tomorrow.

A man who laughs every day.

A man who is truly grateful and gives thanks everyday for his abundant blessings – whatever guise they come in.

A man who has conquered fear and left it powerless to hold him down.

Pretty epic huh? And in truth, if I dropped dead tomorrow, I wouldn’t expect anybody to be spouting this stuff at my funeral, I’d rather they just said I was a good bloke and got on with the party. Regardless, when I stop to really think about it, that’s where my values lie.

I can’t claim to be the walking embodiment of everything in that list from moment to moment, but I give it a go, and every day I get better and better.

The last one about conquering fear really is the clincher – many of us are so in the grip of the negative, fear-based spin pummelled at us every day by the media (who have a lot to answer for) that truly, the best thing you can do for the world is to skip the infernal, incessant news updates and go create something beautiful, something that helps people feel better.

Screw the Path of Despair – choose the Path of Love and enjoy this wonderful life.

Recently an “Internet Acquaintance” of mine, Shann Vander Leek sent me her book, Life On Your Terms, and as I knew very little about her or her book, it was a pleasant surprise to discover that I really enjoyed it.

Actually, I didn’t just “really enjoy it” …

I flippin’ loved it!

Here’s the email I sent to Shann before I had even finished reading it:

Hi Shann,

I am dipping in and out of your book and each time it’s like an inspiration espresso!

Accordingly, the following is pretty turbo-charged but I assure you, written by one stone-cold sober musician.

Reading this book, both your words and your interviewees, I have made quantum leaps – especially in the areas of legacy, clarity and courage – and (very rare) was on the verge of tears just a moment ago due to several impactful moments in a short space of time as I flipped randomly through knockout chapter after knockout chapter, too buzzed to read for long without acting on my passion – right now.

Suffice to say I’ll be publishing a glowing review, but more importantly: thank you for showing me that I am not alone in my idiosyncratic outlook on life, and in doing so, multiplying my power to rock by about one million megahurtz.

The book is a collection of interviews with some very inspirational and inspired people. Some of the quotes are awesome. The following quote in particular, by Canadian businessman Perry Niehaus, shattered some block in my mind with a powerful intensity that had me spinning in my chair and wondering what just hit me:

When you come to understand that there is nothing to fear, life will progress. Everything that happens in our lives that hurts us or holds us back is based on fear. When we can completely give up our fear, we can do anything.

As well as conquering fear, there is a running theme in the book about legacy. I have been guilty of never really giving much thought to the concept, until recently, as the reality that my little girl is one day going to grow into a young adult who will no doubt read and listen to my writing and music and otherwise look to my (increasingly huge) public record of thoughts, opinions and actions for guidance.

Thankfully, having just conquered fear, I did not go into a panic at the thought!!!

Instead I made a commitment in writing to what I want my legacy to be. I might even publish that process here soon, but the point is, it was this fantastic book that helped me to look myself square in the face and really have a good think about what it is I represent, what I stand for, what I contribute to the greater good.

So in closing, if you harbour a desire to break free from the shackles of drudgery, discover and/or start living your passion and could use a little push – well this ain’t the book for you – because it will give you a BIG push. Seriously, I developed such an action-bias while reading this it was like I had ADHD; I just kept getting so inspired to go for it I had to get up every few minutes and take descisive action towards the fulfillment of my truest desires.

Do yourself a big favour – go buy Life On Your Terms – it will be an investment that pays off handsomely, no doubt about it.

Hey there – just a quick post to let you know that you can go and download my latest 4 song ep “Blood and Glass and Leaves” for free by clicking the big blue button down yonder!

Free music, no strings attached, all good

P.S. You can try before you download free by visiting
http://SeamusMusic.com and playing the youtube video there which
features one of the songs from the ep.

P.P.S. Warning: My music is probably not for lovers of shallow, top-40
crap, but it’s definitely for people who enjoy Nick Cave, Bob Dylan,
Leonard Cohen or Johnny Cash. Sound like you? Click the big blue button above…