This particular episode was a milestone for me as I really came from a place of resistance about doing it. Yet I was transparent with that and moved forward anyway.
My plans for the day didn’t work out as I had figured and when I came out to the studio to do this episode I had very little time compared to the 3 hours I had set aside for work (which is actually more like play).
As I walked in the door my inner voice was saying things like, “don’t bother, there’s not enough time now”, “this didn’t work out so you should just go exersice or do something else”,…
Actually, it was a bit more dramatic about it than that but I’ll spare you. (-:
Anyway, it got done and what came through was really cool and helped me a lot as I was doing it.
This is worth a listen or 2 as I could not have planned this as well if I hadn’t actually been feeling the resistance.
Enjoy!
The Inner Singer Podcast
Episode 6 – Transcripts
Being in Resistance or Being Present with Resistance
You’re listening to episode number six.
Welcome to the Inner Singer Podcast, providing tools and techniques to strengthen your inner singer, your beliefs, your confidence, your mindset. And now, your host for the Inner Singer Podcast, Mike Goodrich.
Hey there. This is Mike Goodrich and thanks for joining in today, Inner Singer Podcast. Today is going to be an interesting little thing. If you’re hearing this now, this actually worked.
I am just going to be completely transparent and share some things with you that you actually might be able to identify and might help you in your singing process by just going on this little – it’s not really a rant, but I am just going to explain where my mood is today. Maybe you can see some of yourself in this.
I’ve been wanting to get out to my studio out here and do this podcast all day long. As a matter of fact, I wanted to do three or four and get back log of them going.
Everything in the world has been coming up. I won’t go into detail, but everything has been keeping me from getting out of here. All the way down to the garden, I was coming in, they’re making a bunch of noise. Actually they came early in today, which really helps. But I really, really wanted to get out here.
And by the time I finally got out here, I feel like I don’t have enough time to do what I wanted to do and all these negative thoughts are coming to me. Even though I love doing this, it’s like I don’t feel like doing this right now. I got to go out. I got to teach in about an hour. I wanted to have three hours to do this, everything in the world.
I’m just sharing this with you. Like I said, if you’re hearing this, then this actually transpired and transformed. If you’re not hearing this, you’ll never know.
But anyway, that’s my mood. That’s what’s going on. I felt, “What in the world am I going to talk about?” because I have all these ideas. But today, my self-talk is like, “Who wants to hear this?” People just want better high notes and blah, blah, blah and nobody wants to hear this inner singer stuff.”
And my inner singer or inner critic (or whatever we want to call it), today, it is just going on a tirade. It’s just going crazy. “Oh, just go ride your bike and go do this or go do that or whatever.”
So, I took a couple of deep breaths. I came out to the studio. I hooked up the microphone and really I was just not in a good mood. I don’t feel that great. I’m not in a good mood. And I thought, “Okay. Wouldn’t it be interesting if I started the podcast like that and see what happens?”
Just plug in the microphone, get studio ready, start going, start talking. Just start talking. I got no specific topic right now to talk about, but what occurred to me as I was coming out here and I opened the door to the studio to walk in, it was like, “How many times did I feel like this as a performer and how many times do singers feel like this when they plan time to practice or they plan time to write their song or they plan time to record their song?”
Everything in their life seems to come up to get in the way and we’ve got a couple of choices at that time. We can buy into it. We can allow ourselves to be in a lousy mood. We can grab a bag of Doritos and sit on the couch and turn on whatever TV show we want. In my case, it used to be Seinfeld, but I never really ate Doritos. But now that Seinfeld is off, I’ve got a new guilty pleasure. Maybe Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee might be it once in a while.
So we can either do that or we can get over ourselves and say, “You know what? No, this isn’t perfect today. I wanted three hours and I was going to record three or four podcasts and get them all edited and uploaded and ready to go. And then I was going to really be on it and transcribe and the whole ball of wax.” Now I’ve got time to maybe do one. You know what? Whatever! Stuff happens. It’s not a big deal.”
So what if today’s podcast is actually about addressing all the stuff that comes up in our life that we’re creating on some level. On some level, I created all that was going on this morning. And none of them was bad. They’ve just gotten in my way or I perceived them to be getting in my way or I allowed them to get in my way and affect my mood.
What happened to me this morning as I recall – one of the things that I think was the main source of irritation today was my resistance to what was going on. It was just life happening. None of it was bad. I got some things that I needed to get done. My little boy has a passion project for school. And so I was helping him with that. My wife really wanted to do that because she had time to do that today. So we worked on that.
Like I said, everything in the world that happens, a bunch of stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff and I look up and all of a sudden, “Oh, my goodness. It’s 2:00. I teach at 3:30 and I planned on doing this morning at about 11:00.” So between e-mails and everything – Tuesday is the day that I take for this.
Anyway, as I’m reflecting back, my irritation, my source of irritation was really strictly my resistance to what was going on. If I had just embraced the now moment, embraced the present moment with what was going on, accepted it and said, “Okay…” and thrown myself into it and say, “You know what? Let’s really go in to this passion project with Theon.” I mean I did do it, but mentally, I was resisting it because mentally I was like, “I got to get out there. I got to get out there and do this podcast. I got to get out there. I want to get out there.”
So I probably wasn’t that much fun to be around. I mean, I know I wasn’t that much fun to be around because I was in a state of resistance.
So it could have all been avoided because I’m out here now. Really, seriously, I’m out here now. I could have easily just been present for the last couple of hours and enjoyed the last couple of hours more with my wife and my little boy instead of being in resistance to wanting to get out and be doing something else. When I think back, I was like, “Whoa! That’s really ridiculous.”
I wonder if any of you can identify with the fact that maybe you really wanted to get to practice your voice. You really wanted to get to singing that song. You really wanted to get to the writing session. You really wanted to do something. But life was getting in the way and people are getting you for your time or you had to work late and all these kinds of stuff or the traffic was bad. So you’re in resistance, resistance, resistance. And you finally got there and was like, “I don’t feel like doing this anymore. I felt like doing it. Now, I really don’t feel like it.”
Have you ever felt like that? I see students like that all the time unfortunately. They come and they pay me all kinds of money for their lessons and there’s a little bit of traffic on the way (or sometimes a lot of traffic. It’s LA, there’s never no traffic), they come in and you can just see it. Oh, my gosh! I can tell for this first person. If they don’t shift their energy, they’re not going to have any fun in this lesson because they are still back in the car in traffic. “Oh, I can’t believe how bad the traffic is. I can’t ever come here at this time again. This is just awful. Can we do it later or can we do it earlier? Oh, my gosh!”
You’ll just watch this and it affects them sometimes the entire half hour or hour. I just watch this in their singing and I can tell they’re not present. They’re not in the moment. They’re not present.
And believe me, as I’ve just been completely transparent and said to you how my morning went, neither was I.
The point of the story is I’m out here now with whatever time I happen to have. So I could just as easily have made the choice this morning if I had followed my own advice and been mindful of what was going on and seeing my behavior and pulled back and said, “I’m just really reacting to a bunch of stuff that just doesn’t matter at all. I’m going to be in the present moment with my wife and my little boy even though my tendency is that I want to blame somebody for this is happening. Otherwise, I would be out doing what I want to do, but now I’m on somebody else’s agenda, blah, blah, blah.” You probably have that in traffic or with your boss at work or wherever.
So then I take a breath and breathe into all this. It’s nice to be out here. I have the same amount of time that I would have had had I not been in resistance. And now I can do what I felt like doing all day, which is coming out and talking to you and doing this podcast.
Now, this is not necessarily what I was going to talk about, but what I’m doing right now is what you tell actors. I teach performance class as well. If somebody’s not where they think they need to be for a particular song, you’ve got to start where you are.
I had a teacher one time that said, “To go forward. Start where you are.” They’ll say, “This is a happy song and I’m frustrated. I really don’t feel like doing a happy song.” He’s like, “Well, use it. Use the frustration. Channel that frustration through the song and see what happens.” It’s not a performance right now. I tell people, “Anyway, it’s not a performance. It’s an experience. Use it.” I always advice people to replace the word performance with experience. So use it.
So that’s what I’m choosing to do right now, all this energy that I have, all this pent-up energy and this feeling that I have of reflecting back and saying, “Wow! I see what was going on. I just wasn’t present with life. I wasn’t in the present moment. I was in total resistance.”
So I can either continue that pattern that I wasn’t aware of because I didn’t see it this morning. I was just tunnel vision, “I want to get out there. This is what I want to do.” So honestly, I didn’t see it. And if I did see it, I just ignored it. Just because I do this podcast on the Inner Singer does not mean by any means that I’ve got all this stuff down. We teach what we need to know. So I’m right there with you, doing these things all the time.
The important thing is I can step off the train right now or step off the bus or whatever you want to call it and say, “Whoa! Okay, I was in resistance today earlier and I see that. I’m really grateful that I can see that now. I couldn’t see it then, but I can see it now. I can either step off the train and get in the present moment and say, ‘Wow, I have this amount of time now and I have these wonderful people I get to talk to and I can do my podcast, which is what I’ve wanted to do all day’” or I can stay on the train, stay on the habit trail, stay in the pattern and begin to beat myself up for “I can’t believe I got tripped like that. How stupid I must be? My gosh, I teach these stuff and here I gave myself over, I wasn’t in the present moment. I was totally resistant and blah, blah, blah.” I could carry that on for the next half hour or hour and miss all the time that I have to create a podcast and do what I want to do.
My choice though in this moment is to step off the train and say, “Okay, I’m grateful I saw. I see what has happened and I am now just going to be present with the moment and the energy and see what comes.” And what’s coming through right now is just to talk about that resistance when we’re in resistance to something, how that keeps us out of the present moment.
Even though we are present with the resistance – we can be present with the resistance. That’s a different thing. Let’s take a step further. Let’s say this morning, I was in resistance. I was in it. I was not present with resistance. I was in resistance, which means I didn’t really see the resistance. So I was fighting the moment. I was fighting what was going on. I was fighting what was going on in life. I was fighting life basically.
Now, I can reflect back and feel the resistance that I had when I came out here to start the podcast. But I could feel the resistance and be in the resistance, be with the resistance, be present with the resistance. That’s different than being in the resistance.
Being in the resistance is being consumed by the resistance and there’s no mindfulness, there’s no awareness of the resistance. Being present with the resistance is being aware. “I’m in resistance right now. Okay, that’s what’s going on.”
And the minute we’re present with the resistance, there’s a little bit of space. In that space, we can make another choice and my choice was to plug the microphone in and start talking. And now I’m really glad I did because all of the stuff at the beginning if you managed to get through it and listened this far set us up for what just came through and that is being in resistance is different than being present with resistance.
See if you can use that next time when you’re on your way to a lesson or on your way to a gig and there was a lot of traffic or you wanted to get off early to work on your voice and you had to work late or your garbage disposal got clogged up and that was your time to sing, but now you’ve got to call the plumber or whatever.
Nobody’s going to be perfect. Certainly, none of us are looking for perfection here. That’s probably a lie. We probably are all looking for perfection. Let’s just say that let’s just be present with the part of us that wants perfection and realize, “Okay, that’s just a part of us that wants perfection. That’s not going to happen.”
But if we can then notice the resistance and be present with the resistance, you will feel a space between you and the resistance. And within that space is the power to choose whether or not to stay on the train of resistance or step off and be present with the resistance and say, “Okay, I feel resistance. But you know what? I’m going to move forward anyway.”
I feel the resistance. I feel the resistance to the traffic that made me late. But you know what? I’m going to take a few deep breaths. I’ll allow that resistance to be here. I’m not going to try and push it away. I’m not going to make myself wrong for feeling it. It’s here, I accept that. I’m present with it, but I’m going to open to something bigger than that and begin to sing or begin to write my song or whatever it has to do with. Since we’re talking about singing, I will use singing.
So I hope that that makes some sense to you. I hope that you can feel the difference between being in resistance and being present with resistance. In resistance, there’s no choice. It’s just in it. It’s on the habit trail. You cannot tell that you’re in resistance, it just feels icky. Being present with resistance is the realization, the sense and the feeling that “I’m in resistance right now.” That creates some space and within that space, there is choice.
I’ve said that a few times, but I know that this might sound new to some people and rather odd because you might say, “Oh, that’s just semantics. ‘In resistance, with resistance,’ what does that mean?” So just in case, I wanted to clarify it and say it a few times because there really is a tremendous difference, huge, huge, huge difference.
So be with the resistance and then go with what you’re going to do anyway and step off the train of being in resistance. Does that make sense?
This feels for this podcast like completion. I think I’m going to leave you with that. And the exercise is just to see when you’re in resistance. Probably, if you’re anything like me, it shouldn’t take that long because we’re all in resistance I live in Los Angeles. There’s going to be traffic shortly or I have a lot of responsibilities like you guys are. We’ll have a lot of responsibilities.
There’s going to be resistance. There’s going to be something like, “I really want to get to this, but I got to do this. I really want to get to this, but I got to do this” or, “I don’t feel like doing this right now. I don’t want to go to the store, but I’m out of food” or, “I don’t want to answer this e-mail, but it’s been three days and I got to get back to this person.”
If you’ve heard this podcast, hopefully I’ve drilled this in enough that the next time you feel resistance, this is going to be like, “Don’t think of a purple elephant.” Bang, this podcast is going to pop into your mind and you’re going to think, “Oh, resistance. What do you say?” He said, “Notice the next time I’m in resistance. Okay, I’m totally in resistance. I do not feel like going to the store right now or I don’t want to be in this traffic. And what’s my plan B? Okay, I’m in resistance right now. What’s the other thing?”
Be with the resistance. Accept yourself, accept the moment. Be loving and compassionate with yourself and, “I’m in resistance right now. Can I be with myself being in resistance? Okay, now I’m being with the resistance. I’m being with that part of myself that’s resistant.”
Can you feel a space now? Can you feel a little bit of space? Within that space is, “Do I want to continue being in resistance? Or can I stay with myself with that part of me that is resistant and bring some love and compassion and acceptance to that and understanding that this part of me is really resistant right now?”
Just sit with that. Just see that, just notice that. Just be with it and there will be a place where you feel like, “Wow! I can make a choice as to whether or not I would stay in resistance or continue to be with resistance and let this die off, fall away, subside enough for me to do what I was wanting to do because now I have some time.”
Anyway, let’s call it a day. So that’s the exercise. I’m going to practice it myself. Thanks for listening. I have no idea what the beginning of this podcast sounded like, but I just felt like it was a good time to get into this. Nice and transparent, no hiding here.
So I’m in this with you and I will look forward to talking to you the next podcast. You guys have a great day and I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
Thank you for listening to the Inner Singer Podcast. And please share this with all of your singing friends. Head on over to iTunes and subscribe and if you found it of value, give us a nice rating. Thank you so much.