What it means to be influenced
The gift of being yourself
In my post on The Listening Journal and Bjork, I wrote about containers and why we like them.
“When the subject is too broad…containers give us a sense of orientation and direction, completion and accomplishment. It helps us feel more focused and comfortable exploring something so vast.”
It occurred to me shortly after that humans like containers because we are containers.
We too have a beginning and an end date, and we are born with a set of unique specifications: we are given this fleshy body, a location, family and ancestors, a personality, natural talents, passion, ego, neighbors and community, and a finite time on the planet to make free will choices.
What is so vast that we would incarnate into separate containers to explore it? Did the stars and galaxies pour themselves into each of us? I believe it was Sufi mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan who said, and I’m paraphrasing, every single one of us is a necessary note in the song of life. There is an analogy that God is the hand and we are the fingers, not realizing we are the same hand. Perhaps we are God looking at God.
I realize not everyone may see it like this, but I deeply believe that we are born to express our unique voices fearlessly. I have sat beside so many children while teaching music lessons, and every single child floors me with the magnificence of their soul.
Which brings me back to the idea of containers.
In your finite time on earth, who did you decide to be?
Somebody else?
Or the greatest privilege of being yourself?
How does this play into influence? And how do we allow ourselves to be influenced with agility? What does it mean to be influenced well?
We do not become who we are in a silo, nor do we learn who we are in a silo; we learn about ourselves in relation to the other. I am this, not that, and yet— I am everyone and everything.
Musicians are endeared to influence. Musical craft is passed down in lineages of study and influence. Imitation is the first step in learning.
What I like about The Listening Journal is that it allows influence to happen organically by osmosis. It is thoughtful to give an artist’s work your attention, learn their music and journal about how it affects you. You are honoring the work, getting to know the soul who created it, and giving the highest gift of witnessing. Personal style is lived experience. It is the time we invest and who we spend it with.
There are learning seasons when we intentionally want to be changed. Activate me, impact me, make me see it differently. And there are seasons when we truly need to hear our own voice, free from influence. Time in silence, time alone, time with just ourselves. It’s why I like journaling. Something happens when you begin writing through the superfluous: a strong currency of the soul makes way through, and it is your voice and only your voice.
Turn off the noise. Unplug from social media. Stop watching other people’s lives and call your energy and attention back to you. When you are being yourself, it is a powerful vortex. It is a strong magnet because you are projecting the strongest frequency: your frequency. Your note in the song of life. YOU are the only person who can be you.