The Bright Way. Diana Rowan

is that you already relate to much of what I’ve shared. Allow me to continue weaving our stories together so that you can walk this path of transformation with me.

      How did I find myself in such a predicament in the first place? My creative journey started optimistically, as many journeys do. I took up piano at age eight. My delight in playing, practicing, and generally being around the piano as much as possible made it clear right away that I would become a professional musician. Perhaps you have joyful early memories of creative encounters, too? As I entered the magical world of music, everything became hyper-real for me. Regular life seemed less vivid, less true, while the musical world bathed me in something golden, bright, eternal. I was home.

      It didn’t take long for this reverie to fade. Yes, I was following my bliss, but the ride got rough, and fast. The pressure of exams, recitals, and competitions crushed the joy out of everything. I started avoiding practice, fearing lessons, agonizing over whether I had the exceptional talent to be a professional musician. Maybe you recognize some of these feelings?

      Nonetheless, I persevered. I loved music; surely that was a sign that I’d been chosen as gifted? How impossibly cruel life would be if that were not so! But the fears made me doubt my abilities. Were my fears warning me that I didn’t “have it”?

      I hoped the fears would fade with time, but they grew worse. The more I accomplished, the higher the stakes became. The battle was relentless. My performance anxiety infected all areas of my life. My short fuse blew small disagreements into major showdowns. I took offense at even the most innocent comments and interactions. I lost trust in my body’s ability to heal itself, became deaf to its signals, and even began to see it as my enemy. In all areas I tortured myself about the ever-present prospect of making public and private mistakes. If any of this sounds familiar to you, I send you a beam of love to fuel your courage going forward.

      Casting about for a lifeline, I grappled for that treasure trove of knowledge others seemed to possess. Those in-crowd people who create and perform with joy — why was I so different from them? I needed to exit this vortex, and fast. Performances cropped up regularly. The next exam was always around the corner. And, ironically, the intensity was only going to increase as I got more accomplished. I needed to show up with confidence and inspiration, not as the pathetic figure of weakness I embodied. My ears rang and my eyes watered. I went from vortex to black hole, endlessly craving and swallowing positive feedback, which vaporized instantly. There was no relief. The pressure kept mounting. Nothing made sense. I felt the greatest of fears: that I was alone.

      Finally, during my second semester as a music major at the university, I couldn’t bear it any longer. I quit music cold. I was only eighteen years old and believed the life I had hoped for was already over.

       Retreat

      My self-imposed exile from music lasted four long years. I worked in the health field, mostly in social welfare and psychology settings, and studied classics, a favorite subject for me in high school. Among the places I worked was a battered women’s shelter and hotline; the front desk of the Berkeley Free Clinic, which provides healthcare to the homeless; and a halfway house. As I witnessed people suffering the extremes of domestic violence, poverty, addiction, and ill health, I noticed a common thread connecting them all.

      They all wanted to experience joy and belonging, just like everyone else. Whatever their particular circumstances, in all cases their personal power had been obliterated. How could they reclaim that power? I didn’t have an answer then. But these fellow travelers in life told me that finding at least one answer was a quest I couldn’t refuse. They directed me to my starting point: the knowledge that reclaiming your power is essential to human fulfillment. Yet I remained mystified about how to take on what seemed an outlandishly large mission.

      Still separated from my music making, whenever I’d hear even so much as piano Muzak in the elevator, I’d burst into tears, stabbed by the pain of loss. If you are living with this kind of pain right now, I hold you in my heart. Your pain is real, and you need to listen to it. Your pain is not your enemy; it is pointing you toward a better way, a better life.

      Looking back, I see as clear as day that I was disconnected from my true self and, as an inevitable consequence, disconnected from my power and creativity. How did I discover all this on my own? I didn’t! Despite having believed I was alone in my struggle, it turns out that clues and quiet assistance had been present all along.

       Your pain is not your enemy; it is pointing you toward a better way, a better life.

       Enter the Allies

      Take heart. I discovered that my allies had been gathering around me my entire life, and I’ve found this to be true for almost everyone. You have far more support eagerly waiting in the wings than you know. We’ll be finding out who and what your supports are soon. Who and what were my allies?

      My parents were still college students when I was born. I enjoyed being the novelty only child among the young, wild Dublin intellectuals of the ’70s. My father became a diplomat for the Irish government when I was three, giving me the opportunity to grow up all over the world, moving countries every four years or so. I got firsthand experience of the wondrous variety of ways that cultures encourage and interpret human creativity.

       You have far more support eagerly waiting in the wings than you know.

      This alliance of cultures illuminated new possibilities for me, which I will share with you throughout our journey together. As my creative journey matured, I learned how to incorporate these new perspectives. For example, by moving to California I encountered African music masters who introduced me to a playful freedom where “wrong” notes are understood simply as what chose to show up at that moment. Touring with bansuri maestro Deepak Ram, I witnessed the unabashedly spiritual foundation of Indian music, where surrender to the divine is second nature. Living in Cyprus and Iraq and traveling all over the Middle East, I participated in the ecstatic communing of that region’s music, where the self, the ego, is not the focus. These were the oases I strung together to form a new continent of creativity. Eventually these diverse influences coalesced into an ethos I could live by. Each of these influences is mighty in its own right; together, they form a lifeline guiding me through today’s labyrinthine world.

      My most pointed ally intervention came from my mother. At twenty-one, I was three years into my music-abandonment period. I met Phyllis — I’ve always called my mum by her first name; my parents’ college friends addressed her that way, which I copied before she realized what was happening — for an afternoon drink. We convened at the prophetically named Orbit Room in San Francisco. At the crossroads of five busy streets and encased in massive glass windows, the place feels like you’re floating in space and time. And that’s where I was, lost in space, tethered to the world only by an as-yet-unseen star.

      Phyllis got to the point: “What happened to you and music? It used to be everything to you.”

      A couple of glasses of wine in, I began to weep. Lost years weighed on me, failure leered, desire rose in me, only to be dashed: “I’m too old to go back.” Phyllis looked at me incredulously. In my mind, you needed to have won a piano competition by my age to even imagine having a professional career. That was out of the question, with my shattered nerves. Case closed.

      Quietly, Phyllis said, “You’re only too old if you think you’re too old.”

       You’re only too old if you think you’re too old.

      I don’t know why this got through to me, but something clicked right there and then. My limited thinking suddenly felt like chains I had locked on myself. The contradiction was untenable: here I was trying to help other people — some of them old enough to be my grandparents — to reclaim their power while privately destroying my own. I surrendered. The fact was, as crazy as it sounded, I was choosing this path of misery. I confessed to myself that my perception was out of whack more than any degree of accomplishment or “talent.” If I changed my mindset, which thankfully I had seen other brave souls do, it could change my experience. . .and changing my experience would change everything!