and my studio grew.
BRIGHT WAY ACTIVITY
One Tiny Action
One small action can change your life. When my roommates asked me to play them one of the songs from the movie The Piano, unbeknownst to any of us at the time, they were pointing me toward a new way of life. By taking a few minutes and playing them a few things, I set wheels in motion that ultimately led to the writing of this book.
Take one tiny action step today in service of your creativity. Call that teacher you’ve been considering for a preliminary hello, attend an open mic, go to an art opening, agree to share a little part of your wisdom with someone. Pay attention to small signs and openings. Today something magical will happen if you open your heart to it.
While I delighted in witnessing my students’ pleasure in playing, I was shocked to discover how common performance anxiety and general self-doubt were. I thought I’d been suffering alone, but my students showed me that I was in good company. Looking at them from the outside, I could see their potential straining to burst out. Yet I also felt the barrier of fear holding them back. They were mirrors to me, reflecting that fear is the most formidable opponent to our creativity.
Fear is the most formidable opponent to our creativity.
Fear takes many forms: as anxiety, shame, guilt, regret, self-doubt, and overwhelm, and many targets: as criticism, loss, and lack, to name a few. A funny thing about fear, though, is that although it seems strong, it actually has very little power unless we fuel it. I understand how hard it can be to step aside from fear. But as in many epic tales, creative victory is yours when you recognize your true power. Everything you need is already inside you and within reach.
BRIGHT WAY ACTIVITY
Reflect on Your Strengths
Tapping into the idea that what you need is already inside you and within reach, take a moment to reflect on your strengths. This might feel awkward at first; we’re often much more comfortable detailing our perceived weaknesses. Start building up your inventory of positive personal qualities. Are you kind? Enthusiastic? A keen focuser? Write down your findings, for your eyes only.
Spurred on by allies near and far, present and past, I took up piano lessons again shortly after graduating from the university. I struck gold with my first phone call, to Amelie. To cut a very long story short, by focusing on the joy-centered Suzuki Method — which I’ll describe later — Amelie helped me take my first baby steps toward dissolving my fear of performing. Finding this footing gradually led to the jump of pursuing a master’s degree in classical piano performance. A bold move, this leap involved bypassing the entire bachelor’s degree program.
Everything you need is already inside you and within reach.
Immediately after the audition for the master’s program, a formidable concert pianist named Roy Bogas stepped away from the jury and approached me directly. I braced myself to hear, “You know, this might be a bit too much for you.” Instead, I stood agape as Roy smiled and took my hand: “I can see what you’re trying to do, and I like it. I want to be your teacher.” After recovering from this head-spinning turn of events, I couldn’t blurt out yes! fast enough. I count this among my most blessed moments in life so far, and I’m honored to bring Roy into your life as a Bright Way ally. Roy’s philosopher-king approach to music study is full engagement: to him, music is about connecting to human experience and giving it full vent. His skill level is just as impressive as his artistry. Among the many lessons I learned from Roy is that skill and magic must come together in order to create meaningfully.
Honoring only skill or magic — being concerned only with technique or, conversely, focusing solely on expression — leads to incomplete creation. If you’ve been wondering why your creative work doesn’t satisfy you, marrying your skill and your magic is a major piece of your puzzle. While skill is self-explanatory, magic by its nature is more mysterious. Yet you can discover and cultivate your magic deliberately. Our journey will show you the way, along with helping you elevate your skill.
Skill and magic must come together in order to create meaningfully.
As I got a firmer hold on how to create in the real world rather than just in my hopes and dreams, disasters stopped happening. I could handle low-key performances such as providing background music for cocktail hours. But what about the higher-pressure stuff, such as the master’s program recitals that I couldn’t avoid? Those still felt terrifying. Slogging along, I experimented with every solution that crossed my path.
You name it, I tried it: therapy, off-label beta-blockers, yoga, Alexander Technique, the Feldenkrais Method, exposure therapy, meditation, research into the history of performance practice worldwide, sports psychology, commiserating with others in the same predicament, tricks such as picturing the audience naked, and spiritual practices of many paths and eras. Staring at the Berkeley Zen Center’s blank wall, legs numbing under my hard little cushion, I questioned if all this was actually working, meanwhile trying not to picture anything funny in that roaring silence. And over time, I found that my experiments were paying off, albeit in a two-steps-forward-one-back fashion.
The Bright Pattern
In my early thirties at this point, I noticed a pattern emerging from these experiments. This pattern turned out to be stunningly simple. I shouldn’t have been surprised, given that I was drawing from so many wells of wisdom across cultures and throughout time. When I was a child, my parents got rid of the television as soon as they realized we kids were becoming addicted to it. So my siblings and I took charge of our entertainment, and my parents’ wondrous library of art and history books and records was a regular port of call. In those stacks (which are still growing!), we were privy to the confluence of art and history: looking at ancient Egyptian art automatically meant learning about that culture’s philosophical practices. We learned how Ireland kept the flame alive during the Dark Ages via illuminated manuscripts. We heard Enlightenment attitudes crystallized in Mozart’s music. The Great Truths are universal, and the primacy of the creative urge is right up near the top of our human truths, as the outpouring of creativity past and present attests to. It makes complete sense that there would be a known pattern for manifesting human creativity, albeit not always widely known.
The pattern revealed to me was this: there are simple ways to access and follow through on creativity. These simple ways are ready to break their hermetic seal so all can know them and live joyously by their truths. These truths are embedded in the Five Bright Way Steps you’ll be taking soon. While it may seem startling that reigniting your creativity and following through on it can be boiled down to a mere five steps, I’m here to assure you that many others have achieved this, and you can, too. Let me share a little more about how I came to distill down to this level of simplicity.
Sharing the Bright Way
Tentatively, I started to share my findings with my students. One by one, using these discoveries, they achieved performance breakthroughs to such a degree that I had to discard any belief in innate talent. I’ve witnessed too many seemingly miraculous revelations of artistry, expression, and inspiration coming out of the blue, even from supposedly hopeless cases. I’m utterly convinced that all people are creative and, further, that we must express this creativity in order to be fulfilled as human beings.
