The Many Expressions of the Heart

In 1983, I founded a group called the Boston Arts Roundtable. I was a singer/songwriter seeking community. And I realized that to have an artist's soul, meant that there was a core sensibility that was deeper than any one genre of expression. While people can get pigeon-holed as singers or pianists or watercolor artists or photographers or writers, I found that many artists were actually multi-genred. And that expressive arts and the healing arts are interconnected as well.

I am very much a multi-genred artist. When I was in my 20's, I participated in a right brain/left brain workshop led by Ned Hermann. About 100 of us were in the training. And at the end of the training, all 100 people were lined up across a very large room, with the most left brained people to the left, and the most right brained people to the right. A visual artist and I were the top 2, most right brained people. That was an eye opener.

When I left my job as an organizational consultant at Digital Equipment Corporation in 1985, I had a business card made up that said, "artist of life: all forms, all media." And, in many ways, that was my most authentic label. Yes, I was a singer/songwriter. Yes, I played the piano and guitar. Yes, I could arrange other people's songs, and write harmonies on the spot. But I also was a photographer, a poet, a book writer, a gourmet culinary artist of healthy foods, an occasional painter or drawer, a dancer, an interior designer, and very centrally, a healing artist.

My healing work, Emotional-Kinesthetic Psychotherapy, many consider my greatest life contribution. It led me to write two books, to teach in Europe before people understood my work in the United States, to travel across the country leading workshops and giving talks, to appear on National Public Radio and on National TV, to co-found the first professional association in the country in the field of body psychotherapy in 1988 and to help found my national professional association in 1996. But even more importantly, to set up a school with an apprenticeship-based training model, where over 11 years, scores of people learned how to practice the heart-centered, psychospiritual method of body psychotherapy that I had developed.

I am very grateful that EKP has helped thousands of people over 32 years, and that some of the people I trained have extended the reach of this work to countless others.

But many people cannot understand how I can be both a singer/songwriter and a mind-body psychotherapist. I try to explain that these are just different expressions of the heart. A true artist sources much of their creative expression from the heart. There is a surrender to a higher power, to the universal wisdom, to a sense of God if one believes in God. And profound creativity and healing come from a deep place inside that is egoless, yet very grounded in an authentic sense of self.

I have found that the kind of self-care I do to be a master therapist (which includes going to the gym every day, eating healthy foods, meditating daily, doing personal growth work and therapy/supervision as a lifelong pursuit, nurturing my soul with beauty, connection, and joy) are the very same things I need to do to keep my creative channel open as a writer of songs or prose.

As a shy introverted who NEVER wanted to be the center of attention, and certainly not at the center of a stage, it has taken years of work in therapy and performance coaching to become a skilled ambivert, and overcome my inherent shyness to be able to touch others heart to heart in the way only performing music can. Public speaking was easier for me to do than singing. And stepping out from the safety of the piano to the nakedness of center stage at a microphone required facing all kinds of shadows, internal and external.

Whatever work we can do to deeper our souls, to heal our hearts, to find our voices, only enhances our creative capacity. I have found my heart called to different forms of expression at different times in my life. But the two most fundamental creative expressions, the ones that always feel like "home" for my heart, are EKP (body psychotherapy) and music, especially as a singer/songwriter and song interpreter.

What a magical, creative world we could evolve if we gave ourselves permission to build lifework from the heart level up...So that the compartmentalized boxes we put people in need not trap us. Just as a healthy person can feel BOTH sadness and joy at the same time, healthy expression can be multi-media, and even simultaneously in unrelated media. The heart invites us to truly be an artist of life.

How Art Informs Life and Life Informs Art

As a singer/songwriter, I spend plenty of time agonizing on how my songs are going to fit into the world's genre boxes (they really don't), and how I am going to get the songs out to reach the people who might wish to hear them.

Seeing "The Boy From Oz," the Broadway musical about the life of singer-songwriter-dancer-Cabaret performer Peter Allen was really eye opening. I went into the show knowing many of his songs, including "Best Thing You Can" (the theme from Arthur, which won an Oscar), "Don't Cry Out Loud" (which I sing and will be on my upcoming "Coming Full Circle" album), and "You and Me" (sung by Frank Sinatra), but was truly moved and blown away when I learned the context of these songs in his life story!

In the life story of Peter Allen, it is clear that for most singer-songwriters, many of their songs DON'T fit into genre boxes. And that having songs find their way into the world is more about the journeys we take the good fortune of meeting people along the way who help weave together the unfolding and interconnected web of life. That Peter's own songs could be woven together to TELL his life story is quite a message of its own. He grew up in Australia, musical from his very youngest days, supported by his dedicated mother, while struggling with the coldness and sometimes abuse of his alcoholic father. Recognizing the need to "create an act," he teamed up with another musician and formed a "brother team," even though the other musician was not his actual brother. And as the "Allen Brothers," a stage name that was neither of the two performers' real life name, traveled to far away lands, like Hong Kong, they crossed paths with Judy Garland, who truly discovered Peter and set him on a trajectory towards visibility and eventually fame and fortune. As Peter became Judy's opening act, he also saw the dark side of the spotlight, in Judy's alcohol and drug plagued life. He befriended her young daughter, Liza Minelli, who became his wife, as he struggled with his true identity, as a gay man.

Peter was ambitious and persevered, writing songs that became most famous in the hands of other singers, even as he gained some recognition for his own Cabaret act. His life partner, Greg, helped with the image making part of his show (lights, costumes, set and the glitz), illustrating the power of collaborative partnership. But Greg contracted AIDs and died far too young, as eventually happened to Peter at age 48.

When art makes it into the public eye, it is genre-boxed, packaged and delivered with a market spin that may be far removed from the origins of the inspiration behind the art itself. Some songwriters pump out formulaic songs specifically to fit into market ready genre boxes. But many choose to let life inform and inspire them. And honestly, I think these are the songs that most connect with people and inform life.

Recently, a new friend listened to my "Heart to Heart" CD and asked me the stories behind two of my songs "How Can I Reach You," and "You'll Never Be Alone Again." He loved the songs and they touched him. But he would have never known the first one came out of my two year struggle sandwiched between my mother's last years as her Alzheimers progressed and my teenage son's struggle after two concussions in 10 months and the surfacing of his pain from his parents' divorce early in his life. And he would have also never guessed the second one was written by the 21 year old singer-songwriter version of me as I introspected and learned about the depths of life and connections between people. One thing that is magical about songs, and other forms of art, is that they tap into the universality of human experience. And so while the conception lies in the life experience of the artist, their own power lies in their connection with common threads of people's lives, so that we can all map our own life stories and emotions onto the canvass a song or other work of art presents to us.

In this way, when we are going through particular passages, we seek art that comforts us, mirrors us and helps us understand where we are. I was very moved when after giving a 69 year old woman working in a shoe store my "Heart to Heart" CD, after she asked what kind of music I performed (I had just purchased a pair of shoes to perform in), she looked at the cover and said to me, "Thank you! This is exactly what I need right now! I need something "heart to heart." She had tears in her eyes, and mine teared up in response.

I may never know the details of her journey or story. It is enough to know that she has one and that my own journey that led me to put together my own collection of songs will enrich hers in some way. That is a precious gift.

Force of Nature

"She breezes in, emotional genie. You can't keep her in a bottle. She'll touch your soul, even when you're sleeping. And when you're awake, just let her in. She's a force of nature. She's a keeper of the heart. She's a lighthouse for the weary. But this world is tearing her apart."

--From "Force of Nature" by Linda Marks

I know I have a lot of energy,whether you call it passion or joie d'vivre. And I am grateful I have ways to direct it positively to make a difference in the world--be it working with individuals, couples or groups as a mind-body psychotherapist, or as a singer or leader or organizer or human being walking the face of the planet. When I was a kid, people often told me I was "intense." I couldn't tell if that was an insult or a compliment.

When the speaker seemed scared or intimidated by me, then I felt it was more of a distancing comment or way to "other" me, separating me from other people. And that never felt very good. In my adult years, the word "intense" has been replaced by another term, "force of nature." Once again, it has been a mixed term, maybe an insult from some and a compliment from others.

I have done a lot of introspective reflection on both of these terms, "intense" and "force of nature." Who likes to feel different, distanced or "othered?" Yet, if I tried to focus more on the energy and life force both terms embody, I have felt more peace and less alone. When a light is very bright, we say it is "intense." Could it be that the light of my heart and spirit are just very bright, and people react to that kind of intensity?

And forces of nature have a profound, often undying directed power. Might I have the capacity to direct my life energy and my heart's power in a way that has a profound impact, often positive? When I turn to nature for my images and understanding, they are often more compassionate and complete than when I look at people's reactions in the context of what is familiar in our human world.

Is the sun not a force of nature or the rain? And aren't sunlight and water necessary to sustain life? Is the wind not a force of nature? And doesn't a sail boat rely on this force to move about the water?

If my intensity enlightens, me and others, and sheds needed light on the subject, especially when I or anyone I care about is moving through the dark, might that not be a gift rather than a curse? Being emotionally embodied, deeply reflective and introspective and actively engaged in projects out in the world, may actually all be good things. And if others feel their boats get rocked by my presence, might it be a gentle wave that keeps things flowing, rather than a scary hurricane?

Might we all not benefit from connecting with the light we are capable of shining in the dark corners of the world? And might our lives not flow better and more fluidly if we can find the part of us that is connected to the natural world and its rhythms? Maybe being a force of nature isn't so bad after all.