Know Your Voice, Know Your Power

When I was in grammar school, I remember doing a science experiment with a prism, sunlight and a piece of paper. Our teacher told us that if we used the prism to reflect the sunlight onto the paper at the correct angle, we could harness the energy of the sun and burn a hole in the paper.

That sounded like fun and even magical to grammar school aged me. I remember trying to figure out what the correct angle might be. So many different possibilities existed, and many of them yielded no result. But after a lot of experimentation, I was overjoyed to find the right angle, and watch my prism bend the sun's light and burn a hole in my piece of paper. Once I found that right angle, I could repeat the process over and over again. And I felt like I had just been introduced to a super power!

As I grew into a singer/songwriter and even an author and public speaker, I realized the metaphor of the prism, the paper and the sunlight was a helpful one to explain and illustrate the power of voice. You may ask, "what is voice?" Voice is a very deeply rooted, innate sense of who we are. To connect with that innate sense of self requires not only introspection, but also embodied introspection. If we are not grounded, and feeling and sensing our somatic experience, it is hard to find that deep internal place that might be called essence or soul or spirit. That deep place is where we experience the part of us who just knows who we really are. When we find that place, voice gives us a way to direct our core energy through an expressive pathway and to create a mark in the world, however large or small.

Connecting with that core sense of self is a journey and a process. And even if we find our core sense of self deep in our heart or gut, being able to translate the felt sense into meaningful expression is a whole other process. I believe that human beings are innately creative, and finding a pathway to connect with and express our creative energy is important to health, well-being and joie de vivre. Our society is very verbal, so "voice" is often expected to be experienced and expressed in words. Words are certainly one form of expression for voice, but not the only one. Drawing, painting, taking photographs and other visual arts, dancing, just plain moving, singing, songwriting or any other form of musical composing or even acts of service towards others can also be expressions of voice. All of these forms can be very powerful both for the creator and the receiver.

What is most important is both the energy you direct and how you direct it. When the energy comes from your core, it can feel enlivening to channel it. Opening our creative channel to find an authentic expression of that energy, is a practice that can be enhanced by learning how to become present the moment, grounded in our felt experience and non-judgmental about what will come through, when and how. When an athlete is in the zone, they are likely connected to their felt sense of core energy, and channeling it through their physical art form. Finding our "zone" for living the dailiness of life as well as for creative endeavors helps us feel more powerful and authentic in our actions and interactions.

For women, the power of voice is even wired into our neurobiology. When a woman in stressed out, in order to decompress, she usually needs to write, vent, speak, or express herself in some meaningful way to another human being. If she is not allowed to express, she feels like she will implode. This is the equivalent of the way a man decompresses by sitting on the couch in front of the tv and channel surfing. Different neurobiologies is different genders lead to different needs for destressing and decompression.

Being able to express oneself to decompress and being able to express oneself to create or bring something into being through channeling one's energies are two very important examples of the power of voice.

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.

Integrated Mind-Body Decision Making: The Inner Board of Directors

While there is plenty of external stress we face on a daily basis, from gridlock during rush hour to worrying about ISIS bombings occurring seemingly randomly anywhere in the world, many of us have no shortage of internal stress as well. How do we balance professional time and personal time? How do we make space for self-care as we take care of others? How can we do not only what we HAVE to do, but also what we really WANT to do? These kinds of challenges that arise in daily life can evoke conflict between different parts of ourselves.

While we are often taught to think in polarities (right or wrong, happy or sad, now or later...), we may find that we think and feel in shades of gray or think or feel multiple thoughts and feelings at the same time. Something can be both right for us and wrong for someone else. We can be happy and sad and also scared at the same time. And maybe we need to work on a project in stages, some now, some in the short term and some in the long term. How do you make decisions in complex or multi-faceted situations?

Our culture socializes us to focus on thinking rather than feeling and intuition and to polarize the difference rather than seeing different as part of a multi-dimensional process. This causes us a lot of internal stress and fear of stressing our inner knowing. Our rational mind fights with our heart rather than working with it. Our intuition might scare us when we cannot understand why we sense something to be true. In actuality, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. If we find a way to listen to ALL parts of our internal guidance system, and develop an overarching wise part that can hold space for differing opinions to co-exist, we can make better, more integrated decisions, and feel that we are being more completely authentic and true to our whole selves.

Many years ago, I developed a fun and very handy mind-body tool called "the inner board of directors," which can help us listen to our different sources of internal guidance, and co-hold their input in order to make more integrated decisions. The members of the board are "the head," "the heart" and "the gut" with "the whole self" acting as chairperson of the board. When we have a decision to make, whether it be what to eat for lunch, how to nurture ourselves or what career direction is most authentic, we can call a meeting of "the inner board" to seek guidance and direction.

To call "the inner board of directors" together for a meeting, all you need is a question to ask the board members, and a pen and piece of paper (or an iPhone, iPad or computer) to write down the board members' answers. If the question is "what do I want to eat for lunch today," close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, center yourself with your feet on the ground, your tailbone anchored into your chair, and let yourself relax into the moment. You can play your hand on your heart, and ask your heart, "Heart, what do you want to eat for lunch?" Take a few deep breaths, and see what your heart has to say, and write it down. Then take a deep breath, close your eyes and put your hand on your gut (wherever in your body you experience your gut when you hear the word "gut") and ask your gut, "Gut, what do you want to eat for lunch?" Take a few more deep breaths and see what your gut response is. Write it down. Close your eyes again, take a few more deep breaths, and put your hand on your head. Ask your head the question, "head, what do you want for lunch?" Again, take a few deep breaths, see what your head has to say and write it down. Then review what your heart has told you, your gut has told you, and your head has told you, and close your eyes one final time to ask your whole self for its guidance. Write down what you whole self has to say, as it considers the heart and its response, the gut and its response and the head and its response. And see how you feel having listened to all four sources of guidance.

You may find that sometimes there is a conflict between two or more parts. And if that is so, it is worth asking each part what matters about whatever position it is taking. Is there something you are afraid of? How is the part trying to serve you? You can have a deeper dialogue with the parts to learn more of the underlying roots of the conflict. And having unearthed these underlying roots, call another inner board meeting and see what guidance your inner board has to offer now.

It is good to practice this mind-body tool in a wide variety of situations, so that it becomes a go to practice for decision making, simple or complex.

Non-Smoker Lung Cancer: A Growing Epidemic

When I was a kid, I was well aware of the dangers of cigarette smoking, and the relationship between smoking and lung cancer. However, when Dana Reeve was diagnosed and then died from lung cancer in 2006 at just 44 years of age, I became aware that non-smoker lung cancer also cast a dark shadow, that over the past decade has only grown larger.

Every 2 1/2 minutes someone is getting diagnosed with lung cancer. And people are getting lung cancer diagnoses at increasingly younger ages. People who are under 45 or 50 are more commonly diagnosed than in the past, and younger people tend to have more advanced lung cancer at the time of diagnosis than older patients. A great number of younger patients, like my dear college friend Art, are diagnosed with stage 4 disease.

Here are some statistics that Hildy Grossman, the founder of UpStage Lung Cancer, shared with me:

* an estimated 224,210 people were expected to be diagnosed with lung cancer in 2014, and 159,260 were expected to die

* 13.4% of these people are under age 50, and 1.2 - 6.2% are under age 40

* this translates into 30,000 people under age 50 being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2014 and 21,000 young adults dying from the disease

* to put this in perspective, it was estimated that 40,000 people would die of breast cancer in 2014, and 20.8% of these women are under age 54--8300 women under ager 54 will die from breast cancer

* for younger adults, under age 45 - 50, lung cancer is the #1 cancer killer

* younger people tend to have more advanced lung cancer at the time of diagnosis than older patients; a greater number of younger patients are diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer

* younger people with lung cancer are more likely to have never been smokers than people who develop lung cancer later in life

* people diagnosed with lung cancer at a younger age are more likely to have family members who have suffered from the disease

* the stigma is high for younger people who are diagnosed with lung cancer--they are often blamed for their illness and often need even more support than people diagnosed at an older age, even though the stigma is high for anyone diagnosed with lung cancer

* the American Cancer Society estimates that there are 400,000 people in the US living with lung cancer, and about 8000 are under age 45

* nearly 80% of new lung cancer patients are former or never smokers

* lung cancer takes more lives than breast, prostate and colon cancers combined

* the five year survival rate for lung cancer has changed little in more than 40 years

These statistics make it clear that we need to be informed about the prevalence of lung cancer, including non-smoker lung cancer in younger adults under age 45 - 50, and that encouraging people to be screened for lung cancer is as important as being screened for breast cancer and colon cancer. Research is needed to help us understand WHY so many non-smokers are developing lung cancer, and what preventive measures we can take to protect ourselves from getting the disease.

How Music Builds Community

One of my delightful musical colleagues, Dale LePage often says something I believe to be true, "music is magic." I have felt its magic since I was very young, both for the way music lives inside of me, and for the way it touches others and brings people together in a deep, tangible way, often much deeper than words can express.

When I have led weekend retreats or extended personal growth workshops, I have always brought along a wide variety of music, knowing that moments might arise where a particular song or piece of music might capture or frame the moment, or be exactly what someone needs to hear to heal or open their heart.

One thing that struck me as I played the song that captured the moment was that not only did the person who was doing the healing turn benefit from the music, but also so did all the other people in the group and in the room. A song that captured the moment also captured and connected the hearts of all the people sharing the moment.

I have had the same experience both as a singer performing and as an audience member taking in live music. Through putting together a program, and choosing the songs, reflections to share in between songs, and even the instruments for a particular arrangement of a song, I feel like I am working in a special medium--like an artist working with clay that can be sculpted into all kinds of emotional possibility.

As I share a song, the subtext, the story and the feeling of the song translate well beyond the words. My heart can share time and space with the energy of other people's hearts. Whether on the giving or receiving end of this musical heart energy, I can feel people coming together as community in a listening room.

Here are some of the ways music builds community:

Music speaks to the common ground of our human experience

The themes and stories one finds in songs cover the full emotional gamut of the human experience: love found, love lost, hopes and dreams, relationships with children, parents, friends and lovers, nature, the world around us, special places, special moments, and how each of these makes us feel. We can all agree "What the world needs now is love."

Music is a universal language

While there are many styles of music, some unique to individual cultures, that most all cultures have music is universal. We don't need to be from one culture to be moved by the sounds of another culture's music. There is something about music itself that reaches beyond words. And words too may be part of the spirit and emotion expressed through a song or other piece of music.

Music has a vibration that resonates with our bodies and hearts

We are electromagnetic energy beings. Our bodies feel vibrations and can attune or align with them. Different pitches resonate with different energy centers in the body. And different qualities of sound touch us in different ways. We are touched at the vibrational level as well as the emotional level.

Music allows us to join our voices and hearts

When people play or sing together, there is a communion or joining of hearts and spirits through shared playing or singing. If we sing in harmony with others, we feel our place within the harmony and we hear and feel the different sounds above and below ours. In this sense we become part of a musical fabric, one that connects and expresses our hearts and soul.

Shared music becomes its own common language

Whether a television show has a theme song, a country has a national anthem or a high school reunion DJ plays songs from the years everyone was in school together, hearing this music is a common language that is recognizable, evokes memories and images, and holds shared experience. Songs represent social movements, like "We shall overcome." They represent a coming together in good times or tough times, like "We are the world."

Music can be created or experienced alone or with others, but its power to bring us together or feel connected carries through however we experience it! Music really can bridge most all divides and strengthen most any connection.

Music As Medicine

Two central passions have always moved through my life: music and heart-centered healing. Early in my life, the two passions seemed to be separate and hard to combine. And in order to make a living, I had to focus on one, without much room for the other. Mind-body medicine seemed easier for me to carve a niche in than music, since people seemed to naturally gravitate towards the heart-centered work I developed, and my ideas were welcome and valued at professional conferences and in professional forums. As a 20 year old singer/songwriter, radio dj's loved my songs, but in a world that liked to put musicians in genre boxes, I did not neatly fit in any one box. (I still don't!)

Over time, however, my musical passion kept bubbling up, demanding my attention. And I realized how much music was not only a deep sense of expression and connection, but also a healing force. In fact, when I led personal growth workshops, I always brought along an eclectic collection of songs that touched many facets of the heart. Sure enough, moments would arise when a very specific song would be just right for the healing work a person was doing at that moment. And I would find myself joyful and grateful I had followed my intuition in bringing that very song along. Sometimes I would find myself playing the piano and singing one of my own songs in one of those special healing moments. And sometimes I would invite the whole group to sing together to co-create a healing moment. I became aware, whether in an intentional healing context or not, music itself was medicine.

I know that songwriting has given me a voice for some of the deepest felt experiences that words could not express. And that songs written from that soul-deep place touch the hearts and souls of others. There is a power in the energy and spirit conveyed not just by a singer, but by the words and music of a song. Giving voice to some of the most difficult moments has allowed movement and healing to take place for me. And I have received feedback from listeners that they too have felt movement and healing as their hearts have opened and been touched. Likewise, joy can be shared through music, and when listening to music with others in a live performance venue, the joy multiplies through the communion of our collective hearts.

This reminds me of a comment a cardiologist colleague of mine made many years ago when we both taught at a behavioral medicine conference. While sharing his thoughts about what healing really does take place during open heart surgery, he reflected, "I don't think it is the cutting open of the chest or the technical procedures we perform that allow healing nearly so much as the act of physically holding someone's heart in your hands, literally 'touching the heart.' For many of my patients, whose hearts are well-defended, it takes the act of pulling back the ribs to actually touch the heart. Might it be the intention and energy of my heart conveyed through my hands that allow the healing process to take place?" That reflection always stayed with me: we heal when our hearts are touched. And music is a powerful force that magically and poignantly reaches all the way in and touches the heart.

I was talking with a friend and fellow musician about "music as medicine," a few weeks back, and he shared an extremely touching story from a gig he had just played with Alzheimers' patients. When his trio arrived, the effects of Alzheimers' were very sadly present. The patients stared down at the floor. They did not talk much or interact. As my friend and his trio started to play, the patients began to respond. They became more alert. They became more alive. And then as my friend and his fellow musicians began to sing songs dating back to when these older people were young, the room started to echo with many voices singing along. What a miracle that familiar music could literally transform a group of advanced Alzheimers' patients to a joyful and alive state of being! Stories like this make it clear that music can reach deeply into the soul and evoke a part of our core humanity, even in apparently dire situations.

I have always loved creating musical benefit concerts both to give visibility to organizations doing important work, and to create a magical, healing community environment, where all are touched because of the music that is shared. I am delighted to be supporting Hildy Grossman and her UpStage Lung Cancer organization in producing "Singout! For Cancer: Music As Medicine," a musical evening designed to raise money for this important non-profit's work to raise awareness of lung cancer, and to encourage screening, prevention and research. Last month I wrote about my very special college friend, Art Olivas, who very sadly is suffering the end effects of metastatic lung cancer. Art, like far too many people diagnosed with lung cancer these days, is a lifelong non-smoker. In the face of such large and catastrophic illnesses like cancer, there is healing in taking whatever action can be taken to try to help other people. And feelings of love, grief, anger, overwhelm, hope and desire to make a difference become a well that fuels music to heal and transform. No wonder so many messages are best shared through song. "What the World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love." "We Are the World."

Music is medicine and it is available to all of us without insurance snafus or medication side effects. And its healing power is vast and timeless.

Living As A Friend Is Consciously Dying

"Why oh lord do we feel abandoned when we are in pain? Are you not present in the form of our family and friends who tend to us and offer us comfort? Is their love not enough? What more do we desire, need? We desire an end to our suffering and yet it persists and even the most tender care can not take away the presence of profound pain in our minds and bodies. Modern medicine can help but it too begins to fail. What then do we do? Is it at this point of failure that our true mettle is challenged, revealed? And what if we are found wanting, weak, even when we have been encouraged to "be strong"? What is this suffering , then? A Greek race of endurance? The strong win the race and demonstrate a superior character than those of us who stumble, fall, and cry and no longer desire to stand and run again....Or is there compassion for those who can not be strong, for those who do not "suffer" well or virtuously. Is God present even to those of us who can no longer bear it anymore, or at least think we can't." --Arturo Olivas

I have a very special friend from college who I fondly knew as Art. He bravely faced some challenges in college, and I was peripherally aware of them. He went on to become an extraordinary educator, a talented artist--a santero, a painter of santos, religious images in a Southwestern Spanish tradition, and at age 50, a secular Franciscan brother.

Art, who I now know as Arturo, was always thoughtful and sensitive. Just over four years ago, he was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer, and a profound journey began for Arturo and his partner of 30 years, Chris. Arturo, like too many people who get lung cancer, was not a smoker. So, his diagnosis came as a total surprise, when he went to urgent care for chronic bronchitis. He was given 6 months to live.

Only a very small percentage of people with Arturo's diagnosis live as long as he has lived. While it is overwhelming, to say the least, to receive a stage four cancer diagnosis, and an act of courage and strength to live through all the treatments and surgeries and tests that follow, the way Arturo has lived with cancer, and beyond cancer, is a testament to the depth and strength of his spirit.

I have rarely met anyone as sensitive, humble, eloquent, caring and creative as Arturo. His art is highly regarded, and exhibited in museums and galleries in Albuquerque, where he lives. His care for young people as an educator emanates from his spirit. And just this month, a long campaign he spearheaded, to have a banner addressing lung cancer hung along the University of New Mexico Medical Center pedestrian bridge, encouraging early detection, has finally succeeded! For someone who lives with profound pain, and the fear and mystery of death as a closer companion than most of us, his energy and creativity are beyond inspirational.

Arturo is a gifted writer, and because he has been generous enough to share vignettes from his journey on Facebook, I have had the opportunity to be touched by his thoughts, feelings and words, almost as though he is giving me the chance to accompany him on his very personal journey.

One can say that it is true that because life as we live it each day is a temporary gift,as we live, each of us is also dying. For most of us, however, we have no idea how long the gift of life will be extended to us, and little inkling of when our final days will arrive. When someone is given a terminal diagnosis, like Arturo was four years ago, the reality that life is finite becomes much more present. By virtue of facing life and death each day, Arturo is not only consciously dying, but more importantly, consciously living. The compassion and authenticity with which he lives is incredibly touching to me and many others who know him.

The following are a small sample of his reflections:

"The greatest thing we can do for those who are in pain is to hold their hand...just hold their hand."

"Severe physical and emotional pain challenges all the things we cling to most in this life: our faith, our trust, our relationships. if the pain doesn't completely destroy all of these, then perhaps we have a chance to endure for a while longer and eventually, die in peace....."

"I have never intended to be strong in the wake of cancer..I am weak and vulnerable and subject to pain...some people do not want to hear that, especially from a man....I understand that, but it is not "me". perhaps I am more like my mother than I realize in the sense that when asked how she felt, she told it like it was - "I feel sick!"....It taught me to listen to the litany of complaints and not to try to make her say something that she did not feel. Of course I would have wanted to hear mom say, "Oh, today I feel great!" - that would have been a great comfort to me. But ultimately the question was about the patient and not about making the person asking the question feel good."

As I read Arturo's reflections over time, I found myself deeply called to go visit him before it was too late. I am very grateful that the week before Thanksgiving, I flew out to Albuquerque to visit even briefly with my special friend. Our time together was beautiful and poignant, so characteristic of Arturo.

"A key moment in the life of a "terminally" ill cancer patient, and for all living beings , is the moment we decide to stop living in anticipation of death and we begin to live now, in the present, in gratitude for the life we have....we know we have made this decision when we make plans to be engaged in the lives of others....and not just plan, but do!"

These are words that very accurately portray Arturo's full engagement with life. He is living more fully than almost anyone I have ever met. Though his cancer metastasized to his brain and spine, and the very day he and I were to get together he wrote to me concerned that he might have bronchitis again, and might be coughing, though he very much wanted to get together, his spirit seems to be so much stronger than the disease process he is living with.

I know that life is finite, and there will come a day when Arturo's spirit moves on to the other side. But I have to believe a part of him will always be here on the side of the living, a side he has embraced with passion, gusto and love. And when his spirit rises, a magical rainbow of love will provide a bridge of connection for all of us who have known him.