I’m pleased to announce that I’ve contributed an article to the latest Productive Magazine, “What Yoga Can Teach Us About Productivity.”  As you can probably tell from the title, this is a different take on getting work done than what we usually see in the popular literature, and I’m grateful to the magazine staff for their willingness to “explore strange new worlds” with me as far as this type of material is concerned.

By the way, you can read previous articles of mine in Productive Magazine here:

* “3 Keys to Developing Inner Productivity,” Productive Magazine Issue #9

* “How Getting Used to Silence Can Help Your Productivity,” Productive Magazine Issue #8

* “Three Ways Your Breathing Can Help Your Productivity,” Productive Magazine Issue #7

Enjoy!

Hi All – Okay, so I took another extended hiatus from the blogosphere, but rest assured, friends:  I’m still very much alive, and not only kicking but still going through a creatively explosive period.

In my last post, I shared that I’ve been writing a musical comedy about a young software engineer named Steve, and his journey of personal growth.  If I wanted to be super-artsy, I’d call it a “bildungsroman.”  But I digress.

I’m now pleased to share that I’ve completed the “book,” i.e., the screenplay, and most of the songs, for the show, and have arrived at a fittingly epic title:  “Steve’s Quest.”  Right now, I’m assembling a team of animators and performers to bring Steve and his world to life.  (The extras section of the Steve’s Quest DVD where I talk about this will be called “Bringing Steve to Life.”)

But what I’m most pleased to share are these charmingly home-brewed recordings of a few of my latest tunes!  Here they are (all the files are in MP3 format):

1. Dear Diary:  This is sort of my answer to “This Is the Moment” from Jekyll & Hyde.  Steve, our protagonist, has just lost his job.  He is doubting whether he should make the effort to try to get his sci-fi novel published, or just focus on applying for a new coding position.  This is his soliloquy.

2. Version 2.0:  This is an excerpt from what I expect will be the finale of the show.

3. Boss Battle:  This is a dialogue between Steve and his boss, wherein Steve learns that he is being laid off.  This is a good example of the more hard rock-influenced side of the show (it would be a better example if the recording had real guitar rather than purely MIDI sounds, but I’m getting there).

I hope you enjoy these, and I look forward to your feedback!  I’ll be visiting all of your blogs shortly as part of my triumphant blogosphere comeback tour.  – Hugs, CE

The last few months have definitely been a creatively explosive period for me, in ways I didn’t expect and I’m not accustomed to.

It started back in September when I was flying back from a friend’s wedding.  For whatever reason, ideas for a musical spontaneously popped into my mind.  Thankfully, I had a yellow pad with me, so I was able to furiously scribble down a lot of the music and lyrics that were suddenly echoing in my head.

When I got home, I immediately did some recordings, painstakingly entering the backing tracks into Finale NotePad (a music composition program) note by note, and giving the vocals what I can only describe as “the old college try.”  I don’t exactly have a professional-quality home recording studio, but I think the recordings at least captured the essence of my song ideas.

I haven’t completely hammered out the plot of the show, but I know it’s going to be a comedy about a software engineer tentatively named Steve, who secretly aspires to be a science fiction novelist.  After Steve loses his job and is criticized by the girl of his dreams for being unable to directly tell her how he feels about her, Steve goes on an epic journey of self-discovery and personal development.

I figure that, because I’ve done all this writing about the deeper and more challenging aspects of personal growth, it’s only fair for me to walk my talk by sharing some of these songs with you, and exposing a part of myself I don’t normally share on the blog.

I’ve done a few posts in the past (here and here) where I shared my compositions, but letting you hear me sing is definitely breaking new ground.  So, without further ado, here are some small (about 1 MB each) MP3 files containing three of the songs I’ve written:

1.  Only a Test:  Steve’s friend who is tentatively named “Ace” sings this song, in an effort to console Steve after he’s had a falling out with “Sabrina,” the female lead.  With all his talk about evolution and its effect on female behavior, Ace doesn’t really succeed.

2.  Find Out Who You Are:  Steve’s friend Tord, a big Scandinavian guy with long hair and a scary-looking heavy metal t-shirt (which is ironic given the Dean Martin-esque stylings of this tune), sings this song after Steve gets laid off from his job as a programmer, encouraging Steve to discover who he is and what he wants.

3.  There’s This Girl:  This song is Steve’s indirect way of letting Sabrina know how he feels about her — by claiming to be telling her one of his stories, when he’s really talking about their relationship.  Steve sings the first verse and Sabrina sings the second.

As far as my future plans for the show, my goal is to ultimately make it happen — whether in Broadway (or perhaps off-off-Broadway) form, or as an animated series of videos.  I’m going to record more professional-quality versions of these songs with real instruments soon.  If you have some graphic design and/or animation experience, and you’d be interested in collaborating on an animated version of the show, feel free to let me know!

Over the years (and it has now been years) this blog has been around, the focus of my writing has shifted from making recommendations about what you should do in order to be happy, to honestly sharing about my experience.

I don’t think I’ve ever explored with you all why my writing has evolved this way, and it’s an issue I think is worth exploring.

After all, it can be scary to share honestly, and it certainly isn’t a surefire strategy for getting blog traffic.  When I talk about my own “uncomfortable stuff,” it has a tendency to bring up others’ “stuff” too.  People who read blogs to get a break from their stuff, rather than see it plastered across their monitor, might not be cool with that.

I Don’t Tell The Truth Because It’s “Right”

Here’s another interesting fact I’ve noticed in my self-exploration:  my honesty doesn’t come from a desire to be “right” or “moral” either.  What morality demands when it comes to honesty is a tricky issue — some people would say it’s wrong to be “too honest” because it might “hurt somebody’s feelings,” while others would say honesty is required at any cost because “lying is always wrong.”

No, I don’t share vulnerably because it’s “the right thing to do” — I do it for the sake of my own growth.  If others grow along with me because they read my writing, that’s wonderful.  (And from my mystical, Northern California point of view, we all grow together whenever one of us does.)  But if I told you I share solely out of a selfless desire to improve your life, I’d be lying.

Honesty Is Like A Massage

Why does authentically talking about myself improve my life?  For me, it’s pretty simple — my body releases tension and relaxes when I’m genuine about what I’m feeling and thinking.

Whenever I’m pretending I have feelings, wants or thoughts other than the ones actually arising in me, my body tightens up.  The easiest example of this is a fake smile — forcing my lips to curl upward, when it’s not what my body would naturally and unconsciously do, creates tension in my face.

I have the same experience when it comes to everyday “small talk.”  If someone asks me “how are you?” and I respond “fine” even though that isn’t how I’m feeling, I feel a tightness and sourness in my stomach.  By contrast, when I tell someone what’s actually going on for me, even if it isn’t all sweetness and light, the sensation can be almost like getting a massage.

I used to be more willing to compromise — to tell people I felt “fine,” laugh at jokes I didn’t find funny, and so on — thinking the tension that built up in my body when I acted inauthentically was a small price to pay for keeping people happy.

What I eventually realized, from talking to a number of people about what it felt like to be with me, was that, when I compromised and held back what was really going on, their bodies tensed up as well.  Every time I withheld the truth, or at least “my” truth, I was bringing more uptightness into the world.

My hope is that my writing can function kind of like a good shoulder rub to help me — and others — release the tension that builds up from living in a world where we too often silence how we feel and what we want.

What is your relationship to touching others and receiving touch?  I don’t mean this figuratively — I’m not talking about “touching people with your kindness” or something like that — I mean skin-to-skin physical contact.

For me, looking at my relationship to touch has been a big source of insight about myself, and the places where I can stand to grow and explore.  One reason for this is that I have very little control over how my body reacts to physical contact.

Most of the time, if I want to, I can walk around holding up a mask, pretending to be tough, always comfortable with myself, or something else.  But there’s no masking the way I respond to touch.

If I’m uncomfortable with a particular kind of touch, my body will subtly tighten up or pull away, no matter how hard I may try to look like I’m okay with it.  That reaction has a unique rawness and immediacy about it.

I wanted to share some questions I’ve been asking myself in this exploration, in case they’re useful for you to think about:

1.    When do I allow unwanted touch?

I think it’s interesting to look at those times when we let someone touch us, even when we don’t want contact in that moment.  Maybe, for example, we let friends and relatives hug us, even when we don’t genuinely feel a desire to be hugged.

When I disregard my own wishes like this, it’s often out of a sense of obligation.  They’re my friends and family, after all — it would be hurtful or childish not to allow them to affectionately touch me.  Because it’s my duty or I want to keep the peace, I let my boundaries be violated.

The trouble is that, when I permit unwanted touch, I tend to feel a subtle resentment toward the person who touched me.  This makes our relationship less fulfilling — not just for me, but also for them, because on some level they sense my irritation.

For these reasons, I’ve been moving in the direction of being clear about when I want physical contact and when I don’t.

2.    Does it feel okay to ask for touch?

In other words, if I would like to hold someone’s hand, give them a hug, practice my massage skills, and so on, am I able to request those things?  Or do I hold back from asking for touch, out of fear of being embarrassed, being seen as “too forward,” or something else?

Personally, when I find myself having trouble asking for contact, it’s often because I’m concerned about being seen as “needy.”  According to the way I’ve seen the world for most of my life, a “needy” person is someone who needs to be comforted by other people to get by, and needy people are distasteful and “childish” because they should be able to take care of themselves.

In the last few years, my perspective has shifted.  I’ve come to see requesting touch as an act of courage, not cowardice.  Admitting I want to be close to someone is a lot harder than pretending I’ve “got it together” and I don’t need anything from anyone.

3.    How do I react when my touch is unwanted?

When someone doesn’t want contact with me, I can usually feel my stomach tighten a bit.  I may also find myself making up a story about the reasons they don’t want my touch that casts me in an unfavorable light — it must have been because I’m unimportant, unattractive, “a loser,” or something along those lines.

I’ve found it useful to take a close look at the story I tell myself when it seems like my touch is rejected.  When I stare it straight in the face, I’ve found, the story starts to look pretty absurd and amusing.  Even as I sit here now, I can’t help but laugh at the notion that I’m a bad person because he or she didn’t want to touch me.

I think a lot of people suffer because they’re not willing to look straight at the painful story they’re telling themselves when they feel rejected.  Instead, they try to distract themselves from the hurt, explain away what happened by telling themselves the other person was just having a bad day, and so on.

It can be difficult to take an honest look at our relationship to touch, but I think exploring that area can be a great source of self-understanding and growth.

Dolphins are beautiful, playful and intelligent creatures.  People who have had the chance to swim with dolphins often describe it as an experience of spiritual communion.  Some have commented on how harmoniously a pod of dolphins lives together, and wished humans could get along so well.

But dolphins have a dark side.  They don’t exactly follow a vegan or macrobiotic diet.  In fact, they don’t eat veggies at all.  They’re carnivorous predators, and they have sophisticated techniques for rounding up, and gobbling up, big groups of fish at a time.

Dolphins Have a What?

Did it sound silly to you when I said “dolphins have a dark side”?  It sure did to me.  After all, dolphins don’t choose to be carnivores.  That’s how they’re designed (or, I guess, how they randomly came to be, depending on what you believe).  There’s nothing “dark” or “evil” about one animal eating another.

So, for me, that raises the question:  why do we tend to see humans as having a “dark side”?  Why do we tend to cast emotions like anger, sadness, and envy — feelings humans seem to be designed to experience — as “negative,” “evil,” or “bad”?

Why Believing In “Negative Feelings” Creates “Negativity”

I think the idea of “negative emotions” is one of our culture’s most crazy-making notions.  This is especially clear in the way parents relate to their kids.

We often see a parent thinking this way:  I felt angry when my child did X; anger is a “bad” emotion I’m not supposed to feel; my child is “to blame” for my anger; thus, I will hit or demean my child to take revenge for how they “made me feel.”

I think there’s a good chance that, if we stopped seeing anger as a “negative emotion,” there would be a big shift in how parents relate to their children.  Instead of trying to “hurt their children back” when they felt angry, perhaps parents would become able to simply tell their children how they were feeling.

Please Just Drop The “Shark Grin”

And how about sadness?  So often, I meet people who are forcing their faces into a rigid grin to hide how sad they feel, because they think it’s weak, inappropriate, or an imposition on me to show what’s really going on for them.

When I’m with a person who seems to be trying really hard to hold back their sadness, I’ve taken to simply asking them if they’re feeling sad.  If they’re willing to drop the smile and admit it, both of us usually feel so much more relaxed.

I think learning to accept that we’re all going to feel angry, sad, envious, and so on from time to time, and that we can’t, and don’t need to, “get rid” of those feelings, is such a key part of our growth.  Just as dolphins are designed to eat fish, humans are designed to experience “dark emotions” once in a while.

Oh, and I’ve got some more Johnny Signs videos to share with you.  Some people have asked whether it’s okay to laugh at these, and my response is:  you have my blessing.  Enjoy!  (Again, if you like them, I’d appreciate a “Like” on YouTube.)

If I see myself as a burden, I probably won’t talk to you.  When I see you, I’ll most likely think “oh, they must have so many interesting and fun people around them — they don’t need me taking up more space in their life.”  To make sure I don’t bother you, I’ll avoid you.

Or maybe I’ll approach you, but I’ll carefully plan how I’m going to behave to ensure that you don’t see me as a burden or a waste of your time.  Maybe I’ll make sure to mention how successful I’ve been at this or that, so that you know immediately that I’m “worth meeting.”

But if I see myself as a gift, talking to you will be the obvious choice.  I’ll see you and think “I’ll give them the joy of connecting with me, and make both of our lives more fun.”

What’s more, if I have this mindset, I’ll be okay even if you don’t want to talk to me.  Your rejection may sting, but it won’t shake my conviction that, in the grand scheme, my existence is a good thing for the universe.

The Same Goes For Creating Stuff

In my experience, whether I see myself as a gift or a burden doesn’t just affect the way I meet (or don’t meet) new people.  It also has a big impact on how I approach my creative projects.

If I see myself as an imposition on people, I probably won’t write anything.  Each time I come up with an article idea, I’ll talk myself out of writing the piece, thinking “so many people have probably written about this already — I’ll bet I’d just bore everybody.”

Or maybe I’ll write the piece, but I’ll try really hard to ensure that readers see how smart or original I am, and don’t see me as dull or average.  Maybe I’ll use lots of big words, or take months to write my piece because I’ll constantly second-guess everything I say.

On the other hand, if I see myself as a gift, the act of writing will have a light, “flowing” quality to it, because I’ll be secure in the knowledge that what I’m creating will uplift somebody out there.

Being A Gift Is The First Step, Not The Last

Experiences like these have convinced me that the conventional wisdom about creativity in our culture has it backwards.

We tend to think that, if we want to “be a gift” to others — if we want to contribute something to the world — we have to create something really amazing.  Once we’ve written that groundbreaking novel, we’ll finally become worthwhile.

The trouble is that, if we refuse to see ourselves as a gift until that great project is complete, the project will be painful and difficult to do.  We’ll be constantly worried about putting out inadequate work and burdening or bothering people, instead of feeling excited about how we’re going to enrich others’ lives with what we’re doing.

So, I think that learning to see, and treat ourselves, as a gift to the world — even before we’ve “hit our peak” creatively — is crucial if we want to enjoy, and get a lot done in, our work.

With that said, I’ve got some more gifts to shower you all with.  In my last post, I shared some of the videos I’ve been doing recently, and they sure provoked some interesting discussion.  I hope the next four I’ll share in this post will do the same. Enjoy!

I’ll start by thanking everyone who’s checked in with me during my month-long absence from blogging — that really brought home to me that I’ve made some genuine connections in the blogging world, and it’s not all just about “one hand washing the other” and “you scratching my back and me scratching yours” and collectively achieving A-List Social Media Superstardom. 

The explanation for my absence is that, for a long time, I just didn’t feel inspired to write.  The way I was writing simply wasn’t fully bringing out who I am.  There are aspects of me — particularly my wild, spontaneous part — that my structured, “prescriptive” style of writing wasn’t making use of, and that was frustrating to me.

I thought and agonized about this for a while, and finally came to a resolution.   I just needed to try a different kind of creative expression for a while, and find something that did bring out those parts that wanted to be seen.  I didn’t need to stop writing altogether, but I needed to take a little detour.

So, I’ve been exploring for a bit, and trying some new stuff.  I’ve been working on a computer game with a friend that focuses on what Stone Age spirituality might have been like.    I’ve also done some videos I’d like to share with you.

At Least I Feel Alive

I’ve received all kinds of reactions to these videos so far — from “I had to lie down after watching these” to “I don’t get this at all.”  Wherever your reactions are on that spectrum, they’re welcome here (if you like them, I’d appreciate a “Like” on YouTube).

One thing I’ve noticed is that people’s reactions to my creative work, no matter what they are, always help me feel alive.  It’s not always a blissful kind of aliveness — it may be a “fight or flight” kind of aliveness, for example, when someone talks to me in a way that seems critical and attacking.

But one thing is certain — when I’m getting feedback on projects I’m invested in, and feeling the emotions that come with it, it’s impossible for me to go through my day in a numb and robotic way, as I can from time to time.  I’m sure to feel a lot of rich sensation — and learning to embrace intense sensation, instead of turning away from it, is what my own growth and exploration, and the work I share with others, are about.

Without further ado, here are the videos.  I’ll be doing a lot more writing shortly, and I’m looking forward to catching up with those of you I haven’t connected with in a while.

It’s funny how scary it can be to relax.

When I was a kid, I came to believe that, when I relaxed the muscles in my jaw and behind my eyes, my face took on a doe-eyed, “begging” look.  This, I thought, made me appear weak, and an easy target for bullying.

So, I took up the habit of tensing the muscles in my face when I was around other children.  I thought having a tightened-up face would help me look tougher, and discourage my peers from putting me down.  I carried this habit into adulthood.

Unfortunately, I Got My Wish

I think this strategy worked to some degree.  When I walked around with clenched facial muscles, people usually avoided me, and nobody messed with me.  I probably did look kind of intimidating.

But this approach, while it protected me, also tended to keep me alone.  By making me look a bit scary, it drove away people I could otherwise have gotten to know.

So, over the past few years, it’s been my practice to keep my attention on my face when I’m around people, and relax the muscles when I notice them getting tight.

The Relaxation Ripple Effect

At first, this was scarier than I expected it to be.  I felt pretty vulnerable walking around with what I saw as my “Bambi eyes” or “Japanese cartoon eyes” on display.  Would people mock me, refuse to take me seriously, or something along those lines?

As it turned out, that’s not what happened at all.  When I started relaxing my jaw, the world actually started to seem more relaxed as well.  Even people I didn’t know started saying hello and smiling at me from time to time, which hadn’t happened before.  I wasn’t showing up as weak — I was actually coming across as more open and genuine.

It’s kind of like the experience I had when I first started meditating.  Everybody around me suddenly seemed so calm, and I found myself asking “did everyone else take up meditation too?”

Seeing For Yourself

It’s become almost clichéd to talk about how we’re all one at a deeper level, everything we do affects everybody else, and so on.  But experiences like mine, I think, show that this isn’t woo-woo mysticism — it’s a down-to-earth fact that you can confirm for yourself at any time.  In a very real sense, when I relax, we relax.  By the same token, when I freak out, we freak out.

If you want to experience what I’m talking about, try this.  Next time you’re around people, put your attention on your body, and notice any area where you’re tensing up — whether it’s your jaw, shoulders, stomach, or somewhere else.   Then, see if you can let go of the tightness in that spot.

Once you’ve done this, take a look around.  Do the people around you seem any different?  Are they acting differently toward you?  I think, if you look closely enough, you’ll notice that their bodies seem looser and more comfortable.

It may be subtle at first, but I suspect it will become clear that, when you relax, the world relaxes with you.

Like most people, I have moments of loneliness.  They tend to begin with thoughts about how I wish I had more people around me, everyone else is probably having fun and I’m not, blah blah, et cetera, ad nauseam.

If I look more closely at my loneliness, I usually notice that, underneath all the thinking, there’s a sense of emptiness in my body.

For me, the feeling of emptiness I call loneliness shows up in my pelvis and groin area.  It’s as if there’s nothing connecting my lower back to my legs, and I might be in danger of spontaneously splitting in half.  (Not to mention all the other implications of having no groin.)

Can’t Fight This Feeling

I used to assume, when I felt this sensation, that I had to “do something about it.”  I needed to call my friends, go hang out in a public place, or something along those lines, to make my loneliness go away, and “make myself feel better.”

I eventually realized, though, that my efforts to fight off loneliness didn’t usually succeed.  This is because the things I do aren’t fun when I do them from a place of wanting to avoid feeling alone.

If I call you on the phone, hoping you’ll make me feel better, the conversation will probably have a desperate, forced quality for both of us, even if that quality only shows up in subtle, unnerving ways.  Many people stay in relationships that have that quality for years, and wonder why they never feel fulfilled.

Exploring the Emptiness

What I’ve learned is that, when I feel that empty sensation, the best approach is to put my attention on the emptiness — to get a sense of how big the space feels, the shape of the empty area, whether it has a color, and so on.  I explore the space, rather than trying to fill it up or block it out.

When I come to that vacant feeling with curiosity, the vacancy starts to seem fascinating, rather than threatening.  And here’s the best part — the same wonder I bring to that empty feeling starts to spill over into the rest of my life.

When I’m in that curious place, I find myself wanting to be with people — not from a place of trying to relieve my loneliness, but to explore what it’s like to relate with others.  I actually want to know you, rather than to use you to make me feel better.

Maybe Life Is About Embracing Space

The more exploring I do, the more I’m starting to suspect that this isn’t just true for loneliness — it’s true for all of the emotions we tend to label as “negative” or “bad.”  Anger, sadness, frustration, and so on all seem to be tied to a feeling of inner spaciousness.

Anger, for instance, tends to come up when we think a weak (empty) part of us has been exposed, and we feel a need to protect that part from harm.

Our first instinct is to see these feelings as holes we have to fill — maybe through money, sex, food, or something else.  But I’ve come to think that, when we start exploring that space instead of trying to get rid of it, we deepen our enjoyment and appreciation of living.