I’ve been trying to find my happy place for the last three months. The one that can keep my patience from unspooling each time a driver cuts me off. The one that should prevent me from feeling a tug of envy when someone posts on social media about the spectacular results of their hard work. When I don’t reside in my happy place, my whiny inner child wonders when it will be my turn to boast.
We all lose our mojo from time to time. I once lost mine while I was preparing a concerto for a performance. I began practicing the piece a few months in advance of the concert date and dutifully added a couple of hours of daily practice into an already busy schedule. Dutiful does not lend itself to creative or inspired progress. Dutiful feels like work, and trudging off to the practice room day in and day out is a quick way to kill one’s mojo.
We All Could Use a Tiara
I have practice hacks galore. I tried ‘em all, but none addressed what I needed to feel. What I needed was a tiara.
I don’t know where the idea came from. But I decided wearing a tiara while I practiced was the solution to my problems. I detached the ring of bling from the veil I wore to my wedding, pinned it into my hair, and began practicing. One tiny tweak — and a seemingly silly one at that — snapped me out of my funk and restored the sense of specialness I needed to feel as I prepared to be a soloist with an orchestra.
My current mood has turned me into a storm cloud, but I’m not the only one in an otherwise azure sky. Many of my friends are in a similar funk. I know the election knocked some to the ground. The lessening amount of daylight doesn’t help. Whether the cause is something meaty like witnessing man’s inhumanity or something lesser, we’ve been evicted from our happy places, and we want back in.
Working harder to achieve our desired results while in this state is not the roadmap to finding our way back to our happy places. Before we can reap benefits from our efforts, we need to find a tiara, something “other” that shakes us out of our funk and reenergizes our mojo. If you’re taking yourself and your problems too seriously, try wearing a pair of mismatched socks. If you’re working from home in sweats and not getting the results you want, maybe you’ll feel more successful while wearing a blazer with your sweats. If you feel unheard, sing your lungs out when you listen to music in your car. And when you feel better about yourself, go do something lovely for another person and help them return to their happy place.
[fruitful_sep]
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