Listen! (Part 1)

I would like to dedicate a few entries to the ears. Ever since I've been busy with digging myself into Lajos Szamosi's Path to Free Singing, I am more and more interested in this curious body part, the ears and especially the process of listening. As a musician and as a singer of course you listen differently and you listen more carefully than anyone else. Before I've got to know the Szamosi Approach I was convinced that there are people who have ears for music and there are those who just simply don't have any musical hearing. There is a difference, of course, but there is nothing to do with the body part itself, it has rather a lot to do with how we use our ears, and what we are used to. Moreover, the ability of listening and our ears can be trained, although you have to be aware that the thin line that seperates professionals from amateurs, in the aspect of listening(!!), is actually very much based on your sensbility, if you dare to feel. We are not the same, not in body and certainly not in personality, and each of us have our own farthest limitations, but whether someone becomes a professional musician and/or singer or not, in the end the success will always depend on one's sensibility, sensitivity and body awareness (this last one can be learned and/or natural).

There are different perspectives of listening, and I would never confuse listening with hearing. Hearing is a passive, while listening is active and supposes that the one who listens also pays attention - hearing not necessarily comes with attention paid. 

I think almost all of us know this quote from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery (see above), but I'm pretty sure there are just the few among us who actually able to see with their hearts. Actually most of us doesn't even know or can tell how you can see with your heart. Of course, everyone has their interpretation on it, so let me give you mine.

In my opinion, listening is acceptance. It requires an open mind, an open attitude. If someone is truly listening to the other, their heart is open, just as their mind and accepting all the information (emotional, practical, theoretical, etc) that's been said. If listening is acceptance, than it also brings you to let go of the will to control the current situation, and that can be pretty scary. Most of the self-protecting stances begin with cutting the channels to truly listen and the flow of information coming to us. 

Listening is not only essential for musicians and singers, it is very important to every human being. Relationships (any kind of a relationships) are going wrong whenever people stop listening to eachother. You stop listening, because in the process somewhere you got hurt and in order to avoid more wounds and pain, you close yourself - for the sake of survival, purely by instict. And this is where your insticts can bring you to make a wrong decision and instead of releasing the tension, more tension is created. Such a pity. I'm not saying you have to accept everything you listen to. Eventually you'll make a selection (based on different factors) and you'll keep only the most useful information.

When you are seeing with your heart, you listen. You accept what you hear and you pay attention. Without listening, you can only see the surface and that surface is already within the reach of the Eyes. 

As for me, I'm not interested in the surface, I would like to see and feel the depths, the real beauty of existence. The surface will never satisfy me...

The key to inner peace is...

... forgiveness.

For a long time I thought the key to inner peace is to be satisfied with your accomplished goals and being successful, but I had to realise that these things are rather results of the inner peace, than the inner peace itself.

It was about 3 years ago when I went to Finland for the Sastamala Gregoriana masterclass, and my senses awakened (see this entry for more), and that helped me realise how much negativity and resentment I am holding onto instead of letting go of old grudges. Of course, I was shocked seeing how many emotional loose ends I have. The shock was followed by embarrassment and frustration, and then I really decided to take care of my emotional loose ends. One would think these loose ends cannot cause much problems, but the more you have of them, the more they will block your way of getting over old things. And here I would quote here Carrie Fischer again: "... let's say something happens and from a certain slant, maybe it's tragic and even a little bit shocking. And then time passes and you go to the funny slant and now that very same thing can no longer do you any harm."
If you don't go to the "funny slant" as time goes by, and don't understand and accept that tragic and shocking experiences can no longer do you any harm, you'll get stuck in your past.

But how can you actually go to the funny slant? My mother always says: if you cannot laugh about it, you are not over it yet. Even top secret documents have expiration date, not to mention foodstuff. The only thing that certain and eternal in this World is that everything continuously changes. If you prevent this natural flow, there's no way you could come out of it healthy and unhurt.

Even at singing, if you for example grab on your larynx, you'll get eventually vocal problems after a while. The essence of Life is change, therefore for a healthy career you shouldn't be afraid of this natural flow.

How you take care of loose ends? You apply forgiveness. You forgive everyone that has ever intentionally or unintentionally hurt you - including yourself. There's always two sides of the coin and sometimes you just have to accept that whatever happened, it cannot be helped, just forgive without wanting to hear an apology.

I am still working on my loose ends. How about you?