Turning Off and Tuning In

I'm just getting home from yet another weekend wedding.  This one was in La Crosse, Wisconsin, celebrating my cousin Adam and his new wife, Molly.  I loved watching two gorgeous souls tying the knot in a gorgeous valley with gorgeous words and gorgeous music.  Everything about this weekend was gorgeous.  

And I really needed it.  Because things got UGLY this week at my restaurant. And I'm not just talking about the work load.

At this point in my life, I'm getting used to people firing shots at me on-line, but the trolling was fierce this week.  Some people love to hate The Norwegian project for some reason.  And on Wednesday, I snapped and fired back, telling any haters that--if they wanted me to get my restaurant open sooner--they could come by and pick up a damn paint brush.  

Not my finest moment.

Anyway, worse than me snapping was the revelation that the trolls had really gotten into my head. Their thoughts about me started to permeate, and I began to believe them.  ("This restaurant is taking too long. I'm too slow. I'm unskilled. I'm disappointing the community.  I'm the biggest fattest failure that ever failed...").

You know, the standard ego-crushing B.S.

And of course, I carried it with me up to Wisconsin.  My confidence was in the dumps at the wedding and through the reception.  I was drowning my sorrows in my third piece of wedding cake when a few women came up to me.  They said they just loved my music, and they've been listening to it for years. They were so excited to meet me, to tell me what my music meant to them.  They asked me for my autograph and my picture. 

I thought one of two things: either my husband paid for these women to boost my ego, or they were drunk.

And clearly they were neither.  But that's the power of letting negative voices live for too long inside your head.

Reader, I don't know what you've got going on upstairs. But I know that sometimes what we think of as intuition and introspection are actually inner punishment and self-loathing.  When the two get mixed up, it doesn't hurt to turn off your head completely, and listen to the people around that you trust, the ones who see things more positively and clearly.  If your lousy inner dialogue has gotten out of hand, tune into the folks you love, and start letting those words seep in.  Life's too short to hate anybody, especially yourself.

And with that, this big non-failure is off to write music.  See you next Sunday. -Em 

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