Wisdom of Sound Blogs

My journey with change, relationships, and music.

Is it Shame or Guilt?

I ran across Brene Brown’s new book recently and I have been glued to it since. I think one of the biggest topics in our ENTIRE culture is how we deal with shame. It has become a HUGE topic when we start to define the culture that we live in. It is also one of the most uncomfortable subjects out there….and that is why I am writing about it today.

Interestingly enough, guilt does not have nearly the damaging affect on us as shame does…..why is that you may ask……let me share. In Brene Brown’s book she refers to herself as a “shame researcher”. What she found interesting in her research is how people avoid this topic like the plague. Why do you think that is so? My opinion…. BECAUSE WE ALL DEAL WITH IT….ALL THE TIME.

It is truly the elephant in the middle of the room and it is the most damaging action we can do to destroy relationships and disconnect from the people in our lives that we love. First of all, let me clarify the difference between guilt and shame.

Guilt and shame can both be defined as emotions of self-evaluation….and that is where the similarities end. Shame is about who we are (“I am bad”) and guilt is about our behaviors (“I did something bad”). That is a HUGE difference. Guilt is holding an action or behavior up against our ethics, values and beliefs and is sometimes an internal motivating factor to change our behavior. Shame focuses in on who we are rather than what we’ve done…..ie our behavior.

In other words, with guilt we can make amends, change our behavior, and/or apologize and move on to more positive, healing actions WHILE we are a GOOD person who had BAD behavior. With shame we internalize our behavior and we become a BAD person who will most likely continue to create BAD behavior.

This book has really gotten me to look hard at where and how I shame or take on shame. My awareness is so up right now, I am noticing more shaming than I ever focused in on.

So take a minute and take an inventory…..Do you use shame and how do you use shame to get what you want? What shame (or messages) have you taken on in your life? I’ll keep writing about this and how when we are in shame we disconnect with the ones we love and more importantly how we can build shame resistance…….until then……listen, love and have empathy….the first steps of shame resilience.

Change

It continues to amaze me how my life continues to change and evolve, even when I think things are fairly constant. I am convinced more now than ever, my life is about change and how I deal with it…..in fact, I am not unique to that….I know a lot of people in this same place.

So what is changing now in my life. I have stepped into being the musician that I have always wanted to be……just never could give myself permission to. Life has a funny way of continually putting this in front of me until I saw it. All the skills that I have amassed up to this point in my life are to help me create music and healing in my life…….in most cases, they are one in the same.

My blog as you have known it will change. I will still send out my emails, yet it will take on a different look and feel. They will be regular, just not necessarily weekly. I am blessed that I have been writing my blogs now for over 3 years now and I am so grateful for all of you who take the time to share my life with you. ….thank you.

As one of my friends and mentors used to tell me…… “Stan, you have a lot of impacted wisdom and when you get it out, you are the happiest and healthiest.” There is a lot of truth to that as when I share and connect the wisdom that is given to me, I feel joy. I love to connect and to help others on their journeys by letting them know they are not alone. This is also why I write music.

I put a recommended reading/music piece on my mailers now because I do run across information that I need to share. This first book by Brene Brown is all about shame and it is POWERFUL. I really connected with her work. I did not realize when I bought the book, that it was written about women (one on men is in the works) and in most cases…shame is shame…..men and women just manifest and process it differently.

So thank you for caring enough to share my life with you. I will continue to do this, it will just look differently. I am also interested in your stories and I read all my comments to my blogs and emails and am always grateful when you share with me……so what do you want to share about change???? Happy New Year……it’s going to be perfect.

Brothers

There are certain things in life that I was given. I had no say in the manner, it wasn’t my choice, I had nothing to do with it…..and it still came. What am I talking about…..siblings….brothers. I have two brothers and they were put in my life without any say so from me…….thank God they came though, life would not have been the same.

My brother David came in town today and my other brother John, who live here, joined us for lunch. Dave and I had some time before to connect which was awesome and of course when the three of us get together there is a certain energy that cannot be duplicated. It is so weird to me sometimes when I see our “family” traits coming out in one another. Since I don’t get to see Dave as much we took some special time to reconnect.

If you look at the picture on my blog that is Dave and I when we were really young. We were rocking to some cool new music we got and we were having a blast. Fast forward about 45 + years and here we are. This time he is telling me about his journey to Spain and how it changed his life and how he and his family are learning more and more about each other every day and how calm and relaxed he is becoming.

We have all had our journeys and it is so beautiful and so unique siblings have…we have a love for each other that is ancestral. It is not that we talk every day like some brothers yet we keep connected at a deep level because it is important to both of us to have that. I had two brothers and no sisters so I got a steady dose of testosterone early and often. Maybe that is why my brother and I are on our journey to find peace in our lives and to honor the softer loving parts of us…… there are no accidents.

The Critic

Have you ever gotten to know someone so well that you started to take on his/her traits? I have. Interestingly enough, this also goes for the different parts of me.

I am an assortment of parts when put all together the world knows as Stan. You have read my blogs before about whichever part I feed the most is the part of me that runs my life. This week there has been a part of me that has in some ways not only been a part of me, it has been a defining part. That part is my critic.

Meet my critic. He sounds just like me, he looks just like me, and he has the most uncanny timing in the world. His whole role in this world is to let me know that I am not quite good enough and how could I be a fool to think so. Some people call this the monkey mind……another way of saying critic gone wild.

As I have learned in Shadow Work, the critic can also be in the form of a risk manager and has served me in the sense of a protector against me hurting or embarrassing myself. The paradox is that I cannot protect myself from me.

My critic and my victim are best friends and feed off each other. This week my critic has been going NUTS……why……..because I am stepping out of my comfort range and pursuing parts of my musical life that I have always wanted and yet found many reasons not to.

have chosen a profession in music and healing where creativity and uncertainty is king and there is no definable solutions…..just songs and ideas. So my critic has all kinds of room to dance. So instead of fighting with my critic…..I think it’s high time I wrote him a song……you think he will help me with the title?

Nothing is Free

We have come to the last song on the CD. When I was putting the song order together, I wanted to make sure that the beginning and ending were special. The beginning was easy because that was the song my daughter Kelsey sang, so it was a for sure first song.

The last song has a different energy. Do you remember buying albums or CDs where you looked at what songs were where….well did. It was a ritual for me that has kind of gone away in my opinion. We now buy single songs and compile them into our Itunes or phone to listen to what we want when we want……what we miss is the story though.

The ending to Flyin Blind is a message, and the message is…..nothing is free. This is not in the sense of a negative lecturing piece as much as it is a message for healing. When I heal is when I get in touch with my consequences for my action and I am accountable to my choices. What I have found is that everything has consequences……and consequences are not negative. If I buy my girlfriend some flowers and a card one day just to let her know I love her, the consequence is love and connection. So consequences just are……not good or bad…..they are just consequences to our actions.

As we speak, I am hard at work on my next CD and the story is unfolding. What I know about my music is that I write to share my story and to help people heal. So what is my consequence for my next CD…….more intense, loving, connected, joyful fun…..and great music of course.

Nothing is Free

I used to go through life, following the wind

Without a purpose, never risking a sin

Then I met her, things began to change

Living for me, this feeling is strange