Finding your voice: Inner Child and Limiting Beliefs
There’s a phrase that says that people rise less to any occasion and fall more to their level of competency/systems. And because I’m interested in all of the hidden ways that our early conditioning plays a role in how we frame the world as adults, is why I want to inspire other musicians and non-musicians alike to treat this type of self-exploration as important as sleep, nourishment, and hydration. As to develop this kind of insight is the most transformative and emancipative thing we can do for ourselves.
When we’re born, we’re like little computers booting up. However, we can’t be fully engaged with until programs are installed. So the first seven years of life appear to be a period where we’re indiscriminately downloading 1st edition versions of universal, regional, and culturally specific contracts that help us to interact with the world. And along with these downloads is also a firewall of sorts for filtering all subsequent incoming data. Which means that as we grow older, the nature of our learning will be reflective of how all new info squares with our existing framework for processing these universal, regional, and culturally specific realities. So if your operating system isn’t undergoing constant updates, you’ll find it harder to interface with certain networks at times. Alright, enough with the computer analogies! Let me now tell you a quick little story to bring everything into focus.
As far back as my teenaged years, I’ve been hypnotized by the drumming of Jeff “Tain” Watts. He’s the drummer on all those famous Wynton Marsalis records in the 80’s, as well as his older brother Branford Marsalis’ records from 1990 throughout the mid to late 2000’s. Now since I didn’t really know how music worked back then, my relationship with Jeff’s drumming was like that of a baby who’s trying to make sense of how the world works by indiscriminately absorbing everything that he played. And since everyone seemed to be co-signing on how great he was, and still is, copying him was obviously a safe bet as I couldn’t be judged on anything other than my ability to play an already established set of ideas. So as I got older, and began to develop a more objective framework for how music worked, I realized that many of the new “updates” (okay, perhaps just a few more computer references) didn’t square with my old logic about the how’s and why’s behind both his drumming and music in general. But then one day it occurred to me to simply ask my younger self why I ever liked his playing in the first place. And the answer I found was that I admired his ability to be “busy and not in the way” of making great music. No more, no less. Therefore, to say that a giant weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I figured this out would be more than an understatement! And from there I’d go on to establish my own way of expressing rhythmic density (while being complimentary) so that I could finally begin to regard my own artistic point-of-view as something that’d be worth standing behind. In other words, I had finally developed a program that can support the artistic vision that I have.
Suggested Takeaways…
a) The construction of a point-of-view is like constructing a building, in that every new add-on requires a foundation check. So if you conclude that to embrace a new idea will compromise the integrity of your foundation, then the three choices you have are to either scrap the idea altogether, adjust your previously held beliefs to support the new idea, or edit the idea so that it fits.
b) There’s nothing inherently wrong with being programmed. What matters, however, is that you’re aware of how and when certain programmed beliefs where installed into you, so as to intentionally decide which ones are still serving you well, and which ones need to be updated or deleted.
c) At the risk of sounding blasphemous, it can be helpful sometimes to see people as a bunch of programs in a human vessel. As when you do so, it allows you to stay objective when people say or do things that may be hurtful, because all transgressions are reflective of a set of programs, because no child comes into this world with a concept of any of the social conventions that we come to know of. Children are blank canvases that engage with the world however they’ve been programmed to process all universal, regional, and culturally specific realities.