It’s time to free your music!

There’s a line in a poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes that I have always found compelling. “Alas for those that never sing, but die with all their music in them.”

It’s not so much the tragedy of that unsung music I find compelling, but what it shines a light on for those of us who are still here. I feel called to help people “free their music.”

Of course, “free your music” might be a nice poetic turn of a phrase, but if we want to take intentional action towards doing that, we need more. We need specifics. What is this music we’re trying to free?

As I work with it, our music has four main components:

• Our voice: An authentic expression of who we are.
• Gifts: Our strengths, skills, abilities, and knowledge.
• Juice: What makes life energizing, engaging, and meaningful.
• Impact: The difference we make.

When we’re immersed in our music, all of those things are at play.

Before that music can be played, it needs an instrument – and that instrument is you. If the instrument is out of tune, or badly clogged by some kind of gunk, the capacity for that music to flow is limited. Freeing your music is as much about tuning the instrument and the inner work of creating space for the music to flow as it is about the outer expression of the song.

Taking all of that together gives us a useful starting point for taking purposeful, intentional steps towards freeing our music. Depending on where you are, you will find your starting point in one of the following.

Unblock: If you have a pillow stuffed in your tuba, your music will be muffled at best (and more likely you’ll just turn red, get light headed, and pass out from the effort). If you think of yourself as the instrument that plays your music, unblocking is about reducing the things that have a constrictive effect on that instrument, like stress, fear, or anxiety.

Explore: It’s hard to play your music if you don’t know what it is. Each of the four components listed above can be a starting point for exploration. Taken together, they paint a picture of the underlying notes of your music. (Ha! Yes, I just mixed metaphors – that’s just how I roll.)

• Your authentic voice: What does it look like to be the “real you?” How are you when you are showing up aligned with what feels natural for you?
• Gifts: What are your strengths and abilities? Where do you shine?
• Juice: What feels energizing and engaging? What gives you a sense of meaning?
• Impact: What difference are you making? What difference could you make? What difference do you want to make? What difference feels most compelling?

Express: This is where the music actually gets played. It’s about taking the insights you uncovered in the “Explore” part of freeing your music, and looking for ways to experience them.

It’s not inherently about doing something epic (though it could be if that’s your jam). It’s simply about bringing more opportunities into your life, large or small, epic or mundane, for that music to be expressed.

Try this: As a starting point, look at the three main ideas – Unblock/Explore/Express. Where are you right now? What needs your attention?

Are you stressed and need to learn to dial it down? Do you need a better understanding of what energizes and engages you? Or do you already have a good idea of what that music looks like, and you need to take action to build more of it into your life?

When you put your finger on it, follow it up with this question: “What one thing can I do to take a step in that direction?”

What one thing can you do to start reducing stress? What one thing can you do to better understand what lights me up? What one thing can you do to bring more energy or meaning into my life?

And then, of course, keep reading this blog, because the entire thing will be one big extended answer to the question, “How can I free my music?”