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34. Processing Grief Through Songwritting - With Hope Littwin
73 Plays5 years ago
Hope Littwin is composer, singer, multi-instrumentalist, and producer. Her newest song release “Hollow” is an exploration of how childhood trauma affects us once it is triggered and awakened later in life. Recently she has been leading virtual songwriting courses to teach people how to tell their story through music.
We talk about her songwritting process and talk about many themes but in particular how to use songrwritting as a tool to process grief. She shares with us about how she translates her emotions into music, and about her creative process.
In this episode we also talk about how music can be a portal to deeper connection with self. This can happen as the artist is creating it as well as for the listener who connects with the music as he/she listens.
Find Out More About Hope Littwin, courses and work at www.hopelittwin.com
Watch her video for her song Hollow https://youtu.be/rAl6hh-VOHs
Connect via IG: http://instagram.com/hopelittwin
Connect via FB: http://facebook.com/hopelittwinmusic
Connect with Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest on the show or for a complimentary coaching call.
www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com
griefgratudepodcast@gmail.com
http://instagram.com/griefgratitudepodcast
http://facebook.com/griefgratitudepodcast
Music Composed By: Daniel Rinaldi www.oneplanetmusic.com Listen to his podcast too!
Production: Carlos Andres Londono
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Podcast and Themes
00:00:01
Speaker
When you have gone through things, you can kind of tell who's also gone through something similar. You know, it doesn't take a whole lot. You kind of know the tells. But I think also in creating, in songwriting, in composing, you are kind of digging in to tell your story. Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast.
00:00:28
Speaker
This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:00:45
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
00:01:05
Speaker
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in today to listen. I am so grateful that you decided to pick this episode because you could pick any episode or any podcast out there because there definitely are allowed out there. But I feel that when things happen,
00:01:24
Speaker
for a reason, reason that you click a certain episode or you decide to open a certain page in a book, it's for a reason. And I do hope that you see that after you listen to today's episode.
Introducing Hope Litwin and Her Journey
00:01:37
Speaker
Today, we have Hope Litwin on the episode, and she is a composer, a singer, a multi-instrumentalist and producer. She has written for
00:01:50
Speaker
Studio on stage for performing live all these different titles, which I actually wrote I was just telling hope I wrote it on my notebook Yet, I don't understand my own writing as I'm writing reading it So all the titles that I'm saying I'm sure she'll be able to clarify in just a little bit So hope and I connected because she was actually interviewed by my brother Daniel Rinaldi on his podcast called one planet music and
00:02:18
Speaker
my brother said she was looking for a podcast to be able to share her new song, which is called Hollow. And it is an exploration of how childhood trauma affects us once it is triggered and awakened later in life. And so she wrote a little
00:02:36
Speaker
a little pitch, as I quick call it. Is that right? Hope you wrote a little pitch. You emailed me with a pitch. She wrote all these things. I'm like, I'm in. So these are the two topics we'll be exploring today as we interview. We'll be talking about how songwriting can be used as a tool for processing grief. And we will also talk about how music can be a portal to a deeper connection with self. So I am excited to learn with you all as I am
00:03:05
Speaker
talking for the first time with Hope. Welcome, Hope. Thank you so much.
00:03:10
Speaker
So okay, so hope now since I just like completely butchered your introduction so tell me My own writing so tell us a little bit more about what it is you do as a musician You know, I think it's like what I do is confusing So I think that's it like I think you're probably reading your writing and your writing is probably beautiful But you're probably like this makes no sense Correct response because I think what I am doing is
00:03:40
Speaker
Not to act like, oh, no one's ever done this before or anything. But I think the things that I'm trying to combine, I don't think people have combined before quite in this way. So it's always been a little bit of a challenge for me to kind of describe exactly what I do. And I think it's becoming more and more clear as I make more work, too. Part of it is just amassing a lot of work. But I am trained as a composer.
00:04:08
Speaker
and was trained as a classical singer. So even though I didn't start my musical journey there, I went through the conservatory world. But before that, I was a professional dancer in a ballet company and was a singer-songwriter and then went to conservatory and then decided that I wanted to learn how to produce my own music because I was tired of
Creativity and Personal Healing
00:04:32
Speaker
not having the say and everything. I think I'm a slight control freak. So I realized if you have something you want to say the way you want to say it, then you got to figure out how to do it yourself. So I did my master's in basically music production for film and television, but it was very like music production heavy. And since then I've been out a couple of years and I've been
00:04:58
Speaker
Well, I was touring and composing and performing before COVID hit, but then when COVID hit, I came back to Chicago where my family is and I built up a home studio and I started
00:05:11
Speaker
making like producing work from home but also began teaching from my studio teaching other people how to write songs and produce their own music and because I have a very strong spiritual life and like yogic practice and have done a lot of work with different types of therapies in
00:05:36
Speaker
just like for trauma and things like that that I've experienced. Like I've had this as like a life thing. It's always been with me, this kind of work. I noticed that, especially as people are going through this time right now, those two really naturally connected with me, not only as a creator, but also as a teacher. And it's been really amazing to watch these kind of two sides of my life that I always considered possibly separate.
00:06:04
Speaker
really like come and gel together and be like this one conglomerate like thing. So my studio now is called Sanctuary Studios and I call it a woman-led trauma-informed
00:06:17
Speaker
music studio that teaches people how to create, produce, and tell their own story. It's so beautiful. Thank you. Now, did you end up finding out because through clients that trauma played a part in their composing, or was it something that you experienced yourself?
00:06:40
Speaker
I think I'm naturally very, I think when you have gone through things, you can kind of tell who's also gone through something similar. You know, it doesn't take a whole lot. You kind of know the tells, but I think also in creating, in songwriting, in
00:06:57
Speaker
composing, you are kind of digging in to tell your story. So they are very close. I work a lot with this book with my students called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. Oh, you know that book. I love that book. I do. I read it a long time in college and actually another musician actually also from Chicago that I interviewed. She was also talking about The Artist's Way as well. What's her name? Gail Gallagher.
00:07:21
Speaker
I feel like I've heard of her. She does improv composition, like for improv, some of the improv places there and musical improv in Chicago area. Okay, very cool. I'll connect the two of you if you want. Yeah, because she also teaches and stuff. Yeah, I'll connect the two of you. But she was also talking. I read it a long time ago. I was probably 20, I'm 20 or something or something like that. I'm 40, 40, almost 45. So that tells you how long it's been since I've read it.
00:07:49
Speaker
I highly recommend digging into it again. It's basically like a 12-step program for your creativity. So I work a lot with that with students because when you start creating, when you start songwriting, when you start making music, very quickly you're like, well, what am I doing? And it's like facing the blank page. You ask yourself a lot of questions, which then really quickly gets you to reflect. And it's not common in our
00:08:18
Speaker
society to have spaces that are simply meant to reflect. Like the space is meant to, you should sit with yourself and look through your memories and consider what it is that you have to say and form your story and that's the purpose of the space. Like those are very rare spaces.
00:08:36
Speaker
So there's a lot of fear that comes up. There's a lot of anxiety that comes up. And for me too, like I know it in other people because I feel it all the time when I'm making something new and I make a lot of stuff. So that has been my way of kind of synthesizing my experiences and kind of like communicating with a
00:09:02
Speaker
a deeper part of myself that's maybe slightly more subconscious to try and communicate with different sides of myself or just maybe more hidden sides of myself. So it's been really interesting to kind of lead people through that process and you know, kind of put a lot of realizing like, okay, there have to be like a lot of tools in place to assist this process. Otherwise, I actually think about this a lot with
00:09:31
Speaker
movies like i have a really hard time watching scary movies and things like that because i they make me feel unsafe and my brain like memorizes images and will replay them forever but i always think like a really great movie director even if they're taking you through really dark stuff if they take me safely through that journey to the other side i feel like that's kind of the job of an artist this is a personal opinion obviously an artist can be anything that anyone wants them to be but for me i feel like you have uh
00:09:59
Speaker
a responsibility to bring people safely through whatever that journey is you're taking them on to the other side as their guide, they're trusting you with that. You said something that, yeah, sorry that it just reminded me, I had a visual
The Role of Trust in Artistic Expression
00:10:14
Speaker
of that. My dad was in theater and he used to be in a theater in Santa Monica, California.
00:10:23
Speaker
And one of their performances was very, it was, this was in the 70s, right? Late 60s, you know, and that kind of, a lot of different types of theater are coming out of that. And one of their pieces was, because it was the kind of experiences in which the audience was part of the performance, per se. Right, like a theater in the round.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah, well actually they were, they were, they were actually in the, in it like with the actors. So there was one in which they would like have the audience members like basically like blind, blindfolded and like kind of, you know, taken and guided through with the different actors and kind of experiencing different parts of the stage. I don't, I'm not, and he, my dad listens to his podcast and so I'm sure he's going to then call me and tell me exactly what it is it was.
00:11:14
Speaker
But right now what you just said it just reminded me of that experience that they had to feel they trusted the Actors in order to be able to experience that and what you're saying is that when you're watching a movie as long as you're able to trust that if you're
00:11:31
Speaker
safely being guided to explore fear and or love or tears or whatever it is in that movie that somehow the director will navigate those emotions to let you explore them in a safe way that you are able to tap into them and have an outcome that is maybe a release or an awakening somehow. Is that right? Not just like leaving you in the dark forest by yourself.
00:12:01
Speaker
Which is how I feel when I watch Lars Von Trier movies. So that's like my one example. People are like, well, who's an example of someone who does that? I'm like, have you seen Dancer in the Dark? They're just like punch you in the gut and then leave you there. I have not seen it, but I haven't seen it.
00:12:16
Speaker
Now, how about with music then? Do you feel then the responsibility then of a song then is the same? So let's talk about Hollow. Has it released already publicly? I heard it, but did you already... Okay, so we're recording this October 30th of 2020 is when it's released. So when this comes out, it would already be released.
00:12:40
Speaker
So make sure to search for it on Hope's website or on Spotify and other, which other ones would it be on? What other platforms? Everywhere. So I go through CD Baby, which distributes everywhere. Amazon music, YouTube, all the places. So let's talk about that song. So, because that one is a journey in itself. So tell us about Hollow.
00:13:06
Speaker
Yeah, so I think to answer your question from before a little bit, I think music has less narrative than theater typically, so it's a little bit more abstract, so it's slightly more difficult to
00:13:23
Speaker
I guess answer that question but it is a very interesting question because I do think that music for me anyway it's like holding a space or an experience to happen and it's not so much like A to B like theater can be with clear narrative you know this plot point happened and this plot point where in some songs you can have that but
00:13:41
Speaker
That is a three-minute experience, right? So it's like, how could you... Right, exactly. It could be three to five... I don't know, some songs are longer. But yeah, it could be a three to five-minute experience. So therefore, it's most likely one emotion usually felt through that, and then certain thoughts or memories that come through that experience of a song.
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, I like that you said that, that way. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. So Hollow, um, go ahead. No, no, tell us, tell us. Okay. So Hollow, um, for a while I had some people, uh, asking me like, and this was a couple of years ago when the Me Too movement was really big, really hot. And they were like, well, you should do a commentary.
00:14:27
Speaker
like write a song about that for that movement or something. And I was like, I don't really, it's not really my thing. I don't really do reactive music making. Like I kind of hold the space where I'm in and try it. But as I was kind of chewing on that as almost like a
00:14:49
Speaker
a prompt that I thought, you know, this is very interesting, but I wonder if I could come at it from my own space where I didn't feel like I was like writing some type of a protest song or something, but really felt like it was in a piece where I honored my experience and told it the way I wanted to tell it and not like, I don't know, there was something that I didn't respond to about like the flashiness of, or I don't want to say this,
00:15:18
Speaker
kind of like open purse where all your stuff just like falls out on the floor. I'm like, that's really not my style. Like I, I honor that. Yeah, it's like, yeah. And, um, I think that that happens when there are like big movements where there's kind of almost a pressure of like, well, share your experience. You can share your experiences. Like, well, I don't, that's not how I share.
00:15:45
Speaker
So let me share in my own way, you know, in my own time. So actually the beginnings of that song were, how do I say, like an improvisation in the studio, actually. I tend to write by like booking studio time and then freaking out that I have no idea what I'm gonna do. And then like five minutes before someone hits record, I like,
00:16:13
Speaker
write down some ideas and then I just kind of like wing it, which obviously. I just wing this introduction when I was trying to introduce you.
00:16:29
Speaker
You're interviewing the right person for that kind of thing. That's also, and it's not like, you know, there's a lot of training behind being able to do that obviously but like, you know, kind of forcing yourself into the, into the corner really okay, you can make something.
00:16:47
Speaker
And it actually took me about a year on and off to build this piece because I kept coming back to it and adding more layers and kind of reconfiguring. And I worked early on with a director to kind of tell a visual, almost like a visual tone poem story film with it. And then after the film was for the first edit, I realized that in order to match the visuals of the film of the story we were trying to tell, because we had had some conversations about
00:17:17
Speaker
how to kind of approach this subject in a way that felt real and healing to us instead of just like what is expected, you know? Or, oh, you know, kind of like getting away from the cliches and more into like, well, what's my experience and how do I want to?
00:17:37
Speaker
be telling the story in a way that feels healing to me or feels some kind of catharsis, which is going to be different for everyone, obviously. Absolutely. But what you're saying is true. Like you had to write it thinking of your own perspective and how you're writing, not necessarily thinking
00:17:54
Speaker
of how are others going to perceive it necessarily or how are others going to receive it or experience it because again, music is just so unique and in this particular, because of this particular theme too, you had to make it be more of your own, right?
Authenticity in Art and Personal Growth
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah, totally. And I keep thinking of like,
00:18:19
Speaker
This story keeps coming to mind. I can't remember where I heard this story, but Francis Ford Coppola, maybe he was the one who told it actually, when he was making one of the Godfather movies, the producers were telling him, you know, there's not enough violence in this scene. Like, can you imagine in his movies, they're not in violence, but they're like, there's not enough violence. You have to like do some more shooting and like put some more violence in the scene because it's just not working.
00:18:44
Speaker
and he decided and they were you know they were basically saying like more blood more guts more guns more death and he decided to go a different route and that's when he put in the domestic violence scene where um i forgot her name she's like breaking dishes she's pregnant and her husband comes home and starts a fight and she's breaking dishes and he starts beating her
00:19:08
Speaker
And that's the scene that he returns to them and kind of the producers just shut up. Like no one can say anything, even though that's not the scene they were asking for. No one can deny that it's like. So his version, I guess, was like, you want violence, I'll give you violence. But it can't. It's like one that behind closed doors, the one the violence that occurs probably most often yet that people don't see. That is.
00:19:32
Speaker
genius, like how he approached that then. And I don't know that in man I have not seen. I don't even remember which Godfather that would be in because that's so many. Wow. Wow. But I think about that really personal and like you said, this idea about like, if we're gonna tell our stories, then let's, let's go there. It's not just like the
00:20:02
Speaker
kind of the stories that you can like write on a cardboard thing on a stick or like, you know, take it outside or like, you know, yell from the street and something that's like chantable. At least for me as an artist, someone's like, I really want you to tell your story. I'm like, okay, well, I'm really going to tell you the story. I mean, for me,
00:20:26
Speaker
The beautiful thing about poetry and songwriting is that you can use really beautiful metaphors. You don't have to just say maybe like a novelist would say or something. And like you said, with music, you have less time typically in a song. But yeah, I think... I have like 10 ideas in my head at the same time. Like, which one will come out?
00:20:54
Speaker
But I had like an artist roundtable yesterday with 10 different artists who were all kind of part of this online curated thing. And what came up in that, it just made me think of this right now, was people were talking a lot about like, oh, I don't know as a musician or as an artist if I'm connecting and that's really hard for me right now, like figuring out how do I reach that audience? Am I reaching that audience?
00:21:23
Speaker
Are we communicating? Are we connecting? And I kept thinking, well, what's the nature of connection? Because if I'm, let's say that it's not just art, it's just I want to meet somebody, which is the clearest form of connection, like one person communicating with another person. I never think of it as like, OK, I have this thing to say. I want to say it at this person. Did they hear me? That's not my qualifications of a connection. Typically, the qualifications of a connection are
00:21:51
Speaker
I don't know what's going to happen, but I'm going to show up and like this person's going to offer me something. Hopefully I'm going to be able to hear it and have something in response to say, and then there's going to be kind of like this give and take back and forth or something. And I think about that a lot too, when I'm approaching like making something new or
00:22:14
Speaker
collaborating with like for example this filmmaker that I worked with on the music video like it's kind of a search for the thing you start with like the subject matter and kind of the thing you're starting to uncover but it's not like you start at least for me I don't really like start with the thesis and then work backwards to prove the thesis I kind of start with like the point of excavation that I'm interested in like
00:22:42
Speaker
uncovering and then I just start to like pull layers back and pull layers back.
00:22:49
Speaker
Yeah, you start with the whole onion. You start with the whole onion and then you start peeling it until you get to the core. What you were saying there in terms of the connecting, then it made me think of how you were saying of the music as a portal of deeper connection with self when you sent the pitch. And I think that as an artist, one of the things is like if you really like kind of like I was thinking of that round table that you were saying,
00:23:16
Speaker
If you are connecting enough to self and you're really writing from that place of your inner core, if you're connecting with you, then you will be able to connect with another soul yourself. I, 1000% believe that.
00:23:33
Speaker
Yeah, it is because it's being true to some essence of who you are that that's what will resonate with somebody else. I because how else you cannot reach everybody, right? You can't. There's no way like you
00:23:51
Speaker
This podcast is not for everybody. I've had friends that don't listen to the podcast because, you know, that have never listened to an episode because it's not what they're wanting to hear, right? But it's connecting with those that need to hear. But I'm being true to me. You're being true to you here being interviewed. And that's what's going to create connection. I think that's interesting that you said that because with grief, there's this tendency to like,
00:24:18
Speaker
I think kind of like freeze frame a moment and then try and support that. So it's almost like you hold on to that picture and then you keep making work or keep describing it or keep that picture alive instead of actually continuing to honor how you're progressing with that narrative. And like for me, anyway, as I revisit my memories with
00:24:45
Speaker
the new information that I gained just from living and having different experiences, my memories actually get updated. So like the, not that the narrative changes direction, but it gains a lot more perspective and just depth. So I don't know. I think it's very tricky with, um,
00:25:13
Speaker
With art making, and this is why I think I always have my students and myself always be working through some kind of like an artist's way journal or some kind of step program so that there's always some kind of direct connection to self. So you're not like just supporting some image of yourself in order to be consistent with the narrative that other people know from 10 years ago or whatever.
00:25:41
Speaker
But to continue to update that and come back to it honestly, I think there's a real temptation to end up being some weird poster child that you created for something that's frozen in time.
00:25:58
Speaker
What you're saying, like the word that came to mind was fluid, fluidity. There has to be, so it's not something that happens, even that memory in our head, kind of whatever we experienced, it can't, like you just said, it can change because your perspective changes through time. The experience itself that happened will remain the same. So let's talk, if we're talking about trauma, since the song Hollow is about trauma,
00:26:25
Speaker
then that experience is there, but then how it's perceived as you keep on growing, and I'm not a therapist, so I'm just kind of saying it just in layman's terms, is that as you perceive it, then in different periods of your time,
00:26:44
Speaker
Will be different even though the experience whatever happened. It's the same right but what is fluid is your perception of that so so when we're so attached to how we perceived it at a certain time and
00:27:00
Speaker
right, and not, are not detached from it, then it's harder to also kind of move through that trauma, right, and be able to then live your life knowing that something happened, yet you're able to live out of it. And with grief, a lot of, a lot of grief, you know, there's a lot of grief and trauma, of course.
00:27:22
Speaker
And a lot of people that have experienced grief has been in a traumatic wave. They've seen that, say, their loved one pass away, or things like that, if it has to do with death. But there's grief in so many areas of life, right? There's something that gets frozen about it. I feel like the danger is that it gets frozen, and then you can't kind of embody it in order to, like,
00:27:51
Speaker
take reins of it in some way or kind of even just to fully acknowledge what really happened in order to move through like it freezes in this like fight flight freeze response and then it it just kind of gets stuck there and I think that's the thing too as I'm working with the different songwriters and uh
00:28:14
Speaker
helping people through telling their story that I come up against over and over again and in my own writing as well, where it's like you sit down to finally write through something and then you just start making your shopping list because you like can't handle it. Like you can't even approach the inner world. It's like too much. So you just start writing a shopping list or your directions to where you should be going max or you know, it's like, so
00:28:44
Speaker
It's a protection mechanism that our mind goes through, right? Because it's really hard sometimes to be able to face it, face those moments in which we were hurt in some way or another, that therefore then when you're trying to address it, to even, as you said, even write music about something, you still end up kind of somewhere else. You know, where you're like, why am I trying?
00:29:08
Speaker
writing the shopping list. But again, it's because it's still stuck somehow. It's still stuck in that particular memory of whatever it was and how it was that happened and not being able to be viewed differently with a different perspective in order to kind of shift
00:29:31
Speaker
shift and move through it. And again, it's not moving on from experiences happen to everybody. And they are part of who we become and they're, they're necessary. I mean, let me just put it, any experience in life is necessary for us to grow. I'm not saying wishing any.
00:29:49
Speaker
ill on any of us, but we grow through tests. That is my perspective, but I don't see how else we would grow if everything was just perfect, right, in our life.
Integrating Mind, Body, and Spirit
00:30:04
Speaker
Tests are how we are able to
00:30:07
Speaker
perceive life differently and grow resilient and then all of a sudden experience all these emotions that even as an artist, you kind of want to have lived a little bit, I'm sure, in order to have something to write about too, right? Yeah, that's when you opened up so many beautiful, like, things in that, you know, it's interesting, like, I definitely agree that there's, if you came here to
00:30:38
Speaker
expand, which I think is what we all chose to came here to do in some way, shape or form, then that's, that's the road to expansion. You know, it's not, it's not sunshine and roses to expansion, but there are, um, these bizarre cycles that we get into. And I think, especially if you're frozen in some kind of a trauma response or like stuck in, in grief without finding some way to allow it to pass through, which is like so challenging.
00:31:08
Speaker
Um, but it's easy to kind of end up on this wheel where you keep reliving the same thing over and over again. So it's not actually moving through to a new lesson. It's just like on this. And I feel like in my instance, anyway, it feels like it's epigenetic. It's not even just my karmic wheel. It's like my whole generation, my, my mom and my grandmother and my great grandmother. It's like, I can look at the lineage and see like,
00:31:37
Speaker
wow, we're all living out that same narrative, like that same trip. Like how do we get off of this wheel of this kind of like reliving the same grief? Somehow it keeps getting triggered and keeps getting triggered and keeps getting triggered. So I feel like a big part of my work in music and in just like spiritual and psychological realms that I've been working in is
00:32:05
Speaker
figuring out how do I approach this to where I can really embody it, not be afraid of it, but also see it and experience it for what it is.
00:32:16
Speaker
so that I can truly move on and not just move on to kind of like same shit, different DJ is what I like to say. Not just like, you know, one more experience that's like basically the same, but like enough details are different to where I could convince myself that I'm actually learning a different lesson. It's like, that's the same fucking lesson. I'm laughing with that expression. That was hilarious. The different DJ.
00:32:43
Speaker
I gotta make, I gotta make t-shirts for the merch table. Oh my gosh, you should totally, totally, do you have merchandise on your website if you don't? I do, I do. No, I'm gonna add that though. Oh my gosh, you have to write that, you have to. But I feel like that's a big, I feel like that's a big thing though and that I, to me it kind of feels like a puzzle still because it's this,
00:33:13
Speaker
In my own lineage, I've noticed almost a refusal to lean into the emotion of a deep grief and kind of hiding out in the intellect. So I come from a really long line of healers, but they're very intellectual healers. So medical doctors and internal medicine and things like that. Beautiful healing people, obviously.
00:33:43
Speaker
But there's a disconnect, I've noticed, we can only kind of do our own healing through our own lineage, but there's a disconnect and kind of like a hiding away and the intellect that starts to happen where because there isn't the, somehow it's like tools. I feel like there are certain tools that are missing from, especially, I guess this is my perspective, so it's where I come from, but like Western ideologies
00:34:14
Speaker
We're missing a lot of tools to be able to sit in experiences and face emotional traumas and not run away or hide. Not that that's easy for anyone, just that I feel like the tools that we've been able to amass, which are beautiful, are like, OK, you lose your eyesight. We can laser eye your back to vision or incredible feats of technology. But that doesn't
00:34:41
Speaker
solve this other side of health and healing which has to do with like, can you stop recreating traumas for yourself over and over again? Can you truly move through experiences you've had so that like shards of them aren't just like stuck in your psyche for the rest of your life and you can't fully live your life because you haven't truly
00:35:05
Speaker
gotten inside experienced it and been able to move on it just kind of like got frozen there or stuck i feel like there's all this yeah so it's i i see my job as a musician a lot more in the realms of healing than i think entertainment and it's interesting that i come from a family of healers because i i think it that's how i see it in my lineage is like i
00:35:32
Speaker
My job is to move it to be closing these hemispheres of like left and right brain and like intellect and emotion and heart and mind and figure out like, okay, this ultimately is one system. So you can't heal half of the system and have a healed system.
00:35:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's a whole, right? It's like right now with holistic, for example, medicine and stuff that approaches the spiritual part, the emotional part, the mind, mind, body, soul, spirit. There's just so many components that when we're just going on one end and trying to fix here, I read this in a book called Secrets of a Millionaire Mind that
00:36:12
Speaker
Uh, the author was mentioning like we try to, um, on this had to do with something else, but this had to do with like money mindset and stuff like something different. But the idea is still the same. Like we are trying to change the, what's coming out in the printer. Right. By just, but we keep on click, we keep on clicking just print, print, Oh wait, but it's still coming out the same, but we haven't changed the
00:36:38
Speaker
programming. We have to change the whole programming of the computer in order for that, so that what comes out in the printer is different. So it's kind of like that example. And he talks about the quadrants, of course, of like, you know, the mind, body, spirit, again, all of that has to be in balance in order again for that piece of paper to come out.
00:36:58
Speaker
And I'm totally butchering probably what I read, but just that's the idea. So what you're able to do then with music, and also again, you said you're also a yogi as well. So there's the physical part and meditation part, right? So that is mixing that physical aspect of healing that goes into the meditation, that then the music going into the soul and the emotions as well.
00:37:27
Speaker
Those are a whole bunch of different quadrants right there that you're addressing with what you do in terms of the healing. And I see them all as one. I think I do a lot of Kundalini yoga meditation and in Kundalini they say that sound, sound current is the center of creation. So before anything there was sound because there was vibration and vibration is sound.
00:37:56
Speaker
So I really, at the end of a lot of Kundalini classes, they'll do a gong bath. So they play gong for something like five minutes or so. And you're, you're like laying in Savasana and it kind of penetrates all 10 bodies. And it's kind of like an energy healing, just the vibration of the gong going through all of your 10 bodies. It's like a, kind of like a bath for your nervous system. And, uh,
00:38:23
Speaker
I think about that and, you know, when you've had really great musical experiences, like if you've gone to a show that just like you left and your whole body was vibrating with white light or you, you, everyone's had some experiences like that where you're like, wow, that is the thing. Like, and I think as a performer, that's always what I'm looking for. And as a composer, that's always what I'm trying to hold space for is like,
00:38:50
Speaker
what that thing is. No, that is beautiful. I have never done Kundalini. I have a friend that does, but I've never done it. I want to ask you about the songwriting part and about that becoming then a tool for processing grief. I talk a lot about when I'm talking to the different people I never knew, and
00:39:15
Speaker
The majority of the people I've interviewed regarding grief has been around the topic of death and what different tools they use and so forth in their grieving process. And for some it's journaling, for some maybe
00:39:33
Speaker
you know, writing, sorry, friends or whatever, some prayer, there's, there's just different, or some, it's every single, every single, every single element or listening to podcasts, reading, you know, there's so many different ways. So how,
00:39:49
Speaker
Do you believe and in what way can you approach then songwriting? I mean, I used to like write like poems and stuff when my sister passed away. That was one of the ways that I processed my grief.
00:40:04
Speaker
What ways do you think as a songwriter are, let's say, gateways, again, to be able to start that process of allowing it to flow? I love this question. Yeah, this is like my favorite question.
Songwriting as Emotional Exploration
00:40:21
Speaker
So I work with a lot of different like, games, basically, I start my process with a bunch of games to first of all, lower the bar. So it's not like,
00:40:31
Speaker
I have to write this masterpiece, you know what I mean? Because that is so terrifying. But I start with like, I have a couple of different things that I really like to do. One is
00:40:44
Speaker
I'll start with three columns. I'll have, I'll just kind of, I call it phrase harvesting or like word gathering, where I just kind of look through books and just start highlighting words that I like that are, that I'm drawn to. And then I'll just have three columns, adjective, noun, and verb, and I'll start filling in these columns. So maybe I'll have 20 words in each column just that I've gathered so that I don't have to come up with them. If I don't want to, I can just kind of like pick them from places because it's, it's just an easy process. And then I'll,
00:41:13
Speaker
look at the three columns and I'll start to connect one from each column. So then maybe I'll have like a collection of three different words that can create a phrase that I'm drawn to. And even though that's just a three word, it's not quite a full phrase. I'll start to, so let's say out of the 20 verbs, nouns and adjectives, I'll create randomly 20 different collection of three words from, you know, one from each of those columns.
00:41:41
Speaker
And I'll look at those different phrases and see if anything all of a sudden calls out to me and it starts to expand on an idea. And usually there's at least one from that many that I'm like, oh, that's an interesting place that I would like to go. And I'll start free writing a little bit on just that tiny little phrase. Like maybe I can rearrange these three words and add some prefixes in and add some
00:42:06
Speaker
little extra words in to create, what kind of sentence could I create out of this? And then that'll be kind of the starting point that I'll start to expand from. And if I decide to do more than just one little sentence of three words, I'll choose maybe four, let's say, to experiment with. And maybe of those four,
00:42:33
Speaker
three little word packages, a verse will come out, which is maybe four lines. And then I'll cut them up into different little slices of paper and move the paper around. So it's very like, tactile. Yeah, and it's very much like a game. So nothing has to be taken seriously. It's just me noticing what words I'm drawn to.
00:42:54
Speaker
moving them around in different configurations, doing a little bit of free writing, cutting actually the physical pieces of paper up and then moving them around just to see what they look like in different orders. Because at least for me, part of the thing about trying to express yourself is like, for me, if I'm going to music, it's because I don't know how to say it. Otherwise, I would just call a friend and say it. It's so much easier.
00:43:19
Speaker
the thing that brings me to music and to songwriting is like, I don't know what I feel. I know that I feel it, but I can't put my finger on what that thing is. And words aren't quite working. Or like how I normally express myself is not really, that's not quite the thing. So it doesn't
00:43:37
Speaker
feel like it's been completely honored. So it's kind of this, it's almost like an excavation game of like, well, let me put some tools in front of me and let me move some words around. Let me kind of like put some puzzle pieces together and see if I can just allow my subconscious to start to make connections between things for me, where it can kind of lead me to like, oh, maybe put this word with this word and, and then maybe put these things at the end and this thing at the beginning, and then kind of take a step back and
00:44:06
Speaker
your subconscious will start to make connections for you. And I think there's this really beautiful quote says poetry often enters through the window of irrelevance. And there is something about simple songwriting games like this.
00:44:23
Speaker
that you allow it to be nonsensical. And it's birth. It's birth. And then do you get a specific feeling, physical or emotional, something, a reaction that when you see a certain combination
00:44:42
Speaker
Mm hmm. I get excited. Yeah, it's like, what's your feeling? Yeah, what, what, because chills are my, my, my language, my soul language, a lot of times tears, of course. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. That's when I know I've had it. Yeah. If I start crying when I'm writing, I'm like,
00:44:59
Speaker
Okay, I touched the surface here. That is awesome. So it all starts with games, but it's so true of how you, it's kind of, again, going with the artist way. Isn't the artist way, isn't the one of the exercises like you're drawing something kind of backwards?
00:45:16
Speaker
Is that something in the artist's way that you're drawing but upside down so that your mind is not the one thinking? Am I mistaken? That sounds like it would be in there. I don't remember that one off the top of my head, but that totally sounds up as one of the ways.
00:45:31
Speaker
So that that way you're not into you're not thinking, you're taking away the brain component of it. You're just kind of like seeing. So with doing this exercise, you just kind of again, there's fluidity again there because you're moving the pieces around and so forth until all of a sudden it just kind of falls into place. And then you know, playfulness because it's already hard enough trying to excavate like these
00:46:02
Speaker
I keep coming back to this word frozen because I feel like that's what you're trying to penetrate. You're kind of trying to like de-thaw something that is like hardened because it had to become hardened because something happened more like to protect you. Yeah. So to create an environment where it's like safe for yourself to kind of like lead yourself in there and kind of like coax
00:46:28
Speaker
out whatever feels comfortable to come out. It's so funny, but it really does feel like there's an inner self or like some part of your psyche, like you said, to protect yourself that has like gone shut, gone like lock a jaw or something. And you're trying to create a safe environment with enough playfulness, but also enough meaning, you know, it's not just like shits and giggles. It's also like music therapy. So you're trying to
00:46:58
Speaker
create a safe environment where there's still the opportunity to draw out something that's like a golden nugget of like, oh, that is how I'm feeling right now. Okay. But it really is like a conversation where, at least for me, when I sit down, I know that there's something happening and that there's something deeper
00:47:20
Speaker
but like my conscious brain doesn't know what it is, but it would like to know because it's tired of ending up in the same flashbacks all the time. So it's like, okay. You don't want to live Groundhog Day all every day of your life.
00:47:36
Speaker
We live Groundhog Day every day. Now, would you, since when we air this, your song will already be out, would you be open to sharing maybe your favorite phrase or part of your song or your song? Yeah, no, I was thinking like when you were, I can't remember what we were talking about earlier, but something about starting to look back on an experience and
00:48:06
Speaker
how we look back is very different, like updating old memory files. The perception changes, yeah. And this song starts with kind of like a negative list of traits about myself, which is very common, I feel like, for people who are experiencing grief. It's not just like, oh, I miss this person. Oh, this thing that happened was so sad. Usually it's like, I'm this and I'm this and I'm this and I'm this. It's like a laundry list of
00:48:33
Speaker
things that we're upset about ourselves, things we should have done better, things we're bad at. You know, it's like kind of incessant. At least for me, that's how I experienced that. So the song starts with, I talk back, I'm testy, I'm greedy and messy. Like just this laundry list of all of these things. And to me, that's the, it's the honest way in. Like if I'm taking the real route toward
00:49:03
Speaker
a memory of something that happened that should not have happened that was completely unfair. The honest way through for me is all of the ways that made me see myself differently. Like that experience made me see ugly things about myself, which is true. I wish it weren't true. It's like the kind of candy shop version is like,
00:49:30
Speaker
A clear, a clear victim, and then a clear perpetrator. And then one is always innocent and one is always guilty and there's no kind of bleed over.
00:49:42
Speaker
But I think the reality is when you experience something done to you that was very violent, you kind of pick up. It's almost like you're carrying some of that violence. And even if it's not yours, for whatever reason, it's still like in your hands. You're still holding it because that transaction happened. And it's really hard to shake it off of you and acknowledge like, I'm not that thing, but that thing came in contact with me and like did this weird blood transfusion thing.
00:50:12
Speaker
And so now I'm holding onto all this stuff that isn't even mine. So I feel like for me, the honest way into this song was like all of this like debris that's leftover from that experience that I almost have taken on is like mine. I just want to acknowledge it. I just want to list through the things that I'm holding right now. Because if I don't kind of name it, then I can't let it go.
00:50:39
Speaker
That is so, so, so important what you just said. If you can't name it, you can't let it go. You do have to be able to go back to that place or at least that experience or whatever in your head in order to release it. It's taking ownership. It's kind of like in life, not regarding necessarily in grief, but in anything because the ownership of
00:51:05
Speaker
of our in our life and certain things that we do in order to be able to grow from that. And in this case, I'm not saying, again, that somebody that's been through trauma is necessarily going to own up that. And, you know, that they that they they were guilty of it. You know what I mean? Because that's not what I'm saying. But you do have to own up that it was lived, that you lived that. And that is very hard.
00:51:34
Speaker
to do, but as you said, in order to be able to move through it, you do have to kind of face it. Take the monster by the, what is it, the bull by the horns, basically, in that moment. Yeah, and I think the reality of our shadowed self still lives with us. I think in this culture, we have this thing about
00:51:55
Speaker
Love and light, like clean it all out, like shake it out, just like sever it, like ghost them, cut it out, remove
Balancing Light and Shadow in Self
00:52:02
Speaker
yourself. There's all these things, but it's like, okay, but the reality of being human is that you walk with your shadow self. So like there are real dark things that walk with you for a long time.
00:52:12
Speaker
And the goal of balance and humanity is not to just shun everything that's dark. Like, I think the goal is- Ying and yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin, yin. This is walking with me. I'm going to acknowledge that this is walking with me. I'm not going to try and like sever it because that ends up with really complicated, like denial, like all kinds of addictions coming out of that of people just kind of-
00:52:39
Speaker
unable to figure out how to have space of something that is their darker shadow psyche side of collected events that is it's there and like to figure out it's like okay well we're gonna be walking together for a while so we're just gonna have to find like a pace that works for both of us
00:52:58
Speaker
Right. You know, and when you're saying that right now, when you were saying about facing it, since you do meditation too, isn't in meditation something that you are supposed to... Can you hear the garbage truck going through? No. Can the microphone picking it up? Okay.
00:53:16
Speaker
I'm like, I hear like, maybe I should not record on Mondays now that I'm like, should I start recording? As I'm saying this about meditation. So when meditation, isn't it about like when thoughts come, your job is not to push them away. Your job is to acknowledge that they're there.
00:53:37
Speaker
see them and then let them go by. So in that same way with our shadow self, as you call it, I've heard that expression and I know a lot of different authors and stuff to use that, but the parts of you that you don't necessarily like as much, but that are part of you.
00:53:57
Speaker
You have to be able to see them in order to walk along and be able to also embrace all the other beauty that has come because of those sides of you also being there, right? I sit with them because I think that a common misconception about meditation is like, oh, it'll come and it'll go.
00:54:19
Speaker
In my meditations, when something dark comes, it just fucking sticks. It's like there. It's not like it's just coming through and now it's leaving. It's like the debris again, like you were mentioning. You mentioned that debris in your song, Hollow. So in those moments of meditation, sometimes those thoughts stick there like a piece of toilet paper stuck on your shoe that you cannot take off and you're shaking it. I did like an eight day silent meditation retreat.
00:54:48
Speaker
Oh, Lord, I would not I would not survive. It was basically like I did go through like some ups and downs. I mean, that's like eight hours of meditation a day for eight days. And I it was kind of I was stuck with basically the same thing for that entire night. So it's not I mean, there was obviously some modulation within it. But it's not like I like I sat silent with myself and then it came and then it went it like
00:55:17
Speaker
that was not the experience. Now, what happened after those eight days? Were you able to move through that at all?
00:55:26
Speaker
Like, or like, did you grow from that experience? Oh, definitely. OK, OK. I read about the silent meditation retreat. I mean, maybe I'm a special kind of personality that enjoys that. Maybe there are people who wouldn't. But like, I was afraid going in. I was like, how is that even possible? But it was a beautiful experience. It was much easier than I thought it was going to be because I thought it was going to be like treacherous. But it really wasn't. And I didn't miss all of my tech dings and all that. And I didn't.
00:55:56
Speaker
feel lonely, like I thought I was going to feel lonely, but not at all. And I think I'm still handling like whatever it is that we've come here with that is kind of our thing. Like when I look at my own life, it's like it's there's a lot of patterns, like a lot of repeated types of things that keep coming up. So it's kind of the same lesson over and over again, you know,
00:56:25
Speaker
So in that way, I can't say that like, oh, within eight days, I solved that thing. Like, I think it's whatever is my karma that I'm here with, that I'm working through, I'm continuing to find new ways to help fully handle it. But I definitely think it's kind of like a wheatgrass shot or something. I mean, it's like a really heavy dose of
00:56:53
Speaker
clarity for those moments, but obviously you have to keep it up and keep
00:56:58
Speaker
Working through it. Yeah, working. Yeah, it isn't just like this magic. Yeah, not like a magic pill that you take and then went away. And also different. You said this as well, just again, with the aspect of your song again, how sometimes it just keeps on coming up.
Revisiting and Growing from the Past
00:57:17
Speaker
There's certain times in which we feel maybe we've already outgrown or moved through something and then all of a sudden, years later, something else can trigger
00:57:28
Speaker
some of these emotions or, again, traumas back again in our lives and that we have to face them again. But again, the trick there would be, are we facing them with a different perspective or, again, with the lens that we experienced back again before? And that is where the key would be as to knowing, have we grown? Have we grown through that experience and living that?
00:57:56
Speaker
When we're seeing that, are we seeing it differently now? And that I think is what is the, when I call this podcast grief, gratitude and the gray in between, the gratitude component just comes from being grateful that
00:58:16
Speaker
You have had an opportunity to grow and to grow through something that's been so hard in your life of any experience that you've gone through. That's where the gratitude can come from is the fact that you have grown and
00:58:34
Speaker
Yeah, like really, yeah, I think, and really that there's a lot of things that would not happen had you not experienced certain things in your life. And again, it does not mean that you're happy that you lift them. That's not the, at all. Like you, it's like, if I say that I'm grateful that I can find gratitude in the fact that my sister passed away when she was 18 and I was 21, that doesn't mean that I'm saying I'm happy.
00:58:59
Speaker
that she passed away. It means that there have been so many different things that have happened in our lives and our family's lives and people around us that would have not happened had that not
00:59:13
Speaker
I mean, had she not passed away, again, would we have wished it any differently? Of course, but that is not what, that is not the cards we were dealt. So by seeing things with gratitude, you're able again to grow with it as well. So that's my, so with your songwriting, do you go back, how long have you been songwriting, by the way, composing?
00:59:41
Speaker
How many years? You're young. I'm 16 and I'm 33. 33 minus 16. Okay. So it's been a long time. Yeah. I probably got to see if at most in math, so don't ask me to do that math in my head right now.
01:00:02
Speaker
And I don't have 33 fingers and toes to count that and then subtract. But what in those years have you gone back to looking even at some of your songs that you wrote, you know, since you were let's say 16 now with a 33 year old, you know, as a 33 year old, and do you see the different person you are now? I feel like that person was more wise.
01:00:32
Speaker
Really? Yes, not interesting. You know what it is? That person was less tainted with lives, probably, I don't know, the things in life. A lot of times we allow, we maybe start intellectualizing too much, that maybe that's, and stop losing sight of our trueness, which is our soul, because we're so intellectual.
01:00:59
Speaker
you know what I mean? Thinking things too much. And it's interesting because I remember when I was young a lot of people were like, I would play my songs out at different bars and stuff and like open mics and a lot of older songwriters would say like, why are you writing about this stuff? You have no life experience. Like you need to go live life and then write about these subjects and then you'll have something more to say. Which is so tragic because like I feel like all the stuff that I wrote then was like
01:01:27
Speaker
so much more on the nose or like kind of had this like moral wisdom in it that I don't have much access to anymore because there's definitely like this taintedness of like watching people continuously do horrible things that you're like, wow, I don't know that I... It's like a disheartening, yeah. Which I hope to.
01:01:51
Speaker
come back to it in a new way. And I kind of see like what you're saying about you, you keep coming back to this same thing. I see it as like a spiral. So even though you have your own thing that is your thing that you deal with, hopefully it's like you're spiraling out where each time you spiral around to come visit it, it's not like a
01:02:10
Speaker
deeper groove or like an outer layer that has a little bit more perspective or something. Yeah. I mean, again, we can grow or not grow. Maybe what we think is growth, maybe what we perceive as growth is different. You know what I mean? And again, back to perception, like we may see it, like right now, you're
01:02:34
Speaker
You're looking at your 16 year old writing and maybe there's a longing to those times in which life was just different and freer. And like you said, less tainted with like the hardness of the world. Maybe there's that longing that comes from that. So you're still attached a little bit to that because it's still.
01:02:56
Speaker
you. You know what I mean? It's still you. And a lot of times people, we kind of tend to, I know for me, like I cherish so much my high school days and like, oh my gosh, high school and with my friends, like, oh my gosh,
01:03:11
Speaker
We had the best time. It was the best times ever. We're constantly living in this moment that's trapped in time. We're like, wait a minute. We've lived so much since. We've had children in this. But somehow, those experiences, we are putting them in a pedestal or something. I don't know. But there's been way more, probably, things that have been more meaningful since. But anyhow, I don't know if that makes sense what I was trying to add. Yeah, no, totally.
01:03:41
Speaker
Now, I am so grateful that we were able to have this conversation.
Conclusion and Invitation to Explore More
01:03:47
Speaker
Is there anything else you'd like to share with the listeners before you also share all the places they can find you? If these are subjects that they're interested in, I do have other albums that are on this same subject. My most recent album is Wild Beast, and I explore the inner beast on all of the tracks on this album, and that's available everywhere.
01:04:10
Speaker
iTunes, Amazon, YouTube, etc. And if anyone on your podcast is interested in exploring the healing of songwriting and music production and telling their story, I do run courses. You can visit my website or contact me through the information I give you to put the links in.
01:04:31
Speaker
And I would welcome anyone who's interested in going on that journey to join these courses. They're really, really powerful. How long are they? How long are your courses? About 10 to 12 weeks, depending on which one, but I try to keep it like a school semester.
01:04:47
Speaker
That's awesome. That is awesome. And then usually in that time, on average, your participants write about how many maybe songs. Usually they complete one, and they have about three that they're working on by the time they're done. But by the end, there's one fully completed.
01:05:06
Speaker
Do you, is it, I actually, I'm thinking back again to Hollow, how you said it took like a year for you to get to it. Do you feel that in that process of writing, is it really hard to be completely detached? I'm like, okay, I'm done. Like I'm done, but I'll put the brush down. I mean, I was working on a bunch of other things too. So it wasn't like that was the only project. So that's kind of part of what was the, a lot of the back and forth. It is true that all.
01:05:36
Speaker
all songs have their own, I don't know, like, yeah, I feel like every artist has had this experience where there are certain pieces that you're like, yeah, no, that's just not going to be done for a while. That's just the reality of that piece. Yeah. You know, that have you ever watched? Is it Bob Ross, the is the painter?
01:05:56
Speaker
the painters. So I recently, believe it or not, I know it's an old show, but my daughter is like, mom, watch this. It's so sad. It puts us to sleep, literally, because his voice is so calming. But sometimes we're watching him paint. We're like, oh, that looks so good. And then all of a sudden he starts to keep putting more stuff and more stuff. And we're like, when is he going to be? And then
01:06:17
Speaker
We think that it's done, yet he keeps on putting more things and more things and more things. And I'm like, oh, OK, we see where he's going. But I think that way could be, you know, I don't know. That's why I was saying, like, do you feel like you're finally done and you can push the brush down? That's why I was thinking of that example when I was comparing it to music writing, because. I love that. That's why they keep on watching Bob Ross after this. Yeah, go watch it. Because you think I'm like, oh, that looks so pretty, that beautiful. He starts putting.
01:06:44
Speaker
black paint on it, you're like, what is that going to turn into? It was beautiful before. And then it's like all of a sudden, it's like this beautiful tree out of this. I love that. Yeah. So anyway, I'm sure that the creative process as a songwriter is that way too a lot of times. And sometimes it could come in one few strokes and you're done and other times it needs a few more layers, depending again on the subject and maybe also how attached you are to that particular
01:07:14
Speaker
piece too may take a different time. But thank you so much again Hope for just exploring all these topics with me and sitting here on this improv conversation and seeing where it would take us. And I'm just so grateful that you went on this ride here on this podcast. And I'll put all your information below for people to check it out. I love it. Thank you so much. Thank you.
01:07:46
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
01:08:14
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.