A Message to You From a Dear Friend

Have you ever tried to find something you thought you lost? You look in every drawer, every corner, and even retrace every step you made. But you can’t find it. You look again. But nothing surfaces! Then, hours or days later, you find it in the EXACT same drawer you looked in several times! Why does that happen? Sometimes we have our minds so focused on one singular thing that

We aren’t able to see what’s right in front of us.

The same is true with the beliefs we hold. We can have ideas of ourselves and what we are capable of that allow us to do things we couldn’t have imagined. OR we can have beliefs that hold us back from doing what is possible. What’s the difference?

A shift in perspective.

So I had an achilles injury a couple years ago. It continued to get worse to the point I couldn’t walk. I went to see some doctors and specialists and they gave me standard things to do, but they didn’t work well for me. For months my progress went up and down. One day, I had an idea rush into my mind. I had worked with a manual therapist I really liked years prior. I phoned her up and, because it was during the pandemic, we planned to meet online. Because she wasn’t able to actually lay hands on my ankle and do the typical manual therapy, I shared with her what happened and what I was doing.

But she challenged me.

When I said that nothing was working she’d say – “Really, is it worse than when it happened?” When I said that my foot hurt when I tried certain things she said ‘if you can’t do that, can you do this?” And when I asked her if she thought I’d ever be able to restore it to regular use, she asked me ‘“What do you think?” I wanted her to say “Yes, you can 100% get back to normal” but she didn’t let me off the hook. This continued for a while. She was ultimately showing me the power of my mindset.

The beliefs we hold affect our actions.

Sometimes we are looking for specific clues to confirm our progress. When we are building up our voices, we don’t want them show any weakness – but how else will they get strong? When our voices aren’t 100% and we are experiencing voice issues, we can sometimes believe or worry that it will never get better.

But how do we make progress in spite of these beliefs? Well it would be AMAZING to be able to wave a wand and change the beliefs just like that. But sometimes they are very hard wired. That’s why I want to share this great pearl of wisdom that I received from this incredible physical therapist, who became such a special person in my life. The message is simple.

“Start where you are. Be joyful, and just get going.” ~ YL

That’s what she encouraged in me. As a result, I completely changed my rehab routine. I skipped passed my beliefs that were holding me back, and just got started. Even if it was a small thing towards my bigger goal, I started there. With time, this helped me to completely shift my mindset. I experienced my beliefs as temporary feelings, that may or may not be true. It’s something I often tell singers, but I really got to experience it in a non-singing way. It was all in the action. Because of her wisdom and help (and because she’s such a wonderful person I trusted), after over a year of trying to get my foot to feel better using other ways, I took her advice. And it was the only thing that did it for me. I needed to challenge my beliefs. I needed a mindset shift.

Do you too?

xo

Tamara

❤️

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