Friday, May 22, 2015

The Soundtrack of My Life, My Favorite Part

The votes are tallied for Battle of the Bands, and we have a winner!

The song was Wicked Game (and the BIG winner is Chris Isaak... pretty much everyone indicated that his version was THE version), but he wasn't in the running for this battle. So, how did it pan out between HIM and James Vincent McMorrow? There was a lot of voting (give yourselves a pat on the back for showing up and casting a vote!) and AT FIRST it was very close. Neck and neck. And then HIM pulled out and James Vincent McMorrow didn't even come close to catching up.

HIM: 19
James Vincent McMorrow: 8
 
I actually had difficulty with this battle. When I lined up the contestants on the 10th (the day I actually wrote this one), I was really all about the McMorrow version. It was slow and sad (just like me), but as the week wore on I went back and listened again. As I started feeling better, I appreciated the driving rhythm of HIM's version. So, surprising myself I, too, vote for HIM. Had I voted on the day of the writing, it would've gone the other way... and that just goes to show how our emotions at the time we listen influences our vote!

Moving on...

The Soundtrack of My Life is back.



This started out as this fine idea to put a few major life events to song. The more I dug, the more I realized that this was going to be a lot more than that for me. But, I want you to understand that this girl has come a long way. So many of these painful things of the past USED TO BE just as painful in the present. Now they are the guideposts I use to understand what motivated me to do (other) painful things into adulthood, without recognizing that was what I was doing. Whew. Did that make sense?

I told my therapist I was doing this Soundtrack series, and I said, "This is going to be a good opportunity to see if that crap still triggers me (read: gives me a migraine or upsets me)." So far, so good. The lousy things almost feel like they happened to someone else. So, why go there? Well, I just might stumble across something that is still raw.

Why tell you about it? Have you ever heard the phrase "speak the truth to power?" When we say something out loud that is true, even painfully true, we have spoken a truth into a place of power. In my case, I now have the ability to speak a painful truth about my past out loud to you only to see that it no longer has any power. I have the power. I've spoken the truth and taken my power back. It's akin to blowing fresh air into what was a stale, choking room.

One of my favorite albums (start to finish) is Bonnie Raitt's Luck of the Draw. And this is one of my favorite cuts off that album. It speaks directly to what I speak of here. If you sub the words "gonna fill up my heart" for "gonna give up my heart," I'd say it's perfect. It's all about speaking a truth to power with the intent of filling all those holes in your (and by your, I mean mine) heart.





Gonna get into it, babe
Down where it's tangled and dark
Way on into it, baby
Down where your fears are parked
Gonna tell the truth about it, babe
Honey, that's the hardest part
When we get through it, baby
You're gonna give up your heart
 
Gonna get into it, baby
Gonna give them demons a call, babe
Way on into it, baby
Gonna find out once and for all
Gonna get a little risky, baby
Honey, that's my favorite part
When we get through it, baby
Gonna give up our hearts
Gonna give up our hearts

Well, there's no turnin' back
No turnin' back this time
Well, there's no turnin' back
No turnin' back
No use in runnin'
It's always the same
You can count on the panic
It's the faces that change
We might have a chance
To get this love off the block
So take a deep breath
Let's look under that rock, now baby

Gonna get into it, baby
Down where it's tangled and dark, no, no, baby
Way on into it, baby
Down where your fears are parked
Gonna tell the truth about it, baby
Honey, that's the hardest part
When we get through it, baby
You're gonna give up
If we get through it, baby
You're gonna give up, you're gonna give up
When we get through it, baby
You're gonna give up your heart
Gonna give up your heart
Gonna give up your heart
Ooh babe, gonna give up
You're gonna give up, you're gonna give up
Gonna give up, gonna give up your heart
Hey baby, gonna give up, gonna give up
Gonna give up, gonna give up
Gonna give up your heart

Can you think of a time that you spoke the truth to power? Do you ever use your blog to speak the truth to power? Have you noticed that when you write or say something it becomes more true (for you)?


If you're enjoying these posts, feel free to share your own Soundtrack. This isn't a hop. No requirements at all, but a suggestion to do it one song at a time. (If you participated in the hop several years ago, you can still do this. Just post them one song at a time, with the freedom to add more songs if you'd like.) I'll link to all participants at the bottom of each of these posts:

StMcC Presents BATTLE OF THE BANDS

Cherdo on the Flipside

26 comments:

  1. Good morning, dear Robin! A number of us have identified the same phenomenon you mentioned in the first part of your post. How we are feeling, the mood we happen to be in at any given moment, can affect the way we vote in these BOTB contests. It's fascinating.

    Yes, I believe that for more than thirty years I have spoken the truth to power including the last seven as a blogger. I believe that you can look back on any painful event in your life, confront it head on, seize control over it and strip it of its power to affect your state in the present. You hinted at a dissociative technique that I have found useful. Revisit a particularly painful or traumatic event in your life. Project it on a screen in the theater of your mind like a movie. You may choose to run it forward until it reaches the point of the most painful part of the experience, then stop the film and run it backward from that point. You may then choose to leave your imaginary seat and move to the back row of the theater, viewing the film clip from a greater distance. You may choose to manipulate the image, turning an imaginary knob and reducing the quality of the movie from bright, sharp and vividly colorful to dim, blurry and rendered in black and white. You may choose to turn off the sound and run the movie at a faster speed allowing you to laugh at it like you would a Keystone Cops silent comedy.

    You may choose to express out loud any painful truth that, in the past, had the power to undermine you, thereby taking back the power and control. As a final step in the exercise you may also thank the part of you that allowed you to survive the trauma and to learn from it.

    Thank you very much for sharing yourself with us again today, dear friend Robin. Have a safe and happy weekend!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I find it interesting the many ways there are to mitigate the damage caused by painful experience. I've spoken at length on this blog (in the past) about how tapping therapy has really made a huge difference in my life. I've released so much emotional garbage (some of which I was acutely aware, other stuff not so much). In the releasing it loses all of its punch.

      I'm glad you found your own means of doing the same. I believe it makes us all healthier people when we figure out how to learn the lesson, but remove the sting.

      Delete
  2. Robin, I hope you know what an incredibly brave person you are. I am so in your cheering section. Adult or now, growing is a life long process.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Liza. I'm in your cheering section, too:)

      There is a lyric from an old Amy Grant song that says, "When we stop growing we start to die." I believe that is true. It's one or the other.

      Delete
  3. The lousy things almost feel like they happened to someone else.

    I get that statement. Good and bad, when I look back on the past it's almost like remembering a movie I've seen or a book I've read. The power of those moments is diminished to some extent as I try to remember. Maybe that's why I like to write in the memoir form--to recapture the reality of those past times. I tend to mostly focus on the good and haven't delved too much into the bad stuff. Actually the stuff that seemed so bad in past times doesn't seem all that bad now when I look back.

    I'm kind of surprised by the Battle outcome, but oftentimes I am.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My mother is a focus on the good sort of person.

      I think I've been a hold on for dear life to the bad sort of person up until I discovered tapping. I'm not even sure why. I didn't want to repeat it? I couldn't let it go? I don't really know. What I do know is that it didn't help me in any constructive sort of way. Forgetting it really isn't an option, but taking the power from it IS.

      And now that's what I'm all about... removing the power from those painful things. I think that the things themselves may just make me a better person, so long as I don't remain mired in the angst of it all.

      Delete
  4. The BOTB outcome is surprising. When I voted they were neck and neck.

    Love your Soundtrack post! I tend to agree with what Shady has shared. Have a great weekend, Robin.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've learned not to be surprised by BoTB. Anything can happen, and sometimes it does!

      I like Mr. Shady's approach, too. That isn't the method I've used, but I think our results are similar!

      Delete
  5. GIRL WONDER ~
    I liked this song - it has that tough, Blues-Rock sound to it - and yet parts of it REALLY reminded me of some other song I know but have yet to put my finger on.

    >>... Can you think of a time that you spoke the truth to power? Do you ever use your blog to speak the truth to power?

    No. Nope. I got nuttin'.

    Hopefully you'll get sumpin' tonight though. I've started work on it, but my brain was so fried on prescription sleeping pills all day yesterday that I was a lost cause.

    ~ D-FensDogG
    'Loyal American Underground'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I didn't think you'd relate to this post at all. In any way. ;)

      Oh dear. Sleeping pills. I'm afraid to ask...

      Delete
  6. Robin-

    Maybe it's that I am a sucker for redheads who sing the blues, but I have been a huge Raitt fan since high school.

    I'm going to suggest that you try connecting to another Bonnie Raitt song....

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eTIZbKhl3_w

    It'll be therapeutic! ;-)

    Larry

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like it! I think it might make for good BoTB material somewhere down the road!

      Delete
  7. I agree that my votes in BOTB are dependent on my mood at the point in time I sit down to listen and cast a vote. Many times I can see my vote going the other way if my circumstances were different, or maybe if I had a salad for lunch vs fruit. Ha!

    Speaking the truth to Power can be...well, powerful. Unfortunately, I often find that I am more fragile than I think, and have some incident that I felt capable of handling just fine, blindside me. I hate when that happens. It makes me feel as though I've lost a lot of ground.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. FAE, I know of what you speak. Sometimes I think I really will be okay with something and then there is a curve I didn't see coming... and not good. I don't know that I would think of it as losing ground, but maybe not gaining it as fast as you'd like. Doesn't sound like it's backward motion, but sideways motion. That doesn't push us forward, but it doesn't move us back, either.

      Delete
  8. I'm glad HIM won out in the end! It's great that you've been expressing your thoughts through your soundtrack series. I also think there's a correlation between these unresolved issues and your migraines. I hope this is a huge part of your healing process, Robin.

    Julie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Me too. I've written the next three posts and during the course of the thinking and deciding what to write... Migraine City. It's been a bad few days. I think that I spend a lot of time knocking myself for choices that are Over. Now that I'm looking at these years in a new way I can see how bad the decisions were and how they impacted me years later. This was not stuff done to me, but stuff I did to myself. Ironically, that's the hardest to forgive... for me, anyway. There comes a point when I have to say, "Enough. You can't change it. You won't do it again. You have to allow that to be enough."

      Delete
  9. As a old rocker, my first instinct was to vote for HIM, but to my surprise, it was the other version that stirred me the most. I think you're right, it depends on the day and your mood. ☺
    It appears that your "Soundtrack" series is proving cathartic for you. Long may it continue and help you heal! I've written a few painful memoirs, but disguised as fiction and told in the third person - it was the only way I could do it - and that worked for me.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie,

      If I listened again to those two songs right now, I honestly don't know which one I'd pick. Music can be like that. Ah well.

      Yes, I've learned a lot about myself since I started this blog back in 2010. More when I began tapping therapy. So, I think I might come out of this whole thing a fairly well adjusted human being!

      If fictionalizing the story helped you to process it and be able to think about those memories without any pain... well, then I'm for it!

      Delete
  10. It is funny how music can move us in one way or another or that we really relate to one version but later it loses power. I think if one keeps things in, it festers and one can't heal. I never hid that I was bullied but I was fearful that if people knew then it would start up again and that is not true. I speak about it quite normally now and the pain does not come to the forefront any more. Does this mean it doesn't effect me? Oh yes, it will always be a part of my life because it is what shaped me to be the person I am today but that is not a bad thing, it just ...is. What is funny is I can be easily bullied and the bullies can smell that. The other day I had my performance appraisal at work and my boss knew what to say and how to say it that it brought tears to me. My hubby and my 2 co-workers stated that he was being a bully and it was not right. Why? I stepped on his toes recently and he didn't like it. He didn't want any of us top go to a conference nearby but I thought I could go and arranged it where it was cheaper and I would only miss half a day so he could not say no. The others didn't budge but I did. Oh well

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Birgit, One of the great things about understanding bullies is that you see them through them NOW in adult life. Because they still exist. Boy, do they exist!

      Sounds like your hubby and co-workers nailed your boss on his bullying. I think that when you see him through that lens consistently, the things he does and the words he says will stop hurting you. When you know that it isn't a person wanting to help you be a better worker, but someone who's just hurting you to make himself feel better... his ability to hurt you will end. I love how that works!

      Delete
  11. I really like a couple of her songs. She's gritty, I like gritty. :)

    ReplyDelete
  12. We both like Bonnie Raitt. This song and this album being no exception. Great choice.

    And we always speak the truth (or at least try to)... for better or for worse. Sometimes it gets us in trouble. I don't know if it's very powerful, but it can be funny, so that works for us. :)

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  13. Bonnie Raitt has some nice songs. This is a good one!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Bonnie Raitt rocks! I love her voice and she can play that guitar. Always a good musical choice.

    I have been very open and honest on my blog. I started it 4 years ago because I was dealing with my Dad's illness and I was scared. I needed an outlet. I cant imagine not being honest and truthful on my own blog. I know I have lost some followers over the years due to difference of opinions. It stung for 10 seconds but then I moved on because we cant please everyone.

    ReplyDelete

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