Worth It (Intention)

“I believe musicians have a duty, a responsibility to reach out, to share your love or pain with others.” – James Taylor

I was recently introduced to the idea of “toxic positivity” which refers to some of the new mindset teachings about staying positive even when you feel bad. I may be misinterpreting the concept, but it seems to me that toxic positivity fails to account for the need to grieve (or be in a crappy mood for whatever reason). I know, from personal experience, that trying to be happy when I’m not, is exhausting. It is in these times of exhaustion that I feel compelled to hide away, tuck myself into bed, and wait out the storm. But, I don’t always have the opportunity to honour my grieving process.

Worth It is a song about learning to trust that I can take my sadness out into the big world. It’s about learning to be more gentle with myself when I’m unable to think, act, or be more positive. It’s about knowing that I am still “worth it” even when I can’t rise above the weight of what I’m feeling.

I was scheduled to perform at the I Wanna Feel Good conference in Sudbury, Ontario exactly one month after the cancellation of what was supposed to be my life-altering performance in Washington, DC (see Chapter 2 – Forgotten Names). I had booked the conference months earlier and felt obligated to follow through on my commitment even though I just wanted to stay buried under the covers FOREVER. I certainly didn’t want to leave my house to perform in public. And I definitely didn’t feel emotionally fit to perform at a conference called I Wanna Feel Good. I felt terrible, and in all honesty, I didn’t even want to feel good. I wanted to wallow in self-pity and grief. This was one of those times the Universe was not going to allow me to honour my sadness in solitude. Irony sure can be a cruel beast at times!

I got to the conference with a fake smile on my face and did my best to look happy so I wouldn’t make anyone uncomfortable with my sadness.

The description I had submitted for the conference brochure said that I was going to deliver a hopeful and uplifting keynote performance. The first half of my presentation wasn’t too bad, but I soon started feeling the sadness seeping back into my body with all its exhausting weight. I started to cry right in the middle of my “uplifting” performance. I spent the remaining time trying to hold it together with terrible humour and bad singing. I felt like a complete and utter failure for not being better at acting happy. I spent the rest of the weekend judging other presenters and trying not to fall asleep in my chair. I was utterly drained of energy from trying to hide “sad Angie”: the side of me I didn’t want anyone else to see. Despite the deep desire to leave the conference and go back into hiding, something was keeping me there.

Here’s the thing about an I Wanna Feel Good conference: most attendees have set an intention to feel good. The part I hadn’t considered is that if we intend to feel good, it’s probably because we have suffered at some point, or are currently suffering. As the weekend unfolded, I started to see the cracks in everyone’s armour. I could feel their varying levels of suffering and the sadness they were trying to hide. This made me feel less ashamed of my own sadness. It made me feel that maybe I did belong here. Maybe there was a place in the world for me AND my sadness.

My current belief is: if you’re sad, be sad. Be sad for as long as it takes. There’s no sense in trying to be happy. You’ll end up feeling like a failure for not being able to figure out how to be happy, and that will make you feel even worse. The more you can honour your sadness, the more likely you are to reconcile the empty void of whatever it is you’ve lost. Isn’t that where grief comes from? The belief that we’ve lost something… a sense of control, a person, a thing, or in my case, my whole entire future! Once we can reconcile our loss, we can begin to let go and tap into our true nature, which is joyful and curious. Grieving is kind of like removing a mole. You can’t just skim off the surface of your skin. You gotta get in deep and remove the root. (At least that’s what my doctor told me.)

Through this process of deep healing, I think there are lifelines that get thrown our way while in our most challenging moments. These are events, people, books, quotes, movies, stories, or healers that help speed up our reconciliation process. I believe that the greatest healers are not recognized in conventional ways because they don’t need to be. They pass by you on the way to your seat at the show, they stand beside you when you’re waiting to order hot chocolate, they sit behind a desk, smiling and handing out conference passes. All of them have one intention: to help you recognize your own worth. I realize now, that I have been surrounded and carried by these great healers my entire life. I believe these people (or things) arrive because, somewhere, deep under our sadness, is an intention to feel good again.
As challenging as the I Wanna Feel Good conference was for me, there was some good that came of it once I was able to access a different perspective:

1. People appreciated my authentic performance and for the rest of the weekend, one by one, they would stand beside me or chat quietly with me. It was as though they wanted me to know that they were willing to hold some of my sadness and disappointment.

2. I learned about the Emotional Freedom Technique which I thought was totally bogus at first, but it turned out to be a saving grace later that year.

3. I met a powerful woman named Gisele Guenard who became a role model and friend, and whose book became a mainstay in my mindset toolbox.

To my surprise, the organizer asked me to perform at the next year’s I Wanna Feel Good conference. What? Really? Maybe my performance wasn’t as bad as I thought? Maybe I could share my pain and sadness with others? Maybe I did want to feel good again?

I realized that I actually did want to feel good and that everyone at that conference had their own battles of disappointment and sadness to contend with. Everyone else was just like me: they could relate to the pain I felt inside. They could see me. All of me.

Sometimes we just have to take our stinkin’ broken selves out into the world and let our darkness shine…and then trust that the universe has our back and that there are other, more powerful gifts to be collected as a result of not being in a perfect, positive, happy state.

Not only did the conference organizer ask me to come back the following year, she asked me to write the theme song!
Worth It was the theme song for the 2012 I Wanna Feel Good conference.