Tuesday, November 24, 2009

We have a choice....


Today sees the release of a track I wrote nearly a year ago. It's called "Choice". I wrote it at a time when I was walking around with a dark cloud over my head. I was angry with people. I was angry with life. I felt poisoned by resentments I was carrying around inside of me.

Writing and listening to music is often therapeutic for people. Writing this track helped me to realize I had a choice about my feelings. I couldn't change what had happened that made me angry, but I could change how I felt about it, and how my feelings affected me. That much was theoretically under my control. But I still needed help. I didn't want to walk around angry anymore, but my pain was real, life is often not fair, and I couldn't just imagine that away instantaneously.



It's not easy to change our attitudes. Choosing to change our feelings means taking on a huge challenge. Even if the long term goal is to feel better, going through a change can still feel more painful than staying the same. I admire anyone who has the strength to do this. I don't always have the strength for this task, and I know it's hard to do it alone.

This is where I often turn to music. I think music can help our moods because it gets under our skin, and re-programs our subconscious. Trance Music can be meditational, and meditating can change our habitual way of functioning. I found singing this track to be soothing...I chose to use a soft tone and I kept repeating the line 'we have a choice'. When I started the song, I had an idea that seemed hard to believe in, but one that I thought I could trust in after some time and convincing. I focused on the ideal, and found a way to convince myself to put faith in it.

Repetition leads to convincing. Singing the line over and over helped me to trust it, and when I was done writing the track, I felt I was on the mend. It wasn't a cure-all. I still get sad and angry. I don't live in a bubble of non-stop happiness. But when I'm upset, I feel like I have more coping strategies than I used to. I still repeat the words of this song to myself when I feel life is bringing me down, or that a bitterness is 'stealing my smile'.

I hope you will like the track. There are three gorgeous arrangements by very talented producers, and each interprets the words differently.

If you are feeling hurt or angry, I hope it will help you find some inner peace again.

CHOICE:

If it's bringing you down

Sometimes we hold on too long
Sometimes we cling to things that really are hurtful
Sometimes we don't see what's obvious
Sometimes we don't know we have a choice
oh, we have a choice
we have a choice

sometimes a bitterness will steal our smiles
and sometimes life just isn't fair
and though we might want to hurt the ones who are hurting us
it's true regret is hard to bear
we have a choice

5 comments:

  1. Marcie... this is.. hmm.. incredible! I don't know what happened in your life, and it's not of my concern I think (unless you want to talk to me about that, but that's your decision :P), but that's EXACTLY the way I'm feeling right now! Wow! I have an old story that I'm holding to since many months now. It's true, we have a choice and it's gonna hurt either way, but we're all gonna come out of this stronger than ever either way. You chose to move on and cleanse yourself and I chose to hold on to it and try it again. I have a choice, I made my decision, it hurts, but I'm fighting for something that I trully believe possible. It hurts so bad! This story, Marcie, has just become one of my favorite along with "Love Letters", "Blanket Of White", "Remember Me" and most likely a few more as well that I can't remember!

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  2. I really admire you for making a choice to try for what you believe in. I'm sorry it's causing you pain. I think there's a fine line we walk between pain that motivates us, and pain that brings us down. If you find yourself spiraling too far down too quickly, I hope you will reach for what can pull you back up...I don't know your full story, but I feel that you are genuine, and that gives me energy. Thank you for sharing.

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  3. You know, my favorite colors are red and white. And more I think about that, more I think it's not only because these two look nice. Red stands for love, passion and white stands for purity I think. They fit very well with each other. :) Red is also Ferrari and Red/White is the color of my country. That's other reasons outside feelings why I love these two colors. :) I am a VERY stubborn person! :p

    I have to agree with you. It's a really fine line : "We’re speaking in code and we’re walking the line". I believe Love Letters and Choice are somehow linked with each other. Well, it's like genius versus insanity. It's motivation versus desperation if I might say... Not having the loved one by my side and trying to continue despite the pain, I think it's like trying to fly a plane with no engine. It can fly, no doubt, but in order to fly, it must gather enough speed and how do you do that? By going down. Then you can go up again. It takes time, you fear you're gonna crush yourself down, but someday, you will find what's gonna take you up again bringing new happiness, new project, new meaning to your life. You know, I've been really close to lose for ever that chance to go back. I don't wish her badluck, but things in her life are moving in a way that I can catch up with them. If it works for me, it's not only because I've been working so hard for it. It's also because I've been VERY lucky. Life can only go better and I'm looking for it. I'm gonna win this time. The snow angel that you're talking about in Blanket Of White is when you don't have any choice to try again. There is no hope behind, which is not the case right now. :) There is hope in Love Letters and Choice. I believe we had similar story or at least similar feelings for someone.

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  4. That's really amazing...thank you for sharing all that. I absolutely love your airplane metaphor. I never thought if it that way, but you're so right. Often when we're falling, it's just a way to gain energy to climb again...
    <3 for you.

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  5. Thx for the encouraging words.

    I feel like I barely scrached the surface of my situation. :p Knowing it all, I'm sure you'd say I'm totally crazy and probably obsessed by something that I should just let go away. :s But with time, I learned to be proud of what I'm thinking and what I believe in. Although the social pressure is hard to deal with when you decide to go the other way. It's like swimming against the tide. You got to be careful with that and walking on the edge has never been so true!

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