Spending a lot of time alone with oneself does strange things to one’s mind. Not bad, don’t get me wrong, but things that you might not want to talk about in public. So of course I run to my blog to talk about it, because it’s so private…
I am convinced my subconscious, my intuition, my quiet voice speaks to me through the songs that get stuck in my head. Not all for the same reasons, and not all in the same way. But for example, if a song is in my head while I am asleep, and I dream the lyrics over and over and over, as happened yesterday, it is significant.
One song that stuck on repeat in my unconscious mind – that vast, fathomless multitude of self that processes 80% of the information I absorb daily, and tries to make sense of it nightly – was ‘Apple Tree’ by Erika Badu. It’s significant that this is a song on a playlist that I listen to, so it did not come from deep within me, as some songs do that I haven’t heard in years… but it wanted, and got, a moment of its own, to make its point.
The lyrics ‘I work on pleasing me ’cause I can’t please you…/ and that’s why I do what I do’ and ‘I don’t waste my time trying to get what you got,/ and I don’t mess around tryin’ to be what I’m not’ are exactly why this song hijacked the feedback mechanism between my conscious and unconscious mind, for a few hours in the early morning.
I’ve been working on myself, developing my creative expression, and asking myself what I want to be and do, and who I want to be daily for the last 5 weeks. The questions are part of a project, a program, if you will, that I built around my day, to give my free time structure and myself some direction and discipline. It’s difficult to structure time and spend it well, when there is nothing external to peg to. No schedule, no commitments to other co-workers. My priorities, my goals, my time is entirely my own. That has been a problem this year as we all deal with social isolation and the pandemic. It has been a fruitful time of introspection at long last.
My subconscious was having a party. The party had a one-song soundtrack. And Erika was the guest of honor, because she wrote a song that is just TRUE for me right now. I am just being me, not anyone else, and I can’t be bothered to care what anyone thinks about it because I am LOVING it! My life is full of the things I love, all day long. Not just in a short term satisfaction way, but the long term, important not urgent things that help me progress towards my life long goals – Creative Writing, brainstorming for business, talking to friends, and good, comprehensive physical health goals. Exercise, diet, and clean living.
When my unconscious sings to me, I listen. My muse, my guide, my self is talking to the tiny part of the multitude I am that is called my conscious mind. All of my daily meditation, all of my journaling, and my exercises to face the tough questions in myself; all of it together helps my conscious mind shut up and listen, and choose to be quiet. This is the way to pursue that elusive Jungian goal of total integration of self. My practices are my chariot, diverse forces harnessed to pull me towards the goal of self-knowledge. It is a bonus that I know myself enough to recognize the message in the music. Party on!