Reducing Overwhelm: How Not to Be Your Own Worst Enemy - PHH 130

Foreign.

Welcome to the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I'm Ann Sullivan, a harpist on a mission to empower every harpist to experience more harp happiness. Over my decades long harp journey, I've had lots of successes and more than a few failures. And I know firsthand what it's like to feel that playing the harp the way you want may not be possible for you. Now, I play and teach all over the world, and I know what most harpists are never taught the secrets to gaining the skills and confidence you need to play the harp with beauty, freedom and joy. That's what the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast is all about. Showing you simple steps to help you play the music you want the way you want. If you're an experienced harpist looking for that next level, or a harp newbie anxious to avoid the pitfalls, or a harpist who just wants more fulfillment and a little encouragement, you're in the right place, my friend. So let's get started. Welcome to the show. As of today, the day this podcast episode goes live, it is exactly six weeks until Christmas. Now, as I said that, a little shiver ran down my spine. What was your reaction? Maybe you're channeling your inner child who can hardly wait for Christmas, and you were jumping up and down. But I wouldn't be surprised if you were a little annoyed or even felt a flutter of anxiety at being reminded of how fast the holiday season is approaching. Those Christmas songs that already form the shopping soundtrack in every store are more than a little irritating to me. They seem to bring out my inner Scrooge, and it's mostly because they just remind me of everything I still have to do to get ready. In a word, it feels overwhelming. Of course, the feeling of overwhelm when it comes to your harp playing isn't just a holiday phenomenon. Overwhelm poses a challenge for us every day. There is always a spot that needs more work, some technical drill. We should be doing new music we want to learn, old pieces, we want to review, and the list goes on. There simply isn't enough time to do everything, but that doesn't stop us from trying. So I thought this would be the perfect time to talk with you about overwhelm. Now, I don't want to talk just about the holiday pressures and the extra playing we do and how to fit it all in. Especially not about how to fit it all in, because I don't think that's the healthiest approach. I want to explore with you the two different types of overwhelm. Actual overwhelm, which is about the outside forces acting on us, and perceived overwhelm, which is about the pressure we create ourselves. When it comes to actual overwhelm, there are fairly simple strategies that we can use to relieve it. But the perceived overwhelm that is our own internal creation is, is much more difficult to recognize and much harder to defeat. Of course it can be defeated. And also, of course, I have a quick and easy to remember word to help you with that. It's the word free. Because that's how we all want to feel free to enjoy our harp playing, our music, and our friends and family, whether it's in the holidays or any time of year. So if you're ready to come, conquer the overwhelm and breathe easy again, stick with me today. You're going to love this. Something else I hope you're going to love is the call that I want to be sure you get an invitation to consider yourself invited. That's happening this Thursday, November 16th at 8pm Eastern in the Harp Mastery Hub. The call is on this topic. Three More ways to use Music Theory every day. You may remember that the beginning of this month we had a Theory Essentials Intensive. And the whole point of that course was to make music theory really practical so that there were ways that you could use it in your harp playing right away. It didn't have to remain, you know, in some textbook or on a worksheet or anything else, but it was something you could bring to your playing every day because it is. And of course there's a lot to cover in a topic like that. Couldn't fit that all into the Intensive, so I thought I'd share three more ways for you to use music theory every day. Now, whether you took the Intensive or not, you're welcome to join us for this call. The call is happening in the Harp Mastery Hub. I know you've heard me talk about it before. The Hub is our free social media, free community. It's right on our own website. It's one we control. Know there are no ads. We don't use your email address for anything other than letting you know what's going on in the Hub. Um, and that's where you will find the link to the call. When you join the Hub, you just, you go to the Meetups tab and you will see that call there and it's got the link to join the call when it's time. So the call is happening again this Thursday, November 16th at 8pm Eastern. And it's easy to get to. You just need to sign up for the Hub. I like to think of the Hub as sort of it's our. It's our social place. Cause we can meet and talk there. It's a discussion space, it's a learning space, and it's a place just for harp stuff. Nothing else. It's just harp stuff. So you're more than welcome to join us there. And please consider yourself invited to the call on the 16th. If you are not yet a member of the Hub, then you can use the link in the Show Notes to join us there. There's a quick link to just sign up. We do need your email and that's it. So that will get you into the Hub. And that's mostly because this is how you'll log into the Hub with your email and a password. So that's what that's for. If you don't see the link in the Show Notes, you can always find the link on our homepage@heartmastery.com also in the Show Notes, you'll find a link to a blog post that ties in with what we're talking about today. It's called stay relaxed to play your best. And this was a blog post I did some time back, but I think it's pretty relevant to the stuff we're talking about today, so you might want to check that out. So, couple of other little things there for you to do to join us in the Hub for the call next Thursday and. Or this Thursday rather, and to check out the blog post as well. All right. So hope that wasn't too much information and you're not feeling overwhelmed, but if you are, never fear. Because there, that's what we're talking about right now. Before we get too deep into this discussion about Overwhelm, I want to be sure that you understand that here on the podcast and in all the other platforms where I teach, I'm talking about things I know about personally. It may seem like I'm far from being overwhelmed anymore with my harp playing, and for the most part that's true. But. But it's not that I don't face Overwhelm anymore. On a very real level all the time. I was making up a list. As I'm Planning ahead for 2024, I was making a list of all the things that I need to create the content I need to create for you. For the Harp Mastery people, for the my Heart Mastery members, for everybody in the Hub, for my Gold Circle students, for everything that goes on at Heart Mastery, I was making a list because that's the best place to start of everything that I'm responsible for. And, you know, on a. On a quarterly basis, you know, there are 13 podcasts, and there are live Monday warm ups, and there are My Heart Mastery monthly themes and Gold Circle workshops. There are webinars, there are intensives. There are all these things. I'm writing emails, I'm creating.

Descriptions for web pages. I'm doing all this stuff. There is a lot. And believe me, I know what it means to feel overwhelmed. I get in there and I barrel through it. But that's not always the best way to do it. And so I've given a lot of thought to what overwhelm is. And I help my students with overwhelming their heart playing all the time because it happens. And sometimes it's just the sheer volume of things that are coming at us, but sometimes we build things up and create our own overwhelm. And it's really important to know the difference, because dealing with each kind of overwhelm is a little bit different. So that's where I really want to start our discussion today. Talking about the actual harp overwhelm versus the perceived harp overwhelm. Because once you can see the difference, you'll be able to understand where you are at any given moment and what to do about it, just the way I have to every day. So now I think we're ready to dig in. First, here's what actual harp overwhelm might look like. For instance, you're so busy in other areas of your life that you just don't have time to practice the way you either want to or need to. I mean, this is real life. This happens. And we all have weeks like this, right? Where sometimes it can seem like it stretches on longer, but we have those time periods where it's just like, okay, this is a crazy week. I'm not going to be able to do my usual practice. And that can make you feel overwhelmed because you feel like you want to get to your practice and yet you can't fit it in. So separate the feelings here from the facts. And the facts are that your. Your schedule is just so busy, you just can't do the practice the way you want to, the way you're used to the way you feel you need to. Okay, it's busyness happens. Or perhaps you just have so much music to get ready that you just don't have enough time to do it all. You might even have too much music to get ready, a lot of it, and less time to practice than usual. This is a standard holiday dilemma, right? We have more music that we need to play more places we need to play. And yet our schedule has ramped up, too, and we have less time to practice than usual. This, again, these are facts here. How we feel about that is different. But the thing is, we've got more to play than we have time to play it in. It's a fact. And that can make us feel overwhelmed, and so can this. You're just too tired to practice. You know, you're allowed to be tired. You're allowed to just not practice because you don't have the energy for it. Now, I know that you're not going to use that as an excuse, but the thing is that, you know, our days get busy, and if we aren't able to fit our practice in, and maybe you've made the. The. The crucial decision, which turns out, in my case, to usually be a mistake, of I'm going to put my practice off till the end of the day, after I'm done, dinner, then I'm going to practice. Now, that really works for some people. It rarely works for me because by the time I get there, I'm just too tired to practice. So practice for me is usually something I need to do earlier in the day. And if you're just too tired to practice, your practice isn't going to go that well. All these situations are real. You can be too busy to practice. You can have more music to practice and less time to practice it in. And maybe you're just too tired to practice. These things are situations that lead us to feel overwhelmed because we get behind on the work that we need or want to do. But the overwhelm itself is a feeling so that even when it's caused by actual circumstances, it can build up into something that makes us feel really bad. So let's separate out now those real causes of our feeling of overwhelm from causes that actually might be causes of our own making. These are the things I call perceived harp overwhelm. They're not based in fact, but they're based in situations that we create for ourselves. Inside causes rather than outside causes, personal causes rather than external causes. All right, so one of the things is very simple, and this can be sort of factual, but it doesn't have to do with actual overwhelm or busyness. You might just have too many piles of music in front of you or on your music stand. We can feel overwhelmed, overwhelmed by our environment. And so the easy solution for this right there is one that's going to take a little bit of time, maybe not as much as you think, but just clean it up. If the clutter is creating that feeling of anxiety or overwhelm for you, just get rid of everything you don't need and take the easy way out. Don't think you have to put. You have to find an afternoon to file everything beautifully. Just get a big box, put it in the box, and put the box in a closet. If you don't need it right now, that's okay. If it's in your way right now, just get it out of your way. You can go back to that box and look at it later. You might not be happy having that box sitting in the closet, because you're not going to be able to find things that you want. But let it stay there for now. If the clutter is causing the overwhelm, get rid of the clutter. The. But the clutter isn't actually a source of overwhelm, is it? It's something that you've allowed to build up, and it's creating the overwhelm. It's a little bit different, and it's real. That one's really easy to fix. Let's look at another way. You might be feeling overwhelmed and creating it on your own. I call this the Shady Maple syndrome. Now, Shady Maple is. Is a restaurant that's not too far from where I live, and it's a buffet. And this is not just a. Any kind of buffet restaurant. This is one of those mega buffet restaurants. You know, it's got multiple rooms with these huge stations, and you could find just about any kind of food, particularly the kind that isn't especially healthy for you. You can find any kind of food there, and you just go back for plate after plate after plate. Now, I do not go there very often. I don't think I've been there in the last couple of years, but. And that's, you know, that's healthy for me because I always overeat when I'm there. But that's why I call this the Shady Maple syndrome, because when it comes to heart music, we often want to do more than we actually have time and energy for. We just pile it on our plate, right? It's like, oh, I want to play this piece and this piece and this piece, and I want to do this piece, and I want to. I know that I was already playing this one, but I'd rather play this more difficult version. And I think maybe if I add these two to it. And so we end up, you know, getting a lot of music and putting a lot of music on our stand. Reference. The thing I just talked about a moment ago. We have piles of music just like what I talked about a second ago. And it all creates overwhelm. It's something we do to ourselves. Notice how this is different from actually having more you must do than you have time for. Right? It's different if you had committed to playing. I'm going to play at my church on Christmas Eve and I'm going to play for this Christmas program and I'm going to play at the nursing home. And you've got all these different things that you've committed to, then you actually have to prepare them. And you may not have time and energy to prepare them all the way you had expected, but you've created the commitments for it. This shady maple syndrome is a little bit different because it's all a choice. It's, oh, I think I want this, and I think I want this. I'd like the cream puff and the eclair and the chocolate cake. Oh yeah, and the pudding too, Right? And it's like, well, no, I really don't have time for all that. So the thing here is that this is overwork that we create for ourselves that leads to our feeling of overwhelm. Little bit different than having the things we've already committed to. Now you might say that you've over committed yourself and that also may be true. But I think the important thing to think about here is that we create work for ourselves some of the time, a lot of the time that we don't really need to. So be aware if you are the one overloading your plate. And then there's another sneaky cause of overwhelm that is also an internal cause, the perceived overwhelm. And that this is when our expectations don't line up with our current reality. And we've seen a little bit of this in some of the things we've already talked about. But it can show up in sneakier ways too. This, for instance, might be a conflict between the time you have available to practice and the energy you have to practice. Or it might be that you just don't have the time and the energy to do what you would like to do. You have expectations for yourself. I ought to be able to do this, I should be able to do this. I should be able to learn this by Thursday, when maybe you just don't have time to get that done. It's the conflict that we set up between our real lives with our real commitments, whether they're harp related or professional or personal, our actual commitments and and the expectations we set for our harp playing. It could even be just the fact that, well, I don't think this looks like a hard piece, and so I'm going to be able to learn it quickly. And how come I can't learn it quickly? Well, it might just not line up perfectly with where your skill level is right now, or you may have more to do than you're actually able to keep up with. So this is about managing your expectations. If your expectations are aren't realistic for your current situation, then you are creating automatic overwhelm for yourself because you won't be able to live up to them. I hope that makes sense to you, and I hope you see how that's a source of so much overwhelm, at least for a lot of the overwhelm that I see in the various harpists that I talk to, my students, other professionals, all kinds of things, we put that on ourselves. And if you're not sure if this is the kind of overwhelm that you're creating for yourself, be alert to these telltale words. Should I should do this, I should be able to do this. I ought to be able to do this. I have to do this is another sneaky one. Who says you have to. Is it a true commitment or is it something that you have, you know, sort of drawn your own line in the sand for? I have to do this. And maybe it's not a realistic line to have drawn. So those expectations are sort of a key enemy of our own peace of mind and a key factor in creating overwhelm. Now, actual overwhelm is pretty easy to deal with because it's based, in fact, it's based in a real situation. So that if your schedule is really too busy this week and you don't have time to practice, you know that when your schedule eases up and maybe when you get some sleep, you'll be able to get back on track. So you can plan for that. You can accept that current situation as a season that will end. It's going to be like, okay, these two weeks are just going to be murder. But it's going to be okay. Once I get to the end of them, and you can plan ahead, you can say, all right, when that, that last commitment is over, then I'm going to have a day of rest, and then I'm going to get back to my normal practice schedule, and this is where I'm going to start. It's always a great idea to figure out where you're going to start when you get back. It creates a sense of anticipation that has some energy around it. This is also, by the way, very useful for the end of the holiday season. If you've been. If you're, you know, you have all these holiday activities, you have all these holiday concerts, perhaps, that you're planning and playing and all that good stuff. Well, plan ahead. Say, all right, Christmas Day, that's going to be my day to relax and enjoy my family. The day after Christmas, I'm not going to get out of my pajamas, but the day after that, I'm going to get back to the harp and I'm going to play something, and you get to pick what I'm going to do. The technique work that will make my fingers just feel like they actually remember how to play well instead, instead of just panicking over the notes. Or I'm going to play my favorite holiday pieces for the first week and really enjoy them now that I don't have to play them. All kinds of ways to deal with getting back on track, but the key here is to recognize that that time frame, when you're too busy, is going to end and then plan ahead for what you're going to do after it ends and how you're going to get back on track. That way, the overwhelm doesn't have to be laden with feelings of guilt or feelings of being lazy, which misplaced feelings anyway, right? I mean, if you're too busy in real life to practice, something has to slip. Something has to. You have to let go of something. And there's a season for everything. And sometimes the season is, okay, I've got to let go of my heart playing for the next two weeks because I've got to deal with all these other things that happens, and that's okay. So we don't need to feel bad about any of that. We don't need to feel guilty. We don't need to feel like we're lazy or slothful. We just need to let it go and plan for when we're going to get back. So if your overwhelm is related to an actual situation like that, it's easy to get through that. But perceived overwhelm is more challenging to deal with because it's likely to be chronic, meaning it's not going to go away on its own. That season isn't going to end because it's inside us. This isn't linked to an actual season, an actual time frame. It doesn't have its root in something that's actually happening outside us. It's rooted deep within ourselves. And it's not going to stop unless we recognize it for what it is and put habits in place to counteract it. I find this is the hardest part for most of us to say that, okay, yeah, these aren't things I actually have to do. These are things I think I have to do. Nobody is, you know, counting on me to get it done. Nobody is, you know, going to be harmed if I don't get it done. Think about this in terms of that particular piece that you wanted to learn for this December, and you picked something, and it's a little ambitious, and it's a little harder, and it's new for you. And then you're finding that you're just not getting it done, and it's creating this anxious feeling, this feeling of overwhelm, because you have these other things you have to do, and they're more urgent. This is coming up, and this particular performance is coming up, and you're not having time to practice that new piece that you wanted to learn. And that makes us feel bad, like, oh, no, I can't do it. But you know what? You're the only person who's counting on that. You set that for yourself, and it might have been a terrific goal for you, and it might have seemed manageable at the time, but being able to recognize it as something that you don't have to realize, you don't have to meet that goal. You can set that goal aside for another time. It's not failure to reach that goal. It's a smart decision to put it away and say, okay, wait, this is not the time. I overreached a little bit. I loaded my buffet plate a little too much. The stuff has fallen off the side. This is clearly not healthy for me right now. I'll save it for later. That's a huge decision, and it's a healthy one. But it's a very hard realization to come to just because we sort of think we ought to be able to do it. I don't know what would make me think that I'm some sort of superwoman that can get everything done, because I can't. And guess what? You're not a superhero either. Much as I like to think of you all as superheroes, and I'm sure your family does. I'm sure there are other people who know you for the superhero that you are. But you know what? You don't have to be the superhero every time. And part of being a super superhero is knowing when is the right time for something and when isn't so let's talk about some more practical ways and my practical little acronym, free, for helping you recognize what you can do to free yourself from the overwhelm. Free is such a great word, isn't it? We want to free ourselves. We want our heart playing to be free. We want to feel free about it. We want the music to be free flowing. I love the word free. So I was excited when I realized I could take that word and make it an acronym for relieving yourself from overwhelm. And this is for both kinds of overwhelm, whether it's actual schedule crunch, which is likely this time of year, or whether it's one of those sneaky kinds of overwhelm that we create for ourselves. So let's talk about the letter F. F is for fit it in or file it away. Everything that you are planning to do in your heart plank. Everything that you are doing has to fit. It has to fit your schedule. It has to fit your life. It has to fit your energy. It has to fit your fingers. It has to fit your ability. It has to fit in a time, particularly of.

Crunched time. We're in holiday time. We've got a lot of things going on. This is really essential. Everything has to fit. And what doesn't fit needs to be filed for later. Later is not a crime. Later is smart planning. It's not giving up. It's not saying, oh, I'm not. I'm not able to do it. I have to give up on my goal, give up on my dream. No, it's not. It is actually later. We're going to file it away. And if you don't want to put it in that. That big, you know, junk box I was talking about when you were clearing the clutter from your studio. If you don't want to put it in there, you want to keep it closer, well, put it in a file folder that's near you. That's maybe in that drawer where you keep your tuning key. I don't know. Keep it right by you. It will be later. Put it on your calendar. Schedule it. I'm going to get back to this piece on this day. There you go. You can plan for that, but you don't have to fit it in now. And if it really doesn't fit, make it something for later. File it away. It's not easy to do this, especially if you're sort of, you know, an overachiever, the way we all are, or whether it's just that, oh, you have so many fun things that you want to do, and you want to try them all. Well, you have to make some decisions here. Decisions are never easy, but you have to decide what you're going to be able to do and what you aren't. Right now. Little bit of a reality check. But just remember, later is not a crime. It's actually later. Just schedule it and you'll get it done. It will happen. R for recycle, repurpose, reuse. Don't ignore the potential in playing something that you've already played, for instance. Right. Do you could try double duty practice techniques at the moment? I've talked about those before. Things where you're using parts of your music as a technical warmup, where you are, you know, using everything that you can to just reduce the amount of time you have to spend practicing even better double duty repertoire. Particularly at the holidays when there's so much music, how many places can you play the same piece? How many places can you play a piece that you play during the rest of the year that would just be extra nice at Christmas time. For instance, if you play the Pachelbel canon and you play that a lot for weddings, and you think of that as a wedding piece, well, it's a great piece for Christmas. People love that. So pull it out. The Bach Prelude in C, another piece a lot of harpists love to play. Well, it doesn't just have to be a piece that you can play, you know, at regular times of year. It's lovely for Christmas. And remember, that particular prelude also has, you know, was the basis for a melody by Gouno that he used for a setting of the Ave Maria, which might be particularly appropriate for Christmas. So anything that you already know that you don't have to practice, that you can bring into service at a busier time of the year, whether it's the holidays or just a regular crunch time, do that. Recycle, repurpose, reuse. The fewer pieces you have to play, the better. Notice how this will sort of counteract that Buffet syndrome. Right? Because if you're using the same piece of music for a lot of different things, your plate won't be quite as full. Nice, huh? Okay. All right. Now we get to the two letters, E. Right. These two E's are a little bit trickier. The first E is all about easier. Now, this requires a little examination on your part. What exactly is too hard? What's causing your overwhelm? And how can you relieve the overwhelm by making your task easier. If it's just the sheer volume of music you have to Do? How can you go back to letter R? Recycle, repurpose, reuse. Right? That's how you can make it easier. If it's a particular piece. Somebody requested Silent Night, and you've really been working hard on this one particular arrangement, your very favorite one of Silent Night. Well, maybe it's time to consider an easier arrangement, make it easier. Maybe it's thinking, rethinking an entire program that you had planned to do. I know this happens to me sometimes. I'm months out and I think, oh, I'd love to do this, this, this, this, this. And then as the time grows, grows closer, I'm like, oh, well, you know what? I really am not going to have time to prepare all that stuff. I need to make things a little bit easier. One of the things that I always do at holiday time, I never put my hardest music on Christmas Eve because I know that by the time I get to Christmas Eve, I'm going to be tired, I'm going to be played out, and I want to be able to enjoy it. So I put on, oh, there's another E word. Enjoy. Huh? So I want to put my music that I love to play and know I'm going to play well on Christmas Eve, so then I don't have to worry about it. So that's another way to make things easy. Or maybe it's just time for an easier practice schedule, a routine. Maybe that right now would be enough to avoid the overwhelm. I think this is the hardest letter in the acronym because you really have to decide, where is the overwhelm coming from? And sometimes that means we have to take a hard look at ourselves and say, okay, what have I committed to that I really didn't have to, and how can I make it easier? And then you have to be willing to do it, remembering that, you know, just in the same way that later was not a crime. Easy is not a crime either. People just want to hear, for example, silent Night. It's not going to matter to them whether it's the easiest version that you know that you. That you know you can play well, too, or whether it's the really hard, very cool version. They might like that one when they heard it, but they're not going to hear them side by side. They just want to hear Silent Night. So pick one that is easy enough for you that you know you can play well. Easier is also not a crime. Okay, all right. I know there's going to be some resistance around that one. The second E, the last letter in Our word free is about expectations. And I'd like you to set your expectations for enjoyment, not excess. We don't need extra. We don't need extra hard, we don't need extra music. We don't need extra time. We just need to enjoy what we're doing. It's the same way I talked just a second ago about my playing my easy music on Christmas Eve so that I can enjoy it. That's about my choice to set my expectations around my enjoying my playing. I want to enjoy playing the harp. I don't want to feel all stressed about it. I don't want to feel overwhelmed by it. I want to be able to enjoy it. And I want you to be able to enjoy yours, too. So setting your expectations for enjoyment and not excess, not extras, not extra hard, not extra long, just enjoyment. It's a very freeing thing. And I guarantee it's going to relieve you of that sense of overwhelm. So let's review our little acronym right now. F for fit it in or file it away. If it doesn't fit, file it. F. Recycle, repurpose, reuse, do double duty, everything. Use pieces that you know. Don't stretch beyond what you feel comfortable doing. Make your plate a little emptier, reduce, reuse, recycle. Isn't that what they usually say? Well, we're talking about recycle, repurpose, or reuse. Ever so slightly different E for easier. What can you do to make things easier for yourself so that you aren't so overwhelmed? And then our second E Set your expectations for enjoyment. What can you do to enjoy this? How can you enjoy it? Because that's what it's all about. I hope you're feeling a little bit less stressed and you have some reassuring techniques for dealing with any overwhelm you might be experiencing now or you might encounter as we get deeper into the holiday season. I know that just thinking about the choices that you have can sometimes be very freeing.

Let me repeat my invitation to you to join me on a call this Thursday in our Heart Mastery Hub for three more ways to help your music theory get from the page to your heart playing. Three more ways you can use your music theory every day. Don't feel that you have to attend if it's going to overwhelm you. I just would love for you to be there, if you can. Next week on the podcast, we're talking about quick technique routines that you can put in place now so that you can keep your fingers sharp even when you have less time than usual. To practice. That fits right in with what we were talking today. It's about how to make things easier. Make your technique easier. There you go. Your technique practice will be streamlined. So quick technique routines on the podcast next week. In the meantime, remember, every day is a day. You can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your harp happiness every day. See you next time. It.