Negative Thought Notebook

I kicked myself out of the practice room this morning.

To understand why, we need to back up.

This week, someone gave me the advice to start a negative thought notebook. Every time I notice a negative thought, I am supposed to write it down in a notebook. I have been doing this all week, and the most interesting thing I notice is that most of my negative thoughts really get rolling when I pick up my instrument.

At first, this surprised me, but it certainly explains a lot. Technical imperfection. Muscle tension. Lack of focus. I think my negative thoughts attack me while playing my instrument because that is where my mind is vulnerable. Every time I play my flute, I have to open up a part of myself that is sensitive and real. A piece of my soul. And that is when darkness can attack!!

The good thing about this notebook is that, as I write the thoughts down, I notice how extreme and ridiculous they are. Yesterday, I was able to put the negative thoughts to rest, and even found myself replacing them with positive affirmations!

This morning was different. Maybe it was not enough sleep, or too much coffee, or just an off day, but as soon as I started scales, the negative thoughts went on a rampage! I wrote down almost 40 negative thoughts within 30 minutes! I tried putting them to sleep, but for some reason, they didn't want to rest today. My thoughts began with generic things like, "I can't move my fingers evenly!" The more frustrated I became, and the longer the mind spiraled, the thoughts grew into extreme life statements, such as the following:

"I'm not good enough."
"I'm weird and abnormal."
and even
"I'm an embarrassment to flute playing!!!"

Ridiculous, right? Reading those now, they sound very ridiculous. When my thoughts started switching from being frustrated with a few mistakes to life statement attacks, I knew it was time...

A couple weeks ago, I talked about being my own best teacher. If I were to walk into a good teacher's office and said 40 negative statements about myself, how would that teacher react? They would probably tell me to adjust my attitude and kick me out!  So, that's what I did to myself this morning.

When I was an undergraduate, I used to leave the practice room frustrated a lot. I would like to make the distinction that kicking myself out of my practice room this morning was different than leaving in a frustrated huff. In the past, the negative voice was the champion, causing me to feel so terrible about myself that I would leave.

 Now, I have the ability to look at the situation objectively, from the view of a teacher.  If you have ever dealt with children, you know that sometimes, they throw tantrums to get what they want. If you give into the tantrum, they're going to learn that is OK to do and keep doing it in the future. I refuse to let my brain's negativity tantrums rule my practice sessions. Playing flute is a privilege, and I will not allow poor thought tangents to become ingrained into my head anymore.

My flute is a special gift, and playing it is meant to be a place of individual growth and spiritual fulfillment. I will find a way for it to be that way, or I won't play at all.

Later today, I will go back, and try again. :)