How To Use Your Rebellious Streak To Improve Your Results

Photo courtesy of Robin Higgins from Pixabay

Throughout my life, from being a little kid right up until my mother got dementia and she was no longer herself, she told me what I couldn’t do.

Okay, there’s some stuff mums are supposed to tell you that you can’t do. Like throw yourself off the roof of your three-storey house when you’re playing Superman because really, honestly, no doubt about it, you will not be able to fly. No, not even with your beach-towel cape clothes-pinned to the shoulders of your T-shirt.

And no, not even if you wear your lucky underpants.

I’m not talking about the kind of “You can’t” that means “You’re not allowed for reasons of safety, health” etc.

I’m talking about the kind that says “You won’t be able to do it so don’t even bother trying.”

I wanted to try “this” or “that” new thing and my mother always told me, “You can’t.” I was told I’d get it wrong or mess it up, or that I would simply be unable to do it — whatever “it” was — because I was too stupid.

And of course, if I did try and she turned out to be right, I got the ITYS three- course special crammed down my throat, right from “I told you so” for the starter, through to the smug sneer smothered in superiority for the main course, followed by the rather tart dessert, “You think you know so much!”

The older I got, the more I dared try things that I “wouldn’t be able to do because I wasn’t ‘something’ enough.” Looking back, her words make me smile now because they’re just so ridiculous. How could she know I “couldn’t” when I hadn’t even tried?

But as a kid (and even later as an adult), it never occurred to me that she was wrong. I just believed her because she was my mother. I’d grown up believing she was right. Isn’t that just “normal”?

Eventually, as I made my way through my healing journey I came to understand that she’d said these things because they’re what she believed about herself. She was projecting those beliefs onto me.

A Case In Point…

A few moments ago, I was listening to Fantasie Impromptu Opus 66 in C sharp minor — one of my favourite pieces of music, and one of Chopin’s best known works (I’m sure you’ll have heard it at some point in your life). And in my opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful pieces ever written.

It’s insanely fast and complicated — until you get to the middle bit which slows and becomes deliciously romantic with one note melting into the next like rich chocolate blends into thick cream.

I was thinking about how I’ve learned that beautiful middle bit with no problem, but am wistfully waiting for the day when I can get the insanely fast parts down, too. Although I can play the millions of notes that run up and down the keyboard, I’m nowhere near fast enough.

It’s more than the speed that causes me trouble; it’s written in two different types of timing: simple timing in one hand, and compound timing in the other (which probably won’t mean a heck of a lot to you unless you’re familiar with this sort of thing. In that case, just know that it’s ridiculously difficult to play both simultaneously).

It feels a bit daunting when I listen to it. But then I remember a summer when I was 19. My mother came upon an ancient piece of sheet music that was her father’s. “Meditation” from the opera, Thaïs. She said, “Oh, this is beautiful! This was his favourite piece of music. But you could never play it. It’s way too hard.”

I suppose she’d forgotten about some of the extremely complicated and lengthy pieces that my music teacher had me playing on television, radio, at the Calgary Stampede and at various other venues and in competitions when I was as young as 12 or 13.

Taking On the Challenge

A few weeks later, on a rainy Monday, with no one else around I spent eight hours at the piano. By Tuesday at noon, I had memorised the entire piece. It wasn’t nearly as technically difficult as the ones my teacher had given me years earlier.

In fact, it was relatively simple. But it certainly one of the most beautiful I’ve ever heard. Before I continue my story, please enjoy it here:

Video on Youtube courtesy of Warner Classics

It was one of very many lessons in my life about the difference between “I can’t” and “I haven’t done it yet.”

The Thot Plickens… :)

What’s kind of funny is that the next time I saw my mother, I couldn’t wait for her to hear that I’d learned this song. I was so excited and thought that — for once — she might actually be proud of me. Just once, she might be pleased with something I’d done.

Without a word, I sat down at the piano while she puttered in the house and I began to play.

I got every note right. I played with lots of feeling (there is no other way to play anything, as far as I’m concerned).

When I was finished, I waited for her to be surprised, to be impressed, to be amazed that I’d learned it flawlessly and so quickly.

But she made no comment. She continued puttering with her chores as if she had not heard me play at all.

I asked if she recognised the piece, hoping to get some sort of positive reaction. “No,” came her disinterested reply.

I told her what it was. She said it wasn’t at all familiar and that perhaps there’s some other piece called “Meditation” that my grandfather loved.

Can you spell, “My heart sank”??? Right through the floor and to the centre of the earth. I had been sooo excited, sooo hopeful, sooo certain that I’d finally found a way to win — no, to earn — just the tiniest smidgen of her approval — only to feel as though I’d just slammed onto the pavement after falling a great distance.

As it turned out, she was correct. There was another piece by and that piece was extremely simple by comparison. I couldn’t believe she thought that one would have been too complicated for me. It felt like child’s play.

Turning Insult Into Insight

At the time, this was all rather upsetting — even insulting — but I can laugh at myself now, and I see how far I’ve come because eventually, with many lessons and a lot of healing, I stopped seeking my mother’s (or anyone else’s) approval.

I would never get her approval anyway, no matter what I did. She died still not approving of pretty much everything I did — and everything I am.

What a waste of my life it would have been if I had continued to jump through hoops in an attempt to please an unpleasable woman — and worse, one who would never approve of — or even like me.

I’m still carefully picking my way through the speedy part of Chopin’s Fantasie Impromptu Op. 66 as though I’m walking barefoot through thistles. Sometimes I get impatient because I’m not playing it quickly and the only part I part I can play as is intended is the slower middle section.

Occasionally, my mother wanders through my head and tells me I can’t do it, but I just smile and whisper to her in the spirit world.

“Yes, I can, Mum. I just haven’t done it…yet.”

Video on YouTube courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon - DG

Spiritual Arts Mentor and Master Teacher, Liberty Forrest, guides you in discovering who you are, why you’re here, and how to follow that path.