Lately, I’ve had to deal with feeling incompetent a lot of the time, and this often happens to me during transitions, but I had a particular experience today that I think might be helpful. And I want to share it, in case it is for you.
I’ve been a pianist my entire life (my earliest memories are sitting on my mom’s lap at a piano, playing with her). I was so in love with the piano as a kid, I would forsake even reading to play the piano, and for a good portion of my life, I got paid to play the piano. There is a lot of evidence that I am an extra-competent pianist.
If I were to answer the question, “where are you the most reliably competent,” I would probably say the piano.
A friend sent me a podcast yesterday about the somatic reprogramming that you can do to calm down your nervous system when it’s activating, and one of the questions the host asked was about a specific moment that makes you feel at your best. Easy answer for me. Almost all my most competent moments involve being at that instrument.
I just sat down to really play (for about an hour–something I haven’t done since I moved to Minnesota), and the level of competence I feel in all areas of my life now is significant. I forget, when I’m feeling incompetent, that I’m not incompetent at everything. (And, of course, it’s ok to be incompetent at things I haven’t learned to do well yet… that just takes time.)
Something as easy as playing the piano (I mean, easy for me) can give me the competence hit (it felt a little like #couragepennies) I needed to come back to the office and tackle this hard stuff.
Or to deal with transitions in my business, or bad releases, or breakups, or fear, or monumental tasks. I forget, when I’m in the middle of the pain (of course… that’s normal) that I have this tool in my arsenal, that no matter what, I will feel more competent if I can just find a piano and sit down.
If any of you have done somatic work before (if you’re doing attachment work, especially), it’s a little like the “bringing your adult self to your child self” moment. (Thanks, by the way, to my friend who sent me that one podcast episode yesterday… lol… you know who you are.) I forget all of it when I’m in the midst of that feeling.
So I made a note to remind myself to play the piano more often. I need to get headphones for my Minnesota house (which is why I hadn’t been playing… I didn’t want to bother my neighbors).
What about you? What is the most competent you feel? What are you doing when you are at the height of your competence?
– Becca