Eckhart Tolle on Shaping Your Frame of Mind

Tuesday Quotes are short explorations of music, life, and the daily endeavor of practicing classical guitar. Find more here. Enjoy!

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”

Eckhart Tolle

• “I don’t have enough time to practice guitar.”
• “My work and family are conspiring against my musical development.”
• “What’s wrong with me? I’m still making mistakes in this simple song.”
• “I’ve been playing for X years. I should be better by now.”
• “I should have this figured out by now. Maybe I’m just too _____”
• “I’m a victim of circumstance!”

There are a million opportunities to get upset or downcast. We can spin any situation to tell the story we choose.

But the actual events/circumstances/situations are neutral. They just are. Neither good nor bad.

Example: We make mistakes when we played a tune for friends. This isn’t a tragedy. It’s information and nothing more. If we expected no mistakes, we get upset. If we expected more mistakes, we rejoice. The event is the same – only the story is different.

Playing guitar is a long-term relationship. There will always be a mix of successes and failures. And if we constantly challenge ourselves, we can expect even more failures.

The emotions these generate depend on how we define “failure”. If failure means we’re a lousy excuse for a human being, we’ll feel disappointed, guilty, or discouraged.

But if failure = discovery, then each “failure” is a source of excitement, motivation, and opportunity to focus.

Carlos Castaneda said it a different way: “We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.“

One of the best moves we can make is to identify a story or belief we hold about our musical practice, then re-frame it as discovery. Make it valuable information and use it to take action.

Music is for fun, exploration, and self-mastery. Any thoughts that get in the way of this are unnecessary and undermine our experiences.