Giving Something Up to Experience Little Breakthroughs

“There is no middle ground when you make a decision.”

– David Hooper

It is Lent. It is a time to give up those things that do not serve us. 

I will give up candy. I am a jolly rancher freak and I have a new piece every ten minutes. I will no longer surrender to the sweetness of the taste, even on three-hour long car rides or when a bicyclist cuts me off short of taking his life because he didn’t care about the traffic laws. I will fight off my urges to have those teeth killers. I also will dedicate more time to myself and give up stressing over the weight on my shoulders and instead find more reasons to live in a joyful way.

I have decided to live my life with great attention and care. I have decided to hold on to kernels of hope and take on the boiling froth of life’s many demands confidently. I have decided to maintain order in my mind even when challenges prevail.

I will take the steering wheel and drive my response to life in positive ways. I will no longer obsess over the things that are out of my reach. I will no longer validate negativity and let it dwell within. I will acknowledge the beauty that surrounds me as I take on demanding tasks.

I will stand tall and not let doubt fog over my intellectual curiosity. I will go the extra mile to emerge with happiness. I will be conscious of my efforts and celebrate my own self. I will no longer allow deep sadness to be the hat that I wear.

I will learn from my mistakes and no longer dwell in yesterday’s eclipses. I will walk on through the wind and through the rain. I will recognize my being as something special. I will let the streams of faith run through me. I will enjoy the basic, necessity of rest. I will no longer allow stress to overtake my joy and I will smile more. And I will be with joy not because someone else creates it but because I will fight for the joy I deserve. I will experience my breakthrough. https://soundcloud.com/stephanay-jnote/breakthrough

I will acknowledge that I was not built to break but to stand tall and to experience little victories. I am a warrior. I am fully aware of my strength and I will use it to the best of my ability.

So, what are you giving up for Lent? I once gave up adding sugar to my coffee and tea and until this day, I do not add anything to those beverages. I can’t even fathom the taste of a Macchiato because it is too sweet for me. Some things last, some don’t but for the most part, trying makes a big difference.  

Getting Over A Traumatic Experience: Car Accident

I have my moments where I am overcome with sad thoughts and it happens at the same time every year, though my accident was well in the past, I still experience the psychological traumas of it.

It seems like on the anniversary of it, I start reliving the bad experience from a distance. I start getting sick; even to the point of paralysis where I cannot get out of my bed or start experiencing all these pains in my body that hadn’t been there and make me ail.

I often wonder if I should be desensitized by the situation by now. I mean, my river of knowledge is far beyond that night and time when my accident occurred. So much time has passed and so many events have taken place and yet still, my near-death experience changed my whole entire world of limitless abundance and I am back to confusion, in a frenzy and in tears, and paralysis masks my joy.

My uncle made me realize that I am able to choose my response to life the day after it happened. While I was ready to stay in bed crying and blaming myself about what happened and thinking of all the terrible things that could have happened, including my head being cut off and my life coming to a sudden end, he was ready to make me feel like life was still worth living. My mind tends to flirt with all the could have would haves and then I feel depressed and sick and I stiffen in response to the memory on the anniversary. Sometimes I wonder if I will be latched to this event forever. I guess I am still seeking clarity of how something like that could have happened to me. I even sometimes taste fear of driving, synchronous to the anniversary date, on my tongue.  

I realized through this entire experience that if we dwell on dilemmas, we will never transcend the boundaries of them. I realized that what was encountered happened and cannot be changed because it is part of my history. I realized that it is unhealthy to live a life blaming yourself for something that happened or might have happened when it is well in the past and not my present reality. And I also realized that with my story, I can inspire others and help others who might have experienced something similar to me.

When I wrote the song, Enjoy Life, it was based on this situation. I wanted to slip away and forget that life still goes on regardless of what happened. The lyrics are based on my living, breathing history telling myself that I can still enjoy life even though life happened. 

By releasing my thoughts onto paper, I made it justifiable for me to move past it. And what made it even better for me was being able to get up on stage on the anniversary of my accident, to tell people about it and to sing to them my lyrics to “Enjoy Life” to let them know that it is okay to embrace each day to the fullness of it, regardless of our situations. 

Check out the music video for my song Enjoy Life here: https://youtu.be/alV2ULnr9z8

Flashback: Stepping Back Into MY Day Dream

"Regardless of how you feel inside, always try to look like a winner.

Even if you are behind, a sustained look of control

and confidence can give you a mental edge that results in victory."

– Arthur Ashe

I was told to bring dresses, gowns and to look nice. I did not know what to pack, though I knew I would need to look red carpet worthy where it was most important; the most important being at the Tatarstan Filarmonia in Kazan, Russia.

I had waited for that moment for such a long time. I imagined it in my mind, never considering that my dream would come into fruition. And then it did and I had to be my best on the stage, regardless of the cold that the deep freeze of Russia was gripping me with.

I was like a pressure cooker about to explode with excitement at the reality that it was happening for real. The simple idea of it was something worth salivating over and finally, I was at the point where I could tweak the image in my mind like a filmmaker as I literally stumbled into the vivid situation.

I looked like I was serious about what I came to do and confident on the outside, but on the inside, I was hiding my fear of either coughing on the stage in the middle of a song or having a runny nose on the stage, during my performance. But I couldn’t deny the fact that I had finally reached a vision I had only saw in the REM of a daydream. Here are some other photos from that night as well as a piece of a performance that solidified the thought, "Yes, I am here, singing with an orchestra; "At Last!"

With Anatoliy, the condutor of the
Tatarstan Filarmonia Orchestra

With Oklahoman singer and my duet partner
at the Tatarstan Filarmonia in Kazan, Russia,  Tavis Minner

With the Tatarstan Filarmonia Orchestra

Dust Yourself Off and Enjoy Life

“A winner never quits., and a quitter never wins”

– Napoleon Hill

I had it all mapped out. I was going to venture this new territory and skate my way to challenging my fear of falling flat on my face. Confidently, I perched on a set of wheels beneath my feet thinking, I got this. However, I was so inundated with fear that I hardly wanted to walk with the skates on, though I had to in order to try skating for real.

At first, it was a guided situation. I was being pulled across the rink by the crutches of my friend’s hands, pulling me to skate. I floated right along with him but, every so often, I felt myself losing balance.

I decided that I could not let my entire time be spent that way. I wanted to try it on my own. All the possibilities of me skating on my own, were cooking. I got onto the rink by myself, but if it weren’t for the guard rail, I would not have been able to get on that slippery surface on my own, at all. 

I looked at my friends dancing and skating backwards and me, I was taking baby steps, holding on to the rail, all around. I actually was able to go around the rink three times. I feared falling and thank God I didn’t fall on the rink. Where I did fall was outside of the rink with skates on trying to walk down the little step down they had to get to the locker area. I am not writhing in pain and ironically, it was falling that fine-tuned my thinking and made me dust myself off, no longer fear falling and made me decide to get onto the rink by myself and without another’s assistance realizing that I am a masterpiece in progress.

I can’t believe that the simple act of skating made me pay close attention to my posture when I am walking. It made me feel okay with the speed of going slow so I could actually get comfortable with the motions. I also learned that what we gain is also what we lose. I gained confidence in trying and lost fear of falling and hurting myself. How cool is that?

Are you someone who enjoys the art of roller skating? If it is not the fun or the adventure, it is the music that the deejay is spinning while people roll to his rhythms that drive my interest. My latest video for my song, “Enjoy Life,” a dance tune with lyrics by Stephanie Jeannot and music by Mike LeShore, is definitely, the type of song that fits the mold of a song that you would hear at a skating rink. It is fast paced. It is danceable. It has a lot of energy and it is catchy. 

The video was edited and produced by me, Stephanie Jeannot with the help of my dear friend Stuart Thomas who helped to record many of the scenes featured in this visual slide show of frames. I hope that you will take the time to check out my creative videography project here: https://youtu.be/alV2ULnr9z8 

Thank you for making my life, that much more enjoyable. Have a pleasant week! 

Saying Yes to Your Passions

Today celebrates the birthday of two people that lived very public lives which many saw as heroes. One is the contralto opera singer Marian Anderson who was born February 17, 1902 and the other, basketball star Michael Jordan born February 17, 1963.

Unlimited Possibilities

Though they both had very different types of careers, one making magic with her voice and the other, making hoop tricks on the basketball court, what I think they had in common was purpose, belief and trusting in possibilities of achieving something greater than themselves.

Anderson said, "if you have a purpose in which you can believe, there's no end to the amount of things you can accomplish." How true are her words when you think about life and goals and attaining them?

Purpose

In short, this post is just to encourage to keep pushing, to keep climbing mountains, to keep pressing forward, and to encourage you to never let go of what is important to you as an individual to accomplish. It is weird but I find inspiration just by doing what I love to do. I finally understand the meaning of encouraging yourself. 

Passion does that. I think it was passion that drove Anderson and Jordan to be who they were destined to become to the world.

Passion 

I had an opportunity to collaborate on a tune with a very talented rapper that goes by the name Keez Hip Hop and a great male singer, Melly G. Please check out our song together entitled Passion which features an excerpt from my original tune Fresh 16. It is one of the many tunes on my Soundcloud page. Here is the link: https://soundcloud.com/stephanay-jnote/passion-by-keezhiphop-featuring-melly-g-and-stephanie-jeannot

The Year to Yes

Do you watch Grey's Anatomy or Scandal or How to Get Away With Murder? All three shows makeup what is considered Thank God it's Thursday and all shows are amazing works of Shonda Rhimes.

Rhimes wrote an incredible book entitled  Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person,  and if you have not read it, I encourage you to check it out. What a great book in which she discusses the road that lead to her success. She followed her passion to become the individual who holds Thursday nights on ABC down.

This book is a quick read featuring just over 300 pages. I love the way she writes, adding all of herself into it. And as I flipped through the pages, I found many of the characters found in her popular series embedded in her personality.  Check it out for yourself!

Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and if you click on the link to the Shonda Rhimes book and purchase it, I will be compensated through the affiliate program. 

Wherever You Are

It was once seen as a motivational state for me when my guy would come over and we would get into the midst of creating music.

I had built a little studio in my basement and in the midst of my reality., it was one of the hottest creation stations in Brooklyn, NY. We would come together and in the nuance of emotion, conceive new music that would someday develop into a song worth sharing.

When lyrics storm, the droplets of words add a measure of fun into my world. If you do not know what I am talking about, during the spring, go outside in the rains of April without an umbrella and dance in it.

I liked him because he was a pretty, honest individual. We vibed together intellectually deep and it always added color to my dullness. We could spend hours together writing, playing the piano, grabbing the guitar and strumming in a new track to the bundle under the scaffold that would soon be built into a song. And then he’d leave. And as soon as he left my foyer area and I shut the door behind him, I started to miss him.

There are some things and people that I give narrow attention but he had all my focus. I would experience enflamed anxiety as if I had not seen him in months, though he was just with me 30 seconds ago.

If music is a compilation of human tears, then my song “Wherever You Are” is the pool that I was wading in for a minute and then drowned me into a new melody to sing. For it was on one of those occasions where he left and I started missing him that this song was written. 

The words illustrate the feeling which I experienced at that single moment. You can only imagine how good it felt to let my thoughts out with piano splashes on a blank track. The lyrics which focus on the basis of love came directly after.

If you liked the little performance clip captured in Novorossiysk, Russia of me singing my song with the Sergey Koronev Project, which was a moment of pure pleasure I must say, please add the full length tune to your Apple Music playlist here: https://itun.es/us/I2kLeb?i=1150594893

Love Story

The dew from the morning’s womb indicates that Valentine’s Day his over. It was during the workweek though and I think that there will be people still feeling high and in a celebratory state. Perhaps you are interested in floating around the fringes of that one day and continue to smile openly with that special love in your life as the week continues.

Don’t let the mood slip you by. Maybe you can just spend a few hours getting lost in the scenes of a romantic film. Here are just a few that I love that you might find interest in engaging in together.  

1. Shakespeare in Love

I have been the biggest Shakespeare fan ever since high school when my English teacher made us memorize a passage from the Shakespearean play Hamlet, so that we could recite it in class. This movie which is a romantic comedy is about the writing of Romeo & Juliet featuring Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Fiennes and it is a movie that I just love. 

2. The Sound of Music

Most people would remember this musical as a movie that teaches about music. But the romance portion of it between Maria and Mister Von Trapp is also a beautiful story of love that since I first saw it, has been a favorite of mine. Great movie and awesome storyline.

3. Aladdin

I know, you are thinking, a cartoon movie. But, this is one of the best ones to ever come from Disney. Beautiful love story that still makes me smile every time I see it. Even til this day, this movie is one of my favorites; brings out the infant eyes in me.

4. Love and Basketball

I love this story about love being sparked at a young age that lasts forever because of the one thing that makes them human; basketball. Such a beautiful story.

5. Silver Streak

I know you will think that this is more of a comedy than a love story, but there is a love story embedded in it beyond all the fun and laughs that you will experience while watching Gene Harris walk across the screen. And what a great story it really is.

These are just a few of the movies that I have grown to love and enjoy over the years. Have you ever heard of these films? What is your favorite romantic film?

Disclosure: This is not a paid post though, I am an Amazon Associate and if you click on any of these links and purchase the items indicated, I will be compensated.