This is an exciting first. On a recent Saturday, it was literally and figuratively a tempest. A near monsoon deluged our proud annual wine and food festival. I was the band manager adn my lead sound engineer was telling me that we needed to shut down both stages and cancel the bands. Two people had already slipped on the main stage adn the acoustic stage was in danger of shorting out the equipment. The town event organizers upon whom all effort eventually falls, were miserable, soaked and stressed out beyond anything I had seen. The vendors who paid to be there were thinking about packing up and it was not long before the main event planner was talking shut down of the entire event with the local police department.
And I was not stressed out at all. Standing in the rain with my giant umbrella, fresh off the wettest gig I have ever played, I felt only a mild joy. I thought about how it will make, eventually, a great story. I did not take on the stress of literally everyone around me. Some of these wonderful people I know personally and I hate to see good people suffer. Usually that results in me trying to take on their pain as if it would leave them and come to me. (it never works).
This time, I projected peace instead. I was in the moment and watched as the silent observer, who was more interested and bemused than anything else. I was able to bring some calm and peace to my friends by letting peace come through me, rather than exacerbate the problem by being yet another stressed out person.
This is a big step forward! If I can be a conduit for peace adn joy, that is far more effective. I could SEE their truth instead of being in their truth with them. In that perspective, I can do a lot more.
It helped that I did not need the job, the reputation, the money or the opinion of anyone that day. I was not attached to the outcome. I would have enjoyed seeing the other bands play but that was not to be. It did not matter because I did not have a pre-set vision or expectation about how it should go and such a vision was not the basis for validating my definition of self.
What would it be to detach yourself from outcomes?
