Learning to Respect Your Own Kind of Beautiful

Last week I had a Classic Beautiful Moment Challenge…..
The opening line to Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful  is this….
“Sometimes, I’ll say nothing at all, Speaking up feels too vulnerable, It’s easier to let silence take the fall…..”
OK! Got that?

I was at a song pitch event, one of the pluggers (song pluggers are people who pick up songs and then pitch them to big name artists to sing ;) ) who is a friend of mine was on the panel.  After the event I’m talking to my friend and he says to me, “That song wasn’t my thing, I got very turned off by that line about Silence taking the fall…..”

I thought to myself, “Hmmm….. that metaphor is one of my favorite lines in the song….”  I almost wanted to laugh.  When you’re a writer in Nashville, publishers and industry are always giving feedback on songs.   One of the reasons, I’ve taken a step back from parts of that world is because the feedback was stifling my voice.   That’s a big reason why Be Your Own Kind of Beautiful emerged.   I was so tired of people telling me how to write.  My lyrics were starting to feel watered down and My songs had stopped sounding LIKE ME.   The beautiful insight there is that I realized you can’t write honestly if you’re hyper focused on writing only what you think other people want to hear!

Back to the story ..... HERE’S the interesting lesson -
The line that he commented on was
“It’s easier to let silence take the fall”
I thought in my head ‘that’s one of my favorite metaphors / lines in the song’
BUT I said Nothing….  I just smiled and said thanks for the feedback.

The irony is that I let silence take the fall because I said nothing!

HOWEVER,  I did not doubt myself, doubt my lyric, or freak out and run home to try to do a rewrite.  That is a bit of “Beautiful” progress in my creative department.
My own kind beautiful uses a lot of metaphors, it’s a little quirky, and oftentimes kinda deep.
“Soul don’t fit that mold and it’s OK….”  (that’s another lyric)

Ive been in this business and in the world long enough to know that people are entitled to their opinion. And sometimes people have good advice to offer.
Oftentimes it’s a challenge to respect other peoples feedback when it pushes up against our emotions or our creative work.   But perhaps, we honor our unique beautiful by also honoring the unique beautiful in those around us.
We can acknowledge other peoples beautiful AND keep our own Beautiful intact.  Just cause we don’t agree, that doesn’t mean we have to kick up the dust and create a scene.  It’s OK to agree to disagree, as long as it doesn’t alter OUR sense of self inside.

In addition, I’m also learning to respect and honor MY opinion.  In those challenging moments it's key to Ask ourselves - Does this feedback line up with my creative message? My higher goals? My vision?  If not? Give yourself permission to take the path less traveled, follow the rocky road…. and BE YOUR OWN KIND OF BEAUTIFUL.  We are never going to please all the people all the time, so we might as well follow OUR own hearts :)

Love, Light and Many Blessings to you - Stay the course and always, be YOUR OWN kind of beautiful
Love,