Exp. #13 Update: A Song Called 'In Color' and Why Releasing It During Pride Month Means A Lot
This is me practicing Experiment #13: Showing My Work (and Work-in-Progress) More Often
If reading time is hard to come by or you’re interested in a more human experience, there is a “Read-to-You” version of this article:
An experiment with
“S” for SERVE WHILE CONNECTED
on the
M.O.N.K.E.Y. B.A.R.S.
~
For more:
Read M.O.N.K.E.Y. B.A.R.S. explainer
Read Experiment #13
Read “S” explainer
See all “S” experiments
I’ve accepted that it’s kind of strange to be walking with me when I get an idea for a new song.
I’ll take a few steps back or turn the other way or excuse myself to go to the restroom—sometimes without giving you an explanation! As quickly as I can, I pull up my phone’s voice memo app and start humming whatever I’ve been hearing in my head before it disappears from my mind.
It’s a delicate thing because those seeds of ideas can be so fleeting and you never know when they’re going to come. Any music that might be playing in the background of a restaurant or in a car passing by or on someone’s ringtone could make me forget the idea.
I used to write these down with musical notation in a small notebook I’d carry around, but, in my opinion, nothing tops the voice memo. It’s fast, it’s easy to organize, and it’s easy to share. I remember more. I forget less. They’re also much better at capturing a vibe—which is very helpful when I’m trying to remember the spark of the idea months (or sometimes even years) later.
These voice memos are weird little things. I draw a lot from my college a cappella days and try to use my voice to create as many of the instruments as possible.
If I’m hearing percussion or drums, I do beat boxing. If I’m hearing synth slides, I’ll mimic those. I try to give myself a hint of what the bass guitar and vocals might be doing. But I have to do it all at the same time, so I probably sound a little possessed as I’m doing it!
I don’t usually play these voice memos for anyone because, to be honest, they’re a little embarrassing, but since I’ve committed to Experiment #13: Showing My Work (and Work-in-Progress) More Often, I thought this would be a good opportunity to practice.
So, here was the first voice memo for my new song “In Color.” All I heard were the words “give me the color,” a beat, and some sort of electro-synthy thing. I probably awkwardly separated myself from the group or person I was with and hummed this into my phone:
I brought this voice memo into a songwriting session as an option with one of my favorite collaborators, Jenna McGoran (a.k.a Lady Rock). Over the course of a couple of hours we created a melody and lyrics for a full song.
After that, I produced it (using real instruments, not just my voice!) and did my best to capture the spirit of the original idea. Eventually, it became the song “In Color” that we just released last week:
Coming out
This song was not written specifically for Pride Month, but it is about a “coming out:”
I feel my heart race
I can’t wait, oh no (oh)
I’m in a new place
The old days are gone (oh, oh)I’m seeing through the grey
A new day is dawning
Ain't gonna limit me
I'm breaking through the ceiling
And I’m leaping
Over black, white, and in-betweenI dream in color
I dream in color
I dream in color
I dream in color
When Jenna and I were thinking about when to release it, we agreed that June would be perfect.
For me personally, it made me think of how, over the last few years, I’ve had the extraordinary privilege of watching my 14-year-old child, Raedyn (or “Rey” for short), come out as LGBTQIA+.
I’ve strived to be an ally as they have navigated learning how to live in happiness through gender dysphoria, communicate pronoun changes (currently they/them), and overcome the pain of being misgendered by friends, teachers, and family, whether accidentally or intentionally.
I’m grateful to have seen the world through this lens. It’s given me so much—not the least of which is joy and pride in watching Rey handle this journey so thoughtfully, so courageously, and with so much integrity.
Though Rey’s “coming out” is quite different from my own life experience, I have experienced versions of what it feels like to “come out.”
I wrote about what felt like a “coming out” as an introvert in Experiment #14: Meditating with an App and the pain that was associated with that. And in 2020, I wrote about the pain of what felt like a “coming out” as a musician as I left a corporate job of 15 years and began bringing music back into the center of my life.
These experiences help me understand, at least to some degree, Rey’s experience and the experience of other LGBTQIA+-identifying people. They help me understand why something like Pride month is helpful. It highlights that others have gone through the “coming out” process successfully and, that if you are on a “coming out” journey of your own, then you can do it too.
“Coming out” is a very vulnerable thing to do. It’s revealing something truthful about who you really are. Many of us avoid this kind of vulnerability because it can sometimes lead to pain, but “coming out” can also bring with it the feeling of a weight being lifted—a freedom.
This is something the acclaimed vulnerability researcher and author Brené Brown calls “wholehearted living.”
In my experience, being open to being vulnerable and striving to live in a wholehearted way has brought about the best experiences in my life, opened the most interesting doors, and created the most optimal conditions to grow as a person.
I agree with Brown, who says in her book, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, that:
“Vulnerability is the core, the heart, the center, of meaningful human experiences.”
At its best, the freedom gained by “coming out” outweighs its pain and a new paradigm is established in our lives—a new chapter begins. In many ways, “coming out” is about moving from one paradigm that felt restrictive and less authentic to one that is more expansive, more aligned with who we truly are, and because of that, more vibrant—or, more colorful.
I feel my heart race
I can’t wait, oh no (oh)
I’m in a new place
The old days are gone (oh, oh)I’m seeing through the grey
A new day is dawning
Ain't gonna limit me
I'm breaking through the ceiling
And I’m leaping
Over black, white, and in-betweenI dream in color
I dream in color
I dream in color
I dream in color
Two ways “coming out” has strengthened me spiritually
As I’ve practiced the “E” part of the M.O.N.K.E.Y. B.A.R.S., which stands for “Engage with Spiritual Teachings” (see Experiment #6), I have observed two important ways that “coming out” has strengthened me spiritually.
The first comes innately, but has been strengthened with practice, and the second is a choice that I now know I have. They are:
Learning to work with my intuition
Learning I can choose to focus on joy through pain
1. Learning to work with my intuition
Since we know we risk some pain in “coming out” on our way to freedom and wholehearted living, we often don’t go through with it unless we feel a very strong inner conviction.
The Yogis teach that this inner conviction is the Divine speaking to us. Inner guidance comes to us in the form of a conviction, which is another way of saying intuition. It is how the Source—or whatever name you use for God—communicates with us.
My spiritual teacher, Swami Nityananda, often says, simply:
“There will be guidance.”
Listening to this inner voice is what she means.
The process of “coming out” hones our ability to not only hear this inner voice, but also to act upon it. This is an important spiritual muscle to develop.
In a forthcoming book called Satsang with Swami Shankarananda: Answers to Questions on the Spiritual Path, Swami Nityananda’s teacher, Swami Shankarananda, elaborates on this teaching and implores us to listen to our inner guidance:
“O glorious Self! Honor thy freedom to choose from moment to moment what you perceive to be best for you. If there is yet confusion as to knowing what is best, ask of your inner Self that is all Light to instruct you. Entreat it to tell you what it would have you know, do, and be. Having done so, give thanks for the response that is on its way, eager to communicate with you in your heart. Then remember to act on this inner guidance.
How may you know that it is inner guidance and not an ego-originating desire or impulse? Inner guidance is pure vibration. It will never do anything or suggest to you to do what would cause harm to yourself or another.
When you receive inner guidance, it vibrates as the feeling of well-being. Abandon all self-doubt, and these feelings flow into your heart. Put it to the test by acting upon it, and you will not be disappointed or deceived.
Guidance comes because we have chosen to ask for it and receive it. Whenever we fail to act upon it, we experience the effect of that negligence. Take heart and give thanks for the effect of the negligence because it proves to you the truth of inner guidance. It always helps you to move forward and return to the feeling of well-being, of wholeness.”
When he says that our inner guidance will never “cause harm” to ourselves, I think it’s important to distinguish “harm” from “pain.”
The human body feels pain and we experience it both physically and emotionally. But in the way that a tough workout might make our body ache temporarily and yet still improve our health over time, we sometimes must experience pain on our way to well-being and wholeness.
This realization helps us with the other very important spiritual lesson that “coming out” has helped me learn.
2. Learning we can choose to focus on joy through pain
If we are motivated during a tough workout and we are connected to a strong inner conviction about why we’re working out, then we will likely be guided towards ways that we could enjoy the pain of that workout.
During the pain of “coming out” as a musician after a 15-year corporate career (which I wrote about on Medium and in Experiment #1: Sharing the Top Ten Things I Do Regularly to Create a Happier Life), I was guided towards Yoga philosophy, which teaches techniques for how to live in joy even when we are experiencing pain.
The techniques essentially eliminate emotional pain altogether and for physical pain, they help make the monkey mind strong enough to consistently stay focused on spirit-uplifting emotions (again, see Experiment #1).
An example of this in the Christian tradition is Jesus, who the Yogis hold up as a master teacher. He suffered immense physical pain from being brutally crucified on a cross, but he remained connected to compassion, inner peace, and inner joy as it happened. He remained connected to what Swami Nityananda describes as “the frequency of love.”
We see this connection in the description of his final moments. For example, in Luke 23:34, one of the last things Jesus says about his torturers is:
“Forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
Staying connected to “the frequency of love” while being painfully tortured might seem impossible, but an interesting—and relevant—recent conversation between Swami Nityananda and Acharya Kashi helps illustrate how it can be done through Yoga philosophy.
The conversation was centered around “Living in Joy in Gender” and while I recommend the whole video, if you’re pressed for time, this link will take you to a good summary of the ideas at 32:37:
Here’s the text:
“So I’ll just share a scripture from Svetasvatara Upanishad:
‘The soul bears no characteristics of man or woman, or any other physical distinction. It merely simulates the appearance of the body which it takes for its manifestation and unfoldment.’ [Chapter 5, Verses 8-10]
That’s such an interesting teaching because it tells us that the light in us is actually beyond gender. So we’re here wearing this particular human garment right now. As Acharya Kashi was talking, I was thinking about that gender is a kind of garment that each of us is wearing right now. And the same thing for sexual identity, orientation, gender expression—it’s a kind of garment that we’re wearing right now.
In the same way that I’m not actually identified by this beautiful piece of fabric that I’m wearing right now, gender doesn’t actually identify me either. And it identifies no one, actually, if you’re looking at the deep-most part of you—the soul of you.
This can have an incredibly freeing effect as well if you just realize: This gender that I’m wearing right now, it binds me as little as a piece of clothing binds me. So I’m actually already free. I am already pure love. I am already pure light. And then, How much fun would I like to have wearing this particular gender garment in this lifetime.”
By allowing ourselves to see a gender identity, a personality trait, a job, a name, or even our body as a “garment that each of us is wearing right now,” we create a relationship to those things that is compassionate and filled with gratitude, but also nonattached.
Yogis teach that the more we are able to identify with our soul level—with the “I” that is wearing the garment—the better able we will be at feeling the bliss of spirit-uplifting emotions like compassion and kindness and joy in all of the circumstances of our life—whether they contain physical pain or not.
As Swami Shankarananda said, “Put it to the test by acting upon it.” As I’ve continued to act upon it, I have experienced only increases in spirit-uplifting emotions and opportunities. It feels like the difference between seeing the world in black and white versus color—and the colors just keep getting brighter.
“In Color” wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t “come out.” It wouldn’t have the same resonance if Rey hadn’t listened to their inner guidance and “come out.” But because both of those things happened, Rey and I have been able to see new colors.
We’ve even been guided to blend our artistic interests into something new. I asked Rey, who loves digital art, if they’d be interested in creating a video for “In Color.” They said yes and here’s what they created:
I couldn’t be more proud or grateful.
I feel my heart race
I can’t wait, oh no (oh)
I’m in a new place
The old days are gone (oh, oh)I’m seeing through the grey
A new day is dawning
Ain't gonna limit me
I'm breaking through the ceiling
And I’m leaping
Over black, white, and in-betweenI dream in color
I dream in color
I dream in color
I dream in color
Have you shared any of your work lately (see Experiment #13)? If so, we’d love to hear about it in the comments below and know how it felt to share it.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a very happy day.
With love,
Jonathan