Welcome to your midweek snack break.
I have two delights for your today.
Your first treat is me introducing you to what researcher and author Brene Brown calls The FFT or the Effing First Time. The first time you make ravioli from scratch, your first day at a new job, or, in my case, the first time you record a guided meditation.
She reminds us to go easy on ourselves, to not expect mastery, or even competence, but instead to prepare ourselves for frustration, fear, anxiety and a lot of mistakes, to make room for a learning curve and all of the feelings. I’ve listened to that podcast episode multiple times, I highly recommend it, but it’s clear maybe I could benefit from at least one more listen.
I am an artist, writer and chef. I am self-taught in many disciplines, cuisines, techniques, practices, etc. I am utterly clueless about anything to do with music or sound, or the recording of either.
But I really really want to start giving you guided mediations. So, I bought a fancy microphone, downloaded an app, hit play and started talking you through the meditation.
Fun fact: audio apps are absolutely nothing like design and drawing apps. There are so many terms, symbols and techniques to learn. It’s terrifying and confusing. But there’s also YouTube and no shortage of audio nerds willing to make tutorials, for which I’m so grateful.
The same time I’m scaling FFT mountain and trying to modulate my voice for your meditative bliss, my neighbor’s bliss of fiberoptic broadband starts going down in the lane right outside of my window. My historically-mandated-and-accurate-but-not-even-remotely-soundproof windows allow me to hear every clink and clank of the jackhammers, ditch witches, and cement grinders employed to hasten the burying of cable.1
I’m all about this FFT adventure in recording, so that you can be all about the FFT in meditation (which is not at all stressful once you do it). I suspect we’re both going to be awesome at our endeavors in a really short time.
So, without further ado, enjoy treat number two: our first guided meditation together.
See you on Sunday.
I also happen to have first-hand knowledge of a freezer incident involving ten pounds of spoiled shrimp that has been sitting in a trash can in the same lane in 90°F heat all week. There is nothing discreet about the smell.
I Did A Thing, Now You Do A Thing