We are all Stronger Together. At least, that is what I believe. These days in our world, we act as if we have to go it alone, but that just makes us weaker. We really need each other.
In this new song I created called, Stronger Together, I recognize that we all face challenging times. We all have our struggles and our difficulties. Reaching out to others, no matter what situation you are facing, is a sign of strength.
This song, Stronger Together, came about after many years of just being a tune on a site called Jam Studio. I had played around with it, but nothing ever came of it. I had the chords in my mind, but until I faced some challenging circumstances on my own, it was only a bunch of notes.
When I kept sitting down at my keyboard attempting to give it a voice, it finally came through unexpectedly. Fortunately, I had thought to record it on my keyboard because it would have otherwise been lost.
When I record music, it either comes to me or it doesn't. I was happy to learn that George Winston experiences the same thing. Once the music comes out though, unlike him, I can't replay it. It is like a conversation that once it is spoken, there is no repeating it exactly like it was stated. My music creation is one that cannot be re-created. I wish it could, but I have not found the magic in doing this.
If you want to know more about the background story, check out what I wrote on my website at DonShetterly.com.
This song is special to me and I hope you will support me by purchasing it on your favorite online music store. I don't often ask for much on this blog, but when you purchase my music or books, you help support me so I can keep doing what I do best.
If you've been around the blog long enough, you probably know that I'm an author and music artist. If not, let me take a moment to just introduce myself and what I create.
I am a survivor of child sexual abuse. At age 26, I suffered from Conversion Disorder and dealt with paralysis, suicide attempts, depression, and anxiety. I was a workaholic and perfectionist. I could not let anyone down, even if it meant total destruction of myself. As much as I thought I knew how to deal with stress, I honestly had no clue!
For years I fooled myself until it caught up with me, and my world came crashing down. The two books I have written are part of my healing journey through the torture and trauma I experienced. I am currently finalizing a new book with an expected publishing date of early 2018.
If you found this page through a tweet I posted, it most likely corresponds to one of the books below that is idenitifed by the picture in the tweet.
Hope And Possibility Through Trauma
Hope And Possibility Through Trauma is my full-length book helping those who have been through so much in life. If you've experienced childhood sexual abuse or trauma or other horrific moments in your life, this book will speak to you and help give you hope and possibility that you too can heal. Available on Amazon.
A Journey Through Words
A Journey Through Words is a full-color spiral bound book of poetry and other writings. It is filled with many poems and thoughts, created as I was struggling to find my way through the difficult moments of healing. It includes raw thoughts and emotions from where I was at in those moments. Available on LuLu Press
Relaxing Piano Music
I create relaxing piano music that can be found on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, CDBaby and many other digital download sites. It is piano music without any lyrics, from my heart. Connect with the feeling and emotions of what you hear in the songs I have created. www.DonShetterly.com
From My Heart With Love
These things I have created are part of the way I help support my life and my purpose of working to help others. I know how difficult it is to deal with pain, and through my creativity, words, and music, I want to be there for others. I want to help shine the light for them to find footing on their own path.
Many have asked me to allow donations, and if you want, you can always do that at https://www.paypal.me/DShetterly . However, I would like to ask that you help support me through the creative works I have available. Click the images and links above for ways you can do this.
I continue to do the things I do out of love in my heart, and I just put these options as a way for others to join this cause. I know many are hurting and I work hard to be a voice of support and help through the painful moments of healing in life.
Stay tuned, because there is another exciting project coming very soon!
Wow, I saw this video by Yanni, and I was like blown away. Sorry, for using cliche' phrases, but I'm just in awe.
He explained in such detail how the creative process works for him.
Yanni was totally in his vulnerable state sharing which makes it even more special to me.
I love Yanni's music. It has always been an inspiration to me because he just allows himself to create from his heart and from that deep space.
I love seeing these videos where he shows a side of himself that we don't normally get to see.
In the video he talked about when you're in the creative process, you can't observe it and if you are trying to observe it, you aren't in it. (watch the video below)
I've found that the music just flowed from me when I was in the creative process. Like a conversation is how I normally describe it. We don't think about the conversation with a friend that we are having, we just talk to them. For me, how I create is much the same way.
It is something that comes up from deep within me where it just spills out. It just happens. It just comes together. If I try to force it (or in Yanni's words, observe it), it stops. If I just surrender to it and let it happen, it shows up.
One of the things that I've never mastered and it may be in how my ability comes through, is whatever I create on the piano, I am never able to play again. I wish I could, but if I try, it feels like one big blank space in me and I just stare at the piano. So, all of my music has to be recorded at the time it is created or generally it is lost.
This is why I compare my creative pursuits on the piano to a conversation. While you might try and paraphrase the conversation after it is over, you cannot repeat it. I can't repeat it. So, unless I'm recording, the music is lost.
I still remember the song,Meditation Music: Healing Angels, that I recorded some time ago. I sat down at my keyboard just to mess around on it. Sure, I felt this stuff that was bubbling up in me, almost like energy that needed to come out. Yet, I didn't expect to be writing a song.
I sat down with my recording equipment running and put my fingers on the keyboard. What came out of my hands at that minute surprised me. Of course, in the moment I did not hear what I was playing. I never do when I'm creating. It isn't until after I'm done and listen to it, that I actually get to hear it.
Through that song, I felt so much warmth and energy and feeling and emotion. I was crying hard. I was swaying to what was going on. I felt this empowerment come over me almost making it difficult to keep my hands on the keyboard. When I got done, I had created the song, Meditation Music: Healing Angels.
Most of the time, the songs I create are named for whatever thoughts are going through my mind at the time. I jot them down and then find a title that brings them out so others can understand. The songs are feelings and emotions and a conversation from a place I can't even describe.
Hearing Yanni talk about the Creative Process just helped me understand where I create from especially on my keyboard. I have not recorded anything new for some time and I'm beginning to feel the urge to sit at my keyboard and do this again.
Often when I go through difficult periods of life, I'm not in a mood to sit at the keyboard. Generally though, it is after I'm coming out of the difficult moment where I sit down and record. I think until I've found my way through it, even if it is hard for me to see in that moment, that's when I can share it through the notes that I play.
Thank you Yanni for sharing this video. You helped me understand myself a little more.
One of my good friends, Trevor Marty wrote a song that says so much. He titled it 99% (99 percent). I'm not going to give away the details of it here because you can read his more eloquent version of it on his blog.
It comes from a time where he was part of the protest for the 99% and whatever you think of that, I support those that stand up for what matters. I think his song and lyrics makes excellent points and I'm encouraged by those that show up to the arena as Brene Brown would say.
In the movie, "I Am" by Tom Shadyac the entire premise is about how we can make a difference in a world where greed and power and control have run amuck. There is more to the movie than this. One point the movie makes though is if we all work together, society survives. If we try to accumulate the most, society is doomed to fail.
Please take a moment and check out his blog post and song. He is a very talented singer, song writer, and guitarist. He is extremely insightful and cares deeply about the world he lives in. His name is Trevor Marty.
This is one thing I am very picky about in life. My ears hear music in a different way than most because I think I FEEL the music, more than I hear it. I'm extremely picky about the music I listen to and it either hits me instantly or it gets discarded in my mind.
I was watching a show on TV the other night and I exclaimed "that is some awesome music". Of course, it dawned on me that it was from a couple of decades ago where they actually did music with live instruments and not electronically created sounds of live instruments. It was an aha moment for me.
There is a big difference and I know that in today's world, electronically generated music is the norm. However, most of the time it doesn't feel right. It doesn't move me like the stuff made with actual instruments. I can feel the difference.
Instrumental music has so much depth to it and the sound crosses so many spectrums. Electronically generated music is a sound, not necessarily a depth filled musical note.
I'm sure many will disagree with me because that is what everyone has become accustomed to in making music and listening to music. Yet, I know that the music that really moves me is the one where live instruments harmonize together.
I never really think much about this subject, but it is one that has always impacted my life. Bending time and music gives so much depth to our every day experiences. I don't believe time is any more consistent than most facts that we believe in. I think there is a much more to this world than we often see, feel, experience, or know.
Today I saw two totally unrelated postings on social media about how many people felt off as to what day of the week it was. It was like a collective mind thought of something we all take for granted. What intrigued me more was how the two totally unrelated and unconnected event just caught my attention today.
Many may explain it one way or the other and sometimes it is often hard to say with certainty what is going on. Yet, I don't think you can deny that something is shifting and changing in this world. Sometimes those shifts and changes come with great struggle and difficulty because we are morphing from one plane into another.
From the book, The Field, here is one of my favorite sections on page 88.
Johannes Kepler famously claimed in his book Harmonice Mundi, that people on earth could hear the music of the stars. At the time, Kepler's contemporaries thought him crazy. It was four hundred years before a pair of American scientists showed that there is indeed a music of the heavens. - The Field
Sometimes I hear music and have no idea where it coming from. Perhaps, I hear the music of the stars. In the movie, The Shift, there was a segment depicting a piano player that would play the music that he heard. In all reality, this is the same thing I do.
A new documentary hitting the TV was on the OWN network recently. Oprah interviewed the creator of the film, Jonas Elrod, about his experiences before allowing everyone to view the film on the Super Soul Sunday program. This is a real life documentary of Jonas Elrod regarding an experience that happened to him and still continues to this day. While I'm sure there are many that would look at this film with complete skepticism, I would urge everyone to keep an open mind and see what you can learn.
There are things out there that exist and take place which we may not be able to see at this point in our life or in our day. We often live in our own little world, oblivious to what is around us. Sometimes our awareness and consciousness is so limited that it could be contained in a small storage jar. Just because we cannot see something or we don't think it exists, gives no credible evidence that we are correct.
In this movie, Wake Up, Jonas Elrod recounts and shows his experience of going from an every day person to one seeing auras, shapes, demonic type things, angels, spirits, etc. Jonas was not a spiritual and religious person, but just a regular guy working in a regular job trying to make his way in life. To view more information about the movie, click this link.
The movie really resonates with me because I've had similar experiences. It is important to note, that I do not get the full detail like Jonas does, but I have seen and sensed some of these things in dramatic ways. I'm sure if I saw all of these things at once, I'd probably freak out and hide, much like Jonas most likely wanted to do.
I think back to the days when my mom was around and I was able to talk to her. I always found her so insightful, so knowledgeable and very creative. I realize that she put up with so much in life and went through so many things but she never gave up. She always tried to do what was right and keep going.
If your mom is still alive, make sure you take a moment out of this day and let her know how much you love her. Let her know how much she means to you and tell her these things from the heart. There is no need to memorize a list or ask others what you should say. Just tell your mom, straight from your heart, how she has impacted your life.
To my mom, I still love you even though you are no longer on this earth and I always will.
On the LiveStream event with Yanni Live today, Yanni said, "the best way is to take pain on head first." So very true! It does hurt, but it is the healing force.
On January 4, 2002, I lost my mom in a traffic accident. That day would becoming a marking point of not only a significant amount for me to emotionally deal with but it would be a significant day of change in my life. From that point forward, so much changed for me in my life for the positive.
As a result of that day, I changed directions in my life and went to massage school. In addition to that, I recorded and released my first CD, "Dancing With Life' which was a tribute to the healing that I experienced at the result of losing my mom.
Of course the family issues are still there which I doubt will ever be easily solved. And at this point in my life, I have made it so far into moving past these things that I no longer worry much about the hope for resolution. It is hard to get people to go in and look at things they don't want to look at. Like I said - I'm at a point where I no longer hold that as my issue. It is more important for me to heal my life and become all that I can be.
As I reflect back though on my mom's life, I realize just all that she had to endure. She always seemed to make the most of a bad situation and always tried to put on the happy face. However, in order for her to do that she had to hide all the hell that was taking place.
I've blocked out many things in my life and had to do this in order to survive. Some of the extreme horrors that I faced early on in life were ones I'm not sure my mom truly knew about. In our house, there were many secrets. In our house, no one talked about those secrets. I have only one letter from my mom suggesting that she was aware of some "skeletons" in the closet but that's about all I know.
Thinking about her death brings many of these things front and center for me. There were so many questions I wanted to ask her but never got the opportunity to do that. I miss her greatly at times but I do know that I can talk to her at any time. It just isn't the same without her.
If you would like to see the memorial page that I put up for my mom after she died, you can go to the following website page (click here) . It has remained up on the internet every year since that time.
After my mom's death, I did not know if I could make it or if I could go on another day. However, I found out once again in life that even with all that I have been through, there is hope and possibility that life will go on!
No matter what, she will always be part of my life.
Blog Post & Images (c) 12/5/10 Don Shetterly - use by permission only
There are many resources out there for survivors of child sexual abuse. While many of these may be for male survivors, some of them would equally apply to female survivors as well. By no means is this list complete and to make it complete, I'm sure it would easily become a book.
If you have a resource that helps survivors heal, please feel free to email me and I'll update the list or just leave a comment with the information in it and I'll publish it that way. Either way works fine but my goal is to provide as many resources for survivors as I can along with links to more information or various books.
This may become too large for one blog post and if it does, I'll put this all in a pdf and upload it with a link. I'm not sure how large this will get but I'll keep adding to it until I find I need to change the format in how it is displayed.
Note: Please feel free to link to this list or use these resources to help advance the recovery and prevention of child abuse. I will try to update this information as I hear about things, so please keep checking back. If you use this information, I would greatly appreciate a credit or link back to this blog at: http://mindbodythoughts.blogspot.com/
Out of my morning meditations came a stream of consciousness which stated that listening to some music as I worked during the day at my desk would help me stay focused and more relaxed. It sounded like an excellent idea but the speakers on my Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop are not that great and to hook up external speakers means that I have to plug another cable into the front of the laptop which I hate to do all the time.
Anyway, the only other way for me to listen to music was through my ipod. However, I hate the headphones/earplugs in my ears all day. It just doesn't work that well for me. I'm not a headphone/ear plug person for a long period of time. So I was in search of a new solution.
I had heard about and seen the JBL On Stage Micro speakers in action. They have some excellent sound and work well. However, I knew these very nice speakers were a lot more money than I wanted to spend. That was - until I found them on sale at Amazon. Reading some of the reviews, I was not sure how great the quality of this little speaker was but I'll have to say, I'm blown away by the quality and volume of this unit.
This little 6" diameter speaker allows you to plug into an electrical outlet or run it off of 4 AAA batteries. If it is plugged into the electrical outlet, it will charge your ipod. I've actually used it on my iphone 3gs as well and it works great with either one. There's a little remote that allows you to operate the speaker system and ipod functions without touching your ipod. The sound is excellent and I even turned the volume way up and it is still excellent. I could turn it up loud enough to hear it throughout much of my house. It is tiny and compact so when I travel, I can take it with me. I love having music play at night while I sleep and so this makes it easy to take with me to a hotel room. There are many more features of this that I won't go into detail here. This is my short little review of this speaker and you can click on the link below to read more about it on Amazon.
So why am I mentioning this up here on a Mind Body Thoughts blog? Well, part of it is that I wanted a way to play my relaxing music during the day as well as at night when I travel on business. It helps me focus and sleep better. Otherwise, my mind can run a million different creative directions in an hour and night time sounds can distract my sleep. It is small enough to travel with. I can keep it close by on my desk at a low volume to not bug others working around me.
More importantly, when I do workshops or bodywork sessions, instead of lugging around a big boom box with CD's, I can just take my compact speaker and ipod and away I go. It is one less thing to carry with me and pack. It is so compact, it takes very little space.
I know there are cheaper speakers out there and ones that are much more expensive but this cost $59.95 (regular price on Amazon was $99.95) and I know I've seen them for much more than that. The one thing I noticed was that you could get this in different colors but they were much more expensive. Mine is a black color and that's fine for me.
So now, my only problem comes in buying more relaxing music for my ipod! Anyway, I try not to make this into a commercial blog but every now and then I run across something that is too good to not share on here. My emphasis is not on the commercial side but on writing information and experience based blog entries. So, don't worry, I won't be doing this very often.
But go and check out these speakers and let me know what you think of them!
I'm totally different than most people I think. If I sat down to write a song, I'd be sitting there staring at the wall until I gave up on the idea. For me, it either happens or it doesn't. I don't really feel like I have any control over it whatsoever. It is dependent though upon what I am going through in my personal life or what is going on in the world around me. That influences what I do in a very dramatic way.
For me though, my music comes in one big moment. I am always creating and just playing whatever it is that comes out. I basically sit at the keyboard and my fingers play music that is created in the moment. If I thought about it, the fingers would stop so I just have to let them go. Sometimes I can sit at the keyboard and know that this is going to happen and sometimes it doesn't. Again, I don't feel as if I have control over this.
So when my fingers begin playing something, I have a nice little record feature on my keyboard and I hit record because I never know what is going to happen. I'm very picky though in what others get to hear so many of the things I create never make it to the light of day where others get to hear it. I'm just too picky. Once it is recorded, than I go back and listen to it because usually when I'm recording my stuff, I really don't "hear" the music. It isn't until I play it back, that I truly get to hear it.
For me, it is like a conversation between "someone out there" and myself or "some deep place within me" and my conscious self. I don't know how else to describe it. Once the conversation is spoken, than that is the end. It isn't like I can go back and play the music over either as I'm just as lost if I attempt to do this. I've tried to print out sheet music but there are so many notes and nuances in the music that I can't even replay the song from this format. So, it is a one time shot for me. I do wish I could go back and replay it but to this date, I've not found a way to do this.
Of course, once I listen to the song that I recorded, if it has one note that is out of place (and even if that means the note doesn't fit in the way the song goes in my own mind), the song just gets filed away on my computer. To most people, they would never hear that note, but to me, it stands out.
I know others create music in a much different way and I wish I could do that but so far, those methods are just a mystery to me as even the way I create music. It is frustrating to me that I can not replay my stuff so if I ever play in front of people, I end up just creating in the moment. Creating in the moment is fine but it takes so much energy out of me that I can not do it for long periods at a time.
I read some music but not enough to play complex stuff. Ever since my paralysis in 1991, I sometimes struggle to play music that is already written. I've recovered from the paralysis but I still struggle with getting my fingers and my brain to play in unison and with flexibility.
So much of the music growing up for me was music that I played in church or heard in church. We weren't allowed to go to concerts or listen much to a radio, so my musical influence is really the church. In many ways, some of those sounds come through in what I create. The rest of it, I have no idea where it comes from.
And when I create a song, there is usually a thought or series of thoughts (conversation) going through my mind. Most of the time I record those thoughts in my journal and then name the song around them. Many of these I have shared in a summary form on my website but for the most part, I think those thoughts come through in the music to the subconscious mind.
So that in a nutshell is how I create music. Maybe one day, I'll figure out how to do it like everyone else does.
MSNBC recently reported in an article titled, "Music As Medicine" how Doctors are using music to help their patients heal. From heart surgeries to brain disorders and cancer, music is being played to help heal their patients.
This article of course touches me deeply because of the music I create on the piano. I classify it as "relaxing piano music from the heart", for it is truly music that comes from my heart. It is healing and life changing for many people who have heard it. If you get a chance, check out the music sound clips on my website at www.donshetterly.com or you can also check out my CD, "Relaxing Spa Music" at Amazon or iTunes.
Music can lift us from our current plane into a world where nothing matters, where no stress can be found and where true peace abounds. The individual notes combined together can transcend our hearts and minds.
We all have a favorite song, CD or band that picks us up when we are down and energizes us. Have you ever stopped to consider this and consider just what the music does for you? How does it take you from your current state and leave you feeling fulfilled, ready to fight whatever it is you need to or just feel empowered?
I firmly believe that music is the way that the innermost parts of our lives and the universe communicate with us. Music speaks where no words are found. Music creates a language where there is a void. Music knows no boundaries put in place by cultures, governments or laws.
For a long time in my life, I have played the piano and created music of all kinds. In recent years, I have focused on letting my innermost soul release the sounds that it holds. Just a few years ago, I would find a piano and sit down and play for hours at a time. I never used sheet music as I did not need it. I would just play whatever came out of my fingers. This music was a combination of notes that had never been heard before. And yet I found, that I did not really hear the music that I was playing until one day I recorded a session. When I listened to what I recorded, I could not believe what I heard. I did not realize just what I was creating.
Up to this point, I’ve not been able to replay anything that I have created. It is like the music I create is a conversation and we all know that you can never repeat a conversation once it has been spoken. You can paraphrase it but there is no way to repeat it. This is why I believe that music which comes from deep within our souls is such a pure form of communication and it goes where words can not form.
I began to share my music with a few trusted friends and saw their reactions. It was at that point that I decided it was time to share my music with the world. The more I have shared the music, the more I have seen the effects of it upon the lives of others. I can see when someone hears it and it affects them in such a deep way. For I know that when someone’s ear tunes into the songs I create, I know that they have connected with the deeper language found deep within the music and they have connected with a much broader source, the Universe.
My music and the music of many others that I know, come from a greater source than we find in ourselves. It is the universe that provides this music and it has the ability to do whatever we need at that moment in our lives. For the universe provides peace, healing and power to everyone and one of the ways it does this is through the music that it provides. I’ve seen how my music reflects the times I am in and how it has changed as I changed. Each song I create gets a title so as to keep it separate from the next song and reference it to what actually was taking place in my thoughts while it was created.
So as you go about your day, stop for a minute and think about the music you listen to. What is it trying to tell you? What is it connecting you to? What is your mind and body needing at this very minute. Remember we are all connected to something greater than ourselves and that connection is kept together by a force called music.
If you haven't had a chance to hear my music, you can check out the link to the left "Relaxing Spa Music" on Amazon or you can listen to it as well on iTunes and Spotify.
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