Been thinking of this. In the last week, two of my fabulous singing students brought up that they have been working on the concept of “Instant Forgiveness”.
Mostly it’s about internals - forgiving oneself instantly when there is a mistake made when practicing or while on stage - forget a line, miss an entrance, sing a wrong note, screw up a choreographed move, rhythm a bit off etc.
Sounds good right?
In professional sports they use “Flush It”. If you score on your own net, drop a pass, miss a shot, throw an interception, the prevailing sport psychology wisdom is that you need to forget it and move on; otherwise you will continually beat your self up, hindering your performance for the remainder of the game.
Here’s the thing. “Instant Forgiveness” implies there is something to forgive in the first place! Something you personally did is bad enough or wrong enough that it requires the about-face of “I Forgive myself for my sin”. This means the head is involved, and therefore one is working TOO HARD. Turning a thing into a “learning experience” can often mean the head is getting in the way, making the thing more so: Now one has TWO blockades (the thing and your concept of the thing) standing in the way of of your next artistic moment - your expression will be coloured and your freedom constricted.
I like “Flush It” waaaaaay better. It’s a visual concept that we instantly get, and there is ZERO JUDGEMENT attached. It implies that there no mistakes in the Arts, and even if there are, it’s IRRELEVANT.
Let go. Let be. Let it go. Let it be. It’s done, it’s gone. Move on, next. It just is.
Might this have some implications for interpersonal dynamics as well??? 🤔😮🤯
As Alan Watts famously wrote:
“You’re it, I’m it, this is it, and that’s that”.
So Flush it.
🚽🚽🚽
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