010: OCEAN OF EMOTIONS

In this episode, I perform three of my sorrowful songs. If you want to see the complete video performance with all five songs, and get access to a free audio file of "Alive", you can join my Patreon:

www.patreon.com/minnamarihelmisaari

You can find my music by searching for "Minnamari" on most music sreaming sites, or listen on bandcamp:

www.minnamari.bandcamp.com

I am currently in the process of releasing these songs, so at the time of publishing this episode there isn't that much music out yet. But I will be releasing my first full album in end of July 2024.

***

I am an ocean made of tears.
My eyes flow over
in salty streaks down my cheeks.

Some days, I am nothing but sorrow,
and there is nothing I can do but feel it.

Each relationship I had, that did not have the space
for my sorrow, for my emotions to be expressed,
ended.

And yet, I can’t blame them, I don’t blame them
anymore.

If you don’t have the capacity to hold your own sorrow,
the sorrow of another person feels, and is,
unbearable.

And I also know that my sorrow is no one else’s to hold
but my own.

My own, and maybe, the Oceans of Emotion.
The oceans that we all connect to, in our inner world.

But there needs to be a space where it can be, in the outer world too.
Allowed to come out. Welcomed. Appreciated.

How else can this sorrow, or these emotions, transform. How can we transform through it, other than by letting it flow out, and by flowing with it.

For me, the most soothing way, the most effective way, to let my sorrow wash out,
is through music.

Either listening, connecting to the oceans of others. The oceans of emotion that other people float in. That they have created. Expressed. Floating together there with them.

Or by creating my own, and then floating in my emotions in a different form.

In this episode I don’t want to talk that much.
I don’t want to talk anymore.

I was crying most of the day.
I’m in this sorrow-ocean-space,
and I want to float,
in music.

So I will share some of my sorrowful songs to you, so that you can be welcome to float in my oceans of emotion, if you want to.

Just feel. Just be.
Thank you for meeting me here.

***

Lyrics to Alive:
Even though you hurt me
the way we all do
there's no one that I'd rather be
with but you

Baby, we're all flawed
and that's the way it is
Without all the darkness
no light could exist.

It’s the oldest cliché
or perhaps the deepest truth
The person who can hurt me the most is
who my heart will choose

But that is the purpose of this
beautiful life
Through all the suffering you know you’re alive

Alive, I...

Through all the suffering you know it’s a lie

A lie, I...

Through all the suffering you know you’re alive

***

Lyrics to Three Small Dots:
Three small dots
as you write
Watching them dance in the light
On the screen
of lonely nights
symbols turn into
hope held tight

Hanging onto words - A sad sight
Hanging onto dots - My newfound plight
Hanging onto words - A sad sight
Hanging onto dots - My precious plight

Three small dots
as you write
Watching them dance in the light
On the screen
of lonely nights
symbols turn into
hope held tight

***

Lyrics to Waterfall:
The clouds can cast their judgement on me
in the shape of rain
Let it wash away what I’ve been
drown me in the pain

I am open now
waiting patiently
with my breath held until
you are here again

The plants are reaching for the sun, I
draw the curtains closed
I question every word I write but
can’t escape the flow

I’m a waterfall
always going down
find me in the sharp rocks
lose it in the foam

I seem to have the habit of raising my loved ones
to the skies
I look up at them from below, like they are
Gods, flying high

While I keep myself down
in the underworld
where no Gods can reach me
and I can’t make them hurt

***

Thank you for listening to this slightly different episode. I haven’t heard many podcasts where they just play music and I wanted to try it out. This time.

I have been working on some episodes, but there has been this feeling of “Not yet, not yet. Be. Feel. Be in the shift. Be in the inbetween and the void a little bit.” I had a few experiences where I felt like all the things I thought I was and had held onto inside of myself, in my identity fell away, dissolving into nothingness. I gave away a lot of my old clothes, and when I feel that urge and that need to do so, it’s often accompnied by this feeling of, shifting old layers, being in nothing so that you can then come out and become something else. Build up new layers again. They might be shifted at some later point, but that’s how it’s meant to be. At least for me.

So I tried to fight against my impatience and restlessness - well, maybe let’s not say “fight”. Maybe that’s a bit more combative than I would want to be. I was trying to gently question my urge to be productive and consistent, and instead, go in- be in- this void, and feel what I feel. Let myself cry. Let myself be soft. Instead of pasting some hard layers above.

And in this process, in all these shifts and emotional oceans and being in this inbetween, this void, what has been my life raft, was music. Finding my way back to it. Making my music again. Earlier I didn’t release anything or share anything because I felt like it was all so melodramatic and...whiny. But emotions are seen as “whiny” when you can’t hold them, when you can’t, when you don’t have the capacity to face them or be with them. Emotions need to be whiny because they need to get out and be expressed. And that’s still something different than “pure whining”.

Just noticing those different voices in my head, those judgements, has also been a useful thing of being still, a bit more still than before.

This episode, what you heard before, with me singing my songs, I was in an emotional state, and I just needed to express them. I needed to be seen by myself while I was recording it, cause I could see myself on the screen. I was doing that for me. For, showing myself, to myself. And I also recorded that video to dare to show my face, however I am, in what state I am. Because there’s some side of me that has this urge and need, and something in my soul that calls me to do so. And then there are these other voices that are afraid of losing face. Afraid of appearing very self-centered for wanting or needing to show my face. But then I was thinking of this, being able to have some kind of self-reference, by seeing and showing yourself is quite fascinating. If you think of your whole life and your identity as a type of performance, you’re performing for everyone else, from your own first-person vantage point. When you look into the mirror you see yourself, but looking in the mirror you can only see the things you are looking at. You can only see yourself look yourself in the eye. While, if you look at a video later, you can see yourself look away, to the sides. At least this outer appearance and that energy of the emotion moving through when you look to the sides as well. So that was interesting.

And...I’m still searching. Growing into this whole thing of having a Patreon and wanting to share some bonus stuff. And that’s as it should be. For me, I think I need to treat it as some kind of a learning experiment as well, and test things out organically.

So, connected to this episode, I decided to share that video version, which is around 25 minutes, where I perform these songs. And in that video version I have three additional songs that I was somehow a bit shy to share here, more publicly, because those songs are still work in progress and looking for their final shape. So if you’re curious to see that video version and would want to support me in these strange explorations, then you’re welcome to join that patreon. And of course, that can be cancelled if you’d just like to give some support and look at the video. You can feel free to do that. And I also included one audio file that you can download, of the song “Alive”, that I performed, where I sing that “through all the suffering you know you’re alive”.

And those words are also kind of funny, because, when I wrote that song I wrote those words to try to convince myself that it was worth going through a tough situation, a relationship, that was at that point, causing me a lot of pain. But I felt deep inside that there’s something at the end of this, there’s something on the other side of this. So, I wrote that song, trying to express those things. And now, a few years later, when I am sitting here, playing that song again and recording this, I was struck by how different this situation is, that I’m in now, and that I can see, that for me, that was a good decision, and the right path to keep moving forward.

I learned so much. I particularly learned that my whole approach of thinking that “through my suffering I know I’m alive” kind of created an approach to my life where I would almost create this suffering, because I was afraid of not feeling those intense things. There was something in me that needed to or wanted to experience those intense highs and lows. And I realize how different, and similar, my current situation is, because there’s a different type of stability, or core trust in myself, that I kept developing, that also makes me feel like I don’t need to look for suffering. I know I’m alive. I’m alive when I’m calm. I’m alive when I’m not feeling particularly anything. Everything is alive. Everyone is alive, in their own ways. You don’t need to feel more or less. It’s all a part of the whole, and the way that that situation and this current reality of mine is similar is that I feel a lot of things, and I do feel pain. And I think I have a need to go through that. At least still. And that’s ok, too. I’m not a person actively chasing the storm, but sometimes I will be in the storm. And then I can come out again. It’s a dynamic movement.

So. Thank you very much for sharing this space with me. I’m sending you love. From one soul to another. One expression of soul to another.