Illness be damned!

The following is the result of staying in the faith- especially when it came to how my body would hold up during my singing performance last night: Okay, after all of that fuss that I made this last week over performing last night I have to say that it turned out fantastically. This basically tells me that I am once again full of shit. That may be too harsh- my fears were based on past experiences to a certain degree, and some of them were projections of possible ways that I could screw up. I also worried that my Firbromyalgia and my Cardiomyopathy would drain me of my energy before I even got on stage. I am happy to say that I handled things differently this time: I didn't run the songs in my head over and over again for days at a time (I would do this so much that I had the songs running in my mind when I went to sleep and when I got up in the morning!). I prayed over and over again for God's help in letting go of my ego and to let me come from a place of service and sharing my gift instead. I also got some perspective from my sponsor who told me to be grateful that I am blessed with this gift and to let myself feel happy that I can share it with others. She also said to stop calling it performing, but rather something along the lines of sharing. This helped to take the weight off of my shoulders for some reason (I'm not going to try and figure out why, I just know that it helped). I also made certain that I took things easy the day before and was as gentle and loving to myself as possible. The last thing I did differently was to set my intention that morning for what I wanted to have happen at the show, instead of journaling about my fears and what I was dreading, which is also my old way of doing things.
The experience was one of the most wonderful that I have had in a long time. Yes, I was a bit nervous in the beginning as I was waiting to go on, but I sat and prayed for God to use me as His instrument. Earlier that day I was able to do a sound check for one of my songs and the house band that was playing that night jumped in to jam with me. It was AWESOME! It was completely unexpected (I was suppose to be accompanied by acoustic guitar only) and I have to say that when I hear drums and bass come in I am like another person. I feel completely compelled to move and be in the moment- I absolutely get carried away by the music and the performance. This just isn't the case when I sing with a piano or a guitar by themselves. On my way back home I was really grateful for the chance to sing with the band (I have been wanting to do that for quite some time now) and I had the desire to have them play with me that night, but I knew that it was a long shot and I let it go.
Well, fast forward to last night. It turns out that they were able to play with me for one of my songs. Members of the band actually sat and listened to the song on someones iPod so that they could back me up! I got up on stage and all of the things I was afraid of pretty much vanished. My first song was just with the guitar and it was good- but when we started the second song everything changed. It was like a match was lit and I was the one all fired up. My mom made a recording of it and I have listened to it over and over again because I still feel the excitement when I hear it. Anyway, I was able to dance, sing, engage with the audience and really enjoy myself. As I said earlier- it was the time of my life. I can only put out there that my desire is to sing with a band more and more. I refuse to make it an impossible thing; I am choosing to see it for what it is: absolutely something that I can achieve.
Afterwards I got a huge amount of applause, and lots of recognition once I got off of the stage. I have to admit that my ego loved it, but at the same time I worked on taking in the compliments with grace and did not try to block it by shutting myself down or by belittling the compliments in some way. All I can say is that my night rocked and I can't wait to have more and more experiences like this in the future. Even more amazingly is that I have once again been shown that doing the things that I truly love and have a passion for are absolutely not going to make me sicker- they do just the opposite- help me to get well that much faster!