Let's Talk About It?

The idea for my most successful song to date was born during a therapy session.

pic by Karl Mowbray

Some years ago I was having a very extenuating fight against my inner self, experiencing OCD, anxiety and paranoia every day. For three long years anxiety was the only emotion I could feel. Having to go back home when I was out with friends to check all my documents were in place, not being able to enjoy a movie because a constant thought would get fixed in my mind, washing my hands 100 times a day because I could get sick from using my own toilet (let's not talk about public toilets), thinking I could be framed for crimes I hadn't committed, being scared I could die for one reason or another. Just to name a few. That was my every day life. I felt like my life would have been a long path made of catastrophic thinking, floating among the worst possible future occurrences, never present in the here and now, always detached from my own self and the present moment, my head full of unnecessary negative, destructive thoughts. At the time I thought that it would never go away.

But luckily I was brave enough to seek help. I was lucky (after a couple of not-so-great experiences) to find a talented psychotherapist that understood what I needed and with whom I worked together to strengthen my structure and individuality and to make my anxious self a friend, rather than an enemy.
My therapy lasted three years, before I moved to London and I had to stop it, although sometimes I still meet my therapist when I go back home, like a regular check-up to see how things are going. And this is just because mental health should be treated exactly like physical health. When you get a cold, you most likely get paracetamol, if your back aches you go see a physician, if your throat is inflamed you go see an otolaryngologist. If the pain is in your head, what do you do?
Because of the stigma that still surrounds mental illness, some people might still feel ashamed to share the fact that they see a therapist, or might not get into therapy in the first place.
But if we pretend it's not there, it's not going to go away. Accepting that we suffer from any mental illness is the first step to a happier life. And mental illness doesn't necessary mean being a psychopath killer. It could just mean that something just doesn't feel right. Just as when something doesn't feel right in your body and you go see a doctor, why not seeing a therapist or a counsellor when something doesn't feel right in your mind? It could be nothing, or it could be something, better work on it sooner rather than later in any case.

In my own experience, getting into therapy really helped me re-structuring myself and it gave me the support I needed to get out of that dim world I had created in my mind and not only that. In the long run, I also realise that what I learned about myself and the world around me during my sessions with my therapist not only made me healthier, but also allowed me to become more structured and aware. It made me a braver, lighter, brighter, happier, clever person.
It was exactly during one of these sessions that the idea of my song Cotton came out.
One of my mental issues was that I was very rigid with myself and I didn't allow me mental flexibility. My fear of not being enough, the shame of not being beautiful, clever, talented, strong enough had resulted in a very strong control issue, over other people and situations but also, and especially, over my own identity. Working with my therapist I learned that I could be more flexible, just like a cotton thread that, flexibly, changes its shape without changing its own essence. You probably know how the rest of the song goes.
But anyways, in addition to being a very useful inspiration for songwriting, my therapy (in my specific case it was a cognitive-behavioural approach) was definitely one of the best life choices I've taken. It was probably thanks to the human skills I acquired during my therapeutic journey that I grabbed my life back in my hands and decided to follow my career as a musician, then move to London, build a new life from scratch, create a whole new circle of friendships, restore relationships with old friends or relatives, re-define what I want and what I want to be, achieve career and life goals and ultimately live my life without being afraid of being joyful.

So actually, whether something is not ok in your mind or not, therapy is a very useful tool to gain skills that will help you have a better life in which you can be more centred, solid, structured, strong and happy.

And if you don't feel like going to therapy yet, maybe opening up to a friend could be the first step on this healing path. Keeping your griefs inside is not going to make them go away. There is always someone out there willing to listen to you, and sometimes giving words to feelings helps making them smaller and lighter to carry.

Non-mental hugs. :-)

Birthdays

On my birthdays I always wake up feeling somewhat nostalgic and dim. It might be the social pressure of having to make it a special day, having to celebrate, or that I don't particularly cherish the fact of organising parties for myself. It might be the realisation of time passing. Or it might be that my birthday is, for me, a time to sum up wishes and achievements and see where I'm at, and this always turns into a very depressing and dramatic inner dialogue, which is not the lightest way to approach a day of celebrations.

Despite all this, I also usually take the occasion to look at who I am (not only what I have or have done) and I usually realise that I am quite happy and satisfied with the person I am. I might not be where I'd like to in terms of geography, career, sentimental relationships, wealth, or whatever, but I am quite proud of the person I've become so far (there's obviously still a lot of space for growth, and I'm happily learning progressively each day!).

Most of all, I am most grateful to all the people and situations that have led me here, being them "positive" or "negative".
Every year on 9th June I thank my mother for bearing me in her body and delivering me to this world of light, for fighting against gravity and feeding me and teaching me things and scolding me and being absent and being present and loving me no matter what and making me doubt she does and confirming she does and being strong for me and being strong for herself and being weak for herself, for helping me and needing help, for being near and being far.
I thank my mother's mother and all the people with some bits of my blood in their blood and I thank everyone I've exchanged words with, everyone I've exchanged warmth with (being it literal or abstract).
I am grateful for the people who've said happy birthday, the ones that frowned at me, the ones that congratulated me, the ones that envied me, that ones I envied, the ones that loved me and hated me, the ones I've loved and hated, the ones that smiled at me crossing my path and then left without knowing my name.
Each little bit made me what I am, and I have joyfully received them and collected them, trying to make the best of them, trying to become a better person each day.

I love my life, I love this sun (sometimes visible, sometimes not, it's always there!), I love this earth, I love this time, I love myself and all of you and them.

A very merry unbirthday to you! :)

Joy Love Authenticity

Hey,

It was an amazing year here.

It was the one in which I realised my life is one (for now?) and that I should and can and want to live it the way I feel.

To start, I had to stop thinking that I had to live abiding to the thought of keeping up with my past self, build my decisions on who I had been, on financial security, on what people expect you to do. 

If you're doing a job you don't like only because you've always done it and because you need to earn/save more money, or because people or yourself think you should do it, that's not a good start on the path to happiness.

If you're sitting at your thousands-of-pounds-making office chair but you're unhappy, who knows if you're happiness could instead be found washing mugs in a coffee shop? 

We are pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. If we sit in the wrong place, the whole puzzle will be affected. The right piece won't be able to get in the right place. We will be unhappy and the other pieces will be. So if you don't fit where you are, change your place. Do it for yourself and for the right piece and for the rest of the world.

Sometimes we think we do what we like but we don't really. Sometimes we know we do what we don't like but we do it nonetheless, lying to ourselves saying that that's the only way. But there are sooooo many ways! You will have to compromise, you will have to skip that trip to Paris you were thinking of doing, you might have to drink less beer to put your money in the pocket and buy tomorrow's lunch, you might have to eat out three times less per month. But if in the rest of your time you are actually walking towards your dream and actively working to achieve it, you will be happy just because of that.

I swear it's true. Because this is what I did in my 2016. Quitting my full time job, without the security of finding something else but with the passion driving my mind. 

In times of need, your mind works cleverly. And if passion propels your thinking, your dream will be closer each day.

2016 was the first year of my life in which I have fully followed what I love and the rewards have been coming week by week. I have achieved goals I had tried to achieve for years, I have surrounded myself with likeminded people who have made me grow a great deal, I do every day what I mostly love.

It's not about luck. It's about how much you want it, how much you are ready to work your ass of for it. But it happens. Happiness happens. Success happens. Love happens. It happens together with struggle, but that's part of the game. A beautiful, exciting game.

I've tried to live each moment fully, to remember the past with wisdom and look at the future with hope.

But the present was (is) my main attention. 

I've looked every day at the best things of the past 24 hours. I kept a list in a notebook. And every day I have found something to smile at.

Try in your 2017. And if you don't find anything in one particular day, look closer. Because there is. Opening your eyes and seeing colours is such a beautiful thing to start with and that happens every day. Imagine how many joyful things we overlook and give for granted. A great way to feel happier, is to accept that we actually have all we need. Happiness happens in every moment but we don't even notice. 

It was a year full of struggles and choices and daunting moments, but I've fought to achieve my goals and ultimately happiness and I can say that I might not be where I'd like to be yet, but I'm happy nonetheless.

It all boils down to living your present with joy, love and authenticity. 

Do the things that give you joy, be around people you love, be yourself completely.

It is that simple :)

-

Thank you for having been part of me this year, I hope you'll be here in 2017 too, and I wish you happiness in any condition you will find yourself in.

Love,

Valerio

Illuminate

Some people are sad,
Some people are angry,
Some others are joyful,
Some others are positively hopeful.

All we can do, in a world that's divided,
Is being kind to everybody.
Being kind to our neighbour,
Being kind to our enemy.

And if you really think love is the answer
Start practicing it now.
Stop dividing yourself from your environment,
Stop dividing your feelings for the humans around you.

Today, and every day from today on,
Be kind to everybody,
Be kind to anybody.
Behave,
Practice unconditional love,
For any of the candidates,
For any of your parents,
For any of your brothers,
For any of your friends and lovers,
For any of the passers-by that give you a smile,
For any of the passers-by that don't give you a smile,
For any of the cashiers at the supermarket,
For any driver that gives you the middle finger,
For anyone in a rush that jumps the queue,
For anyone.

Because if you don't like hate,
Then why do you hate?
Hate puts you in a stall,
It creates walls,
And it grows bigger and bigger around you and bigger and wider and bigger and wider and bigger and wider inside you and bigger and wider around you.

But if you're angry, anger makes you react.
And if love propels your anger,
Love will become bigger and bigger around you and bigger and wider and bigger and wider and bigger and wider inside you and bigger and brighter around you.

So today, don't hate, and never again from today.
Just love,
And believe that anybody can make the right choice.
Anybody has a light inside.
Your job is to look for that light and make it brighter with your own light.

Illuminate.

Celebrate, Cherish, Bless, Try, Deserve, Be Yourself, Be Happy

I've been through change and development and sadness and joy and excitement and tiredness and despair and hope and saudade and depletion and inadequacy and abundance this year.

Just like everyone else.

Walked on cobblestones and soil and grass and concrete and bridges and towers. 

Set my feet on mattresses and pedals and altars and staircases and rainwater and planes and trains.

I've been confident and I've doubted in myself.

Just like everyone else.

I've learnt new words, of which my favourite ones are aghast, bereft, dalliance, shoal, forsake, repentance, cease, dregs, poised, sleet, fickle.

I've followed new styles and discovered new parts of the world and of me with them. 

I've completed and made resolutions.

A year in which I've (re)built my foundations.

It's all set now.

A proper list of resolutions is not ready yet, but it's going to be soon.

2014 has left me listening to this, throwing myself into the new year with a continuous line. I don't feel the ridges between the borders of December and January. I'm just the same person I was yesterday. (Or am I not? Are we really the same person we were yesterday? The person who we were yesterday hadn't lived today. We have. So are we still the same person?)

There is no cliff dividing 23.59 from 00.00, so I keep following my wake, impelled by the beautiful things I knew in this segment of time that we divided in 365 days of 24 hours.

And by beautiful I mean each and every thing I have lived.

Including these songs, soundtracking my life in the last months, that I invite you to listen to if you haven't already:

These two books I've read:
Through the Language Glass,  Guy Deutscher, about the alleged different way people think depending on their language (or do they not?);
and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer, captivating novel about a special kid investigating about his father's secret after his death, just beautiful.

These two movies I've loved:

Hoje Eu Quero Voltar Sozinho,


Kill Your Darlings

And these two poems I've loved, the latter I've just met and it's going to be my motto for this wonderful year that is here and shiny and malleable:

A Fragment, George Gordon Byron

When, to their airy hall, my father’s voice
Shall call my spirit, joyful in their choice;
When, poised upon the gale, my form shall ride,
Or, dark in mist, descend the mountains side;
Oh! may my shade behold no sculptured urns,
To mark the spot where earth to earth returns!
No lengthen’d scroll, no praise-encumber’d stone;
My epitaph shall be my name alone:
If that with honour fail to crown my clay,
Oh! may no other fame my deeds repay!
That, only that, shall single out the spot;
By that remember’d, or with that forgot.

Footnote to Howl, Allen Ginsberg

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
The world is holy! The soul is holy! The skin is holy! The nose is holy! The tongue and cock and hand and asshole holy!
Everything is holy! everybody’s holy! everywhere is holy! everyday is in eternity! Everyman’s an angel!
The bum’s as holy as the seraphim! the madman is holy as you my soul are holy!
The typewriter is holy the poem is holy the voice is holy the hearers are holy the ecstasy is holy!
Holy Peter holy Allen holy Solomon holy Lucien holy Kerouac holy Huncke holy Burroughs holy Cassady holy the unknown buggered and suffering beggars holy the hideous human angels!
Holy my mother in the insane asylum! Holy the cocks of the grandfathers of Kansas!
Holy the groaning saxophone! Holy the bop apocalypse! Holy the jazzbands marijuana hipsters peace peyote pipes & drums!
Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeterias filled with the millions! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets!
Holy the lone juggernaut! Holy the vast lamb of the middleclass! Holy the crazy shepherds of rebellion! Who digs Los Angeles IS Los Angeles!
Holy New York Holy San Francisco Holy Peoria & Seattle Holy Paris Holy Tangiers Holy Moscow Holy Istanbul!
Holy time in eternity holy eternity in time holy the clocks in space holy the fourth dimension holy the fifth International holy the Angel in Moloch!
Holy the sea holy the desert holy the railroad holy the locomotive holy the visions holy the hallucinations holy the miracles holy the eyeball holy the abyss!
Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! magnanimity!
Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

This is to remember and celebrate the ashes of this 2014, a year that gave me a lot but I want more, and to cherish this bliss that time has given me, I bless the holiness that surrounds me, I'm ready to knead this year, and with it I'll be the form I really am. I'll get the best I can from it, trying to deserve it, and you try to do it too.

Happy holy new year my fellows of the world!

:)