Courtney Cole
Photo credit: Zac Poor
In the midst of figuring out who I am in this world, I definitely have come to realize who I am NOT.
Today I released a song called “Down To Earth.” I wrote it when I realized that my self-value was solely reflective of the fluctuations of the highs and the lows that I was experiencing in my life. If things were going well, I was on an emotional high, feeling successful and proud. If something wasn’t going well, my feelings of success quickly shifted to failure and shame.
Several years ago, I was living my life long dream of being a superstar. I was being noticed by high-profile music industry executives, signing high-profile deals, touring the country with high-profile artists. I had built a powerhouse team of managers, agents, and publishers who were in the perfect positions to launch a successful music career for a new artist like myself. I thought I was invincible.. Flying high, just waving to everyone below me. Truly, I was living the dream.. walking around town like Nashville’s “next big thing!” Little did I know, I was walking a very thin wire.
After one deal unexpectedly ended, so did another, and then another, and within a very short time, I found myself having to drive Uber to make ends meet. The girl who once felt invincible barely had any money to buy groceries and I was eating a tablespoon of sunflower butter for meals. My emails were not being returned by the people that once saw me as “important.” I became pretty low on the totem pole to my high-profile friends. My ego was shot. I felt like I had nothing. I felt like I WAS nothing. My dream came crashing down. I had failed.
Metaphorically face planted on the ground, I kept asking myself, “how did I get here? How can these fluctuations be such a profound determination of my self-worth?” I realized quickly that the foundations of my self-worth had been built on shifting sand.
When I was at my peak, I was proud, but that wasn’t who I was. When I was at my lowest, I was a failure, and that wasn’t who I was either. What I realized was that I had been ill in my thinking all along. I had been relying on external validation and expectations to tell me my value instead of claiming it for myself.
The only way out of this mess was IN…. inside myself. When I dug deep enough, I found that there was a quiet place inside of me that transcended all of the fluctuations of my life. A place of grounding, steadiness, and peace. Have you ever been on a plane next to a screaming child, and then you finally get a chance escape to the bathroom, and it’s just silent? You let out a deep sigh of relief and just bask in the peace. This quiet space that I had found inside of myself was a completely separate space apart from the loud, lying voices in my head. I finally felt like I had found a consistent truth. I read one time in a book that for something to be truth, it has to be unchanging.. and for something to be unchanging it has to be beyond the parameter of the delusion of time. I truly believe there is a part of ourselves that is eternal, that is beyond this body, and holds the truth of who we are.
From this truthful place I find myself creating my music and my lifestyle with a different intention. One that is reflective of this state of truth and power within. My ego that wanted to take so much control in the past is now able to be used as more of a tool to help me maximize my potential rather than be the driving force of who I am. That alone is able to makes the highs not feel as fleeting, and the lows not feel as traumatizing. I started to see my thoughts and emotions change. My attitude shifted. I no longer wanted the same things that my ego had craved in the past. I can finally look back over the course of my life and realize that what I perceived as the height of my career was a gift, and I can also see that so was the Uber driving. Both make me smile with such gratitude.
I really think that life is a consistent journey of self-discovery.. a consistent journey of expansion. Looking at this vast universe that we live in, we see that it is also constantly expanding and ever growing. We are a product of the universe.. we are made of the stardust, so we also hold this same characteristic. Isn’t that awesome? So, in the midst of my personal growth and self-discovery, I can say one thing is for certain: I am not who the highs and lows of my life say that I am. Crashing back “down to earth” helped me to realize my TRUE reality. Who I am is the peace that I found. What I am is who I choose to be. So if you, too, think you are invincible, my words to you would be that maybe you actually are.. but only once you can realize WHO you truly are.
- Courtney