dearheart mail | no. 7: nothing to prove.

Yesterday marked seven years since I arrived in Nashville.  It’s crazy to think I’ve lived here longer than I lived in Los Angeles.  My time in LA was so challenging, beautiful and formative, and life in Nashville has been too, but in different ways.  

I’ve felt a sense of deepening here—growing into my roots and becoming more solid in my identity. Me and Nashville didn’t get off to the best start—mainly because I wanted my experience here to just be a continuation of where I left off in California.  I wanted to keep blooming, but the season was shifting towards rest and replanting.  

I remember journaling in the first few months after I moved and feeling God tell me to be mindful of the season of my life, but I wasn’t having it. I’d come to this city (like so many) with a dream to create and share music, but I started letting my ego get in the way.  I believed I had something to prove.  All the while I needed a break to settle into a new place and a new life, but I rarely gave myself that grace.  

If you’d asked me what my life in Nashville would be like seven years later I probably would have said I’ll have made a couple of records, be playing shows regularly, be married and have a kid or two.  I had a pretty narrow view of success and what I wanted.

The gift of these past seven years has been a deepening and widening view of who I am and what I have to offer my community and the world. If I’d gotten what I thought was “right” I wouldn’t have ignited and expanded other passions within me—writing, painting, dance & holistic beauty. 

For the first 3 years I resisted all of this and wanted to focus solely on music, but I eventually learned that just like farm land, there are seasons where parts of who we are need to lie fallow.  And it isn’t a commentary on who we are as people.  It isn’t about our value or ability—it’s about the natural rhythms of life and regenerating the soil in order to produce good things in the future.  

It’s been nearly 4 years since I released my last music project, and I’m just beginning to feel the seedling of desire push up.  The soil is ready. It’s time to play and create—not from a place of expectation, but of joy and curiosity.  I have something to say and melodies to sing.

It’s time we release the pressure of having to know how our lives are going to work out.  Just stay present and enjoy the experience of being human.  You have nothing to prove, dearheart—just a big, beautiful heart to share.