TEDx talk: from loss to bliss

“If what happened to you happened to me, I’d kill myself.”

Those were the words from one of my colleagues on my first day as a classical music radio host. A brand new colleague at my brand new career.

Shocking, right? Direct and in your face!

dystonia

But he had a point. What happened to me was pretty terrible – I had developed a neurological condition called dystonia that destroyed the technical facility required for me to be a professional flutist. 

It was the most devastating loss of my life and the unknown trail ahead looked bleak and meaningless indeed.

But his words couldn’t have come at a better moment. 

As a total stranger, he was able to speak more freely and state a truth my closest friends and family were afraid to. He distilled my despair and put words to it. And even though his assessment was harsh, it had the opposite effect. That this thing was terrible but my life was not meaningless. 

stepping forward into the unknown

That colleague in that odd moment in the library told me it was okay to feel sad and lost. He so fully empathized with my sorrow. But somehow, he invited me to simply step forward. And stepping forward on that day meant going on air and hosting a radio show, and becoming a cheerleader for the orchestras I could no longer play with. 

When I took those first baby steps, I began to rekindle joy, wonder and curiosity.

And I made a discovery. 

Not only that the physical act of moving my body forward would also move my mind and heart forward, but that there was another musician who had suffered a catastrophic loss and he had done just what I did. 

Two hundred years separate my life from Beethoven, but in very different times and very different circumstances, we both discovered that we had something else important to do with our lives.