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Q&A with AM: Alanis Answers
February 24th, 2012 1:25 pm

Candice @Candace.Moulton:
What is one of the many things you’ve learned about being a parent so far?

Alanis:
there are so many things i have learned that to pull one is a challenge…so maybe i’ll share what i most recently learned (yesterday!)

one tendency i see that i have is that of overcompensating a bit, ie wanting to make sure that i provide things for my son in a way that leads to a perfectionism that is debilitating.

i thought i had worked through a lot of my perfectionism in general, which i have.
and yet a whole new version of it has popped up around parenting.

the attachment model of parenting is the one that i value the most.
i have always been obsessed with the stages of development…
and have been a student of erik erikson, piaget, freud, as well as more modern versions of these stages, my favorite one being the distilled developmental chart in harville hendrix’s “keeping the love you find”

this propensity on my part to want to provide the ideal love/safety/protection/freedom/offering can sometimes get the best of me in one area: care for my own self.

i am learning that the combination of valuing the attachment model, and the stages of development themselves, as well as wanting to nurture my marriage, my career and vocation, my friendships (wow, the effect of becoming a parent on friendships has been marked), etc can result in there being little time for self care and my own spiritual practice.

so to answer your question,
now that i am 14 months in to this new identity of “mom”, i am seeing that while a shift in priorities was demanded of me (goodbye sleep, my old friend etc etc), and a whole new re-structuring of my life was par for this new identity’s course, i am seeing that my self-care has taken on a new imperative. ie: all things fall apart if i drop my own ball.
did i put my own self-care lower on the list of priorities for a while? of course i did, and to imply that self care can stay number one on the list in the first year of having a child is erroneous and misleading: there was no way i could keep up with my self-care regime and be the kind of attachment parent i wanted to be.

but as the months have now gone by, i can see there is a slow and growing opportunity to get back to some of my rituals of old:
meditation, exercise in nature, yoga, gatherings….solitude, writing….prayer…
that these have now become almost mandatory, rather than a mere indulgence.
that the recharging of my emotional, spiritual, intellectual and physical batteries is the only way i can continue to be the mom and wife and artist that i want to be.
and that i can be gentle with myself for having put this self-care on hold for a while.
and that every new mom deserves a ton of slack and love around this adjustment to a whole new life with the new little bird.

so, yes, i’ve learned that self-care is huge. important. mandatory. and i’ve also learned that my having dropped that ball for a while is totally understandable and even expected post-birth. and that doing as well as i can, with parenting, wife-ing, service at large and self-caring is good enough. :)

thanks for your question.

big love xo

alanis

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Q&A with AM: Alanis Answers
February 1st, 2012 1:31 pm

Rafael @rafaelcasi:
Hi, Alanis, I love you, how is the process of writing songs for you? Thanks.

Alanis:
i usually fill journals full of things i’d like to write about
they can be things i know i need to vent about, or stories, or an idea that i know i need to write about in order to gain clarity, knowing that songwriting is only cathartic (not healing in and of itself, more on this later…)

anything that wakes me up at night, or compels me to grab my journal

i used to only write longhand
but about 5 years ago i slowwwly started to use my laptop more when writing songs.
and now i split it 50-50 between handwriting (old school!) and typing.
(at first i felt the keys disconnected me from the content, but it has since shifted).

sometimes i have no idea what i want to write about, and i step back and let the music dictate what the story/conversation will be–the music will literally write the words as i come up with melodies.
and sometimes a song starts with one line, or a group of words that feel resonant, and that one line will kickstart the whole song

i find myself using both sides of my brain when i write.
they can help each other. if the right side (the side that has the music dictate the words) has had its’ moment and is taking a break,
i switch to the left side (the more cognitive part of my brain…the one that requires me to think back, and tell the story in a linear way, fill in any of the gaps in the story)

i jump between the music/melody and pin drop silence a lot when i write.
they both help the process along, depending upon each other.

when it is “music writing the words” the melodies will come out at the same time as the words, and it is a very stream of consciousness style.
as though i am having a musical conversation, usually one on one, with the person or persons the song is about.

when it is the story being told from a more detailed place, the words will dictate the melody.

(i am reminded of the line “can blindly continued fear-induced regurgitated life-denying tradition be overcome” in the song “these are the thoughts” on the mtv unplugged record. a daunting line to fit into music, but it worked!)

regardless of which part of the brain (and heart, soul, blood, sweat, tears n fears :) leads the way, it is usually an intensely focused Short amount of time.
usually a song is written within 20 minutes.
i find that if i need to drag out the process, the process is not fluid enough to be the kind of song i enjoy listening to
i love the combo: effort-full and engaged, but Fast!

i don’t believe in writer’s block.
i simply stop if it’s not coming….seeing it as a sign that i need to distract myself or focus on something else.
usually i need to go get a sandwich or relax with friends and take a break.
100 percent of the time, when i listen to that impulse to take a break, i come back fully inspired.

i also have to make sure i care deeply about the content, or there will not be enough fuel to have the song come through quickly.

in the end, the writing process requires me to be open minded, open hearted, fully engaged and awake, and to take on the role of being the humble scribe…taking dictation, and getting out of the way.
what that means is “no censoring, no editing, until later, if at all.”

i feel blessed that this art moves through me in the way it does
and while i rely on it, i don’t take it for granted :)

big hug x

alanis

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Q&A with AM: Alanis Answers
January 23rd, 2012 10:30 am

Ian @ledieudusoleil:
Alanis, I’ve got a question for you. I know that you are a seeker of wisdom and into philosophy so I ask you, what is one philosophical inquiry that you find yourself wondering the most about?

Alanis:
hi there,

there are so many inquiries that wake me in the middle of the night, or hover about me when i go about my days.
depending on how sleepless i’ve been….i consider these either sacred awakenings, or, torturous insomnia. :)
the main inquiry that feels worth its’ salt in self-knowledge gold is the ultimate spiritual inquiry: “who am i”

i remember going to india for the first time and feeling something that i now see as quite beautiful, but at the time felt like my being completely broken down to the core. one reason for that being that i had grabbed the brass ring that had been dangled in front of me within the western culture, and found that it did not afford me the eternal peace and well-being that it had promised to. initially, all it seemed to afford me was an amplification of many of my personal challenges. (later i turned that frown upside down and realized that fame allowed me to serve in an even more pointed way. more on that some other time…)
when i was in india, i remember sitting in front of a mirror on the floor in a hotel room, just saying over and over again “who am i, who am i”
and i was saying it at first comedically….my friends who were with me were laughing.
but within the joke of this dramatized mirror moment i had a glimpse of the profundity of this question.
i came to see that “who i was” could be seen through a couple of different lenses:
that there is the “me” that is borne of the ego.
that there were these egoic versions of me…these identities: friend, sister, boss, traveling artist, daughter, activist etc
but this “who am i” question drove me to seek what lay underneath even those initial answers…to question what remained once these roles and identities shifted and updated or dissolved, as they are wont to do.
this “who am i” question really brought into awareness for me the eternal stream of life that was this undercurrent to all my highs and lows and hats that i wore.
so many words to attempt to define this undefinable. but it’s so fun to try to nail it:
consciousness
truth itself
the “i am”
that which is not subject to birth and death
non-dualism.

it took many years after the first askings of this sacred question.
alas my awakenings were not abiding at first.
but i now see how even the attempt to answer it beyond the initial “i-am-from-canada-and-i-am-a-writer” answers was born from a desire to really understand the truth of who i really am….the truth of who we all really are. less “why are we here” and more “why ARE we” and then finally; “who are we”.

knowing there is no one word that can really define it, i am left with these…
love.
goodness itself.
the one true permanent.
piece-of-god
offspring of truth.
a good that knows no opposite.

i like how my rubber hits the road when i contemplate this “who am i” question.
the moment i get past the more obvious answers to the ones that i find hard to put into words…that’s when it gets really fun.

connect soon,
love,
a

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Q&A with AM: Submit your questions for Alanis!
January 19th, 2012 1:56 pm

Alanis will be answering selected questions from fans right here on Alanis.com. Submit your questions in a comment below for a chance to get a direct answer from Alanis!

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