Flamenco, Guitar Heroes and Becoming Self Employed

I first became self employed when I was 19. I had gone through a severe breakdown very early on in my life and for a short time I found myself in a psychiatric hospital. All my frames of reference had gone save for one element that stayed with me and continues to do so to this day. That was my guitar. I was pretty much left to own devices while in hospital and was never counselled or offered any recovery programme. That was hard yet at the same time it gave me a resourcefulness that I carry to this day.

My mother, bless her, would come to visit me and bring me my favourite guitar magazines. With these I would spend hours painstakingly transcribing guitar solos from musical notation to tablature. I could never read music that well and still can't! I would be able to here the guitar solo in my mind and follow my own tablature. In effect I was practising and playing in my minds eye which I have discovered is a remarkable way to train for something if you are not in a position to do it physically for a moment. Whilst lying in bed I could spend hours practising. When I left the hospital and actually picked up the real thing, I found it much easier to play.

I would spend hours in music shops looking at guitar methods and tablature until one day I discovered a book by Juan Martin. "Juan Martins complete flamenco guitar method" quite literally changed my life. From the moment I heard the intonation, the rhythm and the phrasing I new I had to do this. So I taught myself flamenco guitar and then headed out to the streets of Exeter,UK to offer my services. Life as a street musician was one of the best things I have ever done with my life. The tales are too long for now so let me just say that I met the most amazing people out there. I was claiming unemployment benefit at the time yet I was declaring to them every penny that ended up in my guitar case. One day they decided to switch my meeting time to midday. As a street musician this was the peak of my earning time when the offices would empty out for lunch and I received the most money. So I then decided to come of unemployment and to go to the local tax office where I registered as Exeter's only (I think!) professional flamenco guitar player. From those streets in Exeter I started to get requests to teach and perform. I telephoned local hotels and restaurants to offer my services, made a tape recording and initiated a mini concert tour.

Then I met a young lady who changed my life. She became a student of mine, then my companion and we embarked on a journey that took us to the jungles of Costa Rica, trying to track down Ridley Scott in Los Angeles, back to London and then off to the USA to join a spiritual community! I think that is for another article.

Eventually many years later I returned to the UK and worked in various capacities. From cooking to the RSPCA I tried everything. I then had another breakdown very similar to what happened to me when I was younger. this time though it was more severe and far more intense. This time the help that I was offered was even less than when I was younger. So here I was again relying on my own centre of power to get me through all of this. I had also started to self harm during this period. It was literally the only sense of pressure relief I experienced.

I was on incapacity benefit for a short time and then one day I received a letter informing me that they had over paid me and I needed to repay close to £1000. This took me very close to the edge. I remember vividly standing in my kitchen with a knife in hand ready to release a little pressure shall we say! Suddenly I stopped. A sense of clarity overwhelmed me and I thought to myself. "Start your own business, work for yourself and no longer blame your self what was is going on."

So again my frames of reference had gone and this time instead of a guitar staring at me it was my laptop. So I registered as self employed and started writing. I had nothing to loose, which is actually a very freeing experience, and so I taught myself HTML, CSS and a little PHP started making a few websites for others and myself and just wrote and wrote. Oh by the way I paid back all the money that the benefit office claimed I owed them. It was almost a mirror image of my younger years. Adversity, depression, revelation, self employment! Being still a new venture I am very curious as to where the Universe will lead me this time.

There is a sense of trust that you naturally develop as you go through adversity and come out the other side. It gives you an insight into your own resources and your personal power. Whatever it is that you wish to achieve in this life is possible through your dedication, hard work and belief in your self. You have a powerhouse deep within you that can lead you out of any darkness. Your creative capabilities are limitless and you are always connected to a Universe that will provide you with solutions if you allow it to do so. No matter where you are or what you are doing there is hope, there is help, there is abundance and most of all there is YOU.