Do You Compromise Your Talents?

#ThursRellies

Relationships | Relationships | Relationships

There's no doubt that a strained relationship, a long-term misunderstanding, a sibling rivalry that overstays it's welcome, rejection. being an unwanted child. impacts into adulthood and beyond.

I started the Women Performers because...

I come from a talented family, no doubt. It goes back generations. Creative angst. Over-sensitivity. Rejection. Hurt. Not being good enough.

It's. All . There. In. My. DNA.

I was born into the wing of a family that had already rejected my mother Mary. She spent most of her childhood on her back trying to cure TB of the spine. They said she'd never walk. She did. Partly her spirit, partly through medical achievement. Her bestie in the bed next door had been a circus trapeze artist kid who got injured quite badly. A cleaner taught her to read aged 10 after I remember she always had a novel at the bedside table.

She finally walked away from the sanatorium aged 14 having lived 100-miles from home - returning from Llandudno, Wales to Whalley Range, Manchester - to a house full of strangers; siblings who treated her like the cuckoo in the nest, and a school life that quickly dismissed her young ambition to teach.

It turned out that Mary had many sisters and brothers, they acted differently to the sheltered upbringing she had, they spoke differently, they thought differently. And when her father took her under his wing, his wife, Mary's mother, didn't agree with his showing her favour over the other kids.

He took her to music hall variety shows, developed her love of music, live theatre, cinema, art, museums, and all things cultural, which she passed down.

At the weekends her family would unite around the piano, the mandolins would come out and they'd have a good old sing-a-long with a few beers in tow. Over time she developed a love of dancing and at every opportunity she'd be off-out dancing all that went before out of her system. She passed this one on to me.

MARY's TALENTED FAMILY

Her dad taught the men to be gas engineers, the women were expected to marry. Mary wasn't having that either. 

But the youngest brother could sing - he had a real talent for it - a deep baritone voice that grew his audience. He sang the popular ballads of the day; Dean, Elvis, Englebert, Frank, Jim, Johnny, Nat, Phil & Don, Ray, Sammy, Tom.

He worked the northern clubs, he was kept busy, he knew many tv performers as their careers passed in the night.

This one time he got a break. He bagged an audition with the man himself - Val Parnell - for his Sunday Night At The London Palladium.

He went all the way over to that there London, a long way to travel back in the day.

But something happened. The family pattern of low self-esteem - that inner voice of not being good enough - played round in his head.

He arrived at Victoria...

He did a number on himself...

He turned round...

He went home again...

I didn't really know him then, but of course:

There. Were. Consequences.

Not stepping out of his comfort zone he would never really test or discover:

How far his talent could take him

How much others got from hearing him sing

How that would impact his musical kids

He had to live with the ripples of that record playing in his head... ad infinitum...

What if? What if? What if?

He wanted my dad to manage him, he wanted to, but it wouldn't happen. He continued full-time as an engineer at GEC in Trafford Park, working Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights on the working men's club circuit.

He carried on singing - under his stage name - way past retirement from the day hat - as the Resident Artist & MC at the renamed Trafford Social Club - on the corner of Derbyshire Lane and Moss Road until it was too much.

He loved it, they loved him, he laughed off praise, he filed the gigs under 'beer money'. But on the quiet... he couldn't not be a singer.

Being. A. Singer. Was. His. Soul. Purpose.

His story is just one in a long line in my family as to why I started a Women Performers private facebook group. Come over and join us there.

In summary - you are not necessarily the best judge - of all that you offer. Let me ask:

What's your soul purpose and are you on track to truly fulfilling and living it, so that you can carve out a decent life away from your work?

EXTRA Points if you're willing to say what you think stops you from bravely stepping into fully being you, owning yours and having what you want more often? 

Until next time.

Jane - Women Performers Health & Energy Coach - Book a quick chat