Connecting with your inner rockstar” is my version of “the question” we like to ask in therapy. What brings you here? What are you looking to change in your life?
You can use this exercise for creative goal-setting.
Connect with your Inner Rockstar, Step 1:
Close your eyes, take a deep breath in, and exhale slowly. Repeat three times until you feel calm or able to shake off your current worries. Let your mind wander.
What would you be doing right now if you were a rockstar? Where would you be sitting, on a sunny beach in the Bahamas or in a cooler climate, say, on Bainbridge Island, to soak in the colors of nature when the seasons change?
What kind of house would you live in? Do you own it because you like your independence, or do you rent it so you don’t have to deal with the plumbers? What does your home look like from the outside? Does it have a yard? How is it furnished?
What activities fill your days? (Ok, let’s say you’re not touring or recording right now, because that’s pretty stressful.) What activities are you pursuing for joy, and how often?
What’s your ideal schedule and life rhythm?
Do you have a partner? What would your relationship look like? (Remember, you’re a rockstar, so you can have anything you want.)
Do you have pets, household staff, vacations, hobbies?
Let’s play. Let’s really go there. What would you choose if you knew you couldn’t fail because you’re a freaking rockstar?
Connect with your Inner Rockstar, Step 2:
Now, take out a piece of paper and scribble out your thoughts.
Write out your life in the present tense as if it were already happening. I also know this process as creating a “Living Vision”. Write it, create it, bring it to paper. Make it real in your mind and don’t hold back.
What would your life look like if you could have anything you want? If you were uncompromisingly and unapologetically authentic with yourself and others?
Keep up the momentum and don’t stop until you are completely done. Don’t forget the color of your toothbrush or the year of traveling the world you dreamt of as a kid.
Connect with your Inner Rockstar, Step 3:
By now the Inner Nag may show up, saying something like: “That’s great. But I’m not a rockstar and this is a bunch of crap because it won’t happen anyway.”
Take a moment to notice the Inner Nag and just listen.
Now ask, gently and with great compassion for this part of yourself that tears up your dreams to protect you from hurt. Ask what’s in the way of having what you want.
Connect with your Inner Rockstar, Step 4:
Take a separate sheet of paper and scribble down what the Inner Nag is saying. What’s in the way of having what you want, or of living an uncompromisingly and unapologetically authentic life?
Honor the wisdom of the Inner Nag. It knows what’s in the way if you take the time to listen.
Write it down.
Connect with your Inner Rockstar, Step 5:
Take a look at what’s in the way of having what you want and living a fully authentic life?
Just for a moment, take radical responsibility for the things in life you can control, such as your past choices and current actions.
Sure, there may be a few things we can’t control. We can’t just write a Living Vision of being a millionaire and take responsibility for not winning the lottery.
But there is a whole lot that is within our control if we are willing to surrender the “Yes, but…”. Or the “I can’t because…”
It’s just an exercise. Just try it. It doesn’t mean you have to do anything.
Notice what’s in the way. Notice the prison of limiting beliefs you created for yourself, or the chains of negative self-judgments that bind you.
Notice the areas where you genuinely need help if you wanted to create that rockstar life. Taking radical responsibility doesn’t mean you’d have to go it alone if you wanted to take steps to create that rockstar life. (It doesn’t even mean you have to become a rockstar. From what I’ve heard, it’s not all roses.)
What’s in the way? Write it down.
Connect with your Inner Rockstar, Step 6:
What actions could you take to move in the direction of the life you want?
Write it down on yet another sheet of paper. That’s your direction.
Alright, you did it.
It’s a process we usually do in therapy when you first come in, and your therapist is asking “the question”. What do you want to be different in your life and what’s in the way? Alas, we’re ready for the treatment plan. Only here, we play. We play wildly and unapologetically, and we let our Inner Children come out.
Might as well have fun with it. You’re worth it.
Interested in more of where this came from? I stole this post from my therapist’s website. I love to write about mental health, which is why this stuff makes it onto my writer’s website. For more posts about mental health, EMDR, and personal growth, check out https://phoenixrisescounseling.org.
