Happiness – Lindsey Stirling

Lindsey Stirling has overcome a lot of obstacles in her life. Her story, her book, and her movie have helped and are still helping me through my own. So when I found out she was on tour and one of her shows was near me – August 2018, Brave Enough Tour with Evanescence in Mansfield, MA – I bought a ticket with a VIP pass as soon as I could on the day they went on sale. I needed to meet her and thank her for sharing her story, hardships, and success.

So I did, and she gave me a big hug and said, “I know exactly what you’re going through,” when I told her about my mom’s death. At the show, she spoke about happiness. I thankfully filmed it, so I transcribed it for all to see. Here it is.

“You know there is an entire huge team of people that put this show on every single night. (inaudible) Please give a big round of applause for our people behind the stage!

You know, I, uh – I think I’m really grateful for something I’ve learned over the last couple years and that is that, uh, happiness is internal it’s not external. Its a state of mind, it’s not situational and yes, external things can obviously enhance your joy or enhance your happiness momentarily but having true happiness and true joy is something that is learned, it is something that is practiced, it is something that is earned. It comes more natural to some people than others. Some of us have to work harder to find that state but our minds are so incredibly powerful. What you believe yourself to be is what you are. The reality that you create for yourself is what you live and sometimes that’s a harsh reality to hear. That was really hard for me to hear years ago when I was in severe depression and I was anorexic and to be told that that was a choice that I was there was pretty awful. But I worked on myself really hard for the last decade. I’ve learned that happiness is a choice! You can choose to be happy and I had, I mean it’s not a choice that I succeed in making every single day.

I had, I had one of those days a couple days ago, you know the days where you’re like drowning in ice cream and brownies, um, and you watch the Bachelorette by yourself and like WHAT HAS MY LIFE BECOME?! One of those days BUT, just because I have a depressed day or get some bad news and I have the courage to really feel sad, it doesn’t mean I have to stay there. And that (inaudible).

Life isn’t about waiting for the storms to pass, no life is about learning to dance in the rain because you can’t control the storms, (inaudible) the storms will keep coming! And if you can learn to have an internal state of happiness, yeah you can experience sadness, you can experience disappointment, but you can still live a life of joy and happiness. And I saw this to the fullest extent when my father was sick and my family was put through the hardest time of our lives yet some of the most special moments of my life were during that time when our family bonded and we experienced joy through the months of one of the hardest things I’ve ever been through.

And that’s what this next song is about, it’s about finding the light in yourself no matter how dim you think it is or maybe you don’t even know it’s there anymore but no there’s light inside of every single one of us and the more you focus on it, like I said what you put your focus on is what grows. Train your mind to focus on that light, see that light, visualize it inside of you and it will grow. You will become happier, and you’ll become that kind of person that uplifts the world and brightens the world. That’s the kind of people that we need. That’s the kind of people (inaudible) So that’s what this next song is about, it’s called First Light.”

This was the start of an enormous transformation for me. Lindsey has taken me down a path I would never have found otherwise. I would have found a different path, sure, but this is the one I needed. This is the one I chose, and I followed it with thirst. I needed/still need to hear the truths she speaks, and the messages she plays into her music. She has gone through similar things as I have/am and she speaks such gold. It is the biggest reason why I go to her concerts. I will transcribe more of her speeches in the future.