How to ‘Lose Yourself’

You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime

Eminem, Lose Yourself

I don’t know if I’ve been living under a rock the last few years or what but somehow I completely missed the great Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly feud of 2018. It all started when I called my 22-year-old daughter and said, who is this Machine Gun Kelly guy I keep hearing about? My daughter turned me on to the band Greta Van Fleet, so I fully trust her opinion in matters of music. She said MGK was okay and had some current pop song making waves. THEN she filled me in on the feud which sent me spiraling down a rabbit hole in an attempt to decide whose side I was going to take. Because you have to take a side, right?

I know. I’m a middle-aged mom/goofball and the least likely demographic that you would think would be interested in rap diss tracks. Yet, here we are. To me, it was like watching a Bravo channel show called Real Housewives of Rap. I couldn’t get enough. I watched everything I could get my hands on by both artists then replied to my daughter with two words. Team Eminem. Actually, I think I made it a hashtag, #teameminem. You know, because I’m a “cool” mom.

The entire point being, I listened to a lot of Eminem.

Recently, I’ve had some big changes in my life. (How many freaking times have I said that?) All good things but I started to think about my propensity to lose myself in certain situations when I begin caring more about another person’s happiness and well-being over my own. Being the natural people pleaser that I am, it happens. I’ve worked hard to change that over the years and find balance. I sort of remain in a space of hyper-alertness not to fall back into my old ways of completely losing myself. That’s when I realized that there really is a right way to lose yourself.

Lose yourself to your own opinions.

How many times do we lose ourselves to the opinions of others? Someone will make comments to us and instead of challenging their viewpoint we, in turn, adopt it. Be like Eminem and don’t do that. Just because MGK called Eminem old and unsuccessful doesn’t make it so. (Age is subjective by the way. To an 80-year-old Eminem is just a young whippersnapper. To 30-year-old MGK, he’s ancient. Wait until you get here buddy.) Eminem is also the best-selling hip-hop artist of all-time. So there’s that. Not to mention his worldwide albums and singles sales stand at over 100 million. You might want to slow your roll there MKG.

You can never lose yourself to other’s opinions of you and their opinions for your life. If you have children then you know. You KNOW everyone has an opinion on how you should be raising your kid. Especially when they are little. The problem is they don’t come with instruction manuals. Trust me, I looked. I’m in unchartered water with mine still and they are adults making their own way in life.

One thing I definitely struggle with is other’s disapproval of me. As I said, I’m a pleaser and disapproval from someone else knocks me off my center so quickly especially if it’s someone I really care about. But even the people you care about can be wrong sometimes or overstep their boundaries.

I have to process it and come to my grounded state of being. Which is all PEACE, LOVE, LIGHT, AND A LITTLE GO F&*% YOURSELF. It took me a while to get to that place. In some situations, however, I struggle to hold on to myself and remain exactly as I am in light of another’s disapproval. I’m better than I’ve ever been and I like that I recognize it so quickly these days.

Lose yourself to moments.

Maybe it’s because I’m old, but dang, I appreciate present living. It may be a rap battle. It may be a crunchy fall leaf. Step on it anyway and enjoy it. The more that time goes by the more I realize the true importance of remaining in each moment. “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” There’s a little debate on who said that quote first. I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t Eminem. We get so caught up in losing ourselves to the future lives that we miss our current one. The one that’s happening right now.

One of my favorite things to do is to ride my road bike or trail running at my favorite park. I relish each moment. I concentrate on what I’m seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing. It brings me right back to exactly who I am and that is one very grateful human being. Last summer I left a job for some very good and very stressful reasons. My moments on my bike were the thing that brought me back to a place of gratitude and acceptance. And therefore, I didn’t murder anyone. Cool!

Lose yourself to the goodness of life.

Lose yourself to a song. I’m the kind of person who will stop a song and start it over if I found that I had drifted off during the “good parts.”

Lose yourself to happy times with friends. Lose yourself to a great meal. I recently, and quite audibly, sort of squealed when a waitress brought me my food recently. I was excited. I get excited about food. I think my ass sort of proves this point. But, it is what is.

Lose yourself to the good things. Those small moments when you are in a space that you feel wholly authentic. Every time I work to remain in a space of my authentic self, my soul oozes peace and happiness. Even if the only other person we made happy was ourselves. We don’t have to allow others to rock our boats. We are responsible for how we feel and how we act or react. I know because I come from a long line of over-reactors.

But, back to the great wisdom of Eminem. Every moment that comes at you is the only one you have. You can fight against it. Like he says in 8 Mile, “Sometimes I just feel like, quitting I still might. Why do I put up this fight, why do I still write. Sometimes it’s hard enough just dealing with real life.”

It’s not always easy. Actually, it’s kind of never easy. Please, take the time to lose yourself to the opportunity of the moment that’s right in front of you, your own authenticity, the goodness in life, and not Machine Gun Kelly.

P.S. Just in case you want to hear the song…