{"id":136,"date":"2015-09-03T17:48:45","date_gmt":"2015-09-03T17:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/?p=136"},"modified":"2017-07-24T18:41:41","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T18:41:41","slug":"harnessing-our-power-to-do-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/?p=136","title":{"rendered":"Harnessing Our Inner Rhythmic Power To Reinforce Positive Actions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I was excited to have the large drum (Djembe) to play, and I thought that I&#8217;d have a fun time banging away on it to blow off steam&#8230; to release stress!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But, as soon as I started to play, I realized that, since I had such a large, powerful instrument, I had a responsibility to use that power to support the group, not just to play for my own needs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>That comment was made during one of my Comments &amp; Observations segments in between drumming sessions at a corporate team building event I did in Iowa in mid-August. The man who made it was a large, muscular guy, whom I noticed was playing a solid part, with a few very cool variations, the whole session.<\/p>\n<p>His observation reinforced a fundamental principle of my community-building drumming sessions; the power of percussion, like any power that we harness and nurture, should be used to serve others, while also giving us a personal, creative outlet to serve ourselves!<\/p>\n<p>This intention can be one our of personal Life Rhythms that we reinforce through repetition of attitude and action.<\/p>\n<p>One of my personal mantras that I include in my short morning &#8220;jumpstart ritual&#8221; is &#8220;I will use my power for good today!&#8221; \u00a0This has the double benefit of both renewing my power, and of focusing it towards my intentions.<\/p>\n<p>For example, we all have the immensely creative power of thinking. The thoughts that we create then shape the patterns of our attitude and actions. If I fill my head with negative thoughts born out of anger or frustration, then my actions will be driven by them. \u00a0When I instead create thought patterns of how I will do good, then I am much more able to act in ways that help solve the issues that anger or frustrate me. \u00a0Of course, this is an ongoing practice that I have to renew every day!\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/Jim-Greiner-with-Toca-Djembes-Before-Corporate-Event-SD.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-137\" src=\"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/Jim-Greiner-with-Toca-Djembes-Before-Corporate-Event-SD-300x224.jpg\" alt=\"Jim Greiner with Toca Djembes  Before Corporate Event SD\" width=\"300\" height=\"224\" srcset=\"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/Jim-Greiner-with-Toca-Djembes-Before-Corporate-Event-SD-300x224.jpg 300w, https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/Jim-Greiner-with-Toca-Djembes-Before-Corporate-Event-SD-400x299.jpg 400w, https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/Jim-Greiner-with-Toca-Djembes-Before-Corporate-Event-SD.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I was excited to have the large drum (Djembe) to play, and I thought that I&#8217;d have a fun time banging away on it to blow off steam&#8230; to release stress!&#8221; &#8220;But, as soon as I started to play, I realized that, since I had such a large, powerful instrument, I had a responsibility to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,16,15],"tags":[9,18,7],"class_list":["post-136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-santa-cruz-drum-lessons","category-santa-cruz-life-coaching","category-santa-cruz-music-lessons","tag-conga-lessons-in-santa-cruz","tag-life-coaching-in-santa-cruz","tag-santa-cruz-drum-lessons-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/137"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/santacruzdrumlessons.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}