TTP E100! Instrumental Connection and Vulnerability with Ashley Hall-Tighe

Clark Lovell: And I was basically taking the way that I was playing and treating my aperture like it was a donut and it was getting squished between two pieces of plexiglass. the further that I squished, meaning the more that I used the octave key and pushed it further and further into my teeth, the less the vibration happened to go figure. And I basically woke up one day and I don't even remember what I had played in the weeks leading up to it, but it was the first time I was 21. ⁓ my senior year at CCM, I went in the practice room and I could not play above the staff. And I had, I wouldn't say like one of those experiences where people feel something pop, but it was a chronic overuse injury all the time. But it was when there was a concerto that was written for me and I went and played the piece for the composer, Steven Wineregg, the week before I had to go play it with an orchestra and I couldn't play above the staff. And I say the physical work sat. always right alongside the deep mental, emotional and spiritual work that I was doing. It became then a massive shift during this time and has continued now, you know, into my trumpet practice today of reframing mistakes as data, as information, right? Sure. Not as like definers of your worth. In many ways, I feel like my life now is very much this intertwined patchwork of this coaching and psychology and mindset and relationship and yoga and deep intentional practice with the trumpet every day and growth, like actually driven by growth and curiosity and connection. Hey everybody, welcome back to the show. Today is a day I've been looking forward to for a long time. Our guest today is somebody that I've connected with a few times over the past three years, mostly through the International Trumpet Guild Conference. They were both involved in quite a bit. And somebody that has just taught me a lot about my inner voice. And I actually got introduced to her through the National Trumpet Competition when she presented in 2022. I don't know if you remember this, but you talked a lot about Caming the Inter-Gremlin. And for me, that was kind of my first exposure to that type of information and application to performance. She is an internationally recognized cornet and trumpet soloist, is a life coach, and is also a professor of trumpet at the Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music. And without further ado, Ashley Hall-Tye, thank you so much for being here. Of course. Thank you so much for inviting me. We've talked about this in the past a little bit. I know you've talked about it in previous clinics you've given at these different conferences, but this is an injury related podcast. And I know you have experienced some playing related difficulties. And so what is your experience with that Ben? We're just gonna jump right in, aren't we? We're getting right to the good stuff. I like to say that I started with a pretty inefficient embouchure. And when I first learned how to play, I had to play dry and I had to kind of like almost squeeze the mouthpiece in and get it in the exact right spot. And I had a really open aperture and it allowed me to have this really big sound, huge sound. And I had a great low register. ⁓ And yet I always felt like I hit this upper register wall. And what I basically discovered over time is that we actually need suppleness and flexibility in the aperture, ironically, to be able to go high. ⁓ And I was basically taking the way that I was playing and treating my aperture like it was a donut and it was getting squished between two pieces of plexiglass. And the further that I squished, meaning the more that I used the octave key and pushed it further and further into my teeth, the less the vibration happened to go figure. And because I could do a lot of things actually really well, ⁓ it wasn't until I was a senior at CCM where the level of the repertoire ⁓ clashed with the embouchure, the way that I was producing a sound on the trumpet. And I basically woke up one day and I don't even remember what I had played in the weeks leading up to it, but it was the first time I was 21. ⁓ my senior year at CCM, I went in the practice room and I could not play above the staff. I could not get the lips to come together. I could not, sorry for the cat. It's okay. It's not the first time. I could not create really a sound that sounded better than a beginning trumpet player, fifth, sixth grade level, tons of crackle, no ability to go into the upper register. And the first thought I had was, well, my career is over. I'm never going to be able to play trumpet again. It's something's broken. ⁓ And it was in a way, it was incredibly inefficient. And I just thought it was, ⁓ you know, I was just going to have to figure out how to make this work and get through my senior year. ⁓ And my teacher at the time, Phil Collins, who was principal of the Cincinnati Symphony, ⁓ you know, was asking all his colleagues, like, I've got this student and when she sounds great, she sounds really great. And when she sounds bad, it's really bad and I was in between, you know, having to play principle on Mahler three and do the post-horn solo and then it would crash for a week and then they assigned me to pull chenella and I couldn't play above the staff and then I would take time off and it would heal in a sense like the muscle tissue would just kind of come back to a spot where I could produce the sound in the way that I'm used to doing it and I could muscle and power through. And so I sort of akin it to like Number one, a really inefficient aperture that was wide open. And like I said, it was like getting smushed between these, the metal, the metal and the teeth is essentially what was happening. ⁓ And I had, I wouldn't say like one of those experiences where people feel something pop, but it was a chronic overuse injury all the time where I would, I would play repertoire that was beyond what the capacity of my setup was allowing me to be able to do. And then for four to five days at a time after I would do that performance, I would have to just take incredible amounts of time off and get things to kind of heal. And then I could go back and do other things. And it wasn't affecting me to the point that I was ready to make a significant change because I still won a job in the Dayton Philharmonic playing third trumpet. But it was when there was a concerto that was written for me and I had won this job right out of undergrad. I went and played the piece for the composer, Steven Wineregg. the week before I had to go play it with an orchestra and I couldn't play above the staff. And the composer says to me, well, like, what are you going to do? Like there's high C's in this piece. And I was like, well, I'm just going to pray and I'm just going to really hope that in the, in the moment it's going to, be able to survive on my charisma and it'll be able to heal. I didn't really even have that word yet. ⁓ But that it'll just, it'll just go okay. ⁓ And at that point, you know, I was very much naive about the the physicality of how I was playing, what it meant to play efficiently. I'd always admired these players who seemed like they just put the trumpet up and it looked like they weren't working hard because for me, everything was dependent on how my lips felt. And if they weren't feeling good, I could not play the trumpet well. And I admired these people. It seemed to not be this way for them. They didn't get massive cut teeth marks in their chops. And they were able to just sort of produce the sound in a really relaxed way. and mine was not that way. So once I did that for the composer, the performance itself went fine. I was able to survive on my prayer and grit and charisma strategy and it went okay. But it really got me into the deeper question of, is this what I want my trumpet life and career to actually look like? Like, do I want to be doing this at 30 if this is the lot that I have ahead of me? And I knew that something was fundamentally like broken or just not right, right? With the way that I was set up and the way that I was playing, I wasn't sure who was designed, who was going to be able to help me. But I had a hunch that there was a teacher in Boston, Steve Emery, who's really good at helping people. For me, it was as much about the mental side, which you talk about on this podcast a lot with guests, helping you unwind the identity pieces and the, sense of worth being tied to this piece of metal and just. crippling anxiety and perfectionism that drives ⁓ inability to be curious. We'll get into all of that, I'm sure, as we go. But I was there and I wasn't in a growth place. I was in a, it's broken and I need somebody to help me fix it. And I knew that he was the person to be able to help me unwind the spiritual side, the mental side, the emotional side and the physical side of the rebuild. I even hated like the embouchure what do they call it, like embouchure change. I had somebody sort of try to change my embouchure and that really got in my head. ⁓ really what I needed to do is learn about efficiency and learn how to work less hard and learn how to interface with a trumpet from a place of ease rather than push and force. And I took two years off of my orchestra job and basically took complete steps back my first year at the Longy School of Music, which is where I did this artist diploma with Steve. I basically just did low C's and walked myself in a mirror and did a whole bunch of therapy and just did all these different layers of things to help me unwind all of the years of habits that I built up to that point and start to engage with the trumpet from ⁓ a more peaceful, relaxed, centered, grounded place. ⁓ And that was what began really, what I would say is like the, been the last, I graduated from there almost 20 years of. of continuing to build on that foundation that I started back in 2005 to 2007 was when I did that work. So that was little bit of a long story, but that's where it kind of began. Hey, real quick, sorry to interrupt the episode, but if you are a musician who's going through an injury right now and you feel like you could use some extra help or some extra coping strategies to help you get through this really sucky, difficult experience, head to musicianonchain.com backslash let's hang to see if a coaching relationship would be right for you at this time in your recovery. Okay, enjoy the rest of the episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm just so curious about how, like you talked about all those things that go beyond the horn. And that's something you are so masterful at instructing and talking about on your platforms. What are the through lines that you've seen ⁓ in that work that you had to do to come back to the horn healthily from a pedagogical standpoint ⁓ and the work that you have had to do either in coaching for yourself or with other musicians. Does that make sense? Like that kind of more inner work, that inner voice and things like that. Yeah. I mean, they are always very deeply intertwined. And I say the physical work sat always right alongside the deep mental, emotional and spiritual work that I was doing. So I'll talk about them sort of in tandem. ⁓ I think for me, the physical side was just learning how to breathe. It seems ridiculous, but in a relaxed way that doesn't somehow manufacture all of these messages that I got from well-meaning teachers, like ideas about push and engage and create tension here. And I had so many things going on physically, that became embedded practices when I would pick up a trumpet and put it up to my face. That whether I even realized it or not was yielding tension physically, but also so much strain up here in my brain. Am I doing the right thing? Am I engaging my abs in the right way? Am I pushing from my diaphragm? Like all of the things, right? That we were taught and that we got embedded. ⁓ And so it started very much for me with the physical. understanding some of the basics of respiratory physiology and respiratory mechanics and anatomy and where did I go wrong and what did I learn? Maybe not exactly in the right way. And Steve, my first teacher there in Boston, is just a masterful at helping me kind of show me where I was holding tension and where I needed to relax and just kind of bringing. me into a space where I could start to become more aware rather than so reliant on the teachers, you know, to give me the constant feedback. But I would say, you know, it began at Longy with my work with Steve. And then during that time I met my husband, Nate, and my husband, Nate was finishing his master's with Terry Eberson at Boston University. ⁓ cool. Coming out of undergrad with Thompson at Eastman and then studied with Terry, he had gone through a chop injury himself. had done some rebuild ⁓ with Steve on his, know, on his, actually had like ⁓ a tear, like a pop during our concert. like a real physical ⁓ injury to the top lip. And he was making a shift into medicine. And when we met, he was finishing his master's but then going actually back to school to become a doctor. ⁓ And it was really when we started to kind of mesh our lives together around the medical work that he was learning and him being in an anatomy lab and him actually understanding respiratory mechanics from a medical perspective that he was like, I think you and me, we could be working a lot less hard to power our instruments. And I wonder if we could start with you as kind of the test subject of helping us understand how we use our air, how can we power our instruments from a place of it's called just passive expiration where we're just letting the air fall out of our mouth the way that it does. And then using that to interface with the instrument, right? Not hard to understand, but yet there's, as you said, as we said earlier, there's so much intertwined with these ideas of like push and force and work hard that it feels counterintuitive to not work hard, except that we know it by watching like Sergei and Vazuti were like. Yep. How? How do they do that? attribute it to just freaks, know, freaks in nature or whatever. But I knew, I was starting to taste a level of like, like, oh my, I can maybe play high now. Like, oh, there's some things that are starting to cook now and things were settling here. I noticed that there was a lot less focus for me in my brain on how the chops felt and much more on. Are they relaxed and touching and supple and are they responding freely to the ease of the air that I'm giving them? And that sits right alongside what are we thinking about, right? It's like this same person, me, where before I would have been like, gotta get right in the right spot. I make sure everything's here. And I'm so focused on corners and this and tongue and ⁓ all in my head instead of. Am I in the most relaxed place I can possibly be when I interface with this trumpet? As I bring the trumpet up to my lips, do I notice how the breath is coming into my body and am I letting it go without trying to hold or clasp or control? As I hear the sound, what is the sound telling me that it needs me to change or shifts or inviting me into? And so I've heard you talk about this with many of your guests here. It became then, a massive shift during this time and has continued now, you know, into my trumpet practice today of reframing mistakes as data, as information, right? Not as like definers of your worth, like you cracked that there for you are the worst trumpeter there could ever be. And you are a fraud and everyone will know it, right? Which is what our brain immediately tells us. And we're trained to kind of believe because it helped us get better up to a point. but then it becomes a debilitating cycle where we're not actually able to step into growth. And so, you know, the more that I could start to take the stuff I was learning on the respiratory physiology side and apply it to this relationship that I was actually starting to build with the instrument, with my sound, with the information that it was giving me that I was, I think there's two sides. Like we're so used to our teacher telling us what they hear. And now that I was outside of that world, I suddenly have had my husband for feedback, of course, but I suddenly had to be, learn how to become my own best teacher and really listen and check in and notice. yeah, so all of that started really, I would say that work started probably 18 years ago for me. And, And I did it also alongside a lot of personal therapy. And I recommend this to students all the time. I would say that for us, there's a cognitive reworking that we have to do around the patterns that we believe, right? So for me, cognitive behavioral therapy was super useful because I had, right? had so much catastrophic thinking that would come into play the minute I would miss something. And then my nervous system, of course, would react to that catastrophic thinking. And so the minute that we can start to reframe like you're the crappiest trumpet player that can ever be and everyone's going to know that you're trash and that you just missed all those notes to how did you crack? What did that crack tell you about what you set up and what would you want to do differently next time? Same human, same cracked note, completely different response, right? To my, for my nervous system, for my way of engaging with the trumpet, the way to engaging in the world. just that dramatically shifted things for me. ⁓ So cognitive behavioral therapy was huge. ⁓ I loved internal family systems, which is a really unique modality of therapy that helps you look at these different parts of you, not as like broken in a sense, but as like an invitation to love and to get curious. And it was like taking anxious Ashley, who's like stuck. back in the seventh grade at NTC competing and wanting everyone to like see her and being like, what does she need now? Like, what does she need to know now? And it's like loving that part and bringing it up into, for me, this, you know, at the time, 30, 35 year old version of me, you know, at that time. And just sort of like allowing those parts to heal in a way ⁓ and to not get so reactive. ⁓ And once, I mean, that all started to... happen at the same time. And I've heard you talk with your guests about, about times where they've taken just massive breaks off of their instrument. And that also happened for me as well, where during some of this rebuild, I realized that I was getting better at the trumpet, but I was disconnected from joy and like why I did this thing. Right. And I've talked about this in my coaching talks a lot where we go through this thing and we're so diligent and disciplined and we're getting better. And then we've lost sight of the big picture of music and connection and what we do this for and do we like this anymore? What kind of music? And so for me, that led to a six month break where I just did more of this inner work. And then it started to invite the conversation within myself of if there were additional skills that I'd want to gain, what would those be and what other interests might I have that can sit alongside this and In many ways, I feel like my life now is very much this intertwined patchwork of this coaching and psychology and mindset and relationship and yoga and deep intentional practice ⁓ with the trumpet every day and growth, like actually driven by growth and curiosity and connection. ⁓ But I had to take those breaks along the way to ⁓ in some ways separate out the different roles that I have played and then allow them to kind of come under the bigger umbrellas of, you you know this as a coach as well, of our values of like what we actually care about in the bigger macro sense. And that in the weirdest way, I say this to so many people, when I started to do that, my trumpet playing got way better. I'm matching that, right? It's really weird. And I think it's because not everything, like every part of me was driven to this, like, I must be the best. I just, you know, got better. And I was like, ⁓ cool, I can do this thing now. All right, ⁓ I can play that. I can play, wow. Like, that's cool. ⁓ Yeah, so I don't know if that answers your question, but that's how they've all interwoven together. Hey, sorry to interrupt the episode yet again, but I wanted to tell you that if you are also a music educator of any kind and you feel like this is a conversation that needs to be had for your program, please reach out to me at clark at musicianonchain.com and we can talk about how we can collaborate together to bring these topics, to bring these strategies to your program to help your students stay as healthy and as happy as they can while pursuing their passion. Keep on keeping on and continue watching the episode. I don't know if I've told you this, but I think maybe in a previous conversation we've had, I told you this, but in that 2022 NTC workshop you gave, I remember like simultaneously having a kind of dichotomous experience, that, tripping over my words, but watching that workshop and participating in it. And that part of me was like, this is like everything I've always needed, but I never knew I needed it, right? But also at the same time as like, ⁓ but I don't have time for that. I'm just going to go practice. Yes. But the reason why I say that is because for me and my own injury experience for the people I've interviewed, sounds like, and correct me I'm wrong, but for you and to an extent is like that old school mentality of what it takes to play the trumpet of like pushing and you know, all this force and just effort gives way to not necessarily like, I don't like the word effortless. because it's just a different type of work, but it's more efficient, right? And it can help with that more healthy side of playing, right? And more efficient side of playing, avoiding injury. I really, truly believe that injury prevention is first mental and then physical. Because all those physical markers can be there, but if you are trying to control everything, if you're trying to, mean, we know research shows that performance anxiety introduces tension to the body, tension introduces, you know, other not so fun things like injury to the body. ⁓ so one of the things I wanted to ask you today was on your website, you talk about, and your coaching, you help bring back that intrinsic motivation. And in my studies right now in performance psychology, what I'm trying to figure out is how our motivational orientation, ⁓ big word, but just basically like, we intrinsically or extrinsically motivated to do music, to be a trumpet player or whatever, ⁓ how that interacts with overuse injuries. ⁓ And so I don't know if you have seen a correlation in your coaching or, how, like, first of all, what's the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and how may that interface with what we've been talking about right now. Does that make sense? ⁓ you said so many things. I wish I could just riff on all the parts of what you just shared. I think, well, first to answer your question, intrinsic motivation is guided by encroaching positive emotional attractors, the value center of us. ⁓ And so when we can identify those moments that kind of lit up all of those positive emotions in us, can then tease out the words, the values of what made it feel so powerful and so impactful. And then if we can start to say it was being a part of something bigger than myself, a collective experience, it was the music we played or whatever, then you can start to draw intrinsic motivation by identifying that and saying, you know, I want to continue to do more of that. Therefore, I want to get better at my instrument so that I can continue to experience these things. External motivation are, they tend to be more like deadlines and grades and competitions and juries. I find that, I mean, we can get into some talk around neurodivergence that as someone who is an undiagnosed ADHD person with a dog who has ADHD, ⁓ She was like, mom, you totally have it. So we'll just put that out there. I need external motivation actually to drive internal motivation. And they can sit hand in hand. Like if I don't have a major performance on the books, I may or may not want to go practice that day or kind of leading up to it. It's shifting for me a little because I do find a lot of just resonance in the daily practice of sitting with my trumpet. So that's starting to shift for me in this. But I am very motivated by wanting to play at a really high level and wanting to be able to share story and emotion through the instrument that drives then the time that it takes to sit with my instrument. ⁓ because there's a deadline in front of it, right? Yeah. So, you know, I think they sit hand in hand and in music education, one of the things that I wish we had a little bit more of, we need these external kind of, what are they called, markers, right? That help students kind of stay on track and get them learning pieces and get them competing and exposed to different, you know, artists that are out there. NTC is a great one. We can't. lose sight of the human that they are. And they're going to perform higher and be more motivated to practice and to do all the things if they have music that they actually like or care about. And so if we can do a better job of asking, as you know, as a coach, like more powerful and open questions of not just assuming like, nope, they have to play this piece because it's just what freshmen play, right? Exactly. Then we can help. our students oscillate more freely between that intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and hopefully find a more fulfilling life in music more broadly. So yeah, I don't know if that answered your question fully, but that's what comes to mind when I think about those two types of motivation. Yeah, I'm so glad you talked about extrinsic motivations that way because just full disclosure, sometimes I get into the trap of just looking at it from a negative lens of like those pressures, right? That we can... we can like, that becomes our fuel. my experience and what I've observed and read is just those tend to be not as ⁓ healthy ⁓ and things like that. you just totally blew the doors open for me. For some of them we don't have time to talk about today, but like it's important to have both. Yeah. I mean, the same is true with auditions, right? Right. Yes, you're gonna feel stressed. Yes, you are gonna be judged. Yes, your nervous system is gonna react in a really big, you know, an intense way and alert you that there's danger and a threat. But what can you control? And I think this is the same of competitions. Like you can control your preparation. You can control, you know, the physical side. You can control the emotion and the storytelling and who you are and how you show up and... And I think that that's all we can control when it comes to these competitions and auditions in this world, because there is so much outside of our scope that we actually can control. So, yeah. Man, yeah, that's a whole podcast episode in and of itself. Something that I've been really curious about that you've talked about a little bit in other contexts is this concept of the suffering artist. The tortured artist stereotype. The tortured artist stereotype. And the reason why I wanted to ask you about that is because I have seen elements of that in my own injury experience and the experiences of others that I've interviewed and talked to in that, like, it can, like that. I guess stereotype that ⁓ culture surrounding it ⁓ has things that can lead to unhealthy practices, right? But also, and this is kind of the second part of the question that I wanna ask you is, can we as musicians and artists still create the same depth of art without having that torturedness? Because I've had conversations with people about this. And I'm very curious of what your thoughts are. Does that make sense? I'm asking? That's a great question. And right. think with everything, there's always the sort of nuanced middle that sits between these, these two. want to, we want to pin it down. Like, is it good? Is it not? And I think, ⁓ I think we always have to get into the, the question of, we maintaining our, our humanity and connection to. the humans that we are when we pick up the piece of metal that we play or when we don't. ⁓ And I think that there are times for heavy grind and for many hours and for building expertise. know this about the science of expertise. We know that it takes at least 10,000 hours, right? Is that the Gladwell number? And that, you know, if you have the motivation to get really good at something, it does require just. hours and hours and hours of sitting by yourself cultivating this craft and staying curious and listening and taking in information and developing your sound. And there's a selfishness in that and a myopicness in that that is necessary, I would say, to being an expert at something. ⁓ And then I think there's the zoomed out time where you have to kind of say, okay, like I played a lot of trumpet today or I listened to a lot of music today, like, what else is important here? ⁓ You know, how am I feeling? What do I feel like I need now? And in each season in our life, this can look a little bit different, right? Like, I always say to college students, like, your time to be singular or, or to do two degrees at once, whatever you're doing is during that time, right? Like you get to do this. because as you get into your 30s and if you choose to have a family and if you like start to build other parts of your life, your time will get split and you won't have those, you know, tens of hours like each week, whatever it is, to be able to just sit with your craft and hone that skill. ⁓ So yeah, it's always about seasons. The other thing that I would say is there are seasons to push and then there are seasons to rest and it doesn't... It doesn't mean that you're not driving forward. It's just, means this is something I was going to say based on what you shared earlier, that you're actually listening both to the mental and emotional and to the physical. ⁓ and something that I've been really passionate about talking about recently is like, it's not even injury, but it's chop repair. Like the time it takes to sit with residual tension and wait for it to let go. is enormous. Like you sometimes have to sit there for, I'll sit there for an hour sometimes, just waiting for like a sound to kind of go from a waiver to like a single note. And I talk about this on my platform because I think we're so scared to sound bad that we don't take time to let things just relax and heal. And so there's times for that too. ⁓ And I like to tell my students all the time that What we do is really physical and it's just like being an athlete. It really, really is. And you know, if you've done any sort of weight training, you know that if you've done a leg day and then the next day you go to a yoga class, your leg is going to be doing this. It's going to be shaking like crazy because it's trying to let go and release some of that buildup of tension that you had. And so it is with our chops and you know, it does just take time and just like the words right behind you, do need to trust the process and sit with that patiently and not just immediately go like, but I got to play my solo rep and give ourselves time to let that kind of come back together. Or we are at risk for, you know, continued overuse and buildup and worse. And so, you know, that kind of gets into the, the yes and conversation of this. Sometimes there's time to just sit and watch a movie and do the repair and let it. like sound like crap and then come back together. And then there's times to really put in the work in a different way. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. And the reason why I asked that question is just because I had a conversation with a band director a little while ago where we were talking about just the need for ⁓ more resources to help music students build more mental resilience. we were talking about like how The lack of that has created some very deep, very beautiful art because we're expressing our deepest insecurities through music and our deepest fears even. And anyway, this is getting probably more philosophical than it needs to, but ⁓ just the thought of doing that inner work and building that mental resilience, you can still create ⁓ beautiful music, beautiful art without it being coming from like a insecure place, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm hearing almost the difference between insecurity and vulnerability. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. And I think artists have the power to be really vulnerable, right? Absolutely. And it doesn't mean that you're not confident. And I think that, yeah, sometimes maybe we confuse those words a little bit. Yeah. definitely. That's perfect. Well, I really want to make sure I'm being respectful of your time here. I just have two questions that I ask every guest at the end of the episodes. ⁓ The first is just, if somebody were to listen to this episode and they're going through an injury and they come up to you at ITG or NTC or even not even a trumpet player. What's one piece of advice you would give a musician who's going through an injury? I would say one of the first things that you can do is to, if this is helpful, grab a journal and daily write through the rawest version of every emotion and thought that accompanies this process. And the more that you can get honest with the disappointment and the fear and the anger and the answers to the questions, what would I say if I were speaking to myself, like I were speaking to someone I love, that's a Brene Brown quote. I often will say like, what would love say? However you think of love in this way, once you've filtered through the raw everyday feelings of I gotta go back to this thing again and I don't know if it's gonna work and I still feel pain, whatever those things are, then you can access that voice of what would love tell me right now. You'll start to be able to chronicle in a really strategic way in a sense, but an authentically vulnerable way every day. The process of accessing patience and kindness and as you said earlier, mental resilience and flexibility and trust in the work and maybe even the answer for what do I hope most I will gain from this process? What do I want to learn? And what do I need today? Because I would say, you know, it's easy to get just like sucked into the, you know, the missing of the long game. And I think if you can kind of each day ask yourself like these little questions and then kind of watch how your ability to access, ⁓ a more kind, gentle way of being with yourself, it will yield more patience for the work and the process that you. are going through. And the other thing just to say here too is be strategic about the people that you have in your inner circle. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, because there's a lot of information and there's a lot of well-meaning people who are going to tell you what they think or their experience or this thing and this thing. And it's super important to trust your intuition on that answer of who are the people, I call them my growth team, who get to be in the inner circle of my growth team. that are gonna speak truth and love, but ask me the important questions that are not gonna tell me immediately what they think I should do, right? But they're gonna hold, you know, again, the complexity of this time when you're working through an injury ⁓ and meet me where I am. And I think that is gonna be some of the most important things that you can do. ⁓ Yeah, when you're going through those times. And we all go through times like that. Absolutely. Whether it's an injury or not, know, just heavier times in our life and it's applicable for those things as well. Absolutely. That's awesome. The last question I ask is my favorite to ask every time. If you had a magic wand or a time machine or both, and you're able to go back to that time at the beginning of your injury and you have the ability to wave your wand and take it away or leave it there, what would you choose and why? That's a hard question. That's why I ask it. ⁓ Yeah, I mean, I think anytime we go through something hard, it ⁓ makes us look more deeply and makes us listen more acutely to ourselves. Similar to the answers that I just gave earlier, I went straight to my journal that day and I My journaling is a very spiritual space. It's a space where I talk openly with God in like the most open way that I possibly can. ⁓ if I hadn't have gone through those really intense times, I don't think that anything in my life that has come ⁓ would have come because I wouldn't have grappled so deeply with those questions of identity and worth and perfectionism. I mean, It's hard to know, but I always like to think that it's there's this old Sarah Grove song. It's a back from my like early Christian days where it's like, there isn't a trial or a pain that God doesn't recycle to bring us gain. that's, it's intense. And that's also mixed because I also think it can be, ⁓ deeply harmful in some cases of like deep sickness, right? And even painful injury. And so I say that very loosely in a sense of if that feels resonant, great. And if it doesn't, then let that be what it is. for me, and this is something I know that you've helped people do is to reframe like, what is this teaching me? And ⁓ for me, I'm a much better teacher now. because of having to get deep in there to the understanding of how this all works, ⁓ then had I not gone through something that set me back so far where I had to get in there and understand like, number one, do I even like the trumpet? And now that I like it again, like how am I going to continue to play the trumpet from a place of ease and joy and relaxation and teach that to my students? And so there's always beauty that comes out of those really hard times. It's just really hard to find it when you're in the middle of it. Um, but there is another side. Okay. Last interruption. I promise you before we get to the rest of the episode, I just wanted to let you know that if you're a musician going through an injury and you need a community to help you get through it, if you need a sense of support, some people you can ask questions to just gain a pick me up whenever you need it. The musician unchanged support group formerly known as the trust the process podcast, injured musician support group on Facebook. The link is in the description below for you to join. You don't have to go through this alone. Keep on keeping on and enjoy the rest of the episode. Well, and I appreciate you mentioned the fact that, hey, if that's not an authentic experience that you're having, then that's fine. And I'll be honest, like without getting to specifics, ⁓ some experiences that me and my family have had, you know, we're all deeply faithful, spiritual as well, but we've all had different experiences this year with the same events ⁓ in that some people take it one way, some people take it the other way. And that's just how it is. And it's okay. I personally believe that there's a lesson to be learned in everything and things that you can gain from it. But that's like a very intentional thing that needs to be done. ⁓ But at the same time, in tandem with that, I like how you say like, yes, and. It's like you have to honor the fact that it kind of is a not cool experience. No, exactly. Like this is not fun. Yeah, yeah. Like we're not advocating looking through rose colored glasses. No, and I think any sort of toxic positivity is not real. And even my daughter will say to me like, so in your journal, mom, like, do you curse? And I'm like, I do. Even the F word, it'll even get in there sometimes. She's like, I was like, I think God can take it. I'm pretty sure. Right? And I think like being real with. That's kind of why I said if someone asks me for advice, like where I would send them is like, you know, just, it's all going to be shiny on the other side. And like that sort of thing, like it's not helpful in that moment if you're not really real with like, this sucks. Like this is not easy. I don't like, you know, showing up and playing the trumpet right now, or it hurts. And that's really unpleasant and really not fun. ⁓ It's super important to be so honest about. Cause I think, yeah, again, we've talked about the nervous system a little bit. Like our nervous system knows when we're not being honest and the more that we can be honest with the, ⁓ the nuance of the disappointment and the pain and the, the love loving, hopeful parts, ⁓ the more healthy we'll be. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, Ashley, thank you so much for your time today. This has been so much just. Awesomeness. I really, really enjoy this. I actually packed it in and I think this this chalk. I'm going to chalk this one up as the one that's flown by the fastest for me in the best ways in the best ways. So thank you so much for your time. there's any way. Well, first of all, where can people find you? So many places. mean, the World Wide Web will will be their place. AshleyHalltie.com is my website at Ashley Halltie on Instagram is where I do a lot of posting. and Facebook as well. And those are the spots. And then on my website, if people are interested in coaching or any of those workshops and things that I offer, you can find all of that through the website as well. To everybody out there in Podcastland, thanks for joining us today for another episode of Trust the Process. Make sure you check out Ashley's stuff and her albums. I will say that they are awesome. You sound great on them. And if you want to leave a review or Join our email list, that's all available to you at MusicianUnchained.com. ⁓ And until next time, keep on keeping on. Hey thanks for tuning into this episode of Trust the Process, the official podcast of Musician Unchained, the newest coaching program dedicated to helping musicians navigate and overcome injury. But before you go, I have a few quick ways you can stay connected and support our growing community. If you found value in today's episode, consider making a donation to support our mission of empowering musicians worldwide. Every contribution helps us create more content and resources for you, so visit link number 2 below to support the mission. If you decide to donate, I'll send you my newest resource, the Injured Musician Toolkit, which is an ebook designed to give you tools to help you get through your injury. 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