Lightning lit up the sky all around me – to the right, left and back. It cracked, sparking the Earth with a natural energy, and each time I saw it happen around me I felt something happen within myself.

Energy.

It sparked the Earth around us, and then sparked each moment with a special energy that can only be found on this ground. At Red Rocks National Park in Morrison, Colorado. With Trevor Hall and Nahko & Medicine for the People on stage.

What is lightning, afterall? Energy. I mean, we obviously know what it is. Lightning occurs when negative and positive charges grow large enough, a giant spark occurs within them. The electrical charges temporarily equalize themselves, causing an instant release of as much as 1 billion joules of energy.

That’s what Sunday felt like. As if the negative and positive charges in my life collided, shook each other’s hands, created a spark, and landed me here, at Red Rocks. I will never forget the moment I scanned my ticket, sprinted up the mountain and turned around to fully take in the experience I had just arrived at. Tears fall as I type this. Real, raw tears. I know now that I will never have that moment again in my life, and I did my best to take it for what it was at the time. I remember taking a deep breath and letting it go, making room for the experience before me. With it, everything fell away. The tightness in my chest over fear we were going to miss Trevor because of the 1 hour and 45-minute line softened. Trevor was here. I was here, standing on a mountain at the most legendary music venue in the country. I was where my entire life had been preparing me to be. And I closed my eyes and let the emotions flow through me, and let the tears fall.   

I had thought about this moment all day. All weekend. Perhaps since the night I bought my ticket at a bar in Durham, North Carolina. But I could’ve never prepared myself for how it would feel.

I opened my eyes, and Trevor’s voice filled the Earth, his guitar playing the first chords of “Green Mountain State” – a song that has become a signature Trevor song.

“I call to the Red Rock State,” he sang, and the crowd roared. Trevor stopped singing half way through and listened to a sold-out Red Rocks crowd sing his words back to him: “There’s a way, there’s a way, there’s a way.”

It was in that moment I really started to understand the impact of Trevor’s music had on not only me, but every single person on this mountain and beyond.

I’m reading a book right now called “Long Way Gone” by Charles Martin. Fantastic book, by the way. It has taught me a lot about music and the way it feels within each of us. He says music doesn’t enter through the mind; it enters through the heart. Sunday night, I let the music fill my heart until it overflowed and trickled down my entire body. It produced an experience and energy in my body that it is hard to explain even now. Memories my from entire life flashed in my mind. Some bad and some good. Either way, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that Trevor was telling me I didn’t need them anymore. To let them go. To release them. I closed my eyes again, let the music seep into a lifetime of open wounds my body was holding, and felt the music heal them from the inside out.

Trevor’s music taught me that there is no light without darkness; no darkness without light. To have one we must walk through the other. But you have to let go of the darkness at some point. It’s not meant to be held onto to. And the wounds can only heal when you let them go.

After all, the wound is where the light enters.

The book I am reading also says music is the only activity on planet Earth that can transport those who hear it from place A to place B in two beats. I agree whole-heartedly.
I used to listen to Nahko a lot my junior year of college. My friend Beau showed me “Budding Trees” in my college apartment, and it led me on a deep dive into his music. I played “Black as Night” on repeat when I drove to the Outer Banks to see my best friend Heather, I meditated on “I believe in the good things coming” as I walked the greenway with my hippie friend while high on life (and others things). Listening to Nahko’s music at home brings me back to those moments within two beats, and almost immediately, I can see myself in my car smelling the ocean air or on the greenway desperately in need of a shower and a hair brush.

But Sunday night, his music didn’t bring me there. His music brought me to a place I’ve never been before.

The sun had set by the time Nahko came on. I saw the Denver skyline twinkling in the distance in between the monstrous mountains. The rain had stopped, but lightning still struck the Earth everywhere but Red Rocks. Listening to Nahko’s words with that backdrop, I was reminded of a certain kind of hope. Of holding on. Of fighting. For yourself and for others.

The lightning behind him was a symbol of all of that. It reminded me that I was alive. It showed me that there can be a dark, raging storm completely surrounding you, but you can and will weather them.

We weather a lot of storms in our lives, and sometimes, for me, music is the only thing that can silence them. So, I let Nahko silence them.

Down below me, I spotted a man off to the right. Eyes closed. Arms open to the sky. Head and palms facing up. I imagined he was feeling something to similar to what I was feeling: that he needed to release darkness to create the space for the light, for the energy we all created and shared and exchanged together in this space.

I looked at the man again and followed suit. Closed my eyes. Held my arms, palms and head open to the sky. I took another deep breath, scanned my mind and body, and felt myself shed what is heavy.

I gave something to Trevor  and Nahko that night, and Trevor and Nahko gave something right back to me.

For that, I thank them.

I whole-heartedly believe music is a universal healer. 

It has the ability to communicate, move, heal, teach. It transcends languages, cultures and generations. 

Tom Petty said it best, here. “Music is probably the only real magic I have encountered in my life.” 

I agree, Mr. Petty. 

Music has transported me almost immediately when I needed to be somewhere else. It has grown with me as I learned, experienced, fell and stood back up. It has reached deep down into layers of my soul I didn’t know existed and uncovered raw, sometimes difficult emotions I didn’t know I had. Music then helped me better understand those emotions so I could better know myself. Music has healed wounds in my life I thought I’d have forever.

Music gave me fuel when I was running out; a rejuvenating necessity to my own life. Music connected me to those whom my heart sings out for. 

It’s given me laughter, joy, friendship, love. 

It has shown me strength in my own weaknesses. It has shown me love in my own hatred. 

If you know me (even in the slightest), you would know I am not quiet about my love for John Mayer. And it’s not because of his sultry good looks or the way he can craft “bubble gum tongue” into a Grammy Award-winning hit (although those things help.) 

John Mayer was my only companion at rock bottom. He was my only constant in a world of change. 

He was there to tell me that I’d be whole again. 

You see, throughout my life, I’ve always been the happy one. And, I am. 

But I also live with a monster. A monster that has jaws and teeth and it swallows me up whole and spits me out feeling tired and defeated. I didn’t invite this monster. I don’t know why it found me. But it latched it’s claws onto me and it won’t let go. It’s often louder than my own voice and stronger than my own body and it’s full of a power that I cannot stop and it gains more power the stronger I try to fight it. 

It’s name is anxiety. It’s name is panic. It takes different forms that I for some reason always created the space for. 

It came in the form of not getting my license until I was 19 years old. It came in the form of dimming my own light so others could shine. It came in the form of pretending I was tired so I could go home. It came in the form of calling my best friend in the fetal position, shaking. It came in the form of crying in my office break room. It came in the form of a paralyzing fear of the worst — that my loved ones were dead or (in the most irrational form) a plane was going to crash into my house. It came in the form of hearing an ambulance and immediately thinking it was on the way to my house. It came in the form of claustrophobia, and as a result, avoiding places like grocery stores and crowded areas. It came in the form of a voice that told me I wasn’t normal. That I was “too weird” or “too loud” or “too annoying.” 

It always knocked and I always let it in. 

However, I never heard it knock when I was listening to John Mayer.  Well, that is what I used to think, at least. And that probably used to be true. 

But the real truth now is that I hear it knock and I choose to not let it in, because of John Mayer. 

He has a song called “War of My Life.” It’s a good song, but it’s the live video of his monologue that really changed my life, that really taught me to not open the door.

“Let me make this easier for you. You’re going to freak out. You’re going to have at least one moment per week where you don’t feel right. But maybe it doesn’t feel so wrong if you know that it’s kind of supposed to happen to you. It’s the other side of being conscious and loving, that there will be times when you’re going to have to hit control, alt, delete…

So what I am trying to say to you, is fight on.” 

He then took out a Xanax bar from his pocket and literally stomped on it on stage.  I will never ever forget it. I will never forget that this person that I’ve never met but let into my home and my mind for years somehow felt the same exact thing as me.

And then, on an Instagram Live story he did last year, someone asked him how to cope with anxiety. I didn’t know what he was about to say, but before I knew it, John Mayer had given me the single most useful tool to fight and kill the monster in my life. 

I even typed frantically typed it out on the Notes page of my phone. 

He said that eventually, you’re going to freak out about all there is to freak out about, and when those thoughts arise, you will just file it away as nothing. 

“Oh, this is that one. Oh this is File 416-A. Had it. Didn’t happen.” 

I now recognize the monster at the door in all it’s forms. But I don’t let it win. I know that it does not come from a place of love and light. It comes from a place darkness.

Sometime after that, I got his lyrics, “keep me where the light is” tattooed on my arm and it is probably the most meaningful tattoo I will ever get. 

It’s a reminder to not let the monster in. It’s a reminder to surround myself with love, gratitude, joy and light. 

The light, to me, is my friends, my family — the insurmountable love I am surrounded by. 

The darkness is my monster.

I’m staying where the light is.