I’m proud to be releasing Commit To Love today.
Listen on Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, iTunes, Bandcamp
This is a song that’s close to my heart: It was inspired by something rather mundane, but ended up sharpening my understanding of commitment and love.
The message of this song remains profound and alive for me even years later.
Here’s the story:
When I ran off to Bali at the beginning of 2016, I spent the first few months in the north of the island -driving my motorbike around the coast, and staying in little towns as I snaked my way to Ubud (the spiritual center of Bali, in the center of the island).
Upon arrival in Ubud, I started looking for more permanent digs. My plan was to stay there for a few months, to write and explore.
I toured a number of little guest houses but found it hard to decide where to live. At the time it felt like a big decision, a big commitment. I knew my choice of home would significantly color my time in Ubud.
I had my criteria, but nothing seemed to match them exactly.
Eventually I met Nyoman, who owned a tract of land North of Ubud with a couple little guest houses he had built.
I toured one of the houses, decided I liked the relative quiet and the view, and decided I had found my home. I shook Nyoman’s hand and he handed me the keys.
After I had secured my home, Nyoman left and I sat on my porch. I started to notice things I hadn’t seen before:
As I sat on my steps and looked out over the rice field in front of my new home, the whole scene seemed to come alive with a richness of life that had been invisible to me just a few minutes earlier.
I realized there was a papaya tree just outside my front door absolutely laden with papayas. I discovered dragonflies (my spirit animal) flitting around in the air. My ears picked up the singing of the birds.
I realized that it was the act of committing to this home that had opened up this experience for me.
In the moment of commitment, this place had become my home. I was now stuck with it for better or for worse. And this new deeper relationship made it possible for me to notice and appreciate everything I had previously missed.
The commitment had created an unexpected richness that I was now bathing in.
I pulled out Giselle (my faithful Guitalele who I met in a surf shop in Uluwatu) and started singing:
When you commit to something, it opens up.
As I reflected on the richness that follows commitment, I saw it at work elsewhere in my life. In my relationship to things, to experiences, to Kati, and even to myself.
I saw that commitment has a magic to it. I saw that (paradoxically) in commitment, more becomes possible.
When you commit to someone, they open up.
I saw that commitment has an understated yet unmistakeable power. A power that it’s easy to forget or overlook because it’s mostly invisible. We can’t see commitment, we can only experience it’s rewards.
I reflected on how I’d changed since Kati agreed to marry me:
When I committed to you, you opened up my heart.
I reflected on how my life had changed since I decided to honor myself and follow my truth:
When I committed to me, I opened up inside.
And I saw that commitment and love are intimately related. A commitment is an act of love. It’s an agreement to honor, to appreciate, to fight for.
A commitment to love is for me a commitment to be true to myself, to honor others, and to rely on love to show me the next step, even when I feel stuck, or lonely, or lost.
and that’s why…
I commit to love, I commit to love
I commit to love and open up to love,
I commit to love
And that’s why writing this song opened up a spiritual connection for me: It unveiled a compass I can use to orient myself to the world.
I was in Bali because a little voice inside me told me to go. It wasn’t easy to disentangle my commitments in Boulder and clear 3 months on my calendar, but the little voice kept calling me to take some time for me.
And I’m grateful I listened. In Bali I uncovered unconscious ways of being that had run me my whole life. I uncovered my musical abilities, and forged a deeper connection with myself. All of this occurred to me as gold, and it was my commitment to my own development (ie. my commitment to loving myself) that made it possible to find this gold.
It was a leap, but a leap that gave me a freedom to be myself that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
When the trail meets a cliff and you can’t go forward,
Sometimes you’ve gotta jump, plunge into the deep blue water.
Cause life feels better, and it tastes sweeter and
You can feel it. And you can
Commit to love.
As I wrote this song. Kati had just entered love addiction recovery back in Boulder. We had decided not to speak for a month and I didn’t really know what was going on with her.
Things were about to get tumultuous between us, and our commitments were about to be tested.
I hope you enjoy Commit To Love 💜
