Your mentor: wise guide or manipulative controller?
Music training is about mentoring. From the neighborhood piano teacher to the master who molds concert artists, almost all of us learned to play the piano because we worked one-on-one with teachers, sometimes for years at a time. Some of these people have little influence on us, but in a few situations, we find a mentor who becomes more than a piano instructor. This person helps shape our musical lives. In the most influential instances, they offer life advice as well. I’ve written before about the life-changing guidance I received from my mentor, Jill Timmons. What I haven’t written about, however, is the effect an unhealthy guide can have on an artist.
Given the prevalence of mentors in music education, many of us find it easy to hand our power over to another person. We admire their wisdom and their training. We know they possess a wonderful reputation and that we’re lucky to be working with them. Most of these people have charismatic personalities and offer answers to questions we haven’t been able to find anywhere else. In their presence we feel a sense of belonging, of being home. Everything runs smoothly until our growth takes a path that runs contrary to the one our mentor has chosen for us. That’s when we start to question: is our mentor a wise guide or a controller?
The differences between the two can be difficult to uncover. Guides offer help avoiding musical pitfalls. They steer us onto paths most likely to help us reach our goals. The near enemy of the guide—the controller—appears to do these things as well, but works to block us from our goals when we defy their wisdom and choose our own path.
I’ve experienced both guides and controllers in several areas of my life, not just music. In each instance I had an immediate connection to my mentor, and found myself dazzled by being included in their world. I’m grateful that several of these mentors are still in my life today. Those guides continue to offer wisdom that has shaped all parts of who I am. Sadly, I’ve also given my power over to a controller on more than one occasion. The result, when I started to break away from their influence, led to ruptured relationships that will never be healed. These experiences have taught me one of the most important truths of my life: never, ever hand over the direction of your creative or spiritual self to another person, regardless of how alluring they may be.
Each of us has been put on this planet to offer our spark of beauty and creativity to the rest of humanity. Allowing someone else to tamper with this spark extinguishes it or causes it to flame out in ways that aren’t truthful to who we are. Who I am meant to be may be awkward, quirky, and unique, but it is ME and I can’t be something that I’m not. Controllers don’t respect this truth. Their aim is power. They use it to manipulate others into following their visions and truths. Many of them develop a fundamentalist one-size-fits-all approach to the people they direct. Not surprisingly, in the most extreme circumstances, this type of person makes an excellent cult leader.
How do you know if your mentor is a guide or a controller? The best answer is the gut test:
How do you feel in this person’s presence?
Do you sense that you need to tailor the things you say and the way you play to please them?
How does this person respond to you when you push back against ideas they present to you?
Are they receptive to your ideas or do they shut you down?
Do they apologize if they’re wrong, or do they blame you rather than accepting responsibility?
If you have any concerns about your mentor after answering these questions for yourself, try one more thing: pursue your own creative vision and observe your mentor’s reaction. This is the ultimate litmus test. Guides want the best for their mentees, even if they don’t quite understand the direction they’ve chosen. Controllers want disciples and as such they inevitably react with anger and (eventually) expulsion from their circle when challenged.
If you uncover a controller, be prepared for a rough transition. Breaking up with a controller is painful and made all the more so by the vindictiveness they bring to the process. Find friends (or perhaps a counselor) to talk to as you work through your emotions surrounding this rupture. The closer the relationship you had with your mentor, the more painful it is when it blows up. The fallout can last for years. But as painful as it is to end an unhealthy relationship like this, it is deadly to let it continue.
Staying under the influence of a controller leads to creative and spiritual death. By lopping off more and more of yourself to suit the image you’re told to become, you eventually cease to be real at all. In place of the creative fire that fueled your music you have deadness. When you have deadness you have bitterness and despair. Reigniting that flame can take years, if it happens at all.
The responsibility and the power to direct our creative dreams lies within us, not the mentor. We are the ones tasked with trusting our artistic selves and fighting like hell to birth our musical visions. Compassionate self-respect is the ultimate freedom. When we’re willing to listen to and trust our deepest truths we’re better able to decide who is best suited to mentor us and our talent. And who isn’t.
Photo by Joao Tzanno, courtesy of UpSplash