Kickin In

I think this session started before I realised it had started.

Looking back at how it came together, I find it quite funny because I spent so much time trying to prepare for the moment that I almost missed the fact that the moment was already happening. I was trying to create the perfect set, find the perfect flow, make sure everything was organised properly, when actually the thing I was searching for was never really hidden in the music arangement. It was in the reason I was making it in the first place.

It started with a yes. A mate asked me to DJ at their birthday, and my first reaction was excitement. A genuine, uncomplicated feeling of wanting to do it. Music, people, a room full of energy, creating something for others to experience. Those things have always felt natural to me and is a geniune reflection of my happy place. They are the moments where I usually feel most connected, most comfortable.

But this was also happening during a period where I had become quite inward. I was functioning, doing what I needed to do, but I was spending a lot of time inside my own head. Thinking. Analysing. Trying to work things out. The kind of period where nothing is necessarily wrong, but everything feels slightly heavier than it should. I was dealing with some personal changes that introduced greif and loss to my existence which I hadn’t had much experience of until this point which meant I wasn’t really prepared for the weight this carried. Up to this point, I had unintentionally distanced myself from people including my closest friends.

So saying yes felt important. It felt like opening a door. A chance to step back into something that had always made sense.

Of course, almost immediately after saying yes, I started doing what I always seem to do. I turned something I was excited about into something I needed to solve and talk myself out of. I convinced myself I needed to be completely prepared. I needed the right tracks. The right structure. The right journey. I needed to know exactly how it would work before I even arrived. Which, on reflection, is probably the least natural way to approach something that is supposed to be about feeling.

The funny thing is, the more I tried to control it, the further away I seemed to get from it.

I would sit down to work on the set and then find myself moving things around, changing direction, testing ideas, going back over the same sections again and again. I would convince myself I had found something that needed fixing, even though sometimes the only thing that needed fixing was my inability to leave something alone.

But somewhere underneath all that noise, something was forming…

I think that is one of the strange things about how my brain works with music. From the outside it probably looks chaotic. Tracks appearing and disappearing. Ideas changing direction. Moments where it looks like I am not really making progress. But there was actually a difference between the music I was trying to create and the music that was quietly carrying me through the process.

I had what I thought was the main setlist. The one I was carefully curating, analysing, rearranging and probably overthinking far more than any collection of songs deserved. It was the set I was trying to build for the moment. The version I thought I needed to present. Almost like I was creating a soundtrack for a version of myself I wanted people to see.

Then there was this other collection of tracks sitting alongside it. A much less organised dump of music that I kept coming back to while I was working. Songs that grounded me. Songs that connected with where I actually was in that moment. They were not there because they fitted some carefully planned structure. They were there because they made me feel something. They kept me connected to myself while I was trying to create something for others.

The irony is that the set I spent all my time intentionally building ended up becoming nothing at all. Yes ok, it had structure and ideas and it ooked like it should work. But it wasn’t me.

The music I was collecting and almost regulating myself whilst I was hyperfocusing became the thing. Almost accidentally. The tracks that were supporting me through the process rather than trying to represent something, became the set I actually formed here and ended up performing.

It was the music that spoke to me instead of the music I was trying to make speak for me. Somewhere in that realisation, the session started revealing itself.

Not because I had forced it into place, but because I stopped trying to make it become something and started listening to what it already was. Certain tracks naturally belonged together. Certain transitions started making sense. The energy started moving without me having to push it. That was the point where something changed.

I stopped thinking about what should happen next and started feeling what should happen next. There is a very specific feeling when that happens. It is almost like your brain finally steps out of the way and allows you to trust something you already know.

For someone who spends so much time analysing, questioning and trying to make sense of everything before it happens, that feeling is incredibly freeing. It is the moment where the music stops being something you are trying to control and becomes something you are simply following.

That is what this session became for me. Not a perfectly planned journey, but a moment where I allowed myself to follow the energy rather than trying to control it. The beginning has that sense of searching. The excitement is there, but there is still hesitation underneath it. Almost like the energy is waiting for permission to fully arrive.

Then gradually it starts to move. The confidence comes through movement rather than preparation. The more I allow it to happen, the more natural it becomes. And that feeling carries through into the room itself.

That is the part I think I forget sometimes. Connection does not always arrive through deep conversations or carefully planned moments. Sometimes it arrives in much simpler ways.

A room full of people. Music loud enough that everyone is sharing the same feeling at the same time. Everyone arriving with their own thoughts, their own problems, their own lives outside that moment, and for a little while all of that becomes less important.

There is something quite special about that.

As adults, there are so many things that require us to be serious. So many things that need managing, fixing or thinking about. Sometimes we forget that there is value in doing something purely because it makes us feel alive.

Maybe that is why music has always been such an important part of my life. It gives me permission to stop trying to understand everything for a while. It lets me just experience something.

Afterwards, there is always a strange feeling when the music stops. The room empties, the energy disappears, and suddenly you are back in normal life again. There is usually a mixture of tiredness and calm. A little bit of adrenaline still there. A quiet realisation that the thing you spent so much time worrying about became the thing that gave you the most energy.

I find that quite interesting about myself;

How often I hesitate before the things that I know will probably make me feel better.

How often I wait to feel ready before stepping into something that might actually be the thing that helps me feel ready.

Maybe the preparation was never the important part. Maybe the important part was simply saying yes. Kicking In feels like that moment.

The moment where something that had been quiet starts moving again. Not because everything has been fixed. Not because all the thoughts have disappeared. Just because, for a while, something else became louder; The music, the people, the feeling of being part of something.

Sometimes I think we spend too much time looking for the thing that brings us back, when sometimes it is already there waiting. Sometimes you just need to step towards it, sometimes you just need the right moment.

For me, this was that moment. And saying yes was the trigger for all that followed.