Trevor Hall is a singer/songwriter who has released multiple hit albums, collaborated with artists such as Ziggy Marley, Xavier Rudd, and Jimmy Cliff, and toured and performed around the world. Trevor’s most recent album, The Fruitful Darkness, is his first independent release — made possible entirely by his fans — which became the #1 kickstarter music campaign in 2017.

What you’ll learn in Trevor’s episode:

• Why your environment shapes your perception of reality.
• How to break through environmental constraints and define your own reality.
• How to embrace life’s trials as medicine for your awakening.
• Trevor’s daily practices/rituals that help him cultivate a growth-oriented mindset.
• The true meaning and inspiration behind The Fruitful Darkness
• And so much more…

Key lessons from this episode:

Your Environment Plays a Bigger Role Than You Think. Trevor emphasized that his upbringing in South Carolina didn’t quite match his inner, intuitive being. He was told that he should want similar things as his culture–to play on the lacrosse team, to get into a good college, to eventually get married and move back to his hometown. But for Trevor, these were never his own desires, which ultimately left him feeling like he didn’t fit in.

“It’s interesting being in an environment where you don’t agree with the reality being taught to you,” he says.

Trevor’s message is that your environment can and does shape you, perhaps more than you think. That’s why it’s important to check in and ask yourself, is my environment in support of my highest self-expression? Or do I feel that my authentic self-expression is shamed, devalued, or not allowed? If the answer is the latter, it might be time to consider moving.

Like plants, we require nourishment to thrive. Others’ affects and actions towards us are our water. The collective culture we’re embedded in is our soil. When we’re supported, we grow, but when we’re not, we wilt and are a dim shade of who we could and most deeply want to be.

Spirit Will Ultimately Find a Way. But if you’re in a situation where you can’t change your environment, don’t fret. Trevor says, “When you feel something so strongly within yourself, there’s a point where it doesn’t matter what environment you’re in. If you have a fire within you, it’s gonna find a way. When we’re in environments that don’t match, it’s almost a blessing because it’s fuel for the fire. It makes you want to reach out harder.”

Every Situation is For Your Greatest Good. Trevor shares that the road to the accomplishments he’s achieved wasn’t always a smooth one. It’s a little-known fact that in his early years of music production, his record company rejected his music again and again. After three years of attempting to release an album, the company dropped him and he found himself with no money, no album, and no record company.

How do you recover from that? How do you find the courage within yourself to keep going in spite of others closing the door in your face?

For Trevor, the essence of a resilient mindset is the ability to see all things for what they really are — a blessing. “Every situation that comes into our lives, bad or good, is necessary for our own awakening. When we look ahead we see all these paths but when we look back we only see on path. I think it’s a matter of our perception of our path. Really there’s only one path.”