Behind ‘Prompted”: In July 2020, I was approached by an intern at PBS and asked to take part in their creative video series, “American Portrait.” The concept was simply to create a 20-60 second video of any kind that responded to the prompt, “At This Point in My Life…” I decided to write a short song clip and record it a cappella. The experience inspired a monthly mini-songwriting project using a phrase from within each magazine issue as motivation for the challenge.

This month’s “Prompted” has a slightly different intention behind it than the others. This little ditty is meant to remain short and sweet (rather than possibly evolving into a full-length song one day) because it’s a simple mantra meant to shift my mindset.

I was driving to a gig recently and found myself getting nervous about parking. I have literally NEVER been unable to park where I needed to for this particular gig and I have been playing it now for years.

I acknowledged the situation at hand and had a stern chat with myself. “Erin, this is just an old pattern of thinking. This worry has nothing to do with your current experience. These are just OLD THOUGHTS.” Then I spontaneously burst into song. My mood shifted drastically after a few repetitions of this tune, and I knew I was on to something.

I imagine I will now be this singing constantly.