273. Elevating Consciousness Through Music - Michelle Qureshi

Kara Goodwin: [00:00:00] 

Hello and welcome to the Meditation Conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin, and today I'm joined by Michelle Qureshi. Michelle is an award-winning artist who is a classically trained guitarist, multi-instrumentalist and composer. She's got 16 albums and millions of streams on global platforms under her belt.

She also offers her harmonic sound immersion, which is a transformative sound meditation created by the healing vibrations of ancient and modern instruments. I had Michelle on the podcast ages ago, so you can go all the way back to September 24th, 2020, and listen to episode [00:01:00] 71 to get more of Michelle's story.

I'm excited for you to dive into this episode with Michelle, where we explore the layers and levels of healing and connection, which are available through music. Always keep in mind that music is pure vibration and it's subtly influencing you whether you realize it or not. So you can be intentional about the music you engage with and allow it to assist you.

With your Ascension music, like Michelle's works on your hire chakras to activate and engage them. And the amazing thing is you can just have them on in the background and let them work on your energy, even if you aren't able to devote all of your attention to it. for instance, as I'm crafting this intro, I'm sitting in a coffee shop listening to Healing Chance.

I'm not really focusing on them, But I know they're bringing higher things into focus in my subconscious, if that makes sense. Be sure to check out Michelle's music, including her new album, A Blueprint for Life.

You can find it on all the streaming platforms [00:02:00] like Apple Music, Spotify, et cetera, or go to her website, michellequreshi.com. 

 Before we start. I just want to give a quick shout out to a podcasting service that I just absolutely love. People contact me all the time about starting their own podcast. And I always point them to Zencastr to record high quality audio and video. I remember a couple of years ago, listening to one of my own episodes in my car. And I was so embarrassed by the quality of the audio. 

I dropped everything and started researching how to get crisper audio for my recordings. And so began my journey with Zencastr Zencastr is so easy and it gives you such high quality. With studio quality sound and up to 4k video with your guests. Go to Zencastr.com/pricing. And use my code meditation and you'll get 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan. I want you to have the same easy [00:03:00] experiences I do for all my podcasting and content needs. It's time to share your story. 

Kara Goodwin: And if you're looking for guests or to be a podcast guest, sign up for pod match, pod match pairs, hosts, and guests, And it's a really useful tool. Go to my sponsor's page and sign up using my affiliate link so they know that you learned about them here and now. Enjoy this episode. So welcome Michelle. I'm really excited to do this.

Michelle Qureshi: Thank you, and I'm excited to be back on this show and meanwhile, your show keeps expanding and growing its audience, and congratulations on being in the top 3% of podcasts globally. 

Kara Goodwin: Thank you so much.

Michelle Qureshi: It's a lot of work. And you do you, you're doing a great job. Yeah. So happy to

be here. 

Kara Goodwin: much. I'm so happy to have you here. So I want to start by just filling us in on how things have progressed for you in the last two [00:04:00] and a half years. I know you've released more music and you've released music very recently that we can talk about. You've learned reiki, you've done a lot of traveling and taken your music.

To various locations. What stands out for you as you look back over the last couple of years since you were last on here?

Michelle Qureshi: Right. Yeah, I'm glad you had that date because I remember I was sitting in the same room and doing it with you, but I didn't quite have the timeframe, so

Kara Goodwin: Mm.

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah. I think, that was probably interesting and I was probably, in a very optimistic. Mode because I had just released this,album and I was with a new label.

And,we didn't quite,know where the pandemic thing was going. we had a lot of false, this is over when, actually yesterday, it's officially over in the us the state of emergency for the pandemic. So anyways, there was still so much to be weathered and I think I've.

I've heard from you before reference like, [00:05:00] oh, how innocent we looked back then, of certain things, but, so there's that on.

Upheaval and change with the label I was with, which resulted, as far as music releases, kind of a full stop, which can be a very, very difficult thing for what the streaming platforms want, which is like constant content, though I was never interested in the fast food approach, I did like to have the music I'm writing to.

Have a channel for an outlet. And so that has been a lot to, to encounter over this, like you said, from the 2020 time until now. and I just, negotiated within the last six months a waiver from the artist exclusivity. With that label and just jumped into form releasing like a lot of music.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah.

And that's, and that has been coupled with also [00:06:00] feeling, more opportunities, just for myself growing spiritually. The expansiveness of, I've had your retreat in the fall. I've done other retreats, both as a participant and, bringing the sound immersion. I did the next level of reiki and, it just, nothing is separate.

Everything is part of this, and the more you tap into. Bigger experiences, the more those, you become part of those too, they become part of you and you start feeling that kind of thing. So I would say I'm simultaneously musically expanding, spiritually expanding and out of that, Tougher, unforeseen circumstance of the things that happened within that label and the things that made me not be able to, use my voice essentially, because that's what music is for me.

it's my expression, my self

Kara Goodwin: So it felt like a, or what I'm, what I. am understanding, I [00:07:00] think is that it felt like you were contract constricted, maybe, or not able to really fully express yourself for a while under those terms, or is that accurate?

Michelle Qureshi: couldn't come out in the world. I continued to write and practice and just, develop these,just be the creative person I am, whether I'm making dinner or I'm making a song. it's a lot about improvisation, so I felt like I couldn't reach out to my larger audience due to, you know, the legality of the music business and the label and the, all the stuff in there that, it's a necessary part.

you have to have these,avenues to be heard. We do, we can't do anything just on our own unless I'm content to just keep playing in my studio for myself. So the constriction was like about communicating out to fans and to, to people. I think maybe that's why I doubled down on the sound [00:08:00] immersion, because that was something I could offer live and, bring it out and do those expressions like,that I was otherwise like being held back on.

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm. Do you feel that? That, like you said, nothing's separate. So do you feel that in your latest album or the latest kind of creations that have come about in the last couple of years, that there's any sort of reflection of that type of thing or other things within that are going on that have been going on in your journey?

Michelle Qureshi: I think quite definitely, yeah. I think that alway where I'm at is always informed, you know what I make musically is com very much informed by where I'm at in my, cuz you can especially see that since I've been releasing since. 2012 music and I can look at, sweet naive stuff back there, and then I can, not that, I won't look back on what I'm doing right now at some point and have, [00:09:00] certain, expect, expectations met or not met.

But there's also the aspect of the distance from it. From what you do to be, and this is working on myself too, to be far more forgiving and accepting and appreciating because there was a chunk of time where I felt energetically, my, the way I was trained in music school and anyone is trained in music school is it's highly critical and it starts to lose the.

part about the sound of things. The beauty of sound, because it'll be like, oh, she used this finger and that should, she should have put that finger on the, you know, and it becomes like this, you're under a microscope and a lot of people get closed up in that tension. like, oh, using a wrong ario or a R for God forbid a wrong note.

that's the classical music world though. It's, some people, Are much more, gifted in that realm, and they're just able to interpret, and they have the math dream beyond, beyond this world, when you watch some people [00:10:00] play, I don't, I don't claim that,I'm my, my, messy, unique self.

And that's why I went into writing music because, you know, there's just so much music inside me and that it wants to, and it does evolve as I evolve. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Kara Goodwin: It's really interesting that you talk about that, the schooling and the training and how there's just this critical aspect to it. I just had an artist on, I wanna s last week and she, it hasn't been released yet, but it will by the time this one is released. And her name's Lauren Monagon and she does paintings, but she had the same.

Thing, she did got her master's in fine art or I'm not sure what her master's was in, but she's, very much studied art and now she's, been doing it for a couple of decades, or I think more than that, and she's like, there's such like, it's. Going, studying art, it's based on [00:11:00] criticism, and then it's, there's, and you do keep boxing yourself in.

There's, and then it, I don't think we got to the level that, what you're talking about in terms of like how it then affects the, almost the purity of it, cuz you're saying that, It's to the point that you're not even considering the sound. It's the technicalities, it's the placement of the finger.

It's the, um, you know, are you being precise versus what is the evocation that's happening for the listener, are you, and of course we understand more and more now. About frequency and how we all respond to frequency and we are frequency. And then of course sound is pure vibration and frequency.

So there's that like maybe a different level of mastery that's not yet recognized [00:12:00] by most people, which is how are we affecting. The frequency of people, how are we affecting their experience? That goes beyond the technicalities.

Michelle Qureshi: Right. That's really well put. And I, I feel like, my, like, I would, I wouldn't. Not change the fact that I sought professional training and that, I also went to my master's degree in, in guitar performance. That foundation I think was critical for me to eventually shift now into a place where I can, be much more intuitive and playing.

And I think part of that shift included like, Letting this music I write just flow through me because, it's not scripted already. It's not like me interpreting a Bach Loot suite on my guitar, which for one thing, you know, yeah, I had to do back in the day, but I couldn't touch it. Now it's complex.

It's very, it becomes very intellectualized. And what I wanted [00:13:00] was a shift, a plane from the heart, after all to guitar, and you're holding it. Against your heart, And, and to take a look now, as you say, to balance attention and intention with my playing with the music I share.

And, yeah, that's, I think that's definitely, finding that balance, knowing. you don't have to be trained to play something. That's the weird thing about music, right? You, somebody can play an instrument and it can, they cannot know a note of music, but it can touch someone. You know, I'm from the school of like, I wanna know what that note is, but I'll let myself forget about why I play it and try to impact you, you know, affect, you, make you feel something through this vibration.

Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah, it's fascinating because you mentioned you've got your harmonic sound immersions, and that I feel is very much a. a journey like for you and for the listener, where it's like, okay, [00:14:00] what can be evoked? Because it's such an intuitive thing and I know you're constantly bringing like new instruments into it and trying new things, of.

Because it's, and then from a participant's perspective, which I've been a participant in many, many Harmonic sound, immersions, and it's like, it can become like a shamonic journey, which I. Again, this one hasn't been, this podcast episode hasn't been released as of when we're recording it, so you wouldn't have heard it yet, but I had somebody on named Martin Teese and he, will, it will be released by the time this is released, but he does shamonic journeys and the medium.

That he does it through is drumming. Because I talked about like, what, how do you evoke these journeys? Is it plant medicine? Is it drumming, is it whatever? And so, and that's been an ancient lineage that he learned through the Native Americans.

Michelle Qureshi: Mm-hmm.

Kara Goodwin: so it's like [00:15:00] sound is so powerful.

Michelle Qureshi: Mm-hmm.

Kara Goodwin: And there is definitely, I feel maybe I'm projecting, but with the Harmonic Sound Immersion, where it is such a, everyone is like this dance of what wants to be birthed here for the people who are here right 

Michelle Qureshi: Are who are here. It really does matter. It really energetically, I'm just guided and I'm realizing that more and more as I, from in the beginning. I was maybe holding a little too much about expectations or direction, but they just feel so much more exciting and free to just go on this journey.

And definitely with the drumming is a, a shamonic, tool and technique locally. we have Meredith Eastwood with her active Dreaming leads these journeys and in many of her workshops, Workshop she'll do, 30 seconds or a minute, and then I'll come in with a guitar cuz we like both, And, yeah, it's, and I've just come around to realizing [00:16:00] that I want to bring, at least for the invocation, the starting of it, some drumming because it's taken a while for me just to have that beat. Process that vibration, cause I, I always think of a beat more root chakra kind of, like just lower kind of thing.

And my music, I put, third eye and above, in

Crown music. But on this recent, trip I should say cuz we're confusing. Journey and trip. On this trip I just had in Morocco, I actually found, the drum that I'm going to use for my next harmonic sound immersion. I bought one.

it's camel skin and it's got a pretty cool sound. So yeah.

This will be brought in. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Well, that's really cool. Well, tell us about the new music that you're, you've just released. I know, again, projecting, but when I engage with it, it's, and I've told you this, it seems a very layered experience.

Michelle Qureshi: Mm-hmm.

Kara Goodwin: [00:17:00] and you and I have had a little bit of back and forth about that. I don't know if it feels that way for you too, but,

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah. Well, it is. Yeah. Well, so it's called a Blueprint for Life and, that title was inspired by, by, work I've done with many people, including you, but also cons concluding, another local person we have here, Sally Knop and exploring Yeah. Who you've

Kara Goodwin: she's been on here several times. Yeah.

Michelle Qureshi: times.

Yeah. And heard her, explanation of a blueprint in our lives, inspired this. And we've had some really deep,experiences, discussions, thoughts on that. And that kind of laid the groundwork for me to bring this music into a blueprint for. For my life and for anyone's life. And to seek that out, find out what is that energetic connection and purpose because, obviously I feel my [00:18:00] purpose, I feel I'm serving it.

And that part of that is to, expand, bring this music out more. There's, healing aspects to my music, though. I like to keep that understated. As far as we have a, and anything goes with like sound healers anymore. And,there's just, it's like. Can a Sufi call him or herself a Sufi?

Not really. If you're calling yourself a Sufi, you're probably not Sufi, you know, so, so I like to just, like in reiki, if you come in and say Your neck hurts, I can't guarantee anything's gonna happen with your neck, but the energy goes where it needs to go. 

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm. 

Michelle Qureshi: I feel like that when I'm writing, when I'm performing, that goes as it needs to go.

And we just keep, just keep bringing it forth. So anyways, to, Be a little more, specific about a blueprint for life. I envisioned, a home as,symbolically as ourself, right? our [00:19:00] house. And then I picked five architectural details. To, develop these pieces on.

And you're right, they're not just energetically layered. They're literally layered because there's, one guitar line here, one guitar line there, and they're on top of each other and you're taking your, you're following them melodic phrase and in one, and then your tension's taken over here, and then maybe it's a little bit sparse and there's space to think about.

oh. What was, oh, here it comes back in. so the first four pieces, the first four tracks are like these layers of guitar and with sometimes a little subtle pad just to like ground you. Like, okay, you're here, and that's there and that's happening. And then for the final track, I flipped that narrative and I brought all the, like the musical pads and the kind of more ambient sounds.

Really kind of forefront and you just have this. [00:20:00] One singular note on the guitar, the pitch will change, but it's never more than one note at a time. And it's like bringing home all of this into this, and that's the last track. And it's, you'll be like, wait, this is different. And then you're trying to feel why it is different.

And in fact it's intentionally different because it's bringing this whole blueprint to a closed. and if I can quickly say the titles, open Window, well, we all know, an open window, what that means to us. The next one is something,called Hidden Lines. And I didn't really, I did a little research on architecture.

I didn't know hidden lines was a thing, but on your blueprint there are hidden lines and these are the things that you know, you will not see when it's finished. And I just thought symbolically, that is very cool. We have so many hidden lines. Right? And then the next, I was playing a little bit on, the shape and the golden mean, and the spiral.

just, I love that shape again and again. And, [00:21:00] so that's called spiral staircase. And, um, I mean, there's so much that's so fluid. A spiral is just really, to me. So putting music to it really felt, like, ah, that goes, then the next one was, or the fourth track is called Hearth. Because I wanted a sense of home in this and I love fire.

And in fact I used, a picture from our fire ceremony in my video because it's just that beautiful, you know, there's people, it doesn't say who all is there, but it's just, it was just, Fire's just so cleansing. It's really, I really like it. So bringing that into, this, blueprint, I thought it was important to have something like a hearth.

And then that final track, which I said flipped the narrative is called elevations. And that is the close on a blueprint for life. And

Kara Goodwin: mm-hmm.

Michelle Qureshi: yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah, it's beautiful. And it's interesting when we talk about, because you mentioned about it there being [00:22:00] undertones of healing and not wanting to Outright make claims, which I completely get. and I feel that there so much of it, like we've talked about how people are, have frequency and the music has frequency, and so I'm sure there's an element of like, First of all, everybody being touched in some way when they listen, whether they're aware of it or not, like some people just aren't gonna be able to tune in.

There's too much going on. They don't know how to drop in and really be in tune with like, oh, what is this doing to me? It doesn't mean it's not doing anything. It just means that there may be like a very, literal, material world. View worldview where it's like, well, it's not making me fall asleep.

It's not making me, wanna get up. You know? I mean, all the thi like their [00:23:00] cues just, need, they're not into that subtlety, they're

Michelle Qureshi: It's a little, it's a little more denser interpretation. Right. Just a little density there. Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: And then there's also the, The music having its own frequency that will resonate with people. So either it offers something to kind of awaken a part of them that's not quite awake yet, but ready to wake up.

Michelle Qureshi: or it's, Completely in line with what they're, where they're vibing and it's like, oh, this is familiar. This is like home. You know, because it's reflecting to them a home vibration. So it just seems that there's so many, again, le different layers, different levels of how it can be experienced by different people in different parts of their, of where they are with their spiritual awareness, Right, right. And I absolutely agree about the layers [00:24:00] and the receptivity and, my lack of saying, listen to my music, it's gonna heal you, is just due to, I, you just wanna stay humble and not presumptive, presuming things, but, I'm happy, when people tell me the healing effects they experience, that to me is legitimate.

but for me to claim,I just don't want to. I'm like, come take what you can from it at whatever level you are. Come back to it because it's always going to, it's gonna reveal more and more. it's like, and someone I was working with, was telling me, oh, you make it things so complicated.

it's, it just needs to be simple and get out there. And I'm like, that's not, you can't just make it simple, end of story. It has to, number one, reflect. Me and I'm very layered, and I love deeper meanings and I wanna have them under there for people who want to like search for it and experience it at the same time.

Like you said, [00:25:00] people are experiencing all at different levels and they might not ha have the right articulation to express what it is, but that's the beauty of music. You don't need words, you just need to feel and experience it.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah, I love that. I love the, so means so much within that, that, because the. Getting the advice from somebody else who maybe knows like their niche or they have their experience and something may have worked really well for them. That's like, just make it easy. Just get it out. Don't think too much about it.

And I've had similar things where there have been people that I've looked to for advice with like, oh, I don't really know how to move this forward. I've never done a project like this, so how would, how do we do it? And it's like, oh, if I've approached everything with being very deliberate, being very like,More [00:26:00] tuned in with where I believe people are rather than this like, gunshot approach.

or like AI is a big one and I, AI has a lot of potential. I use some to help me write some of my show notes and things like that just to give me a foundation to build upon. So there's some really cool things that we can do with ai.

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: But there are people advising of just like, here's how you can, you know, it can write your emails, it can do, you know, and it's like, huh, okay.

And is that gonna be right for everybody's work? You know, like,

Michelle Qureshi: of course

not. Yeah, 

Kara Goodwin: might be right. If you're writing a standard operating procedure, that could carry you pretty far. But if you wanna have like an email that's gonna connect with people, is that something that you wanna entrust to artificial intelligence or is it more of a heart-based, depending [00:27:00] on what kind of work you do, you know?

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah. Right, right. But I, yeah, I agree. Leaning on it for something where, our authenticity is highly important.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Michelle Qureshi: the thing I've l started to lean on AI for, has been the,to get started on some album art covers.

Kara Goodwin: Mm.

Michelle Qureshi: Okay. And there's an aspect in a Blueprint for Life where I ask for, one of those layer, if you look at the album cover, it's very, it's layered and beautiful.

And, but a piece of that is AI generated. One of the reasons for that is when I was, with this label after the, initial album, there were two singles released. Each one. I had no control over the album cover. and I was like, oh, when I saw them, because they're stock images

Kara Goodwin: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Qureshi: you'll find other people using them.

And, you know, that's like, why would you do that? So I, with the AI you're holding on [00:28:00] to. an element of something that is unique to this project and which, I've manipulated so much, you would never kinda find it. But yeah, in this case, you know that's the purpose and the reason, I'll render something and use it as a part of the overall, you know, never just straight up.

Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Well, and yeah, and I'm not wanting to. To put down ai. I think there's a lot of, ca there's a lot of really fascinating potential there. It's more around the. trying the authenticity part where we are wanting to be reflected in our creative work and it's like, okay, there are things that we can do or we can take somebody else's model and say, oh, look what they did.

They've reached a lot of people in this way. And then you get some peek behind the curtain of like how that was done. And it's like, oh, is that [00:29:00] applicable now to. This kind of creative work, where it's, it is, like, for example, for a musician who's doing a certain type of genre, it may be that, you know, why spend a bunch of time on your art, they wanna listen to it.

So maybe that's valid if for some people, But if it's like, okay, I understand who I am, I understand who's listening, and I understand the experience that I wanna give people, then we're back in that like, empowerment, kind of understanding who we are and what we want to get out of our creative

Michelle Qureshi: workand what that means for the people that we want to offer it to, Right, right. I know, I can't imagine the ai, using it for your music message. I just can't, but I know in this will, this is according to the date of us recording that, just recently this week, I think Spotify removed [00:30:00] tens of thousands of AI generator tracks.

Kara Goodwin: Oh, is that right? I 

Michelle Qureshi: However,a friend of mine from Australia posted underneath that post, the more recent article that says Spotify reinstates tens of thousands of tracks.

But we've, yeah. as people who are writing music and playing it themselves and like cr doing the whole nine yards. We've been,up against a lot of AI music that's out there a lot. Yeah. Yeah, because especially in the mood music genre especially, where it's not utilizing perhaps an instrument that,takes a certain amount of craft, you know, when it's just synthesizers and pads, you can, yeah, you can program a mood music quite easily with this stuff, I believe.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: I would love to see what the sound waves might look like, for like synthesized music versus. Like the same [00:31:00] type of music, but on physical instruments. That'd be interesting. I was just reading something, I was reading some Lynn McTaggart, who wrote The Power of Eight, listening to her book, and she cited some sort of study where it was like, um, the, and I can't remember now the method of the study, but there, there was a differentiation, something like a.

I can't remember if it was like a living thing could differentiate, or if it was like, if you look at it under, microscope or whatever, but the synthetic, like synthetic essential oil versus natural essential oil, synthetic something. And again, not things that I would necessarily even. Notice, like if I'm in interacting with essential oils, I don't necessarily even think about like, has this been synthesized

Michelle Qureshi: huh.

Kara Goodwin: is it naturally derived?

and it's, but there was something in that, [00:32:00] there was a difference, like at this level where it was like, if it's a pure, naturally derived. Essential oil, for example, there was a differentiation between the ones that were synthesized and

Michelle Qureshi: Interesting. Yeah. I wonder what kind of measurement, because I, I'll take a look and send you some sound waves of, just a synth track versus it's, I mean, they're gonna, they're gonna look different just by the nature, but I don't know if you would, I think the, an interesting experiment would be, The like listening, like brainwave patterns, listening to something completely AI versus that.

Now, would that show any difference?

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Michelle Qureshi: that would be interesting, right? Yeah. But I'm not sure what things you would measure. Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: right and. What, how you might be able to affect that depending on how you use the ai. So if you like just went for mood music [00:33:00] and it was like, I want calming music that's been AI generated versus something that a human created.

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: how can you query it? Because maybe it's like AI music, AI generated music that is at a specific frequency, 5 28 or something, 

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah. 

Kara Goodwin: and versus like something that somebody has created themselves that's at that same frequency.

And if there's a difference

in the brain waves or, that'd be really interesting.

Michelle Qureshi: right. Yeah. Yeah. it's. A whole new world.

Kara Goodwin: Yes.

Right. 

Michelle Qureshi: And it's just, like you said, like when, um, you know, the start of social media or the, the beginning of all of us having phones and computers is like, there can be great things and there can be awful things. that's the thing with ai, you know, like we've been warned that, this could go that way, but it also, you don't [00:34:00] wanna get rid of the potential of, what, if it was just gonna do good, good.

Kara Goodwin: that would be amazing. Right. Yeah, 

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Well, tell us, Michelle, how people can connect with you and find your music and all that good stuff.

Michelle Qureshi: Sure. well, my, my website is based on my name. It's michelle khi.com. Khi, you'll be in the notes, so I won't spell it out here. Right. So it's a little tricky. and, of course I have a, Instagram and Facebook accounts. it's probably, again, easier just to. Notate them in the notes and spell them out.

But I would invite people, to subscribe and join me there, as well as YouTube. I have a link tree right on my, website, which will take you to screening and socials. And I've had an interesting thing happen and happening now on my Facebook music page. and it was, it's basically. My [00:35:00] lesson was energetically like, quit watching the pot.

It's not gonna boil when you're watching it. Okay. I left for Morocco, in, last month and before I left I said, okay. as you know with the pages, you can schedule posts while you're gone. And I was like, I'm gonna stay off my phone in this trip in Morocco and just enjoy myself. Which I did immensely, but I did, like every other day I put a video to come out on my Facebook page.

And like the day after I got there, I started getting, just hit after hit. And I could hardly load the pages. I could hardly do it. and it was just, a very simple, quick video of me on the harp guitar that, The video was over a year ago, and it's just like, you just don't know when something's in the click.

But I do know that I was just leaving it alone, right? And not expecting that. And, it just keeps growing and growing. I'm so grateful for that. And one of the things that I just [00:36:00] find fascinating is like you go through the likes and the shares, it's almost shared 2000 times. You know,

Kara Goodwin: Wow,

Michelle Qureshi: the, the reach is over a quarter of a million people it's reached out to.

And I'm like, I love, like when people like it, then you can look at your likes and see, and these names are all over the world. Some in scripts, I don't know. some of the alphabets are like, oh. And to me that's like, and it's like people are talking about the healing effects and the, the beauty of it and the way it touched 'em.

Kara Goodwin: And it's like once you put a piece of music out in the world, you. it's everybody's now. It's not yours anymore. it's everybody's to interpret and feel and experience it, as they will. so that's my story about, part of this shifting too is just like, you don't need to micromanage it, you get in your way sometimes, Yeah.

Michelle Qureshi: just be free.

And I was out there having a fantastic time playing my guitar with local musicians, playing it for. at a women's [00:37:00] shelter playing it for our yoga classes. And that's what I'm meant to do. So if I can keep, like, going around the world, taking a guitar and, reaching one-to-one and have this, beautiful potentiality in these platforms, it'll just go ahead and bring in more people to, to share this music that's working for me.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. That's how it's supposed to work, I love it. What a blessing. Well, thank you so much, Michelle. This has really been a fun discussion 

Michelle Qureshi: Yeah. Yeah.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah, I wish you all the best with this latest release. Everybody, check it out. A blueprint for life on all the platforms, right? And on your link tree.

Michelle Qureshi: Yes. Thank you. Well, thank you so much for. Your friendship and for being a fan, that doesn't, I have a lot of friends and they're not necessarily, into this music. so that's a bonus for me. Thank you.

Kara Goodwin: [00:38:00] Yeah. Thank you for bringing it into out into the world, answering the call.

Michelle Qureshi: 

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