Sing, Sing A Song

Series Introduction

2 minute read.

Growing up I was blessed with a strong family system, the privilege of an active and involved lifestyle, and great friendships. Mental health was not often a conversation in my home. We went through hard times together, but the foundations of faith, structure, and support made each challenge manageable.

As I stepped out into the world on my own, the difficult moments became more complex and compounding. My structured youth slipped away and somewhere along the way I forgot some of the whimsical habits that protected me.

Instead, I poured myself into my career and rested my self-esteem, self-confidence, and identity in my productivity. I project managed my life into neat boxes and didn’t realize that my deep breaths were bandaids over compartmentalization and an unhealthy relationship with work.

While therapy, investing in my relationships, and physically moving my body have done wonders for my mental health and cannot be discounted, the small idiosyncrasies of my childhood had not yet returned to me. White noise and productivity-Youtube-jazz filled my ears. Generic self-help habits replaced what my family gave me to self-soothe. I traded in my whimsy in the hopes of being taken seriously.

It wasn’t until last year that I began to investigate: what made me such a happy kid?

Singing! Singing ridiculously. Singing seriously. Singing through tears. Singing theatrically. Singing with my mama (Jennifer Moreno).

As a kid, my mother was always singing. In Kohl’s. In parking garages. She is the loudest parishioner at church. “This place has great acoustics!” she’d say before belting out Lovin’ You by Minnie Riperton.

I noticed last May, I’m just not singing like I used to.

Over the next year, I began replacing my “productivity playlists” with real music. It turns out, I process a lot of what I experience through lyrics.

Often, a song will prompt me to write something I've been holding onto or ruminating on. There's so much poetic clarity in songs. They give me the words to pause, feel, and reflect. The empowerment that songs can bring us never ceases to amaze me.

And the more I let real music back in, the more I noticed what surfaced alongside it. In recent years, I've been weighed down with a calling to write about topics that are heavier, dripping in negativity — the realities so many of us face in the workforce. I have my complaints. I think of my calls to action. I cling to what I'm grateful for. But perception gave me pause. What if it comes out wrong? What if it's held against me?

Music gave me the whimsy back. It also gave me the words for what I'd been sitting on.

Over the next six weeks, I’ll be sharing weekly about the clarity I’ve gotten from leaning back into music. These songs helped me overcome my greatest depressive episode, navigating the current job market, and ultimately: starting my own business.

I can’t wait to share it all with you!

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/857109_25596f128912408eae8398545071f89a/720p/mp4/file.mp4