I don’t know if you, like me, grew up thinking you couldn’t sing – fearful that you were out of tune and ashamed of being heard, and so contained that voice by spending a life time telling it (telling yourself) you’re not good enough to be heard!
Maybe you too had encounters with people who sensed your fear and passed on silly jokes and comments that pointed you in the direction of the ‘I can’t sing’ club.
Maybe you too simply longed for someone to validate your worth and say ‘hey, you have a nice voice’ and liberate you from your box.
I recall times of liberation… alone in my bedroom as a kid, door shut, fave tape or CD on full blast. I would sing so loud and so fierce that every cell in my body changed, shifted and vibrated. My soul smiled and my spirit soared, in that moment I was FREE!! I can recall the whispers of ‘I’m not so bad’ echoing deep inside, but they were soon ignored and squashed by myself and others.
As I got older, I learned that I could close my car door and drive down the motorway in the dark and sing loud and free… most of my deep healing happened on those lone late night drives.
Release the fear… and sing your song… THIS IS HOW I CHANGED MY STORY…
About 2 years ago I was in the radio studio pre-recording my show. There I was, lost in the tunes and totally unaware that I was actually singing my head off, yet I couldn’t hear myself because I had my bloody headphones on (and turned up loud!!). All of a sudden I became acutely aware that the Breakfast show presenters behind the window in the studio next to me, were crying with laughter! They were pointing their fingers at me *busted!*. Of course I was the brunt of their jokes live on air and normally I like teasing and I love banter, always the first to take the piss out of myself, but beyond my flushed cheeks and big smile the piss take of not being able to sing really got me… mainly because I felt inadequate compared to the presenter who was some super awesome musical dude from a super awesome musical family who all play music and sing in ways that I could only dream of… (We all have those people in our lives!!!) and in that moment I felt embarrassed, exposed, ashamed, tied up in knots. Music is my life, singing sets me free and here I felt I did not belong in this musical world…
BOOM, in that moment I saw that I had created my reality… and I had 2 choices – get back in my box or give birth to a new musical story! I thought about the way I would coach someone else through this and the words I would use… and the words came to me….
‘You become what you believe’
I had become the story I had told myself for years… ‘I can’t sing’.
It wasn’t the breakfast show crews fault for teasing me, they were simply triggering my inadequacies and showing me what I needed to see to change. I had created a story so damn loud in my energetic field that people could read it a mile off.
‘I CAN’T SING AND YOU CAN TEASE ME ABOUT IT TO DISTRACT YOURSELF FROM THE FACT I’M DEEPLY ASHAMED I CANT SING’
NO!!!!
No more. No more was I going to play this story over and over again. I love music, I need to sing, I need to dance and I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone thinks…
From that day on, I started telling myself a new story… it was this…
“I love to sing, I love to sing and I love my voice’
Singing (and dancing) is a release, a way of grounding and a celebration of life. Over time, I began to sing in front of others, just singing along to music when I made a cup of tea while people were in my home. I would sing along in the kitchen, in the car, at parties. I began, over the year, to notice that no one would flinch when I sang, there was no judgment AND no one took the piss!!!
My great moment of release happened about a year later, I was singing in the woods with some friends, I asked them if they knew a song ‘down to the river to pray’ they asked me to sing it, so I did… I REALLY sang it… and I didn’t stop! I carried on with the whole song and their faces were awesome. I’m not kidding you A HERD OF COWS CAME OVER TO LISTEN!! I remember the face of my friend, Ben. At the end he said ‘Woahhahaa! I didn’t know you could sing!’ hahhahahahah (neither did I Ben!!!) From that point on I have had so many people tell me I have a lovely voice… ME!!!!!!!!!
It transpired that I was called to great adventures around the earth not long after… and my voice became a part of that (but that’s another story).
SO, BROTHERS AND SISTERS… SING, CREATE A NEW STORY, A NEW REALITY… AND SING.. sing for yourself, for your soul and your spirit, sing for the earth, for your family, for your tribe…. sing sing sing….. FREE OF JUDGEMENT… JUST SING!!!
I feel so passionate about singing for the soul that I brought in a great Singer Alexandra Gabriel to transform my Reiki Masters into a choir at a retreat last weekend… I didn’t tell them too much and of course they all began with the ‘I’m not good enough, I cant sing, I’ll be the one who will be out of tune’ stories and within 8 minutes this happened…
https://www.instagram.com/p/BQrGBUfldZ5/?taken-by=louisecarronharris&hl=en
Here is one of Alexandra’s songs… JUST WOW!
You can buy her amazing albums on her website and she also has a Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1197364446/alexandra-gabriel-voices-of-the-goddess-new-album?ref=user_menu