How singing every week is helping me feel more whole…
During my recovery from burnout it became apparent to me that I had been defining my whole identity, personal worth and success through my business. Easy done when you have a personal brand and you’re self employed. Also easily done if you love your work and get a huge amount of joy from it.
Anyway- it become clear to me that I needed to widen my identity. Fitness was once my hobby and now it is part of my business. For the last 10 years all my hobbies have been fitness related (before that I didn’t have any hobbies as I worked all the time). Now I needed to start broadening myself out a little.
I’ve always loved singing. I’m not saying I’m good at it, but I enjoy it. When I sing a lot it shows im in a good place. At this point, I wasn’t singing a lot! I realised I didn’t seem to be doing much that was bringing me joy. This is hard to say as I know I’m super privileged with my family and life etc, but it’s true. I wasn’t feeling happy. I needed more to give me meaning and purpose. I’d heard of a lovely choir in town through a friend of mine who was also trying to do wider variety of stuff. I told another friend and we went together.
It actually felt like a really big deal to mentally commit to going as it was in an evening… and I don’t do anything in am evening! I’d been working with a therapist for 6 months by this point and one of the major themes we’d looked at was my feelings of being safe, and I think I’d developed a fixed routine to keep me feeling safe - which has included not going out in the evening. I was starting to feel ready to move through this, and do something good in an evening. It was a late finish though -9pm. 9pm! Would I manage?!
That was 4 months ago, and I’ve been on most Tuesday nights since. I can’t lie, doing something weekly feels a lot sometimes. Tuesday’s come around really quickly. It’s really hard going when I don’t feel like- but it always makes me feel better after I go. And sometimes it’s surprisingly hard when I do go. It’s really comparable to exercise I think… you don’t always want to do it, but it gerenally makes you feel better.
Last night in particular felt amazing. We sang a song about being grateful for the room and the music written by a woman who’d found peace and calm in singing after recovering from a very difficult time in her life.
There’s no pressure at the choir. It’s inclusive, friendly and supportive. I can be totally myself. I’ve made new friends, and being myself is good enough. My identity is changing. I love it and although its often an effort- I’m so glad I make myself do it each week.