I love to sing, and I hate it, all at the same time. Nothing is more thrilling than singing a song or aria that suits my voice, when everything is lined up and working well. And nothing is more disheartening than when my voice is not in good shape or is unresponsive. In talking with friends and colleagues, I know I am not alone.
Further complicating my own situation, I have allergies, asthma, and gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). I become exasperated at times with all the attention my singing health demands. Before a big performance I have to wrap myself in gauze and live like a monk for a few days, figuratively speaking.
I came to singing later in life, and sometimes all the sacrifices seem pointless because I was too late for a “big” career. I have read several stories in CS about others in the same boat who have carved a niche for themselves by performing for schools, or building a following for their themed recitals, or some other entrepreneurial venture. It’s great that these folks have found fulfillment. Yet in my own bitterness, I was unable to get past the “making lemonade out of lemons” factor. To my mind at that time, self-started projects were no substitute for a major career singing with orchestras and performing all over the world.
These days, my life is filled with teaching voice, writing, and giving workshops on overcoming performance anxiety. It can be tempting, with all these activities and with the frustrations and disappointments that singing can bring, to think of “hanging up my spurs.” At times I have come close, but what stopped me is realizing, finally, that singing is healthy for me in many ways, especially because it is a major part of my spiritual life.
As to my physical health, I am certain that the deep breathing is helpful to my respiratory system as well as calming me overall and helping to lower my blood pressure. I also believe I would be less vigilant about the GERD if I did not sing, which would lead to other health issues. Singing certainly helps me live in my body. Like most folks, that can be rare for me.
These are all worthy benefits, but the spiritual side is even more important.
With all the people and gadgetry clamoring for our attention these days, with the ever-accelerating pace of life and the need to multi-task, it can be rare to live in the moment even for a short time. I wonder if Eckard Tolle’s book, The Power of Now, is immensely popular in part because it responds to an increasing need we have to be suspended from tasks and direction, to have time to savor sensations, time to just be.
I have found singing to be one avenue to living in the now. Certainly, it requires effort, direction, and focus, but the psychological time involved in making and hearing music takes me out of linear thinking. Time slows down dramatically. The deep breathing and physical satisfaction of singing also help make it a meditative endeavor.
The most persuasive argument for keeping singing in my life came from the author of Women Who Run with the Wolves, Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés. In her CD, The Creative Fire, she discusses the importance of creative activity to our psychological and spiritual health, especially because the creative function is the bridge between the inner mind and the world. She outlines the cycles of creativity—from rising to a zenith, then entropy, death, incubation, to another rising—and explains that regularly coming to our practice time allows for these creative cycles.
I came to see that denying myself creative time because my voice is not responding well lately or because I am not in the midst of a major career was destroying my own creative work. Estés explains that this often starts in childhood when adults devalue your creative output and then continues as critics and colleagues do the same. It becomes a part of the psyche that people call “the Judge,” or “the Critic,” or “the Destroyer.”
“At its root creativity is not about success and not about failure . . . it’s a mystery and a spiritual practice to live from the creative center in our everyday life,” says Estés in The Creative Fire. “An artist is an artist before they have ever produced a single thing. The production of something is not what makes an artist—it’s the soul. The center of the psyche, the creative fire, is what makes an artist. The Destroyer would say otherwise: ‘You must produce world-class phenomena, you must win the prizes. Or else you ain’t nothing.’”
Heeding the words of the Destroyer can fill us with pain and fear. “A person who is in fear that something that they love has been lost forever may turn on their creative life and kill it,” continues Estés. She goes on to say that we cannot actually kill our creative life, but we can distance ourselves entirely—we can fill ourselves up with fantasies or busy ourselves so that there is no time left to be creative. Then we have killed the wrong thing. Instead, we should turn on the Destroyer and destroy it.
So how do we destroy the Destroyer? How do we rid ourselves of the critics and judges running amok in our psyches? We can engage in active imagination exercises like Estés describes. Certainly, counseling, meditating, journaling, and talking with friends can help a great deal. Simply being aware of the importance of creativity to our mental health and then reflecting on ways that we stop our creative flow or allow the Destroyer to take over can put us on a better path.
In my case, for a couple of years I mused, reflected, discussed, fumed, and cried. I had a few counseling sessions devoted to my career and creative life. I wrote in my journal and talked with friends. I listened to Estés’ “Creative Fire” many times. Finally, I had a dream that seemed to “cap” all of that interior work. In my dream I was given a small, beautiful stage. About the size of a small recital hall, it had a brand new glossy floor of polished, blond wood. It was clearly my stage and no one else’s. I awoke from that dream feeling at peace.
Since the dream I no longer look on self-started projects as “making lemonade” but as honoring one’s own creative life. I still have twinges of envy or regret from time to time, but for the most part, I am happy to create, to share with others, and to enjoy the spiritual nourishment of singing. Letting go of the need to have a major career has also helped me to let go even more in my singing.
I find that singing makes me feel closer to spirit than any other activity. The years of voice study certainly help, but it is not the technique that allows for “luminosity,” for a sense of being one with the universe. Instead it is a spiritual discipline to mentally release any desired outcome or result and allow myself to be the conduit for air and sound. Then it does not matter whether I am singing alone or in front of thousands, or whether I am singing sacred or secular music—I truly feel that God sings through me.
