Hey lovely readers,
it’s been a good while since I’ve posted any new writings.
It’s been a full phase of life.
In August of last year, I began a new job teaching singing at a training school in Bad Nenndorf.
More specifically, the school I attended the three years prior.
I’ve recently taken on more responsibility at work and have been in the process of letting things work in and around me, the question lingering on my mind of what subjects are currently on my radar, which need more time to take shape, and which feel profound or important enough to put into words and share on the internet.
As I begin this post, I have no roadmap for what I am going to write.
I simply know I need to write.
Often throughout the day, little idea fires for blog posts or concepts into which I want to dive more deeply are ignited and sort of crackle around in my consciousness.
The question of relevance often accompanies these ideas:
does what I want to investigate, share, or express interest anyone other than me?
What purpose do my words and ideas serve?
Do they have the potential to touch or reach someone or are they simply an avenue for me to personally process things?
Is one of these better than the other?
Earlier this evening, an inner voice came at me, bluntly stating: „if you’re just writing your thoughts on the internet, it’s like a journal. Who would want to read your journal?“
Approaching the question from another angle, I asked myself; „whose journal wouldn’t I like to read?“
I think I would give my firstborn (as of yet unborn) child for a peek at most people’s journals.
What is more fascinating than a look at someone’s inner world, at what they’re able to express about themselves and their lives when they think no one is watching or listening or reading?
The thought comforted me: not all of my public writings must be perfectly organized or share a profound realization or discovery.
I move my fingers, words come out, I take a look into my mind.
I‘m tired.
Sometimes good tired, like when you know what you’re doing is important and your day is full and you go to to sleep with a feeling of sleepy satisfaction.
Other times it is the type of tired that living with chronic illness makes a person feel, most particularly when it flares up but life keeps going on and responsibilities must be fulfilled.
Sometimes it’s socially tired, the type a sociable introvert feels, fulfilled and energized by the work with others, yet at a certain point in the day craving an empty room and a moment to soften the senses.
Not two contradictory things, simply balance.
Sometimes I sleep 9 hours and it improves.
Sometimes I teach and it improves, then returns when the day is over.
Sometimes I connect extremely intensely to my body, and it fades and vibrancy ensues.
Mostly I rest when I can, take space where I need it, and try and keep my nervous system calm so my body and brain know they’re safe.
Read: tiredness is not evil. Neither is exhaustion, nor fatigue.
They’re energies.
Messages from the body.
Thank you body, for sharing with me.
Thank you for wanting the best for me.
I live with two beings each day.
One is me, whatever that is.
A concept of „Lauren“ as she moves the world.
Another is My Voice.
She’s her own creature.
I am deeply aware, all day, of how she and I tango.
The years I spent teaching music in Berlin, I was also very aware of her.
I didn’t quite understand why she felt the way she felt throughout the day, but I noticed her constantly.
I notice her constantly now too, but I get her more.
I understand her behavior.
Just like with your average everyday asshole colleague or neighbor or weird family uncle, understanding the behavior allows for patience and forgiveness.
I don’t think of my voice as an asshole anymore, though, even though I used to.
Her every move used to infuriate me because I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t do what I wanted her to.
But how can one ask two tiny muscles to carry the weight of the world on their shoulders?
Life presents us with parallels, likes to work in patterns.
The work of healing my body as a whole and healing my voice began all at once.
Six months before beginning my training as a voice expert, I received the diagnosis of Celiac disease.
An explanation for many of the health problems I was having.
The internet told me that after six months of eating gluten free, I should feel better.
The internet didn’t share that for some, it can take up to 6+ years when the body is in an advanced state of damage, that Celiac is a full-body illness and that it is not a one-size-fits-all deal.
When I cut out gluten from my diet and began school in Bad Nenndorf, it all came at once: a plethora of health symptoms, a voice carrying the weight of singing studies gone wrong, and a heart that needed to be allowed the room to break so that it could heal over again.
All at once: body, voice, spirit.
Likely not a coincidence.
Today I am smack dab in the middle of healing.
I have learned a few lessons about what it means to work for oneself instead of against oneself.
That healing cannot be forced, cannot be rushed, cannot be bullied or manipulated or maneuvered into happening.
Most infuriating to me was to learn that healing cannot be achieved through hard work.
Effort is usually required on the path to healing.
I put in a lot of effort to maintain an incredibly strict diet, free of gluten and all possible traces of it.
I train my voice to overwrite old patterns with new.
But I cannot work my way into health.
I just accept.
The hardest damn lesson of them all.
I feel into the messages and try to understand them and make meaning of them.
I try not to live with regret of how my body could have felt if I hadn’t spent 28 years of my life eating bread or how my singing career could’ve gone had my voice not gotten off track.
I feel proud of all small victories and try to encourage my students to feel the same.
When I get sick and the vocal functions I have been working on go away for the next two months, I feel frustrated, but I accept.
I practice cultivating hope.
I lean into purpose: the purpose of working extremely hard on something and seeing slow progress and what that teaches a person about life and about the practiced thing itself.
The incredible purpose I feel working with my fantastic students.
The way having an illness has brought me profoundly closer to my own body and give me a sense of empathy I wouldn’t have found without it.
(Let me just take this opportunity, though, to say fuck you to gluten. Your existence is completely unnecessary).
Healing is not a static event.
It happens alongside life.
Life is full.
Full of students, full of ideas, full of questions.
Full of feeling, especially.
Feeling my body, all day long.
Feeling my voice, all day long.
I may or may not in any given moment like what’s there, but I feel what’s there.
And as I type this, I realize that’s my job.
It’s not fixing.
It’s feeling.
Feeling opens the door to sensation, to curiosity, to learning.
I feel, I notice, I wonder, I question, I research, I learn.
I feel, I notice, I know, I remind myself, I change.
I feel, I notice, I embrace, I repeat, I grow.
I feel, I act, I heal.
I feel.
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