open letter to my clients - past, present and future
I’ve been living through a period of grief this last year, processing childhood/parental relationships spurred on by my mothers Alzheimer’s diagnosis. I discovered that I began singing as a child as a way to escape and to be able to comfortably express emotions where it was not acceptable or safe to do so in my home in real life. I’m reading a book right now called Burnout, by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. Of all the years of our lives, this might be the year that you would find such a book helpful as well. Part of the reason why we get burned out is that we don’t process our stress (our emotions) and get stuck. While we might not be able to control our stressors, we can learn to go through our stresses with practiced activities, and delightfully, singing is one of them.
This data further supports longtime and continued scientific studies that singing is healthy for us, physically and mentally. There is a long list of activities that can take our bodies (nervous system) through the process of alleviating the stress: laughing, crying, running, orgasms, physical activities! Activities like dancing, singing, playing, painting (the arts!) not only can take us through the stress cycle of processing but also allow us to be emotionally expressive. The arts hold space for emotional expression as an expectation in a world that is often telling us to suppress or ignore our emotions. Thank goodness for the arts! They are life-saving!
Singing gives us a platform to express emotions that we feel, it can teach us how to feel the ones that we’ve suppressed, or weren’t allowed to express in real life. What a gift singing is to all of us.
I’ve also been surprised by the way grief showed up for me in moving this week. Some of you know that I am giving up my commercial space to build a studio in my new backyard, which will be a new studio home to us when we can gather once again in person. I’m incredibly excited for that future adventure and outlook. And also I’m grieving leaving my beautiful apartment of five years which held me in a safe place through transition after a divorce and provided a haven with a beautiful swimming pool where I read and wrote.
Grieving my home and sad to leave the Midwood International Cultural Center, where I opened and grew my studio with you lovely people. That space held such joy, exciting possibility, so much music and love. Filled with the memory of our voices as you sang in protest, sang in pain and frustration, sang in joyful celebration and all the other emotions that songs bring to us and to our listeners.
Thank you thank you thank you from the bottom of my heart for making that room such a special place that I need to grieve it. I look forward to making new beautiful music from my new home and eventually my new studio with you in 2021. For now, I’ll see you online, and hold excited anticipation for when we can together in person again next year.
I don’t have children. I don’t know if that contributes to why my work is so important to me. Or why I feel so connected to all of you. I do know that my heart's desire is that people who want to sing are able to do so freely, confidently, comfortably and as joyfully as possible. I’m so grateful that you’ve chosen me to guide you on this journey, and for the blessed vibrations of singing!
Xoxo
Julie
