The Vulnerability of Singing

Brené Brown defines vulnerability as “…uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure.” Sounds like a fun time right?! But wait for it - she also adds that vulnerability is, “…the core, the heart and the centre of meaningful human experiences.” 

Singing is an act of vulnerability.

We singers experience incredible meaning through using our voices while simultaneously being riddled with discomfort due to the uncertainty and emotional exposure using our voices requires.

Experiencing this discomfort without some support, resourcing or normalizing can lead us to thinking something is wrong with us; that there is something to fear or that we are doing this ‘singing’ thing wrong.

To be clear, there are different types of discomfort. You may very well be experiencing discomfort or fear because you are in a situation where it genuinely doesn’t feel safe for you to be vulnerable through your voice. And if this is the case - listen to yourself ! It’s so important to honour your boundaries and to offer your artistic vulnerability according to your own internal sense of safety and consent.

The discomfort I’m referring to is that universal discomfort every human tends to feel when they are doing something that matters to them.

Maybe it’s just me, but doing the things I love - challenging myself to step more fully into them, to take risks, to try new things, to share myself with the world- RARELY feels like a serene, perpetually joyous experience. Rather, it’s usually a mishmash of excitement, nerves, satisfaction, flow AND fear, self-doubt, worry, resistance and discomfort. 

Can you can you relate to one or all of these anxiety laden thoughts emerging when you are about to sing for an audience or use your voice in a new creative way?

I can’t do this.

Can I do this?

What if the audience doesn’t like me?

Will  they think I’m too much? Will they think I’m not enough?

What if I seem over-emotional? What if I’m boring?!

I’m not ready for this.

I’m the worst singer here.

No one will take me seriously.

I don’t know enough. I’m not good enough.

Will I embarrass myself?

Will they judge me?

Will they believe I belong?

Do I believe I belong?

Why am I doing this thing? It does NOT feel comfortable!

If you can relate to one or all of these thoughts, you are not alone.

Thinking this way is not bad. It doesn’t mean you have to fix anything.

I think it means that you are human and that you are experiencing the discomfort and anxiety that can emerge when you have the courage to do something you care about.

Anything worthy and meaningful will usually feel uncomfortable and hard to do and will often evoke a cascade of anxious thoughts.

I don’t think we ever get to a point where any form of our singing/creativity feels completely, 100% resistance or discomfort free! Discomfort and uncertainty appear to be a part of the package.

It’s essential that singers know they aren’t alone in struggling with these thoughts and feelings. Experiencing emotional discomfort, whether it’s performance anxiety, self-doubt or imposter syndrome in your singing life, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue or that you are doing something wrong.

What is necessary is that we have some source of support to be able to come alongside ourselves through these challenges so that we can be held in our experience, validated and resourced in a way that helps us to keep using our voice.

For a long time, I was swept away by the narratives emerging from the discomfort I was experiencing in my singing life. I didn’t have much insight into the stories I was telling myself and as a result, I unknowingly bought into them.

Then, 5 words from a meditation teacher initiated the beginning of a new way of being with myself and my experiences a singer:

“You are not your thoughts.“ 

The idea that all of these thoughts my worried mind had spun about me, my singing, my place as a singing artist and my career, were not necessarily true, not necessarily mine and not necessary to hold onto, felt like a lifeline.

As I made it a practice to get quiet in meditation, feeling my body breathing, feeling my body connected to support, practicing offering kindness, compassion and non-judgement towards myself, my inner voice and my emotions (even when I wasn’t really feeling it), a new quality of awareness started to emerge.

John Kabat-Zinn describes this awareness as:

“…moment to moment non-judgemental awareness…cultivated by purposefully paying attention to things we ordinarily never give a moment’s thought to. It is a systematic approach to developing new kinds of agency, control, and wisdom in our lives, based on our inner capacity for paying attention and on the awareness, insight and compassion that naturally arise from paying attention in specific ways.”

I started to experience this new kind of awareness and it acted like a compassionate container that surrounded the experiences emerging out of my vulnerability as a singer.

This awareness gave me the most important capacity I have discovered as a singer - the capacity to choose.

It gave me the capacity to witness my thinking and the ability to choose to redirect my attention where I wanted it to be.

This kind of mindful awareness is a way of befriending yourself. It’s kind of like having a great friend on standby who can hold your hand and remind you of who you are, what matters to you and that you have the courage to do the thing you long to do. 

I don’t think meditation is the only way that you can build this kind of awareness into your life. But I do think it is something worthy of cultivating.

So, if you are feeling bullied by an inner critic, lost in a sea of anxiety ridden narratives or just moving through the sticky discomfort of singing and creating in the heart of vulnerability, I see you. You are not alone. 

Whether it’s through meditating, dancing, Alexander technique, therapy, yoga, running or talking to a friend - I encourage you to do the thing that helps you to access that quality of awareness that enables you to see that what you are doing is beautiful, important and essential - simply because it is an expression of you.

The discomfort is part of it.

Offer yourself some compassion and gratitude for the courage you have had thus far to keep singing even when you felt that uncertainty and discomfort.

And perhaps inquire today, how you might you befriend yourself more deeply and with more awareness through the inevitable challenges of being willing to live in the heart of vulnerability as a singer.