The self love practices that keep me going as a disabled singer songwriter

Being chronically ill can take a toll on my self worth and confidence as an artist. That’s why self love practices have become incredibly important for me.

• I’ve created a playlist over on Spotify with the most beautiful chamber folk songs. Chamber folk is folk, but often with the use of chamber instruments like strings or woodwinds. Here is the playlist! • When you buy my album you also support research into ME/CFS and Long Covid. ME/CFS is one of the must underfunded illnesses and it disproportionately affects women. Purchase the album here.

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Hi friend!

Being chronically ill and disabled as a singer-songwriter is not the easiest thing in the world. I can’t practice my craft, I can’t sing on demand, I can’t play live, I can’t sit in creative flow, and tons of other things that I can’t do.

To be honest, it can take a toll on my self worth and confidence as an artist.

That’s why self love practices have become incredibly important for me.

A few years ago, I started to notice the abysmal self talk going on inside my head. It was the equivalent of having a toxic boyfriend who consistently put me down, scolded me, told me I wasn’t good enough and all the things.

I started to notice how much it affected my nervous system, and that it became even more difficult to create. I was already up against a body and brain that wouldn’t cooperate, I also had to wade through floods of negative self talk to even get to the creation part.

I wanted to make a change, and that’s when I started my self love practices.

Catching and changing negative self talk

The first thing I did was to start catching myself when I started my negative self talk — and to not scold myself for talking that way, but lovingly acknowledge it, put my hand on my heart and say sorry.

I then began to practice talking to myself as if I was my own best friend. This was hard at first, but with practice it became easier and easier. I now feel like I’m my own best friend.

Self love alarms

Every day at 9.30 am I have an alarm go off on my phone that says: “I’m so proud of you!” While cheesy (I do love cheese!), it is incredibly helpful and it gives me a boost of loving energy. It reminds me how amazing it is that I can continue to create despite horrendous circumstances and how proud I am of myself to keep going. I have other alarms saying different things too.

I honour and feel my feelings

I used to teach yoga and was very immersed in the new age/spiritual community, where toxic positivity was unfortunately quite rampant. I didn’t feel I could be honest about the dark feelings I was having as my body was breaking, and I felt ashamed for not being able to ‘manifest’ a healthy body.

I got a spiritual addiction at one point, trying to by-pass all my difficult feelings with spiritual nonsense. It got me nowhere, and my body began to react to all the suppressed emotions.

On top of that, feeling your feelings in the traditional ways (like crying) are too exhausting for someone in a chronically ill body.

I first started to feel my anger. There was tons of it and it took about half a year before I got to the other side of it and started feeling gratitude. Now, I make sure to make space and honour my feelings. I sometimes have days where the grief is so loud all I can do is sit with it, put a hand on my heart and say “it’s ok to feel this.”

I’ve written more about my nervous-system friendly way of feeling my feelings here.

I got rid of ‘shoulding’

I am a master at doing stuff I don’t love or don’t have the energy for. I’ve been doing that my whole life and rarely made space for the things that I love because they seemed irrational or nonsensical. Music was one of those things.

But I have come to understand how vital it is to follow your heart and energy — and how energy-saving it can be.

I do not have a to-do list, I make a menu of stuff I can choose from depending on my energy and mood. I trust myself that I will get a window where my energy is right to get the important things done, but I do not force it. And I do not ‘should’ myself!

‘Shoulding’ (ie ‘you should be doing this and that’) is judgment. It’s a judgment that what you are choosing to do is wrong and that there is a better version of you who knows better out there. I refuse to judge myself in this way.

Practice non-judgment

In fact, non-judgment has become one of my favourite (and most difficult to master) self love practices.

I noticed how much energy I was spending judging both myself and others, especially judging little things. I noticed that the more I judged other people, the more critical I became of myself.

I discovered that this had turned into a visibility wound and a fear that I would be judged, just as I judged other people, if I became visible.

And by judgment I mean “this is bad” or judging their character (“she is bad”) instead of “this is not my taste.” I won’t go deeper into the practice of non-judgment as I could write a whole essay about it.

Since beginning my self love practice, I feel my mental health has become stronger, I don’t get bouts of depression or anxiety like I used to and it has become easier for me to create. This is still a work in progress and a daily practice for me — like brushing my teeth.

Tell me…

Do you practice self love?

If so, what are your self love practices?

Do you feel self love (or lack of it) affects your creativity?

I’d love to know in the comments!

Have you listened to Powerful People’s Anthem?

Powerful People’s Anthem is a song in 5/8. It portrays the inner turmoil of powerful people and how they really need therapy rather than microphones.

All proceeds will go to Open Medicine Foundation for vital ME/CFS and Long Covid research. Please consider purchasing on Bandcamp to support the cause.