An odd but effective treatment....

Last night I had a good chat with a colleague, she had called to see how I was and that had been the main focus of the call, but then she said she had some things to mention when I was back up and running.  Well you don't tell a worrier that there is something to be raised but not now - our imaginations are always worse than the reality! So I pushed for the info, to find that actually the news of work tensions was a positive to my personal wellbeing.

It sounds counter intuitive but there is a logic behind it, having slept on it. One of the most powerful emotions that overwhelm me when low is that of feeling inadequate, not up to the job, or at its worst even the role of being a grown up human being.  Yet I hold these feelings in tension with a realism from the good days that I know I am more than adequate at the job of being a minister (more confident in that than in being a functioning grown up, though surely that is part of being a minister?)

A conversation about problems and issues that yes I may need to have a part of tidying up but that are not of my making was a reminder that the true comparison is not against the ideal but against equally flawed and vulnerable human beings.  In that comparison I do much better than in the depressive mindset of seeking total perfection.  It is a healthier perspective, and came from talking shop when poorly.

There is an infamous quote, sometimes attributed to Winston Churchill, sometimes not, about being accused of being drunk 'Yes but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly'.  To paraphrase 'Yes I may be useless for a few days but in the morning I will be competent and you will still be....'

Well it worked for me last night anyway, and today I got on with some guilt free occupational therapy. Discovery of a plant on the doorstep delivered yesterday when I was hiding, and other loving caring contacts today add to the step forward.

Doh, re, mi....

Today I had my first singing lesson.

A professional singing teacher and friend through the local Am Dram group (we were in a play together in the autumn) has taken me under her wing and offered to help me find my singing voice.  Apparently from today's session I have a big voice, which is a Good Thing but needs discipline.  (Or maybe I am just a noisy bossy type!)

I remember going with a group of us to sign up for the school choir which had just lost a lot of people leaving school and so weren't being fussy about who they took on.  After a couple of times I was asked to mime - I was bad, but worse than that I was enthusiastic and loud enough to drag those around me off piste too.

Yep, you did read that right - I wasn't asked to leave, they were keen enough to have bodies on stage, so I could stay if I mimed!  Didn't see the point of that and left of my own accord. Since then I have believed that I can't sing. Not the greatest problem in the world - I can't catch a ball either - but it does have an impact in this job. I have had funeral hymn solo moments, and it would be good to share new music with congregations but that takes enough confidence to lead it from the front. 

So having some faith in my voice would be helpful for work - but more than that it attacks the ideas I have which focus on all the things I can't do.  As a child/teen I was told by the bullies that I was ugly, and no-one would ever fancy me; I had been bulllied at first in primary school because of my speech therapy, and then told my attempts to sing were a distraction and to mime.  Is it any wonder that my confidence and self esteem were low!

We can go through adult life in a trimmed down version of ourselves - wings clipped by those ideas others put on us in our early days. Or we can gradually spread our wings and find that the bullied ugly duckling is actually a swan.

I stood in the music room today struggling to believe that I could have a trainable, useable singing voice - but if I dare to believe and work at it who knows what is possible? Okay so I might be a bit too busy for X factor or Pop/Opera Idol, but if I can reach the point of believing in myself and singing with confidence in church that will suit me fine.

So I will be practising my suppressed yawn (to get the 'open throat') and my posture, and if you hear a scream or shout it is just me finding my full volume and range!