(Unhinged) Reminders to Singers on Sick-Days
I kept a note in my notes app of everything I had to tell myself this week as a singer and voice teacher with laryngitis: the obvious, loving, tough, unhinged, and the often embarrassing…
Enjoy this peek into the good/bad/ugly of my self-talk.
Sharing them under the vulnerable assumption I’m not alone…. 🤞 … with the hope it might make other anxious, neurotic performers and teachers like me feel less alone 🤞
The Obvious:
-You didn’t fail. You just got sick.
-You aren’t lazy. You’re just sick
-Illness holds no moral value.
-Everyone gets sick.
-You won’t feel like this forever.
-Also…you will probably feel like this again sometime.
…
-You have an organic, ever-changing and ever-adapting meat suit who interacts with other meat suits…all of which are susceptible to viruses.
-You are operating in a world where the temperature can apparently go from 40 to 80 to 28 and snowing in less than 72hours….
-^ if that shift messed up your other instrument’s tuning, it probably messed with yours too.
-You cannot control the weather.
-You have a lot of control over your own body. Not total control.
-You can do everything “right” to prevent sickness …and still get sick.
The Obvious (Teacher Edition)
-You can be an expert voice user, teach people about voice use…and sometimes loose your voice…use.
-Getting laryngitis doesn’t mean you know less about the larynx or make you unqualified to use it/teach people about it.
-Vocal cords are miraculous tiny little slime flaps. They are AMAZING, tough and resilient… (just like you are superstar! 😉)
They are also (as previously stated)… tiny little slime flaps. Cut ‘em some slack. They do plenty for you. They’re not gonna work perfectly 100% of the time.
Just look on the bright side! 🙄
-It’s your body’s way for proteeeeccctttingggg youuuu.
-Isn’t your body’s ability to heal itself amaaaazzzing???
-Isn’t medicine ammmmaaazzzinnngg?
-Isn’t it great your body functions as well as it does as often as it does??
-Yes… let’s totally take a moment to be grateful for all the things
-And…then you can take the rest of the day to accept your current truth which is that you feel crappy, you had to cancel paying lessons and gigs (with no paid sick time), and miss out on audition opportunities…all of which does… indeed…suck.
Feeling frustrated when things are frustrating is…fine lol.
Now…the unhinged…Part 1
-Yes, IF you were scheduled to make your Broadway debut tonight… you’d have to call out, And that would suck. But my darling… That’s not actually happening right now. Why are we inventing things to get anxious about?
Why are we rushing our recovery to prove we could overcome a challenge that is indeed…imaginary.
-Also…the above scenario has probably happened to a bunch of people…and they probably all survived. You would too.
The Unhinged Pt. 2
-Girl…You tell your students 50x a day that the voice is influenced and informed by the whole body. So you know vocal rest also means full body rest….right?
Just because you “could” run errands, clean your house, and do a workout doesn’t mean you “should.”
So why don’t we put THAT voice on vocal rest too, shall we? GO TAKE A NAP!
-Sure if “exercising the rest muscle”…is what gets you to actually rest, yea go ahead and call it that.
I know you’re a “do-er” we love that about you.
We now need you to DO rest.
Finally…
-My sweet love… I know you want to sing and talk SO badly right now!
Good thing you do those things for a living since you like ‘em so much!
How COOL and rare it is to like your job and miss your clients when you have to cancel.
-You’ll be back at it soon enough and this will feel like just a lil blip.
-Talk to yourself like you do your students. Give yourself the same grace and encouragement you give them.
-You know what to do.
“Slowly is the fastest way to get to where you want to be.”
…You’ve got this!