Concert of Birds (Birds and Flowers) – Juan De Arellano. 1646. Wikioo.

“I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.”

Rumi

This is a happy post. It is to do with freedom, celebration, joy, singing. It is principally about having the confidence to sing your own song, to have your own voice. It is about putting aside your fears, your self-consciousness, your self-doubts and really experiencing the freedom to be yourself, and doing what makes you feel good, whole, joyful. It is about being and doing what makes you feel like YOU!

Colour dance – (Ernst Ludwig Kirchner)

Forget your voice, sing!
Forget your feet, dance!
Forget your life, live!
Forget yourself and be!

Kamand Kojouri

• What does ‘singing your own song’ mean?

To a large extent, as Kohouri says, ‘singing your own song’ is about finding out who you are, learning to accept yourself and then forgetting yourself. It is connected with being able to express your views and feelings without being afraid of how they will be received or interpreted by others. It is to do with knowing that you have integrity, honesty, and something to give to the world, without fear or trepidation.

“Love yourself. Then forget it.

Then love the world.”

Mary Oliver 

Forgetting yourself involves a lack of self-consciousness, a feeling of freedom from self-doubt and criticism. Singing your own song also means knowing who you are, understanding your self, knowing what you believe and do not believe. It is related to feeling strong enough to be your real self, to be authentic, no matter what others might think or feel about this.

Singing your own song is life affirming; it is the opposite to ‘dancing to another person’s tune.’ If you can be spontaneous and free, you will be able to choose your own way in life and ‘play your own music,’ without imitating others or eternally struggling to meet someone else’s needs instead of your own.

Singing Family – (David Jandi)

“A true family’s love nourishes, it’s the rock that is meant to support and strengthen you after being weakened by the adversities of life.”

Wayne Chris

From childhood, we need to be encouraged to learn to sing our own song, to become our own person. That will mean that we have a better chance of growing up knowing who we are. If we have been raised to please others at all times, we will likely become adults who do not know our own selves, always trying to satisfy others’ needs at the expense of our own.

Being able to break free of such restrictions is a liberating experience, for which many people might need therapeutic help.

Blooming summer – Emile Nolde. Wikioo

“You’re under no obligation to be who people think you are. Change, grow, rearrange yourself. Free and beautiful things always bloom and spark with no holding back.”

Charlotte Eriksson

• We Are All Unique

Self-portrait – Andy Warhol. Wikioo

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”

Neil Gaiman

“We have to dare to be ourselves, however frightening or strange that self may prove to be.”

May Sarton

Blue Birds in Flowers – Maria Primachenko. 1983.Wikioo.

“Two birds never sing the same song”

Regina Spektor

Being unafraid to stand out from the crowd, despite the threat of being criticised, is highly important. It is vital to strive to be true to ourselves, develop the resilience and courage to be authentic, and not allow ourselves to be cowed by public opinion. Then our voice will be heard above the cacophony of life.

“But part of getting to know yourself is to unknow yourself—to let go of the limiting stories you’ve told yourself about who you are so that you aren’t trapped by them, so you can live your life and not the story you’ve been telling yourself about your life.”

Lori Gottlieb

Being our real selves involves courage, the courage to risk being true and authentic. This sometimes requires that we speak out for change.

• The Song Inside Us: Telling Your Own Story

The concept of individuation refers to the development of a mature and integrated personality, having a distinct sense of self and feeling unique, independent and separate from others. This process is, inevitably, helped by psychotherapy, in that parts of the unconscious of which we have been oblivious can be brought into conscious awareness.

Unless we can become a more whole and individuated person, it will be difficult to have relationships with others. This is because, for example,  if we do not have a distinct and authentic self, we may become over-dependent on others, merging with them and taking on their views and ways of thinking.

Without such self-realisation, it will not be possible to have a sense of a real self, to find out who we really are. As a result, we will not be able to relate to others in a genuine way, as we will always be wearing masks.

Individuated people are more likely to be authentic and wise. The achievement of this could be something to aim for throughout our whole lives and can, in itself, give us a wonderful sense of purpose.

Finding one’s own voice means standing out from the crowd and saying what is true to one’s heart. It is having the courage and resilience to be one’s genuine self, even if this goes against the opinion of others.

In order to find our own voice, we need to risk speaking out, to go outside our comfort zone, perhaps breaking some of our habitual ways of being and some societal ‘rules.’

It is not always easy.

“If you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.”

Seamus Heaney

Woman at the Window – Jacek Malczewski. Wikioo

“There is a wild woman under our skin who wants nothing more than to dance until her feet are sore, sing her beautiful grief into the rafters, and offer the bottomless cup of her creativity as a way of life. And if you are able to sing from the very wound that you’ve worked so hard to hide, not only will it give meaning to your own story, but it becomes a corroborative voice for others with a similar wounding.”

Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Remembering Ourselves home

Telling our own story, speaking out about ourselves and our beliefs is vital, especially if we have experienced trauma. As the quote above explains, this may not only help you, it may also help others around you, who will hear your story and feel inspired and hopeful that they, too, can release their own ‘song.’ Keeping your song inside, unheard by anyone, is a painful experience.

Silence – Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Füssli)1799. Wikioo.

“There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.”

Maya Angelou

• A Song That Follows Your Star.

Fluid Red Heart – Putu Sutawijaya. Wikioo.

“You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.”

James Baldwin

Song of Songs IV (8) – Marc Chagall. 1958. Wikioo.

“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”

Plato

In terms of our everyday selves, singing our song and following our star mean that we are able to risk free-thinking, ignoring fears of being seen as weird or stupid, or worrying about the disapproval of others. It involves times when we can lift the cultural constraints on our patterns of thought and allow ourselves to be authentic and to have some uninhibited thought-freedom. This is really living our lives.

It is not always easy to be different, or to think differently. It is often tempting to fit in with the ways of thinking of others around us. Real free-spiritedness means that we have the strength and the confidence to speak up for ourselves, to act for ourselves, even when we feel we are facing a sea of disapproval.

Put on your red shoes – Raymond Leech. Wikioo

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Steve Jobs

©Linda Berman