February is a month devoted to the celebration of love, and what is a more appropriate object of celebration for artists? Love is our greatest inspiration and our greatest goad; it is our supreme strength and our deadliest downfall. We are constantly encouraged to vigorously pursue our passions. We are urged at every turn, mostly by people who want our money, to demonstrate our affections through grand (and preferably expensive) romantic gestures. But there are many kinds of love, and many ways of demonstrating it. And, so, the special valentine I want each of us to send this month is a valentine to ourselves.
I can hear the chuckles and snorts right through the computer screen. Surely the last thing any artist needs is to love himself more, to be more self-centered! But I am talking about the kind of self-love that is essential to the health of your career, your soul and, yes, even to your relationships. This is a love that must be carefully maintained, because in our rough-and-tumble world, love takes many hits and can so easily be seriously wounded. Taking judicious care of your essential needs and seeing to the health of your career, your personal business, and your own self is not selfish, and it only makes your relationships stronger, happier, and healthier.
In my consultation work, I hear again and again from singers who have given up their pursuit of careers because they weren’t able to fulfill their youthful dreams to the standard they thought they should, because some well meaning person gave them an unhappy “reality check” or just because life got in the way. These people are inevitably living with holes in their souls. Often they don’t sing much at all and they yearn to somehow get back to it. They’ve tried to live without singing and they discover that it simply makes them too unhappy. They are denying the essence of who they are. Of course it hurts.
A wonderful writer acquaintance of mine stopped doing any serious writing for several years. She felt that it was taking too much time away from her family. A stay-at-home mom with young children and a husband who worked long hours, she believed that taking time to write was selfish and she could not be a good wife and mother while doing it. This brilliant, funny woman with so much to say to the world made herself physically ill and emotionally frantic by denying herself her basic need to create through putting words on paper. This certainly affected the quality of care she was able to give her family. Sick and miserable, she finally realized that making space in her life to write was not only better for her loved ones, it was an essential and basic need for her health and sanity.
Making time in our lives to make art is sometimes a difficult call for artists to make. Singers get flak from all manner of “civilians”—strangers, friends, family members, even those closest to us. What we do may appear selfish to outsiders, because it looks—and it is—fun. But they’re only seeing the fun part. They aren’t living through the hours of rehearsal, the struggle to perfect technique, the legwork that goes into producing a CD or a show or getting an audition or writing a great class syllabus—most of which singers are accomplishing in addition to a nine-to-five day job.
To outsiders, the pursuit of art may seem irresponsible because relatively few make a good living at it. Yet the people who criticize the artist “lifestyle” are often great consumers of music, TV, films, and other art forms themselves. Somehow, some misinformation has entered into conventional wisdom—if you aren’t a big-name artist, you don’t have the “right” to create; your contribution isn’t great enough. And this is, quite frankly, silly.
In my own opera training program, Spotlight on Opera, career track and avocational singers work happily side by side, teaching each other and encouraging each other to greater achievements. Our modest productions reach audiences that might not otherwise have been exposed to opera or who do not have the opportunity to experience it live as often as they’d like. There is something very special and honest about opera presented in an intimate setting, stripped of all the trappings, and both the singers and the audiences really respond to it.
Some of these singers may have big careers. Others will try, but will never get much beyond the spotlight they experience in our little company. Still others have no desire for a professional career—they are enthusiastic hobbyists. But who is to say that these contributions to the art form aren’t valuable, perhaps even necessary? They are bringing beauty into the world. They are serving the art form. They are sharing themselves in the way they are hardwired to share.
So, if you are a singer, sing! Sing without shame or guilt—because singing is who and what you are, and you need to sing to be healthy and happy. Singing, for you, is self-love.
Now, you may not get to sing professionally at the level you would like. You may need to find a way to sing that does not include an endless treadmill of fruitless auditions or unsatisfying, dead-end gigs that never pay enough or get you to that elusive next level. You owe yourself honesty. Stubbornly and blindly pursuing a career that is devouring all your resources and keeping you in a constant state of frustration and sorrow without giving you the rewards you need is not self-love. It’s self-destruction.
The same is true of a soul-sucking day job. If you slog miserably through your tasks, dreading going to work each day, that job had better at least be providing you with the money, flexibility, and benefits to pursue what you really love. If it can’t give you those things, what’s the point? Love yourself. Find something that gives you satisfaction and security. You may not find all you need in one place, but find it somewhere.
Love yourself by taking care of not only your mental but also your physical health. You would not dream of intentionally abusing your voice, into which you have put so much time, effort, and money. Your body is part of that magnificent instrument, and when you don’t care for it properly, you are indeed abusing your voice. You are abusing your own potential, and that certainly affects your career and every aspect of your life. Caring for your body is part of caring for your career. Take the time to eat, sleep, and exercise properly so that you are strong, happy, and able to easily do what is required of you.
Caring for your career also means taking the time you need to do things properly. It is so easy, in the hustle and bustle of daily life, to let mundane demands erode the time and energy we should be spending on learning new music, working on our voices, researching potential auditions, keeping up with our taxes, networking with potential employers, or simply doing the small tasks that are necessary to keep our classical singing businesses in order. We let these things pile up until we have no choice but to deal with them, and then we are frantic and unable to do our best work. So this year, give yourself the lovely valentine of taking the time to get organized so you can avoid this particular form of self-sabotage.
It seems so obvious, but we so often forget to do these things that would ultimately make our lives easier and happier, our careers more successful, our relationships stronger. We allow ourselves to get bogged down by fears and uncertainties. But when we treat ourselves with kindness, we make ourselves stronger. Success always grows from a position of strength, and rarely from one of despair.
Love yourself. You, of all people, are worth it.
