Adele is my soul therapy

So this is my Saturday afternoon, listening to Adele’s “30” album, released at the end of last year. I've already studied it since it's release and it’s truly a masterpiece and so personal. I feel like it’s her therapy sessions. As a dancer, it forces me to move slowly and enjoy each bass, each background vocal.. and the space.

I smoked a bit of weed and then boiled some water for tea and made rooibos chai.

So Adele. Yes. I’ve listened to her since 2011. Let’s take it all the way back, to her album “21”. Mind you, I was in grade 9, only 15 years old. But her voice and her energy, I could feel it. Again so personal, but for some reason, I could relate it to what was going on in my life at the time.

Something I found with her music now, at age 24, is that it’s therapeutic.

Therapeutic to my body, soul, and more importantly my voice. I feel like I have a lot of trauma surrounding my verbal voice. The number of times, I was told as a child, “You’re so shy”… “read more books”, “You don’t speak properly”…those were indirectly and directly said to me as a child, even as I reached my preteens. I internalized it all. It was fucking traumatic because it made me doubt my voice. I was afraid to have an opinion, because of what my voice sounded like. I wasn't taught to speak up as well.

Like how crazy is that? 


This was true especially when it came to singing. When I was 12, I was really into singing and playing guitar. Taylor Swift started popping at the time (When “Fearless” dropped in 2009, yes that long ago), ideally, I also wanted to be the girl who sang and played the guitar on a stage - maybe not a stage, but at least able to write my own songs and play guitar.


 So, my parents signed me up for guitar lessons at a music school in the area.

I actually enjoyed it, because I had a good teacher who was willing to teach and really patient. He was an Afrikaans speaking guy, with long hair and a lanky frame. (Afrikaans is a language amongst 11, that is spoken in South Africa).

He almost reminded me of “Lucky” from the Hindi movie, “Main Hoon Na”. Go google it right now. So that guy, but the white version. 

He was pretty cool and a good teacher. 

His mother, on the other hand, offered singing lessons to kids who wanted to learn how to sing. I perhaps somehow convinced my parents that I wanted to take up singing lessons, and so they put some deposits through and I was in, and so was my twin sister. Both of us loved singing but had different choices in who our favourite singers were.

I don’t remember being complimented that much on my voice - maybe from my singing teacher every now and then - but I don’t remember any particular compliments or praise from my mom or dad, whenever they took me to singing lessons or picked me up. It was almost always “critiques” as if they knew better - which I don’t think they did, because they had never taken singing lessons in their life, at least not that I knew of. I’m not sure what their intentions were either, it’s hard to say if they were good.

I remember this one particular lesson.

It was in preparation for a show or a competition or something like that, and both our parents were there for the rehearsal. I think both my sister and I were happy at that moment that they were supportive.

Later in life, they tended to be supportive of other things that we weren’t exactly passionate about. 



And so during the lesson, they sat and observed us taking turns, running through our song selections, with our teacher playing piano and counting us in. We would always get a little more nervous when our dad was there, because he was hardly satisfied with anything, that my sister and I did. I felt like it was always hard to win his approval unless it was all A’s in school or a well-paying job or something of his interest.

At some point, his phone rang and he went downstairs to answer it - which I understood, (as I would have done the same). However, what I also later understood was his phone call wasn’t a long one, and he ended up waiting in the car until our practice was over.

Over the course of the weeks, I was willing to learn and practice and get better, lesson after lesson, because I really loved it, but as soon as the teacher said that will take a long time to get to a level of ‘good’ or even ‘professional’, my sister and I were pulled out of the lessons and were told to “stick with guitar lessons”, because it came easier to us.

It was true, but it wasn’t what I wanted. 



I remember the car ride home after that decision. I was heartbroken because I genuinely loved it. As an 11-12- year- old - which is still decently ‘young’ to be conditioned - I took it to mean that I wasn’t good enough for a music teacher, for my parents, and most, unfortunately, for myself. They didn’t have belief in me that I could do it, and neither did I.

I resisted singing in front of people for a while until very later in high school (age 14) - but maybe once for a show or something, and then I stopped. I truly believed that I couldn’t sing. But I still enjoyed it, somehow. 



I didn't sing in front of anyone, only if I was by myself. I felt the need to judge myself if I had the impulse to sing in front of someone. 



So getting back to Adele, she makes me wanna sing out…loud.

Her album “30” and going back to listen to “25” and “21”, every time I re-listen, I have this urge to sing.

I don’t care if I’m not good, I just want to sing. So thank you Adele.

Upon reading into inner child work, and how play is important to us adults, singing is something that is healing to me. It's my playtime, and I'm reclaiming it.

My boyfriend reassures me that I have a good voice, and further compliments me that he likes it when I sing. Even writing this, and acknowledging this, I feel sad.

Because deep down, that small girl inside of me is happy when she sings, and at times I stop her….afraid. Afraid of what others would think or whether I’m good enough.

At times, I wish I continued singing lessons and was further validated by my parents that I have a good singing voice or a good speaking voice in general. But I don’t think that would happen anytime soon.

They were probably communicating from a wounded place, themselves - perhaps they were critiqued or judged on what they enjoyed, and they had no way out of that conditioning, or that type of awareness.

The only validation I have to seek is my own, and not anyone else’s. And that’s what I am working on. I sing daily - or at least try to. It’s healing. It puts me at ease.

Her “30” album validates my inner child and slowly closes the wound of doubting my own voice. Don’t get me wrong, the thoughts of insecurity creep up every now and then, I acknowledge it, and re-affirm myself,

My voice is strong, my voice is powerful, I enjoy singing, it’s good for my soul.

Listening to Adele puts me at ease and I sing along with her.

So thank you, Adele. Thank you for providing me with soul therapy.