Demons, Allison Russell
2024 Summer Playlist: Unplug & Elevate
Unplug & Elevate: Notes of Empowerment Summer Playlist is a collaborative mixtape of music and thoughts sourced by three colleagues who work in the areas of wellness, burnout, and purpose, but more importantly, who are friends. We know that having the right playlist for a road trip (or whatever journey one is on) makes ALL the difference. This summer, we handpicked songs from our lives that helped us to rebalance, recoup our own stories, and root into our purpose. Listen now
This song shows up on our Unplug & Elevate playlist because healing has to start somewhere. I think Allison Russell is a remarkable artist and this song is SOO Good. I keep humming this song days after hearing it. In interviews, Allison has spoken about the song's meaning, which comes from overcoming her childhood trauma. She wanted this song to have a groove and humor infused in the lyrics - not some sad dirge filled with pity. She points to something I know deeply: humor, music, and any creative acts are where healing begins. Yet, the act of starting emotional healing often doesn’t come easily.
When it comes to physical wounds, healing might start with a trip to the ER or doctor’s office, where professionals determine the injury's severity. But if left untreated, physical wounds can get infected, gangrenous, and/or leave them with a lifelong affliction or death.
With the wounds we can’t see, it’s trickier. A brief look at suicide statistics lead me to conclude that neglected emotional wounds can be equally dangerous. The CDC reports that in 2021, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the US. Equally compelling is that for every death by suicide, there are 38 self-reported attempts, and a significant number of people experience suicidal thoughts annually. (Psst…You aren’t the only one with those dark thoughts in traffic.) While most of us might not act on scary thoughts, they can indicate a neglected emotional wound festering. Maybe it’s depression, maybe it’s anxiety, or maybe it’s just an impulsive thought, but just in case here’s what I’m looking for when I’m talking to folks about their mental health:
Untreated depression can feel like:
Sleeping too much or not being able to get out of bed
Sleeping too little
The things you used to love feeling ‘Meh.’
Road rage
Ongoing feelings of irritation and anger
A sense that nothing really matters and worthlessness
Anxiety can feel like:
Your brain won’t stop thinking
Avoiding the things, you're worried about, but the worry only gets worse
Going to the doctor or the ER, all sweaty, with your stomach in knots, unable to catch your breath, having very real heart palpitations, thinking you're having a cardiac episode, only to be told it’s just panic.
Mental health professionals have lots of tools to help determine what your symptoms might mean. One of the tools I use more and more is an assessment for Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to assess childhood trauma. A high score on this assessment can help your health team determine why your body reacts in certain ways to stressors. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris writes about this in her book “The Deepest Well” about her experience as a physician in a community health setting. She found a direct correlation between childhood trauma and long-term health problems (physical, mental, and spiritual). Here’s a link to an ACES survey: ACES Quiz. Please know that if you or someone you love has a high ACEs score, this quiz doesn’t consider all of the positive protective factors that produce resilience in a child’s life.
My personal experience of ignoring or repressing wounds looks like using sarcasm and anger to gloss over hurts, pains, disappointments, and traumas. This might be enough to get me through an awkward dinner party. But for my relationships, dreams, goals, and desires, those coping mechanisms can’t get me to where I want to go. I had to start treating my emotional wounds as carefully as my physical wounds.
Clinically, this song illustrates a skill from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy called "passengers on the bus." In this skill, one's mind is likened to a bus, where each passenger represents our thoughts, emotions, and memories. For many of us, the loudest passengers are the ones sitting in the front of the bus yelling the most negative beliefs and catastrophizing over the worst case scenario. Those demons keep folks stuck in limiting patterns that perpetuate cycles of self-destructive behavior. It’s only when one invites those demons to move to the back of the bus that our more daring, positive and hopeful but shy values get to move to the front. Slowly, those values begin to move our life (the bus) in the direction we yearn for. (Here’s a cutesy youtube video to explain this idea more).
The religion major in me wants to know, why do we have to keep the demons on the bus? Can’t they be cast out? Nope. It’s the same reason we can’t erase the scars on our knees from falling off your bike. Even the most advanced interventions can’t change your past. So, what if you had to accept it? You do not have to accept responsibility for what happened to you, but you are responsible for healing it. Before we go any further, let's define what acceptance is not.
Acceptance is not:
Forgiveness
Forgetting
Resignation or defeat
Consent
An implication that what happened was okay
A desire to repeat the experience
Assuming responsibility for the act that created the wound
Acceptance means:
A willingness to let my armor down and find a safe place
Taking responsibility for my own healing
Getting curious about starting a healing process that will put you in a position where you’re unlikely to let this happen again
An open attitude and willingness to embrace the full spectrum of human experience – the light and the darkness, the joy and the pain
As the wise anonymous quote says, “If you never heal from what hurt you, you’ll bleed on people who didn’t cut you.” Ultimately, acceptance is a journey. It’s marked by understanding new truths about ourselves and treating ourselves with kindness and understanding. This lyric “They don't like how sunlight tastes” reminds me of how powerful telling your truth, naming harm, naming trauma, telling folks when you are hurting is. In twelve step work there is a saying “you’re only as sick as your secrets.” Pulling those demons into the light, removing the shrouds of secrecy, changes the power dynamic. You are no longer captive to the power of the secret, you get to tell your truth and can start rewriting your story. By exileing our demons at the back of the bus, we disarm their power. Stripping away the armor of denial and repression, we honor our personal history and, eventually, as Russell says, “turn ‘em all into freedom riders.”
What do you value more than your pain? Is your pain keeping you from acting on that value? Could acceptance move you closer to the direction you want to go?
CDC link on suicide statistics
Resources and Tips if regarding suicide prevention
**If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or a crisis, please reach out immediately to the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741. These services are free and confidential.**
Featured Response by Charlotte Kovacs from Kovacs Coaching
It took me a L-O-N-G time to realize I used sarcasm as armor. Sarcasm is one of my family’s love languages, so I was always proud of my ability to use it just about everywhere. But, as I grew older, I started to hear my laughter and it didn’t sound genuine or light, it sounded heavy, strained, and dark. That’s when I started to get curious. What was this laugh? Was it genuine? Where was it coming from?
When a client lets out a nervous or sarcastic laugh or sigh, I try to name it to the client - I noticed that laugh there, what just happened? This allows me and the client to slow down and take inventory. Where do you feel that laugh in your body? What’s there? How does that part of you feel? Some common responses are nerves, guarded, sad, inept, lonely, ashamed. But, just as Megan says, there’s wisdom in these parts. The part that armours itself in sarcasm has been with you for a long time. It is not you, but it is part of you.
Get curious with this part. What does it want for you? How has it protected you in the past? What do you want it to know about who you are now? If it feels healing, do you want to thank this part for how it has served you at times in the past and tell it how you have other tools that need to be used now?
What’s possible when this conversation begins?
Featured Response by Eileen Murphy from Blackbird Life Coaching
Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could kick the negative passengers off the bus! Through my journey to a stress-proof life, I realized that accepting the inner critics, or as I like to call them, my internal advisory board, was a crucial turning point. These critics have been trying to protect me, and the frustration and anger I feel is the tension between who I was and who I want to become. Just like a toddler who gets upset when something is taken away, my advisory board gets LOUD!
This area of stress management is the most fascinating to me because we all have inner critics, just some of us (like me) have under-developed ways of managing and caring for them. Since these voices and stories have been with us for so long, we believe them to be true. But that frustration you feel, that’s your mature mind saying – HOLD UP! I don’t think this is right!
Step into the world of imagination—there are many ways to build a new relationship with your inner critics:
Befriend Your Inner Critic: Get to know your critic. Describe their appearance, common phrases, and what they fear most. When they feel safe, they're more willing to open up, helping you understand what's driving their outbursts.
Put Them on a Stage: Imagine your critic on stage, yelling their usual negativity. You’re in the audience, booing, throwing tomatoes, mocking them. Gradually move yourself further back in the auditorium so they become smaller and more distant.
Ridiculous Spell: Taken from Harry Potter when Neville turns a Boggart that has taken on Snape’s form into Snape with Neville’s grandma’s clothes. We can take our inner critic and reshape it into something silly. Dress it up, dress it down. Change its voice by speeding it up so it sounds cartoonish or on helium.
Play Detective: Cross-examine the inner critic and check the facts. Write down their favorite phrases and ask:
What evidence do you have to support this belief?
What evidence contradicts this belief?
How does holding onto this belief benefit you?
How does it hold you back?
How would your life be different if you let go of this belief?
What is the worst-case scenario if this belief were true?
What small step can you take today to challenge this belief?
What would your inner wisdom say about this belief?
Tune Into Your Inner Wisdom: Listen to your intuition, your deeper knowing. Let your experience and intuition guide you with strength and confidence, lowering the critic’s volume and amplifying your wisdom. It’s fun to create an inner wisdom persona like Glenda the Good Witch, Elsa, or Dr. Miranda Bailey from Grey’s Anatomy.
Embrace these playful and imaginative approaches to tame your inner critic and step into a more empowered version of yourself.
Bios
Megan Hutchinson Krings, LCSW CADC is a licensed clinical social worker and a certified alcohol and drug counselor. She often works with folks when their neglected hunches about life manifest into addiction, depression, anxiety, burnout, or deep grief for the life they want but can’t have. Megan is the founder of Mindful Heart Counseling.
Charlotte Kovacs, ACC, CPCC, empowers mid-career women who are at a crossroads, wondering what they want to be when they grow up. She provides one-on-one and small group programs designed to help them set bold goals, enabling them to fulfill their purpose both professionally and personally. Charlotte is the founder of Charlotte Kovacs Coaching.
Eileen Murphy, MA in Industrial & Organizational Psychology, is your go-to certified Stress Management and Health & Wellness coach. She’s on a mission to help you disrupt your stress and find joy, aligning your career, health, and wellness like a life-balancing pro. Eileen is the founder of Blackbird Life Coaching.
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