You Heard It Everyday. No Wonder It Became Your Own Voice.| Music Therapy | Vancouver, WA

I bought five new swimsuits this week.

Not because I wanted to. Because I'm going on vacation, and somewhere between the online shopping, the bathroom mirror and the spiral that follows, buying new suits every single time has become my ritual. My armor. My way of trying to control something that still, after all these years, controls me more than I'd like to admit.

I'm a music therapist. I help women reclaim their voices and celebrate who they are. And I still stand in front of a mirror many days and hear every unkind thing I was ever told about my body playing on repeat, like a song I can’t stand but somehow know every word to.

When Did It Start?

For me, it started so young. I was always the bigger girl in the room, or at least, I was always told I was. I was compared to smaller girls constantly, including my smaller older sister. I developed early, and the attention that came with that felt like my fault somehow. So I hid. I wore clothes that didn't fit me, baggy, oversized, anything to disappear, that is what I was taught to do.

My senior year of high school, I started throwing up after every meal. I lost a significant amount of weight. I lied to my mom. She took me to doctor after doctor trying to figure out what was wrong. When I finally started wearing clothes that actually fit, people's reactions stunned me. They told me they couldn't believe I'd been hiding. That I looked amazing. That they never knew.

They meant it as a compliment, but it felt like a confirmation of everything I'd been afraid of, that my body was something to be evaluated, commented on, and managed.

Those years built a voice inside me, and that voice has been commenting on my reflection ever since.

Why the Replay Won't Stop, Even When You Know It's Not True

If you're neurodivergent, or you've never quite fit the mold, you know this voice isn't subtle.

It's not a quiet doubt. It's told to you out loud, every day, in classrooms, at dinner tables, in doctor's offices. In the casual comments of people who thought they were helping. You hear it so many times that you stop needing anyone else to say it. You become the voice. You take over the job yourself.

And here's what makes it so impossible to just "think your way out of it," even when you KNOW the voice is wrong, the replay doesn't stop. Because the brain doesn't run on logic, it runs on grooves and emotions. And those grooves were carved deep, over years, by messages that had no right to that kind of power.

The replay is what gives it power. The replay is what lets it control how you show up.

Why Affirmations Alone Don't Work And What Does

I don't have a five-step fix. I have five swimsuits and determination. This is ongoing work for me. It probably is for you too.

But here's what I've learned, both in my own life and in my work with clients:

Step one is never logic. It's never affirmations. It's emotion.

Negative self-talk doesn't live in your head. It lives in your body. It has a feeling attached to it, shame, fear, grief, anger and until you touch that feeling, the words just keep cycling. You can know something is untrue and still feel it completely. Both things are real.

This is where music therapy enters and how music makes you feel matters.

So Let’s Talk About the Blues, Because They Were Made For This.

The blues weren't created to entertain. They were created to survive.

Blues music was born from the lived experience of Black Americans, people who had been told in every possible way that they were less than, wrong, not enough. The blues was how they took that pain and said it out loud. Gave it form. Gave it rhythm. Refused to let it stay buried and silent where it could fester.

The blues said: I am going to name what hurts. I am going to express it fully. And then, and this is the part that changes everything, I am going to resolve it. Reframe it. Claim something for myself on the other side.

That three-part structure is built right into the lyric form. And it is one of the most powerful self-talk tools I have ever used with clients.

How Blues Lyric Writing Works

The format is simple. AAB structure, three lines.

Line A: You state the truth, what you're feeling. What the voice says. What the pain is.

Line A (repeated): You say it again. You let it land. You don't rush past it.

Line B: You resolve it. Reframe it. Claim something new.

You say the hard thing twice, you actually honor it, sit with it, let it be real, and then on the third line, you take your power back.

Here's an example of what this might look like:

I spent years ashamed, hiding, staring in that mirror wishing I was anyone but me.

I spent years ashamed, hiding, staring in that mirror wishing I was anyone but me.

But I walk head tall, determination and all, this voice is mine now, and I'm finally free.

That third line is yours. Nobody hands it to you. You write it. And when you write it, when you find the words that feel true for YOUR story, something shifts. You're no longer just the person being sung to by that voice. You become the author.

That's reclamation. Not pretending the voice doesn't exist. Writing back to it.

Try This

This week, if you're ready, try writing one blues lyric about your self-talk.

Pick one specific thing the voice says to you. Write it down as your A line. Say it twice. Then write your B line, not a toxic positive spin, not "everything is fine," but something true and yours. A reframe. A small claiming of ground.

It doesn't have to be perfect. Blues never was, it is raw and real. That's the whole point.

If you want to go deeper, add a melody. Hum something. Bang out a rhythm on the table. Let your body into it, not just your mind. That's when it really starts to move.

I'm getting on that plane with my five swimsuits. The safe ones and the bold ones. And whatever voice shows up in that moment, I'm going anyway.

Because that's what reclamation actually looks like. Not silence. Showing up in spite of the noise.

Every blues song starts with the hard truth. So does reclaiming your self-talk. Subscribe and I'll show you how to write the third line, the one that's finally, fully yours.

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