In Bre Kennedy’s Debut Album “Note To Self,” She Asks Herself How She’s Doing

Folks recommend all types of issues to encourage creativity from listening to music to taking a stroll in nature to studying or practising mindfulness. Nobody, at the very least that I’m conscious of, suggests spending months self-reflecting throughout a pandemic. 

However, that’s precisely what impressed Bre Kennedy, an indie-pop/singer-songwriter based mostly in Nashville, as she began to place collectively her debut album, Word to Self, which is out today. Positive, she had an thought of what the album can be earlier than what she calls the “darkish storm” arrived. And, she had even written some songs. However, Covid-19 modified all the things.

She says, “Being alone for that lengthy…I might sit with myself for hours [and] I used to be realizing like, ‘Oh, I am not the identical individual,’ even after a number of months that I used to be with the songs earlier than this. So, I made a decision that I wished to only see what was going to come back out in that point.”

Initially, it wasn’t simple. As an empath, she needed to first take a minute away from writing totally. She explains, “I wasn’t actually artistic initially of it, as a result of…seeing the world simply damage actually was making me damage.” However, after a pause, she began to have “Zoom remedy classes” together with her buddies the place they wrote over a bottle of wine. She additionally started to self-reflect by working by a e book referred to as The Artist’s Manner. Each morning, for 12 weeks, she wrote 3 pages of no matter got here to her thoughts. 

She emphasizes, “That is remedy in itself, and also you unpack rather a lot…I do not assume I might have stopped to try this, I actually do not know if I ever would have, had I not been pressured to take a seat with myself….Having that point alone throughout quarantine…I discovered that like, ‘Oh, I hadn’t stopped up till my mid to late 20s, to ask myself, like, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ And, I feel that simply comes with progress. However it was additionally like a pressure sped up progress, as a result of all of us sort of aged 10 years within the final yr.” 

Maybe 27 years handed initially earlier than she did any deep diving into her psyche, as a result of alone time isn’t simple to seek out. Bre notes, “We’re continuously determining how different persons are doing on a regular basis (she gestures to her cellphone because the supply) and I feel we simply dwell in a tradition in a society that’s extra about displaying how we’re doing than actually doing the work…I simply assume we’re a go go go tradition, and lots of people would possibly make the excuse that I do not actually have time to try this, which was my excuse for my entire life up till now.”  Covid-19 gave her no selection however to cease.

Taking the time to really do the work on herself was vital, Bre says, as a result of even when we don’t notice it, our experiences from the previous intervene with our current. As an example this she grabbed gadgets round her residence and put them symbolically on her shoulders and again and highlighted that every represented one thing unhealthy or unfavorable that had occurred in her previous. Like, for instance, a woman in fourth grade telling her she wasn’t able to something. She feels that we principally simply carry the stuff that occurred to us, with us, and don’t even know it’s there, or we faux that it isn’t. However, it’s there and it impacts our lives and {our relationships}, so we have now to take care of all of it. 

Bre explains, “I feel for psychological well being, unpacking the place you’ve got been so to let go and shed some stuff into the place you are going…is absolutely vital.” She provides that although her challenges made her who she is, and he or she is doing okay and studying from them, she does want somebody instructed her to pause and replicate earlier on in her life. She jokes that even now when she listens again to her songs, she wished she was “higher at listening to what I’m writing.” 

So, how does she really feel about placing her self-reflections that was her new album of music into the world? One phrase: susceptible, and probably the most she has ever been. However, on the identical time, she is aware of when her album is out, she’s going to really feel proud. She says, “This was a lovely time capsule, simply proof that creativity can come out of one thing…like a darkish place.”

Her delight additionally comes from realizing vulnerability can usually assist others really feel seen and fewer alone. That is one thing she hopes will occur when folks take heed to her new music. Even when they could wish to escape the ache of the world proper now, she hopes that possibly within the close to future there can be a time that they’ll wish to really feel identical to she did (or at the very least know another person did, too).

She emphasizes, “Final yr was actually identical to, no, all you may have is you, all you may have is your psychological well being, and what you are doing to maintain your self. That is it. And, I am not glad that final yr occurred in any respect. I hate it. However I’m any individual who actually believes that we have now a selection about how we see issues. And I consider in silver linings. And I consider that for me, it actually pushed me to take a seat down and acknowledge all these items…Word to Self was this lovely reward of like, ‘Hey, it is a starting of a journey of you attending to know your psychological well being and the way you wish to strategy that journey’ ”

As she will get up each morning, takes her canine out, seems to be on the solar, reads a e book chapter, and journals, all earlier than she interacts with anybody else on her cellphone, Bre is actually simply getting began.