Mike’s Minute:  The Power of Songwriting – Navigating Emotions.

Penny sat by the large street-side window of the lounge in her family home and stared outside.  It was a regular occurrence which eventually became, in her parent’s observations, a habit. But in truth, it was an obsession and Penny knew that. She realized it was an inherent process of repetitive concentration. Her parents simply decided the solace Penny sought was a practice of calm. Probably of benefit to her. They failed to notice however that she never moved from the same spot on the couch and her eyes went from left to right in an almost mathematical repetition. Her eyes never moved from right to left. It all came down to the traffic coming onto the motorway ramp off in the distance. Penny fixed her eyes on the arrival of each van, truck, car etc , all moving up the on-ramp and then down the southern motorway.    It was a pattern that transfixed her. And it dominated her waking hours. Would she count the cars correctly? Had she missed some on their ascendency up the on-ramp and onto the motorway?  

It wasn’t long until Penny refused to go to school and just stayed at home each day sitting on the same window seat while staring out to the motorway on-ramp. And her eyes followed the distant ongoing traffic and she counted each vehicle as it moved up the ramp and sped away. She counted each one with a rigid accuracy. This brought her immense peace. And she was happy. It was only when the sun set that she was brought to a state of fear and panic. It was in the evolving dark when the traffic faded and the number of vehicles shrunk to a trickle. 

Then she fell into a space where her parents and teachers grilled her with queries, questions all pointed to bring her obsession to an end. But she rejected their investigations and continued to seek refuge in the view from the window.   

It so happened Penny’s family had a guitar in the very lounge where she took the rigid pattern of staring with eye movements that eased her mind. And from the seeds that had been sewn when taking guitar lessons as a youngster, Penny turned to the melodic joy of the guitar to formulate a backdrop to her staring out at the motorway. Something gathered her attention. Something came alive. She started to spirit an adventurous discipline of writing tunes on the guitar to which she slowly but surely added words. And the result was clear – songs turned up and Penny would play them and not bother with the fixation on the motorway. This combination was almost magical and she found that this eased her mind.  However -  it was more than that. When she left the lounge, she always took the guitar with her and fell into a state of joy that brought her out of the traffic counting addiction. And when she had that guitar and was singing – she was set free. 

 Penny ended up mastering and defeating her condition which is called Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. And on top of that she spent time with a psychologist who explained her mental health problem and in their joint effort they silenced it. It was simple. The pursuit of music and her singing / songwriting fueled that success. It came down to her believing it; and believing in herself. 

Postscript: 

This scenario is one where many sufferers of mental health disorders can shake their problems through a creative pursuit such as songwriting and then sharing the songs with performances to their friends, schools and family. And there’s also the simple craft of talking to family and professionals about all that troubles them and they can know that there is a healing process to be found. Time passes and there is an understanding to be had. No-one should suffer in silence…. Or be alone.