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 HERE!
This collaborative process with Megan and Eileen has led to many interesting and profound conversations. One of the less profound, but no less interesting, was our conversation about people who listen to lyrics versus people who listen to the melody. I fall squarely in the latter category, rarely knowing what the actual lyrics are but knowing how the melody and musicality make me feel. And that’s how this song landed on this playlist.
I’ve loved this song since it first came out in the movie City of Angels. The tone of Alanis’s voice with the amazing melody have caused me to move every time I have listened to it, for over 25 years. Every. Time. And yet, I had to look up the actual lyrics when I chose to write about it. And that’s when I realized that these lyrics weren’t important to me, the melody told a story and reminded me of key points throughout my life.
I studied ballet from the time I was 3 till my junior year in college when my right knee gave up on me. For 18 years I lived and breathed ballet. Not tap, not modern, not jazz. Ballet. My childhood room walls were full of newspaper articles, Dance Magazine covers, and any image of Mikhail Baryshnikov I could find (plus a few autographed photos that were my absolute prized possessions.) As a kid, ballet brought me joy and a creative outlet. I loved being on stage, I loved moving and I really loved moving with music. It was my first love.
As I got into my teens and my body started to change, ballet became a source of stress causing all sorts of body image issues that I’ll probably carry with me for the rest of my life. But I refused to give up on the love of my life. I started to have panic attacks in class when looking at myself in the mirrors which led to me sitting out of parts of classes, and my knee started to become a constant issue causing me to seek out doctors and physical therapists and, again, sitting out of parts of class. It was becoming a toxic relationship to say the least.
Due to my weight and shape, I was placed in lower-level classes that didn’t excite me and didn’t prepare me for the college program I had my heart set on. Once in a minor version of the program I wanted to major in, I quickly learned that I wasn’t up to the competition because of all that I’ve already listed, and my weight remained a constant…source of discussion. But I couldn’t let go of that first love – even when it wasn’t loving me back. My junior year of college I had the amazing opportunity to study abroad in Paris. And while the American University of Paris did not have a dance program, my US college said that I could study at a local studio and count it towards my necessary credits. There, in this small studio full of young French women, where I barely understood the language, I blossomed. No one mentioned my weight and the support they gave me as an outsider was pure love and joy. I came out of my shell and MOVED like I hadn’t in years. As my semester came to a close, my knee started to act up again and I decided, on my own, it was time to hang up the pointe shoes. I felt like I was going out on a high note. How many ballet students can say they danced in Paris – and did it well? I was resigned to the knee injury and felt complete.
Fast forward a few years, I was serving AmeriCorps in the Mississippi Delta and had connected with a small local dance studio to teach ballet, pointe, and modern. Now nothing against small town dance studios – I knew several people who come from AMAZING small town dance studios, but this was not one of them. As an outsider and as someone who had more experience than the owner, I was welcomed to teach, but not really accepted. I didn’t care, I was happy to be back in any studio. As we geared up for the year end recital, this “edgy big city girl” chose a less traditional ballet recital music including Stevie Ray Vaughn, Amazing Grace sung by some local teenagers and, of course, Uninvited. In that small town dance studio, with a group of young teenagers who hadn’t really been pushed to their dance potential, I came alive and choreographed pieces that I was incredibly proud of, especially the group piece to Uninvited.
20 years later, my son can tell when I’m listening to Uninvited on my headphones because I still can’t hear it without moving…on a recent flight, I was conducting along with it, in my kitchen I pirouette and glide across the room to it. I can’t hear this piece of music without being moved, literally. And that’s why I needed it on this playlist. Not because the lyrics speak to me or my life experiences, but because the music reminds me of life, and love, and relationships. Just as the music is soft and intimate at times, dynamic and complicated at other times, how it repeats themes, has notes of redemption and moves from beauty to pain and back to beauty – so does life. And we can choose to move with or without the music, we can choose to enjoy the quiet moments of life, live out loud at other moments, sing from the mountains, or whisper to the wind. We will experience beauty and pain throughout life, but it’s how we decide to move in those moments that matter.
Featured Response by Eileen Murphy from Blackbird Life Coaching
As a lover of expressing myself through music, I resonate deeply with Charlotte’s post. I love how she highlights songs that uplift us without needing words, but I also appreciate her focus on “first loves” that we might abandon as we age. Sometimes, the best way to unplug and elevate is by reconnecting with those beloved activities.
I was born a swimmer, raised in water. There’s a picture of my brother and me at the beach, capturing a scary moment for my parents: they looked away for a second, and I crawled towards the incoming waves. I was swept away, and my parents panicked until my 18-month-old head popped up, giggling with joy. My mom, who never learned to swim, enrolled us in swim lessons the next summer, and we continued until high school.
I swam on and off throughout my young adult life until I started training for a triathlon in 2018. Work had become extremely stressful, and after swimming, my husband noticed how much calmer and clearer my mind was. It was emotionally hard for me to swim because I wasn’t fast enough, I didn’t have the endurance anymore. I had to learn how to accept that I would never compete or swim as fast as I did as a teenager. I had to redefine my relationship with swimming – it’s now my respite, not a sport. A water haven where the world stands still, problems become clearer, and resolutions emerge.
If there’s an activity you loved but gave up, find a way to reconnect. Not only can it be a great stress reliever, but it can also reignite your passion and joy. Take small steps to rekindle the enjoyment, knowing it will be the same but different. We change, but that love connection has probably never truly faded from your heart and body. Embrace it, let it inspire you, and watch how it transforms your life and well-being.
Featured Response by Megan Hutchinson-Krings from Mindful Heart Counseling
Oh Alanis! I can’t hear her music without the bitter jagged little pill getting caught in my throat. I had never really heard the music of this song until Charlotte mentioned its classical implications for ballet. I listen to the lyrics of songs. The music is a perk for me. I crave story, and songs, to me, are incredible vehicles for stories.
The story I hear in this song is a response to a stalker. I think of folks in relationships with an alcoholic spouse, people struggling to get out of a domestic violence situation, addiction, or any toxic relationship. Those situations where, no matter how many times you try to end the relationship, the breakup just won’t take. To me it’s a song about boundaries and the continual need to remind other people of your boundaries in bad relationships. “I love you, and I don’t love what this drug is turning you into” or “I know you love me, but I can’t be in a relationship that hurts me”.
This summer we’re spending a lot of time talking about unplugging. Maybe this is a time you need to think about what relationships you need to unplug from? Eileen and Charlotte’s experiences speak to a healthy unplugging with something that didn’t love them back. I will vouch that Charlotte still dances and Eileen still swims. They had to find balance and boundaries with these things that fit into their life more realistically. This social worker knows that finding that sweet spot with bad relationships is REALLY hard.
I want you to consider if there are relationships that you need to unplug from? Smart people find themselves in abusive and manipulative situations, this isn’t just some flaw in you. Here’s a quick ten question survey to determine if you might need to unplug from an abusive relationship*:
Are you in any relationship right now in which someone:
- Offers you substances in your presence when you’ve asked them not to?
- Repeatedly criticizes you, invalidates your feelings, or humiliates you?
- Manipulates you (e.g., threatens to harm your children, pets, or loved ones)?
- Is physically hurting you or threatening to hurt you?
- Discourages you from getting help? (Medications, 12 step groups, therapy)
- Lies to you repeatedly?
- Betrays your trust (tells your secrets to others)?
- Makes unreasonable requests (demands you pay for everything?)
- Exploits you (using compromising images, or reposting them without telling you)
- Ignores your physical needs (refuses safe sex)?
- Is controlling or overinvolved (e.g. tells you what to do)?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you deserve better. Look at the National Domestic Violence Hotline https://www.thehotline.org/identify-abuse/ for more resources and information. Abusive relationships are EVERYWHERE. People can and do survive and get out. It is not easy. You deserve to be safe. If you want to have a conversation about how to leave an abusive relationship, please call 1-800-799-7233 or text START to 88788.
*Survey borrowed from “Seeking Safety” by Lisa M. Najavitis (2002)
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.
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.
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.
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