Inhibitions

Why do we hold ourselves back?

I was always told that I sing well. When I was 12, I had a music teacher come home to take classes for me. I was doing alright. In fact, the music teacher at school wanted me to join the prayer group. I did not find that exciting enough at the time. And I soon got bored with the music classes and stopped the teacher from coming.

What happened was that I stopped singing with the classes. To this date, I would shy away from even casually singing. It makes me uncomfortable for some reason. I do still sing in my private space. In fact, if I’m not listening to music and not singing, it actually signals I have something else on my mind or that I’m stressed.

But if in a gathering someone asked me to sing, I would go to hell’s end to escape that. And then if I did sing and if someone ever complimented me on my singing, I would think they are mad. Like they’re joking about it. Or saying so out of courtesy.

I don’t know why. Is it guilt that I could have done better with my talent? Is it regret that I did not do the diligence to develop it?

I don’t know. But it is uncomfortable to feel uncomfortable. And although I do feel unprepared to even try to sing, I want to try. I don’t want to learn to be a professional singer. I don’t get high off singing the toughies. But there are a handful of songs that I have always enjoyed and want to enjoy going forward as well. So just for myself, and maybe for my mom who happens to be the only fan of my music, I will try and sing.

Got me a Ukulele and I’m going to learn that. I’ve never learned a musical instrument in my life and this one is going to be fun!

Now there is in fact a trick to make me sing. Fine, I’ll let you in on that. Force me to dance. Which I will never do and instead will say, “I can sing for you, but just don’t make me dance.”

I know right. That makes it 2 things I absolutely get uncomfortable doing. But more on dancing later.

One thing at a time.