Sing and Relax Essential Worker Music Support

A singer recounts her journey from burnout in opera programs to creating “Sing and Relax,” a personalized music education program focused on joy and well-being. She shares how she rediscovered the fun in music and built a program from scratch.🌈🎶🎤

What does it mean to sing and relax? Well, before I say that, I should go back about 18 years to graduate school when I was doing callbacks across the country for opera yap programs. I was a very blessed woman as I have an instinctive gift for music, and I had done quite well in the auditions, and I was bouncing from Minnesota to New York to Chicago, singing for anybody who wanted to take their precious time to hear me. And by the time I got to Boston, I got a look at myself in the mirror right before I went in for the next callback. Just gotten off a plane from all the way across the country, dressed in some bathroom at the airport, grabbed a taxi, and I didn’t recognize myself. was dressed the right way. I had the right look. The jewelry was protocol. The pantyhose were the right color. But something had happened to me, and I happened to be singing for a woman. I had sung for an undergraduate for another program who knew me, and she didn’t recognize me when I walked in five years later. So I sang. It wasn’t my best callback ever. It really wasn’t. I was exhausted, and I got in the taxi to go back to the hotel, and I heard this little voice say, this isn’t fun anymore, is it? And I knew that that was the truth. And there had been a bunch of other situations, too, that were a lot more dramatic, seen not the best come out of people as the higher level I competed. And I’m a pretty straightforward, gentle person. I’m very maternal, even if I am talented. And I didn’t have time for the nonsense and the malarkey I was seeing, including, with all due respect from some of the coaches. So we’re sitting on the plane on my way back to Kansas, and I heard a little voice say, you need to remember why you started to do this to begin with. And you need to go back to when it was fun, and you need to go back to when it was you singing with your foster brother and your best friend, you know, in the basement of a church after having spent 16 years being abused. If you sang at all, the freedom that came with that, the laughter that came with that, you’ve got to find that again, Jen. So I talked to my friend, actually, and my foster brother, and he said, yeah, you just got to get them to be able to sing and chill out. And I said, do you mean sing and relax? And he said, yeah, yeah, I do. And so, you know, on a shoestring budget of a grad student, a lot of faith, some help from this amazing woman named Paula. I’ll tell you about another time from Disability Rehab Services and my dear grandmother. We scratched it together to bring Sing and relax to life. 450 square feet in my studio, tiny little apartment while I went to school. A keyboard, which I still keep as a reminder of where it started and a whole lot of tenacity when I think about it now, and some faith. And I started from bottom to top, teaching the Littles, working my way to corporate celebrity contracts, realizing they didn’t know how to sing and relax, too, half the time, and that’s why they were here. And then in 2021, supporting essential workers. That led me to getting my certifications in music therapy. That led me to going to Forbes Business School. That led me to go to Copenhagen. That led me to nyu, and that led me to take all of those musical, colorful, beautiful things and these amazing opportunities I had and turn it into a mindset of play, structure, focus, and science. So what is Sing and Relax personalized music education to be able to find and free what’s lost? Because I can also tell you there’s plenty of singers like me out there who started doing this because they loved it, went deep into the industry, saw everything that was broken, and started to assume they were broken, too.

Did you know that you were an angel. Did you know that you could fly. Did you know you could change the world. If you’re willing to try. Did you know it doesn’t take much that an angel doesn’t always have wings, just has to smile and care. Did you know being kind, did you know, if you don’t mind, you could change the world. Did you know angels are everywhere. And it doesn’t matter if you have religion or faith. And it doesn’t matter what you look like our way, because he doesn’t care. The first angels I saw when I was small, the colors of the sky and the little boy who let me play with his truck. Did you know that you don’t have to have a lot of money. Did you know well now you do. You’re an angel. Please never stop believing that God might save the world. And please if you forgot what it was like to be a little girl, or a little boy who wanted to play with someone else’s toys, pass it along. By that cup of supergrip coffee. Open the door. You’re an angel. Please don’t ever forget. You’re an angel. And when the world is dark and wet. You get to choose if you see the sunshine or the storm. Be an angel. Nice and warm.

Do you remember way back when you were a little girl or a little boy. And you were sitting in a classroom in kindergarten, and you were having arts and crafts time. And there were safety scissors and paint, and glue, there was probably some kid if they were like me, and was trying to eat the glue and use the glue. And a little boy asks you, if you could please pass him the green paint. And all you see is a little boy. And then you see that little boy A few years later. And you notice that that little boy is different than you. Maybe that little boy is black? Or maybe he wears a special hat on his head. And you’re already very curious to know why. But you also are being taught that it’s not polite to ask. I think this is when we start to lose that ability to just see one another for what we really are. Not black, white, Asian, whatever it is. But each other’s angels. We are each other’s angels beloved’s. It doesn’t matter what your faith is, it doesn’t matter what you believe in. We are here to help one another. And little ones in kindergarten know that. And then they’re taught to stop knowing that. And I think that’s why me opening unleash the Hearts Academy is so important. Because in my program, we’re going to implement the things we knew when we were five years old. When we really understood what it was to be a human being

Dreams become realities. When you open your eyes. And then you see. Love is good and hope is too. But then action must come. Sometimes I lie in bed at night, dreaming about a world, I want for our children. Then I think of all the people who have smiled at me and said “ Jenny. That’s sweet. That’s nice. But dreams are only things that children do when they sleep. Only powerful people can change the world. “. At first, I get small. I close my eyes and nod and smile. And then I realized they are liars. Because I have a dream that’s becoming reality. Because I have the heart and the colors of the world to paint. I have a dream and the strength to carry on, because that’s the only way we’re going to wake from the darkness. And they’re starting to look at me like it’s possible. I no longer close my eyes and just pray. I simply say, I smile and simply say, I have a dream. That is becoming reality. And the only way it will be anything more than dreams, is if I stand up on my knees. So the tall so tall, that the world can see and give what I have. And never give up. I have a dream, that’s becoming reality. I have a dream that nobody can kill. I have a dream. Because the angels tell me it’s so, so I will sleep at night. And I will close my eyes. And I’ll pray for another day. And then I’ll stand up tall, never feeling small. And I’ll say. “ I remember painting with the angels Jenny’s butterflies fly away” . I have a dream. That is reality. Not that it’s easy. Not that I don’t cry. Not that I don’t sometimes question myself. But this is so much more than me. And soon you will see. I have a dream.

Once there was a little flower, barely a bud. and then an angry wind plucked her far before her time. When she went to tell the other flowers. What happened to her, They automatically assumed she lied. So as the days went by the little flower, saw her petals fall off, and blow in the wind. The Angry wind. Once there was a flower, barely a teen. And she knew she didn’t belong where she was because she wasn’t growing. So she called to the sky. And she said will you take me? I’m broken. And I’m not beautiful, because the flowers. Tell me so every day. “ and the wind heard her cry. And the world seemed to triumph, Because the little flower was taught never to cry. So the trees came to her and held her from the wind. But the little flower curled up ready to die. She pulled so hard at her roots and she felt this immense pain and started to fly. And suddenly, she was not a flower anymore, but petals in the sky. So she flew around for what felt like 1000 years trying to find her tears trying to figure out if she was as ugly As everyone told her she was. And one day she finally settled to the ground. She felt the rain on her face. And the sun shines so bright. And she knew she was never a flower but a butterfly. And she saw that God had a plan for her. So she went away into a cocoon where nobody could hurt her.

And suddenly it didn’t matter when if the flowers threw stones, and suddenly the head flower the one who was supposed to be the head gardener, She stopped hearing her rotting words. So the butterfly went into her cocoon and stayed there for many years to one day somebody saw her colors because she was brave enough to let them know there was something there. She sang the song where before she was always told. “ Don’t be so loud. Don’t be so annoying, you stupid……” But she kept singing. And she couldn’t stop. And then something magical happened. Those wings of hers had colored she could see them so she wondered Why won’t you let me fly? Had she opened the window? Because she didn’t hear the voices in the wind. She heard a strong voice, a kind of voice and the sky, though it was dark, lightened just a bit. And the voice the only voice to be heard in the efflorescent sky with cotton candy clouds, said, “ Jenny you’ve learned everything you can learn here. My child I’m sorry you’re in so much pain. He said Jenny. “ Take your bag. Take your wings. And trust me. Take a chance for something great. “ For I am the Great I Am. “ And Jenny said Are you the one who showed me that I wasn’t just an ugly flower? “ but a butterfly? and he said gently You are my child. And the time has come to let your wings fly. You are my child and I will show you things that will make your heart sing. And she remembered painting with those angels getting her through so many things even when she wasn’t sure what was coming next. He never said it would be easy. He never said “I won’t ever challenge you. The world won’t lie to you. I said…. be free. “ So she flies now efflorescent wings! and she cries now because this butterfly Who thought she was a flower…. knows things.