030: The Power of Singing with Claire Benson

Are you keen to make genuine progress in your mental health journey, but finding conventional routes to doing so unsatisfactory? You are not alone in this. Many of us find that traditional methods of mental health support and wellbeing practices fail to provide any significant change in our everyday lives. This doesn’t mean that there’s something wrong with you, or that your feelings are invalid. Perhaps, you simply are yet to find the method that will best help you to cope with the extremities and uncertainties of the modern world.

In this episode, we’re thrilled to be speaking with Claire Benson, a Manchester-based mental health campaigner, about how singing has proven highly beneficial in her personal journey, and how she is using it to help others with theirs. In conversation with Coffee, Calm & Connection’s Sarah Myerscough, she discusses the importance of finding a practical means by which you can take control of your mental health and actively progress through your struggles.

 

Quote of the Episode

‘When I joined choir, it was like, I've been asleep for 100 years. And singing has woken me up and given me the confidence to be able to talk about my own mental health.’

Throughout the episode, Claire emphasises the immense importance of locating a specific method by which you can feel empowered to talk about your mental health. She found singing to be profoundly beneficial in her personal life – the simple act of singing boosts her everyday wellbeing, and through her choir, she found a community with whom she felt safe and empowered to discuss her struggles. Singing may or may not carry the same benefits for you – but there will be an activity out there that does, be it running, cycling, writing, painting, performing yoga, just to name a few!

 

Key Takeaways

Whether we like to admit it or not, all of us like to sing when we are alone. It lifts our spirits, enabling to express ourselves in a uniquely powerful way. Singing can be profoundly beneficial both as an individual exercise or as part of a communal activity.

 

Even if singing isn’t for you, there are a vast array of different activities you can get involved with which are accompanied by significant mental health benefits. In building these practices into our daily lives, whatever they may be, you will gradually develop a sense of power over your mental health, rather than letting it control you.

 

Sharing matters. The self-expression that accompanies singing, along with painting, writing, many forms of exercise, and more, can also act as a form of self-acceptance, and provide a guidance through whatever struggles you may be enduring at a given time. Such struggles have been particularly intensified throughout our collective experience of COVID-19, which has separated us from our loved ones, forcing us to perform these beloved activities alone. Now, more than ever, the importance of maintaining a sense of connection with others (even if it is through digital means) is extremely important. For example, Claire’s choir, Bee Vocal, continued its rehearsals throughout the pandemic via Zoom, providing its members the same benefits of communal self-expression despite their digital separation.

 

Thus, through singing, and many other self-expressive activities, you can engage in the human connection which is integral to our lives, both with your inner self and with others in a community.

 

 

Best Moments/Key Quotes

“When we did our ‘Raise Your Voice’, we had a lady that said, ‘It's like wearing a coat: you have your job, and then you have another coat as mum and then you have another coat as wife and as a daughter and an auntie and a housemaid and cook, and there's only so many coats that you can wear before you're actually weighed down and you can't go anywhere.”

“It could be as simple as running a bath, it could be as simple as going out for a walk, having that five-minute cup of coffee to yourself, and just turning off your brain for those five minutes of being clear, of just being Sarah, just forgetting everything else. And for me, singing is the thing that does that.”

‘Singing is like meditation because you're, you're, you're focusing your mind and you're using your breath.’

‘Singing is like breathing like breathing air for me.’

Resources

Claire Benson – Butterfly Effect: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_dnvvksh2c&t=17s&ab_channel=Deloitte

ITV News – Bee Vocal: mental health support choir going from strength to strength: https://www.itv.com/news/granada/update/2018-09-28/bee-vocal-mental-health-support-choir-going-from-strength-to-strength/

Papyrus – Just One More Step by Claire Benson: https://www.papyrus-uk.org/just-one-more-step/

Mental Health Choir ‘Bee Vocal’ Perform ‘The Wall in My Head’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=S1CIBHLgk1M&ab_channel=TheChoirProjectMCR

ITV News: The choir that’s turned to online rehearsals during the coronavirus pandemic: https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2020-04-20/the-choir-that-s-turned-to-online-rehearsals-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic

This Is Me – Deloitte North West edition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=rI3mzVpTKFU&ab_channel=DeloitteUK

Buzz Manchester – Introducing Guest Blogger Claire Benson: https://buzzmanchester.co.uk/blog/2020/introducing-guest-blogger-claire-benson

 

About the Guest

Claire Benson is a multi-talented mental health campaigner and radio presenter who in October 2019 organised an event called Raise Your Voice, which aimed to unite people who weren’t typically inclined to speak about their mental health to express themselves through singing and poetry, and was attended by over 100 women and men. Claire also works as an Office Manager and hosts a show on Radio Northenden.

Claire’s LinkedIn Profile: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/claire-benson-64575a196?trk=people-guest_people_search-card 

Follow Claire on Twitter: https://twitter.com/castlefield1642 

About the Host

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group and the M.D and creator of Coffee, Calm and Connection.

 

Connect with Sarah

https://www.instagram.com/coffeecalmconnection/ 

https://www.facebook.com/coffeecalmconnection 

https://www.linkedin.com/company/70927508/admin/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmyerscough/ 

 

Website: Coffee Calm & Connection (coffeecalmconnection.org)