2021 was a rough year in many ways for most of us. There were lockdowns, deaths and tragedies. If it were not for certain albums, my mental health would've suffered even more than it did. The albums I'm referring to are Justin Bieber's Justice and Demi Lovato's Dancing With The Devil: The Art of Starting Over. Both of these albums impacted me in unique ways and they helped me gain a better understanding of myself.
Dancing With The Devil: Overcoming Guilt & Shame
Dancing With The Devil: The Art of Starting Over is a journey in which Demi takes us through their struggles with drug and alcohol addiction, toxic relationships, eating disorders and mental health issues. It's a comprehensive amalgam of experiences and expression spanning entire decades of their life. What stood out to me during my first listen of the album was how candid and open they were. I was deeply moved with joy knowing that they had overcome their struggles, but I was also caught off guard by the amount of suffering and pain they went through to get here.
At the time I was dealing with my own bouts of guilt. I felt guilty about everything I was feeling. I wasn't depressed or anything like that. I just had low self-esteem for reasons I'm not yet ready to share with the world in full. I was letting those feelings of self-disgust tear me up from the inside out. On the surface, everything looked okay, but if people could see all of the thoughts in my head they'd see how much pain I was holding in. They would see the loneliness, the confusion, the stress and the fear.
But as I listened through the album, over and over again, those dark feelings started to transform into feelings of confidence, love and honesty. As I listened to Anyone, I cried out to God desperately awaiting His answer. When He didn't seem to respond, I listened to Dancing With The Devil and lamented over my sin and shame. These songs allowed me to feel my sorrow and pain and they gave way to a newfound sense of peace.
I would listen to Lonely People and feel confident in my solitude. I blasted That's The Kind of Lover I Am on loudspeaker and my confusion suddenly melted away. And when I'd belted my lungs out for hours on end, I played Good Place to bring it all to a close. And I sang those lyrics like a prayer. I sang with hope in my heart, "now I'm in a good place". And I'd sing it over and over again, believing in my heart that it was true.
With time, it became true. It took a lot of work and a lot of grace, but I can now confidently say that I'm in a much better place than I was a year ago. I still have a lot of things I need to work on, but I'm taking it day by day.
Love is Justice
Justin Bieber's Justice is a beautiful collection of love songs dedicated to his wife and the ones he holds dear. It's also a series of love anthems for Beliebers everywhere. When the album first dropped I wasted no time diving in and I ended up learning a few things about love.
Whenever I listen to Deserve You, Unstable or As I Am, I think of the unconditionality of true love. Love cannot be true, and is therefore unjust, if it is not unconditional. There are few people in my life who I can say exhibit unconditional love. It's a beautiful thing, because no matter what happens I know they'll love me.
Unfortunately, not everyone has someone to turn to when they need to feel loved. That's the harsh reality of this world. And especially post-pandemic, things seem to be spiralling out of control whichever way you look at it. There is so much hatred and greed going around, we've ended up with a shortage of truly loving people. It's like how Justin sings it in his song Somebody: "Eight billion people, we just looking for a hand to hold."
To think that there are almost eight billion of us and we still haven't figured out how to truly love one another...
But before I let the dread sink in, I listen to Hold On. It's a song I always come back to because it's a promise of love. And the promise of love is hope. We all make mistakes and we all fall short of the standard of true love from time to time. But the thing with love is that it hopes all things and perseveres through all things. These are biblical teachings and the way I see it, they're absolutely true, especially in today's world.
You don't need to be religious or spiritual to know that there's no use in letting go. To let go of love is to let go of justice. To let go of love is to live a life of bitterness, selfishness and fear. We all need to hold on a little longer. We need to hold on to each other and lift one another up because it's the right thing to do.
Thanks for reading! If you don't take anything away from this post, at least know that you're loved just as you are.
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