Mental Health
Bloom Vol 11: The Sun and the Ocean
The sun brings life to our planet. Photosynthesis. Plants, algae, and some bacteria take in oxygen and carbon dioxide from the soil and the air. They capture energy from the sunlight to make oxygen and chemical energy stored in glucose. The carbon dioxide is offset as chemical energy. It’s fascinating how the sun can spur this cycle; how a ray of light can give the gift of renewed existence day after day. With our continued observation of humans like flowers within a garden, it’s scientifically undeniable how good sunlight is for us. Sunlight is most known for helping us produce Vitamin D. More and more research shows that Vitamin D plays an essential role in regulating mood and reducing the risk of depression. Now, I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. The Pacific Northwest is notori...
Justin Bieber Offering $3 Million in Free Therapy to Fans and Crew
Justin Bieber is likely raking in millions on his 98-date “Justice World Tour,” but he’s sharing the wealth by financing therapy for his fans and crew. The pop star has teamed up with affordable therapy service BetterHelp to offer mental health assistance of up to $3,000,000 in value. “The one thing I’ve learned over the years is that we all go through our ups and downs, and we all need help sometimes,” Bieber said in a statement. “Being able to offer access to free therapy to my fans and tour family is a real blessing, and I’m humbled to be able to do it.” Perhaps aware of the toll that working away from home for months on end — and in a pandemic, no less — can have on touring musicians, Bieber’s deal prioritizes his crew, offering his 250+ person team free access to 18 months of therapy....
Really Good Rejects Looks at the Musical Healing of One Powerful Luthier
When director Alice Gu set out to make a film about beloved L.A.-based luthier Reuben Cox, she envisioned creating a 12-minute mini-documentary. That plan quickly changed as Cox’s famous clientele (Jackson Browne, Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Phoebe Bridgers, The National’s Aaron Dessner and My Morning Jacket’s Jim James, among others) also agreed to appear in the film. The resulting full-length documentary, Really Good Rejects, is a deeply absorbing and moving look at Cox and how his instruments have inspired these artists. Through candid artist interviews and intimate performances, the film takes an in-depth look at the ways in which music fosters positive mental health, self-actualization and addiction recovery SPIN spoke with the film’s director about everything that went into making one of th...
Bloom Vol 10: Imagination and a Broken Home
Time passed so seamlessly when I was young. I had a wild fascination with trains. You’d walk into my room and see a Thomas the Tank Engine bedsheet set, train toys scattered about the floor. I would bring their world to life every day, hours passing by faster than the whirling train cars around my room. I can remember my joy; nothing else seemed to matter. One of the most powerful things I’ve ever possessed is the power of imagination. I knew how to love myself through projections that helped define a more loving reality to reside in. I had a sea of possibilities swimming within my head that I could dive into at any second. My dreams became bolder and more encapsulating, compensating for the instability around me. Toy train cars were not the only thing colliding at the time. I was the prod...
Mothica is Rewriting the Rules for Trauma-Fueled Music
When McKenzie Ellis moved to Los Angeles from Oklahoma City two years ago, it wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Not only was the world in the midst of what seemed like an apocalypse-themed episode of Punk’d (things were that absurd), she’d realized the weather wasn’t quite her cup of tea either. Though a selling-point for some people, the sunshine just didn’t do for Ellis what dreary skies and soaking-wet sidewalks could. Since high school (and probably long before that), she had acquired an affinity – or, perhaps, a proclivity – for darker milieus. This wasn’t a phase or an image enhancer (and it still isn’t) but rather a response to the trauma and chaotic life experiences she had long endured. At age 15, Ellis attempted suicide. Later, she’d become a survivor of domestic abuse and assau...
Bloom Vol 9: Wisdom
Wisdom. The highly regarded philosopher Plato believed that Wisdom was one of four core virtues of the soul. To be wise is to wield information against ignorance through positive action. When times get tough, it is easy for us to reject all that we have come to know, seemingly willfully ignorant of any advice life has supplied. I’ll be the first to say that such a reaction is valid and fair regarding our mental health. It is a return to what we knew; a familiar setting where we might potentially hurt ourselves and others. Yet if we continue to do repeatedly, our support network may be strained. Perhaps this reads as harsh, implying “you better be able to listen to yourself at all times and snap out of it.” That is not the case at all. Wisdom builds up over time. What is suggested here, and...
Bloom Vol 8: One With You
This week, I wanted to share something I wrote one day when thinking about those who experience mental health challenges wanting to experience a feeling of “normalcy”. Many musicians, artists, creatives, people of all walks of life, at one point and time, have felt what the below describes. Are we meant to be; Statistics stacked against me, Can we love? Can we dream? Help me, Accept me, I have so much to give I’d like to think, Constellation prizes shining on the kitchen sink, Wash away these thoughts, Skin is red, hard to come off, Wolf in the suburbs howling to strangers, Wanting to belong, Crying out to the moon to be loved by someone, Typewriter and the click of rain, It’s easier inside to waltz far from the pain, From the burdens that we bear, Mood swings hammer glass ever...
Pro Baller Michael Beasley Opens Up About His Mental Health Woes & More
HipHopWired Featured Video CLOSE Source: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Michael Beasley was one of the top players in the 2008 NBA Draft, going second overall with the Miami Heat selecting the Kansas State Wildcats standout. Beasley, who has played for several NBA teams and abroad, recently appeared on a podcast and tearfully shared some of the ups and downs of his mental health woes. Beasley, 33, was a guest on The Pivot podcast with hosts Ryan Clark, Channing Crowder, and Fred Taylor. Beasley, a native of Prince George’s County, Md. and a former AAU teammate of Kevin Durant, shared the story of his basketball journey with the hosts while sharing some harrowing details of his life. In one especially revealing moment, Beasley told The Pivot team that he’s especially guarded after being taken a...
Behind the Scenes of Mothica’s Newest Mental Health-Based Track, ‘Sensitive’
On Friday, alt-pop singer-songwriter Mothica unveiled her latest single, “SENSITIVE.” The track (which takes an introspective look at her mental health and personality) released via Heavy Heart Records, the singer’s imprint with Rise Records/BMG. Check out the video below. [embedded content][embedded content] “I wanted to make the most upbeat and aggressive song about being an introvert,” Mothica exclusively tells SPIN of the new track. “Because that’s how it feels to me when I have trouble expressing my emotions, sometimes it comes out as anger and frustration of being misunderstood. So we combined a metal guitar with a driving dance bass to illustrate this emotion just in time for Pisces season.” Additionally SPIN has obtained some exclusive behind the scenes photos from p...
Bloom Vol. 7: A Walk
The past week has not been easy; humans unhinged at the ends of barrels and fuse of warheads. Chaos is on the airwaves, straddling every knuckle of your hands with an involuntary authority that pulls your cheeks to a grimacing expression. The garden is on fire, the flowers have long gone away in the fields where oil etches slurred lines into the soil, and explosions eclipse the sunsetting sun, setting the horizon ablaze. In the clutches of survivalism, we are not allowed to possess a state of positive wellbeing that we deserve as living human beings. Taking in the world in mere seconds as news articles swirl and sentiments are shared can be overwhelming – the horror when history books flicker their pages in frantic song and come to life to write another chapter. For me, this shortcircuitin...
Mental Health Investigation Launched Against TikTok
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Bloom 5: Music Is Better Together (Part 1)
Why care? It sounds harsh, but it is valid to ask. Why ought we care about the wellbeing of others outside of ourselves? During the past couple of years, navigating and learning your world as it was in lockdown, there was little brain space to consider how a public health crisis impacted other age groups. That wasn’t selfish; it’s hyper self-awareness in a trying time to keep yourself healthy. To adapt to that phrase of a “new normal.” As the word pandemic begins to be replaced with endemic, we ought to look around to check in on our neighbors in a meaningful way. I’d like to focus on one group in particular: college youth. There is a mental health crisis among college students today in the United States. There is a crisis occurring within a body of over 19 million people in our nation. Fo...
