The Work of Warriors

Kim Rapach (00:06.72)
Hey, warriors, welcome back. Today's guest has a mission statement to be a voice and a vessel for those who feel lost, forgotten, silenced, and who are hurting. And that's all I needed to hear. Welcome today's guest, Koshana Armstrong. Welcome, Koshana Armstrong. Welcome songwriter and musician, Koshana Armstrong.

Welcome singer-songwriter, Kashauna Armstrong.

Kim Rapach (00:43.978)
Welcome.

Hi. Thank you for being here.

Kyshona (14:30.879)
Cool. Hello.

Happy to here. I'm also like, can I fix up my face? But we'll let it go. Okay. We do. We do love ourselves. Great here and all. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (14:40.364)
We love ourselves no matter what. Yep, yep. Although admittedly I'm getting mine done tomorrow. Just not ready to make the transition.

Kyshona (14:52.574)
Bye.

Ha

Kim Rapach (14:58.668)
Every time I go and spend the money, I'm like, this has got to stop. And then I'm like, I'm not ready.

Kyshona (15:03.315)
but also, I get it. And I'm trying to love my gray. So, it's all good. Thank you. All right. I am, how long will we?

Kim Rapach (15:09.27)
It's cute! Yeah.

Kim Rapach (15:16.492)
Um, average is 45 minutes. Okay. And if you need, you know, if you need a hard stop at 11 or 1045, just let me know what's your net. What's, what does time look like for you today?

Kyshona (15:19.763)
Cool.

Kyshona (15:25.823)
Cool, okay. 104511 is great. I only have this room until 11. So we can either do 1055, that'd be great. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (15:32.876)
Okay, gotcha. Okay. Okay. Perfect. The only thing I will say, I don't know if you've recorded on Riverside before, but a couple tips, make sure like your notifications are off because if somebody calls, it can very easily drop your track and we can lose it. So make sure you have, not disturb on. And then as we're talking, if we just take a pause, take a beat before we respond, because if we talk over each other, it cancels us both out.

Kyshona (15:46.292)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (15:51.263)
Cool.

Kim Rapach (16:02.25)
So that's, I can get very passionate and excited and sometimes I forget and I'm laughing, but we'll do our best and then I'll do what I can in the editing. So, hi, Kushana. Thank you for being here.

Kyshona (16:02.591)
I you.

Kyshona (16:15.007)
Hello, happy to be here.

Kim Rapach (16:17.708)
Um, I would like to start. I start to, this is not a coaching call, obviously, but I start my coaching call with what are your wins from the last time since we met. And I don't know why, but today I thought maybe it would be fun just to learn a little bit about you and learn about your wins in the music industry. What have been some of your wins?

Kyshona (16:37.407)
okay. Ooh, some of my wins have been...

I've been able to build a really strong community of, especially of like female artists. If like my community of women has really had my back the last five to 10 years, but more especially in the last five years, we all have little threads where we check in on one another and just have a space to vent, you know. So I think big win.

my community I've Another one, I've never been big on awards or accolades in that kind of way, but it's nice when it happens. So I just had this last record that I released last April called Legacy that was nominated for international album of the year. And a song on there called The Echo was nominated for international song of year. So album of the year and song of the year.

And it got to perform at the Americana UK awards a couple of weeks ago. And it was really beautiful to represent not only like my family, my culture, but also my country and roots music within the Americana umbrella. Yeah, those are my wins right now.

Kim Rapach (18:08.916)
Well, congratulations on all of that. I love that you named the first win as community. Yeah.

Kyshona (18:11.572)
Thank you.

Kyshona (18:16.383)
That is like who I am and what's like important to me, honestly, is my community. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that. I don't think I would still be living in Nashville if the community is the only thing holding me here.

Kim Rapach (18:32.276)
Yeah, I do a I do a workshop called the four pillars of optimal mental health. And the four are wellness, connection is the second one, meaning and healing. But connection is huge that community having your people having a safe space to just show up and be your fully, you know, authentic self and be

Kyshona (18:38.515)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (18:56.636)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (18:57.182)
accepted and know that you're safe, know that you're not going to be judged, you're not going to be harmed, you're not going to be, you know, anything. And I think that's huge. So good for you.

Kyshona (19:05.661)
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thank you.

Kim Rapach (19:07.924)
Yeah. You said you didn't think you'd still be in Nashville if it weren't for your community. How long have you been there?

Kyshona (19:15.326)
I've been here 11 years now. This year is my, this month is my 11th year living here. And I originally thought I would be in Nashville for maybe a year and a half, two years tops. You know, I was, I moved here from Athens, Georgia, Athens and Atlanta, and I just needed a break. I needed something different. I wanted to treat Nashville as an opportunity to learn more about the business.

Kim Rapach (19:17.322)
Okay.

Kyshona (19:41.727)
So was treating it like I was going off for, you know, getting my master's in songwriting and music business. And immediately when I moved here, there was this sense of there's room at the table for everyone. Let me connect you. Where at that time, a decade ago, people, artists in Atlanta were very like, no, this is mine. You can't, I don't want, I'm scared to share that information because you might take it from me. We're here.

It was the absolute opposite of like, let me introduce you to my publisher. Let me introduce you to this person you should write with. you guys should know each other. It was just so easy for people to connect dots and create threads. I love that.

Kim Rapach (20:23.368)
That's amazing. I'm just adjusting my volume, although it's not letting me. because I pulled up my microphone. That's why. So I love that because that has not always been the case even in Nashville. So the evolution of that gives me hope.

Kyshona (20:32.575)
you

Kyshona (20:38.612)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (20:44.137)
And I don't know if it's a, an Americana genre thing. I don't know if it's because I'm not in country music. I don't know if it's because of just specifically the people I was fortunate enough to meet, you know, but it really has been a very like blessed experience here with the people. Because everyone here is like cheering for each other.

So like if a friend of mine, if a friend of mine gets awarded something or achieves a publishing deal, that means it's a win for me too. Right? And I think what my experience was is people that had the publishing deals would invite me into rooms to write with them, which gave me a level up in having the songs we were writing be heard. Right? So I just experienced people using

their levity in order to bring me up. And I feel like that's what I, it was demonstrated to me. So I want to do the same for the next artist, you know, and anytime a young artist wants to sit down and have coffee, that's the first thing I say is it's all about your community. And it's all about how you leave people feeling and treating like how you treat them. Cause they will remember and depending on, you know,

the relationships you start with, you know, you can hold onto those for the longest and it might be where somebody might not come back around to you for another five to six years. That's happened to me, you know, producers I've met when I first moved here that I was like, I don't know what this is about, but I'm trusting it. Eight years later, they are now the music producer for a television show and they say, Hey, Kishana, can you come in, either record this thing or can you come film?

And it's just, again, people that you meet will always remember you if you leave them with that sense of like, I am for all. I'm not this person of holding tight too tightly to what I've been given. I know to share.

Kim Rapach (22:56.981)
Yeah. Well, that's why I love your mission statement because your mission statement could literally be the mission statement for this podcast. Right. Being a voice and a vessel. This podcast is to create a community, a safe space for artists to, to know that it's not only about what they are able to produce. It's about who they are as human beings and that they're in an industry that is relentless and

Kyshona (23:05.822)
Hello.

Kim Rapach (23:24.128)
you know, unreliable and inconsistent. What's the word I'm looking for? Irrational? What's the word? Like it's not unrealistic, but what's expected of you is what is gosh, I'm drawing a blank. I don't know what the word is. I'll have to cut this out. But, know, that's I mean, that's the whole point is you need a space. I think artists need a space.

Kyshona (23:47.455)
Mm.

Kim Rapach (23:53.612)
to show up and to not have to perform, produce, and who can just connect, be seen, be known as humans in their humanness. Not what can you do for me? What can you make for me? How much money can you make me? But who are you? What have you been through? What have you experienced? How are you doing? How are you really doing? Off of social media, how are you doing really? And how can I support you?

Kyshona (24:17.631)
Mm-hmm.

Kim Rapach (24:21.994)
and how can we support each other?

Kyshona (24:24.671)
You know, it was through, it was with my community of, of artist friends that I even wrote that mission statement. Everything was encouraged to you. So that was like a group project. We all needed, we realized that we were not the typical artists. We weren't the artists that were being sought after by labels. We weren't getting the publishing deals. We, or some of us had just lost those pub deals.

And we needed another reason. We needed to remember our why. And in remembering the why, we're like, can we gauge our success by something other than the industry? Because the industry doesn't know what it's doing. The industry is always changing. They're chasing the dollar. They're chasing whatever the hip fads are. But the reason why we started creating music in the first place is what we must always come back to.

And it's really beautiful to see those friends that sat with me in that initial group, how we've all really stepped into our missions. For me, being a voice and a vessel for those who feel lost, forgotten, silenced, who are hurting. That was seven, eight years ago we wrote that, maybe. And in me using that as my guiding light and as like my guidepost, from that, I have built an organization outside of being a songwriter.

lean harder into my experience as a music therapist and built a whole organization around therapeutic songwriting. I know that when I'm, I've used that mission so that when I'm on tour, I know that on those days off, if I'm in a community and I want to connect, then I want to seek out the people that are in community there and write with them and then invite them to the show to perform the songs that we've written. So it's like, I wrote the mission first.

And then my career outside of the industry, my career has aligned so, which has allowed my personal life to align with that mission as well. Does that make sense?

Kim Rapach (26:27.82)
Totally and I love it. I Was going to ask you what your you know, we talked about the wins I was going to ask you what have been your lessons in the industry

Kyshona (26:36.991)
The lessons for me in this industry are, and it's going to sound so cold, but the lessons for me in the industry is the industry, the industry is dead. It's gasping. And if it wasn't for those of us out here creating and it would not exist. Right. And the industry, I feel like there are different levels of artists. And if we look at the history of

what artists have been, what roles they have played in society. We're the history keepers. We are the storytellers. We are the ones that are, we're the motivators. We're the encouragers. We are the feelers. We are needed in history. And the industry is not serving that at all. The industry is trying to figure out how many streams do you have? How much money can I make off of this? How many tickets are you selling?

Ticket sales and streams does not put a value on your art and what you have to say. There are so many songs that have never been heard that have changed lives. And the lesson for me has been to not even consider the industry. Now, when the industry and your mission align, that's beautiful, right? But I always say like, stay on your own path. They'll find you and they might wonder, they'll come back to you.

Kim Rapach (27:56.609)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (28:05.289)
They might find me after I'm long gone, you know, but I know that art stays longer than we do. So my art will exist beyond me. So that's what I'm creating for, right? It's not for me today. It's for somebody decades down the road that might finally find it. And I think we forget that. The industry will make you feel like it's a now, now, now situation. No, this is a long, this is a legacy we are all creating and writing and it's our country's legacy. It's society's legacy.

And if we can all remember that, we're creating for something bigger, for bigger reasons than just numbers.

Kim Rapach (28:46.456)
I have goosebumps. All the yeses, all the yeses, please, please, please. You know, it reminds me of like the nap ministry where, you know, she's, you know, pushing back against, you know, this deep rooted, you know, it's based in racism, but this deep rooted need for hustle and pressure and now an urgency. And how do you do with that with art? Right. It started.

We'd started with doing that with humans and now we're doing it with what humans can create. And so I love that you're like, they'll find me. The person who needs my art will find it. And I'm not worried about the timeline. Like I still like, have goosebumps. I love that so much. Yes.

Kyshona (29:25.129)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (29:34.557)
Yeah, it's, it is really hard because I realized that venues rely upon artists, right? Venues rely upon artists to sell the tickets, to put people in the seats. but what that caused, but what's happening is now promoters are expecting the artists to now be marketing people, to now be publicists, to be our own management tour managers. Some of us have teams for that, but many of us do not.

Kim Rapach (29:43.36)
Yeah.

Kyshona (30:04.543)
And I really, what I really wish for the artist community is that we can just be artists and everybody else understand the roles that they play in order to support us, you know? And, it's, it is so hard not to get bogged down in that hustle, especially when you make your living doing this. So of course it matters that you sell tickets, right? But like,

It's more than that. so whenever I'm sad and like, man, we did not, this show was not sold out. There were barely people in here. I have to remember, did I serve the mission? Was I a voice in a vessel for someone who felt lost, forgotten, silent, sore, hurting, who was hurting? If somebody comes up to me, one person, one person comes up to me after the show and says, song.

made me want to call this person. That song touched on something I hadn't thought about in a while. Job done, success. And what I know will happen is that ripple will happen outside of my presence, beyond my presence, right? That person will go forward thinking and talking about the music, talking about the message. And I think maybe that's more the music therapist in me, right? That knows I am again, I'm here to heal. The music that I write is to heal and give voice to.

things that we've all been scared to say. And I really want other artists to understand what their art is meant to do. Is your art here to activate? Is your art here to hold space? Is your art here to be a reflection of? know, like, what is it that you want your art to do? And measure your quote unquote success by that. Are you serving that purpose of your art?

Kim Rapach (31:56.182)
that. I think you know, you know, far more. Well, you know, far more than I do. But surely, I mean, again, I'm just I'm touched by your mission, and your your purpose. And not only that, I mean, I think a lot of us have, you know, our why, but you're so it just feels so authentically connected, like you've I can feel your alignment. Yeah, it feels it just feels true.

Kyshona (31:56.735)
I don't know what I'm saying.

Kim Rapach (32:26.302)
and aligned and authentic.

Kyshona (32:29.031)
You know, I have, I'm, I'm, have a friend who was part of my original like Wolfpack, right? My tribe and literally.

She has realized, because she's an artist, she's also a visual artist and a phenomenal songwriter.

With her serving her mission of curating space to showcase and highlight artists. She has a whole vintage furniture company that she, and she is pulling artists, singer songwriters in and making space for creative artists, visual artists to combine with music artists, to combine with artists that make and do. And it's really lovely to see the community that she's built. it's, it's reminding people of.

for this town, it's reminding them of old Nashville, when creatives just gathered with no mission in mind other than to celebrate one another. There's no mission in mind of like, let me sell you this thing. Let me showcase this album I just released. No, it's just like, look what we're creating. Let's talk about it and be together and celebrate that together. And again, it's like to witness your friends and your tribe lean into their mission and see how it's grown beyond anything we all thought.

10 years ago. She wanted a label deal, she wanted a publishing deal, she wanted all these things, she wanted to tour on buses. And her shift is a really beautiful thing to see and witness and be a part of. Because it's bigger, it's bigger.

Kim Rapach (34:03.852)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. And it's, you know, I think we're so conditioned to want what the, the culture or society says that we should want. If you're a musician, you should want this track. If you're a coach, you should want this track. If you're a photographer, whatever it is. And it's like, what if you just decided for yourself, what actually feels true in your body that you are put here to do.

even if nobody else understands it. And like you said, it's often bigger, but not in the way our world would design bigger or define bigger, right? Not in the way our world would define bigger, more. It's more it's more spiritual. It's physical. It's

Kyshona (34:37.928)
and war.

Kim Rapach (34:50.42)
It's internal. And nobody else has to understand it as long as you feel like you're in alignment. Yeah. So I'm curious. We were introduced through Risi Palmer.

Kyshona (34:55.517)
Mm-mm. Is that for them too? Yeah.

Kim Rapach (35:05.884)
And I am so enjoyed my conversation with her as well. But I'm curious when you know, someone reaches out, I mean, time is precious. And when someone reaches out and says, Hey, you know, I want to chat about mental health in the entertainment industry. I'm just curious what came up for you and what you were thinking and you know, why you said yes, why it's important to you.

Kyshona (35:27.185)
I Kim, it's again, the mission. That's literally how I know what to say yes to and what to say no to is I ask like, okay, well, does this serve the mission of being a voice in a vessel? Then yeah, sure. Let's talk. Yeah, it says, it's really, it feels rudimentary, but it really is. It has freed up my calendar and allowed me to have the conversations that are needed and not bog myself down with.

anything that stresses me out or anything that adds confusion, anything that's out of alignment. Now if somebody was like, let's talk about fashion, you and your fashion, I would be like, that's not me. But if you want to talk about mental health in this industry, yeah, you want to talk about like serving a career in music, yeah, let's talk about it. So yeah, that's why, because this aligns with my mission and what I'm.

what brings me joy to talk about, especially for other artists.

Kim Rapach (36:30.954)
I'm so glad. My coach talks about similar, you know, being in your own alignment and only doing things that are mutually beneficial. And not just in business. It might be like, I mean, I know already, you know, not even 30 minutes in, I'm leaving a different person, right? Like, I'm leaving a better person from having this conversation. It doesn't matter about streams or downloads or views or likes. It's

And that is the mission, right? Like when we connect in this way and when we are just human together, we're just humaning together, we evolve. And that makes such a difference.

So I would love to know about your music therapy.

Kyshona (37:20.849)
Yeah. I mean, I was a music therapist before I was a creator, you know? I mean, when I was young, I grew up playing classical music, piano and oboe. So I was writing music as a kid, but piano songs, just melodic. But I was really tied to...

I wanted to be a therapist as well. And, I knew I needed to go to school for music in order to be able to, cause I needed to have a scholarship to go to school for that. So a friend of mine at this like church cattillion we were doing, I was like, why am I even doing this church cattillion? It was for me to meet this one guy. He was a year ahead of me and he said to me like, have you ever heard of the field of music therapy? And I was like, never have I ever. So he planted a seed and, and my.

senior year, my English teacher gave us all, she was like new to the school too. She gave us all a task of shadowing someone in a career we were interested in. So I did the research and I found there was one music therapist in my hometown of Columbia. She was working at Baptist Medical Hospital and I went and interviewed her, shadowed her and I watched her go from hospital room to hospital room with a guitar. I think there was a flute present at some point.

And I watched her walk into rooms and the energy like change people's expressions change. And I had that moment of like, my gosh, you can, I can like walk around in hospitals and affect change on how people feel, even if it's just emotionally. you know, she, that point, at that time, music therapy was still a pretty young field, but she was a graduate.

She had studied underneath, excuse me, one of the professors at the University of Georgia. And that was like the closest program I could find to my hometown. you UGA was in Athens, Georgia, two and a half hour drive. It was perfect. But what I really loved about my schooling was it allowed me to experience through clinical hours, working with people in recovery, working with people with developmental disabilities, working with elders and

Kyshona (39:45.203)
geriatric facilities, I got to work in so many different capacities, working with the incarcerated. And I got to see like, okay, some people feel called to work with children. Some people feel called to work with elders. I was called to work with everybody. I enjoyed the flexibility and the creativity of like one day I might be with people experiencing dementia or Alzheimer's, or I might be with at-risk youth in a detention center.

And I love being on my toes like that, having to create all the time. It was my, my, one of my hardest jobs was working at the state mental hospital in Atlanta, Georgia. was Georgia regional hospital at the time. And there was a forensics unit. I love that job because there was your front units, which were more chaos people straight from the streets that had just come in. We were trying to get them medicated and figure out what kind of crisis they were in.

We had skilled nursing, which were people that were wheelchair-bound. They lived on the grounds. But my favorite units were the adolescent unit and the forensics unit. And it was with the adolescents in the forensics units where I learned how to write with those patients. There was a band we had called the Melotones. And I am talking, this is like a long story, I apologize. But there was a band we had called the Melotones. And the Melotones was made up of

gentlemen that were like on their way into reentry. Their next phase was reentry, right? And so the band was a way to like show them these new social skills. How can you be in community with people and disagree? Learning a new skill, advocating for yourself. All this happens when you're creating a band together. And there were these two new admissions that came in that were a 27 year old

and a 24 year old guy. Both of them were right on either side of my own age. One was a hip hop artist, the other was a poet. And I realized like nothing really is separating me from them other than I had a net to catch me, right? Like one of them was in school to become a recreational therapist. So.

Kyshona (42:07.411)
He would see what I was doing with music therapy. He was like, should I have studied that instead? It was just him having a bad, like a bad day in college that put him in the state hospital and put him on a whole other track. But he and this other young guy encouraged me like, Kishonna, can you bring your guitar? We have free time. Can we go down to the lake and can we write together? And we all wrote a song together. That was my first time experiencing being a songwriter properly.

Right. And from there, I learned to use the pen as my own way of releasing what I was taking in. Nobody was talking about self care back in the early 2000s. Right. And so I was trying to go to drum circles. was trying to go, but what, what helped me was these two gentlemen showing me the power of the pen. And I realized too, what's what was bogging me down was

Kim Rapach (42:47.538)
Right.

Kyshona (43:04.083)
holding everyone else's stories and experiences and their traumas, and I had nowhere to put it. But they, the pen allowed me that opportunity to like tell their story and scream for them. Can you believe this is happening? Look around, right? And so the fact that I could take their stories and take them outside of those barbed walls and have people on the outside say, my gosh, me too. And be able to come back to them and say, y'all.

I told your story last night in open mic and people were affected and I could see, I could be the bridge, the gap, right? So music therapy is what has made me the songwriter I am. And I thought I could let go of that because I got burned out. I thought I could let go being a music therapist, but it, once I wrote that mission statement, I got pulled right back into the field, you know, and I've just lean in even harder. I was trying to.

separate myself from the therapeutic world. But sometimes you gotta lean in and that's when you find, this is who I am. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. That was a roundabout way to get there.

Kim Rapach (44:11.808)
Yeah. I love it. I love it. Thank you for sharing that.

what, you know, whatever you're willing to share, but what would you say that you have overcome in or personally, whether in the industry, in your own story that would that might be helpful for somebody else who might be thinking they're the only one.

Kyshona (44:43.039)
I... so...

Kyshona (44:48.105)
So I was raised kind of to be silent, right? Like this better be seen and not heard. Don't make waves. Even as, even in my training as a music therapist, I was trained in behavioral music therapy, which is nonverbal communication. It was more on giving, you know, less on words, more on actions. And I was always scared to use my voice. I was always scared of saying the wrong thing. But what I have found.

is once I learned that I had something to say and who I was speaking for.

Kyshona (45:27.527)
I feel like people listened and I realized I am worthy of being heard. I am worthy of sharing this because if I don't share it, no one else will see their reflection. Everybody will feel alone. You can feel alone if you don't.

Kim Rapach (45:42.336)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (45:43.779)
Excuse me. If you don't hear it, you will think you're the only one. So I think what I've overcome, I still have imposter syndrome, but what I've overcome is that fear of speaking out and speaking up, fear of saying the things, the hard things on the microphone. I've had people tell me like, I don't know how you can get up there and talk about race and division in such a compassionate and loving way. And I think it's because I've known that it's the therapist mindset, right? But knowing that

I'm serving a bigger mission and I'm saying these hard things because I know somebody out there feels like they're the only one. I'm saying these hard things because there's one person that needs to hear this. More of you might hear it, but they'll get it. know? so I think if there's anything that I, that I would.

Encourage anyone that might be feeling discouraged in any ways. Just say the hard stuff. Don't be afraid. Somebody will hear it. They might not tell you they've heard it, but they've heard it. And it I still have.

moments where, like with this legacy album, this legacy album is all about my family's history. And so it's the most personal album I've ever released. Everything else has been outward and about how we as a society come together. But this is me telling my family's stories. And I've been scared of doing that. I've been scared of like dirty, like airing dirty laundry. But what I have found is in me talking about those difficult things that the family has been embarrassed about or might've wanted to keep secret.

how many other people have come up to me afterwards saying, my gosh, I haven't thought about this ancestor in forever. my gosh, my family too, even though we're from different cultures, I had that same experience. And it's allowing people to find the thread beyond our differences. And I think that's something we're missing as a society. We only want to see what makes us different rather than trying to find the things that we have in common with one another. So if you understand that as an artist, you can create an opportunity for people.

Kyshona (47:54.367)
To remember that we are human and to remember that we have things in common with our brothers and sisters, like do the hard thing. Do the hard thing. Write the hard thing. Draw the hard thing. Somebody will receive it and it'll free somebody else.

Kim Rapach (48:13.388)
Thank you.

So, Kashana, what do you do on a regular basis to maintain your own mental wellness? I like to move away from the idea, like, I think we've been conditioned to think, like, there are people with mental illness and then there's people without mental illness, and I wanna do away with all of that nonsense and talk about mental health and mental wellness because mental health is something we all have.

And there's so much that we can do in the way of wellness, you know, to promote, to help us live the lives we're put here, you know, to live, to fulfill our mission that we're here to fulfill. What do you do on a regular basis to maintain your mental health or mental wellness?

Kyshona (49:07.903)
Honestly, I lean really hard on my community of friends. Yeah, I really do. Cause what I find is if I say to someone, I'm not okay. I have at least one person that I can say like the dark stuff to and she won't freak out. And honestly, if I were to call and say, I'm really struggling right now, she'll drop everything and come right over. So.

Kim Rapach (49:15.308)
to that connection piece.

Kim Rapach (49:28.064)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (49:37.693)
There's like the emergency, like I'm not okay calls, but then there's the, have threads. have a couple of text threads with people in my tribe. And we've even had a, like we'll text send one friend sends pictures of her twins. And we all have like a little kiki about that. It's really staying connected no matter how small, even if it's just through sending names to one another. So leaning on my friends,

to pull me out whenever I'm feeling really dark. And also knowing that I can help pull them out if they need it. But honestly, one thing for me is like, I will turn off the phone. I will not open apps. I will, it's really hard to sit still for me. But if I can have a day where I just allow myself to be, no agenda.

Just be, I can either honestly sit in silence in my home for most of that, either reading or staring at walls. I meditate, I do meditation.

I'll even travel down to Murfreesboro and sit with my family. We don't do anything. I just sit on the couch and I'm just around the chaos. And that to me will remind me like there's more happening than whatever you're experiencing right now. Right. And just being present with them is like you play a role in this. You have a role to play even in this chaos of the nieces and the nephew. Connection I think is what I'm hearing myself tell you. I try to stay connected. And if I need to unplug.

It's in a way that I'm reconnecting with myself through silence. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (51:28.832)
Yeah, that's what I'm hearing you say, the connection piece with your community, with your family, with yourself, and with your mission. Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. I want to thank you for saying.

Kyshona (51:35.999)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kim Rapach (51:43.54)
I have, you when you were saying I have one person that I can reach out to when I have really dark thoughts. And I just want to say thank you for being honest, because, you know, that is part of, you know, how this podcast came to be to is coming out of my own darkness, and realizing that we need other people we need to know it's not just us. And if we're being honest, most people have dark thoughts. And so

I want people to know they can't hold them by themselves, right? That's why we're here. And so, thank you for that. And what would you say to someone who's saying like, I'm in a dark place. I'm having some dark thoughts.

Kyshona (52:34.995)
I think the first question I would ask is, do you have a plan? Right. Or like how dark or do you need someone to be there with you? where are you right now?

And I think the next question has been in the past. It's been, can, do you have someone to talk to? Meaning like a counselor. How can I, how can I connect you with a counselor, someone to talk to? And I, I'm fortunate here to have, like I keep meeting people. It's kind of, it's kismet the way it's happened, but I've been shown there are ways, especially for musicians, most of us are not insured.

Right. And I have knowledge of like what grants exist, what organizations have grant funding for those of us that can't afford therapy. So at least saying to them like, okay, I see you're hurting, you're struggling right now. Here's a link to a place. If you apply, we can probably get you a counselor of some way, you know, and I think giving people resources. So that's like, do you have a plan? Do you have someone to talk to? Are you safe right now? Here are some resources.

Those that's like the checklist of what I go down by. if, and if they're like, it's not, I'm not there yet. Then I'll like, cool. I'm coming over, you know, or let's talk on the phone. I'll, I love the phone call. A lot of people don't. I love talking on the phone. So I'll often just say like, Hey, okay. Well, I'm to go for a walk or I'm going to go for a drive. Can I call you? And we'll just talk for the hour and half, three hours or whatever I'm driving or,

And all it is is me listening, you know, and vice versa. Just some way to let them know, like, you're not out here alone.

Kim Rapach (54:27.828)
Yeah, that's my favorite is when people say you're not alone. Yeah, and it's just true. You are not alone.

Kyshona (54:37.063)
And something that I released the record in 2020 called Listen. And I used to tell this story a lot, but one thing that I'm really fortunate about my training as a music therapist is that it taught me how to listen. It taught me how to be an active listener. Listening requires the action of being silent. And a lot of times when we want to listen, if someone's sharing their trauma, we want them to know we understand.

So we jump in with like, too. my gosh, me too. I just, and we start telling our own story, which at that point you are no longer hearing the other person. So a lot of times it's me calling is like, talk to me. We, I might be quiet the whole time and just say, else? But I think if we remind ourselves that when we ask someone,

to share with us what they're experiencing. When we ask someone what's going on, like to close the mouth and open the ears and how to be a mirror for that person and not be the me too guy, but just be the like hold space for them person of like, I hear you, I know that has to be hard. I'm so sorry you're experiencing that. And there will be a time for you to share, but it's not right now. You know what I mean? This is their time. They need to be heard right now.

Kim Rapach (55:58.198)
Yeah, it's such evidence of being, I think, regulated in your nervous system, but also having done some of your own work to be able to not have to make it about you, right? And if we continue to build that level of community where this is your space, this is your time, and under, you know, I have a friend that I write with and that's what we do. We just make space for each other.

Kyshona (56:10.611)
Yeah.

Kim Rapach (56:25.204)
But that's such a great point for anyone who wants to be a support for someone else too. Yeah. Who's an ideal client for music therapy?

Kyshona (56:29.087)
Mm-hmm.

Kyshona (56:36.541)
anyone that's willing. Yeah. Anyone that's willing to be vulnerable. Because a lot of people think

Kim Rapach (56:38.367)
I love that.

Kyshona (56:49.471)
A lot of people hear the word music and think, but I don't play instruments. but I don't sing. It's not about that. Music is the tool. That's it. I just find music therapy as the use of music to achieve a non-musical goal. Right? So it's just a tool. Doesn't mean we have to be perfect at it. When I leave my therapeutic songwriting groups, I always say, we're not writing a hit song. We're not trying to write anything for radio. We are simply, it's about the process. We are simply.

telling our story, we are creating for the sake of creating and that experience and the process of creating and the conversations that we have while we write that song, that's what's, that's the work, right? So anyone that's willing to do the work and be vulnerable and do the scary thing of facing the fear and the lies that someone once told you that you don't have a voice or you don't have a story to be heard, facing those lies and saying, standing in the faith in the face of that.

And be like, okay, yeah, I will sing this melody, even though somebody told me I sound like a dying bird. You know what I mean? But think about like what has been, what was told to you as a child about the voice that comes out of your mouth, right? And how somebody debunked that or gave you a bad review as a kid. And you've held onto that as truth as a 40 something year old woman or older or younger, right? But you claimed that as truth.

Kim Rapach (58:08.62)
Yeah.

Kyshona (58:14.705)
I'm always about whoever is ready to like, prove those wrong or stand in the faith of the lies people told us that we had believed. Like that's who I think is ready for a music therapy session.

Kim Rapach (58:25.92)
Yeah, yeah, what a gift. What a gift. Yeah, I do a lot of somatic work and it's untethering from those, those early learned, you know, those early learned conditioned responses that most people don't even know that they're bringing into the world and untethering from those. So good work. Yeah. Where can people find you?

Kyshona (58:48.413)
You can find me and my music at kashana.com. It's k-y-s-h-o-n-a dot com. And on there I have my tour schedule so they can know where I'm going to be in the country or around the world. And there's also a link there to my favorite songwriting organization, Your Song. So that website is yoursong.org. But if you go to kashana.com, you'll find a link there as well.

Um, something that always like encourage people to go to on the Your Song website is I have a playlist, a SoundCloud playlist of songs that were written in 2024, 2023, you know, that people can hear songs that have been written out in community around the country. And from little kids to, um, women incarcerated in Ohio to youth experiencing grief, uh, with hospice care, you know, so.

There's a message from someone out here in society that might connect with you if you go to yoursle.org and listen to the post.

Kim Rapach (59:54.316)
What a gift. you so much. You are a gift. are such an inspiration. Thank you for saying yes to this invitation. It really means a lot that you would take the time to share your message and just share hope. So thank you.

Kyshona (01:00:08.255)
Thank you for having me.

Kim Rapach (01:00:09.996)
Absolutely. Okay, I'm going to stop the recording.