Why Can’t I Just Fix It?

At some point, “fixing” became the entire focus.

I had stopped performing professionally, but I hadn’t stopped searching for answers. Every vocal warm-up was an experiment. Every recording was an investigation. I zoomed in on tiny details, listened over and over, comparing myself to old versions of me—trying to catch the flaw, the crack, the thing that needed correcting.

I became technical, analytical, relentless.
And I told myself that this was discipline. That this was what singers do: we refine, we correct, we improve.

But underneath all that effort was something else entirely.
It wasn’t drive. It wasn’t care. It was fear.

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The Masochism of Mastery

Shame wasn’t on my radar.

At the time, I wouldn’t have used that word at all. I didn’t think I felt ashamed—I thought I was just trying to be better. But looking back now, it’s clear: the obsession to fix wasn’t just about the voice. It was a way to avoid the deeper wound. The wound of not being enough. Of feeling exposed. Of having something so central to me feel unreliable and out of control.

Fixing became a kind of self-punishment.
I wasn’t soothing myself—I was scolding.
I wasn't healing—I was training myself, like a problem to be solved.

Every correction carried a hidden message:
If you can just get this right, you’ll be okay again.
If you fix this, you’ll be worthy again.

It was a quiet, compulsive loop. One that looked like commitment from the outside—but from the inside, it felt like drowning in self-monitoring.

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When Advice Doesn’t Land

I sought help, of course. That’s what you do when something feels wrong—you reach out, return to your training, seek insight from others you trust. I was open, eager, and—though I wouldn’t have admitted it at the time—quietly desperate.

People offered advice. Thoughtful, well-meaning, and often sound. I listened intently. I wrote things down. I tried everything.

But I was carrying a wound.

And because I didn’t know how to name it—because I hadn’t yet realised that what I was experiencing wasn’t just technical—I took every suggestion to heart. Probably more deeply than the speaker intended. I interpreted every correction as confirmation that I was the problem.

Not just my voice—me.

The advice itself wasn’t wrong. It just couldn’t reach the place in me that was hurting. It couldn’t touch the fear, or the confusion, or the grief of feeling estranged from something I once trusted so completely.

What I needed wasn’t certainty. It was space.
Space to not know.
Space to be confused without feeling like a failure.
Space for someone to sit beside me and say, “This is hard, and I see you.”

Most of us—teachers, singers, colleagues—aren’t trained to hold that kind of space. We’re trained to improve, to guide, to offer answers. But sometimes, especially in the quiet interior moments of a singer’s life, what’s needed most is not a solution, but a sense of shared humanity.

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A Different Kind of Teaching

This experience reshaped how I teach—not because I found the right technique or solved the mystery of my own voice, but because I began to understand what it feels like to sing from a place of uncertainty. Of fear. Of grief.

I now know that not every struggle needs to be “solved” in the moment.
That sometimes, the most courageous thing a singer can do is stay with the sound—even when it shakes.
And that sometimes, the most powerful thing a teacher can offer is not an answer, but a calm presence. A willingness to sit with the not-knowing, without rushing to fill the silence.

These days, I try to listen differently. To notice what’s under the words. To recognise when the search for a fix might really be a longing to feel safe again.

Because the voice doesn’t just carry sound.
It carries story.
And those stories deserve care—not correction.

If you’re a singer:

What are you trying to fix—and is it asking for a solution, or for compassion?

If you’re a teacher:

Can you remember a moment when a student needed space more than instruction? What would it mean to trust the wisdom of that pause?

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