Freedom Through Music
- Katie Orshinsky
- Jan 17, 2016
- 4 min read

“There’s an art to life’s distractions”. This couldn’t be more true for me. For some people there’s art, sports, music, and anything in between. Anything that keeps you distracted, even if it’s for a short period of time, from something you don’t want to focus on. For me, that thing is anxiety. I’ve been dealing with my anxiety for a little over two years now and this is the first thing that’s truly helped me more than I could have possibly imagined. A while back my best friend introduced me to Hozier’s music. It didn’t take long before I had all of his songs downloaded and playing on repeat. I quickly noticed how much of a calming effect it had on me and decided to test a theory. I told my family and friends that if they noticed some warning signs of me getting anxious to remind me to go listen to my music. After a while it became clear to myself and anyone close to me that this had made a huge difference in my life. It came to a point one night, when I got up in the middle of the night and my mind started playing tricks on me. Between the shadows in the living room from the light coming in through the windows and the odd mirror around the house, I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable. I was getting that familiar feeling of chills running down your spine yet being too warm at the same time, and seemingly not being able to get enough air into your lungs. I knew I needed to calm down… then the familiar lyric popped into my head. “There’s an art to life’s distractions”, this was enough for me to remember the song and continue to sing the rest of the lyrics in my head. This was the first time I noticed how important this particular lyric was to me and how much potential it had to calm me down in moments of panic. This quickly became a regular things for me. Getting up at night, starting to panic and remembering those lyrics and eventually calming myself down almost instantly. My final moment of realization was the day after Christmas. On the way to a relative’s house I started to panic. I had already had one bad panic attack on Christmas Eve and I didn’t want it to happen again. I knew there would be a lot of people there and that meant being pulled in a million different directions and being asked questions I didn’t want to answer. By that point I sat in the back seat of the car and started to cry. I kept telling myself that I was strong enough to get through the day and all I needed was my music. I pulled out my phone and headphones and pressed play. I can remember it so clearly. I heard one note. That was all it took, one deep, strong familiar note at the beginning of a song to feel like a massive weight had been lifted from my shoulders. That was when I’d made my final decision. One of my newest, closest friends had asked me a while back to go with her when she got her first tattoo. Of course I’d go with her, plus I’d been wanting to get another. I had finally decided that the perfect thing for me to get would be something that has comforted me through some of what I thought were the worst moments of my life thus far. “There’s an art to life’s distractions” that was it. Six simple words I now proudly wear on my skin across the back of my left shoulder. Going in for the tattoo I was prepared for some pain, I’d gotten one before so I expected some pain, but I didn’t expect my anxiety to spike. I sat, waited and watched and my friend get her tattoo done, and then it was my turn. While I waited at the front of the shop for the artist to be ready I contemplated walking out at least 10 times and debated crying at least five. Since it was a Hozier quote I was committing to, when is there a better time to listen to his music that has calmed me down so many times before? I put in my headphones again and closed my eyes and focussed on breathing and before I knew it the artist was calling me back to start placing a stencil. Everything was quick but before I knew it I was all set up and ready, albeit a little uncomfortable on what was basically a padded table. For the next 20 minutes or so I laid there as the tattoo artist officially pushed Hozier’s words into my skin. After that it was all done, in my opinion 20 minutes of pain was well worth the comfort this tattoo has brought me in so many situations already. There were a few lines in Someone New that stood out to me. “There’s an art to life’s distractions” is of course one of those things, but immediately following that line is the line “to somehow escape the burning weight the art of scraping through.” This also rang true for me. Especially when I feel like my distraction, the art that is Hozier’s music really does feel like it’s lifting a huge weight off of my shoulders in the moments where I feel like the world is crashing down. I suppose my purpose for writing this story would be to thank him. Although the chances are slim that Hozier himself may read this, I hope he does. Artists deserve to know how much of an impact they’ve made on people’s lives. I never quite understood the idea of that before now. I’ll end this little story with one more line, “Would things be easier if there was a right way, honey there is no right way” I would imagine if there was a right way to handle things like anxiety or depression, mental illness or even regular day to day stress life would potentially be easier. But just like the lyrics say, there is no right way. But I think with this, I may have found the right way for me.
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