Letting Go – Natalie London of Hey, King! Tells Us About the Healing Power of Letting Go

Transcript

Tony Ray Baker I want to jump back though with a comment you made about the Limelight and we were talking about coming out or something really bad and you said there was there was just this place or time or something where you just resigned and you let go, that this is what you’re dealing with. And then you were open at that point to accept and now create and recreate yourself. And I think that a lot of people, whether LGBTQ or not, a lot of people are going through these things where they just keep hanging on to what they think they’re supposed to do or be. From my own experience, if you just let go sometimes and just be relaxed and accept things the way they are, there is a moment of change that you see the doors open when you’re when you’re looking. Was there some little thing that you remember that just flip that switch for you and you said “Holy shit! This is it, I’m going forward!”

Natalie London I mean, I think that It especially around serious illness and chronic illness and trauma, and tragedy… You kind of you’re… I was getting this message over and over again, that like keep going, you can get your life back. You can get your life back. You can get your life back! And something hit me where I looked around and the man that was my dad, that I called my dad, had passed away while I was sick. My friends who I lived with had moved on and you know, nothing that I had defined my life by still existed. And so that mantra of you’re going to get your life back was actually incredibly detrimental to me.

It didn’t want to make me move forward or fight because you’re looking around and you’re like, that’s actually impossible, like the opportunities I had, the people I had, they were gone. So when you stop fighting to get something back, and instead, give yourself one, an opportunity to grieve what you’ve lost. I think is incredibly important. If you know, there’s nothing wrong with being like, well this is all like I’m not gonna get this back. That’s painful. My life’s not going to look the same as it did before and be okay with that, you know, grieve it feel it, but then it opens this door. Where then you’re like, heck, I can have whatever kind of life I want. Because not everybody has the opportunity you know, when you lose everything to be like, well now I get to rewrite my entire story, And I definitely took that to an extreme.

I mean I changed my phone number and email. I went to the courts and changed my name. I mean, I was like, I get a chance to start over again. I started a new band, wrote the book and like, I completely gave myself an opportunity to kind of reopen my life in a, in a different direction. It was awesome. It’s been amazing to go through that at the end of the day. Like you know, I wouldn’t wish that upon anybody, all of the things that happened, but it gives you a chance to kind of recreate your life and let new people in a new opportunity. So…

Tony Ray Baker I think, yeah, I think that’s the part where you said, “when you just accept that’s the part you had,” and it’s amazing because when you’re trying to hold onto stuff, I think all the doors are all closed in. As soon as you accept that, that you just can’t hold on to everything and just let it go and let the next thing be. Then the next thing is really cool. When you start seeing doors opening everywhere.

Natalie London Right?!

Tony Ray Baker And I feel like that’s what you were expressing. I feel like also, you guys are very fortunate in the fact that I feel like you… I’ve always thought this about artists that are truthful in their music, which I get from your music, is that there’s truth and I feel like it’s also very cathartic and healing for you and it’s a great outlet that I wish more people had. You know that we’re not all musical and you don’t want to hear me sing I’m telling you right now. But the reality is we all have to find a way to let that out and I love that you have that healing through music. And you also allow the viewer to heal through that music as well.