Mental health balance in modern life

Song: "Tough Love"

Artist: Bright Light Bright Light

Story: I wrote this song after seeing drastically increased numbers of friends posting about their mental health struggles in 2018. Many had been downplaying or hiding mental health struggles for quite some time and with the public social media shift into finally talking about the issues, felt able to come forward. As someone who has many friends with a range of struggles from bipolar, depression or even just chronic work fatigue, I've seen friends struggle not only with the issues, but with their ability to address and confront them. As an independent musician myself, often working unhealthy hours, I've had to work really hard to keep my balance, so I wrote this song as a reminder to us all that nobody is alone in feeling overwhelmed, and nobody is alone in feeling embarrassed about that. The song deals most directly with removing toxic people from your life - lovers, friends, colleagues, enemies - whose negative language and behaviour brings you down. There are so many people, especially with social media's insidious nature, who get under our skin that don't need to be there. So I wrote it as a song to help me remember that you don't need to be best friends with everyone, you cannot please everyone, and you cannot see eye to eye with everyone. And that's ok. Social media has made a public drive to be liked by everyone which many find crushing as it's just not achievable. And watching people brag post to make their feeds look gorgeous is also crushing when you don't behave like that, leaving lots of people feeling like their lives don't compare. Weed the poisonous people, and keep those who help you flourish close. Probably the heaviest subject matter in any of my songs, but so important to me. I also worked with local charities across the UK when touring the EP of the same name to help raise awareness and money for charities dealing with immigrants and LGBTQIA youth and adults, hoping to be able to tackle at least some issues along the way.