The Sound of Healing
The Sound of Healing explores the stories behind a song that inspires, heals, and carries beautiful messaging. Join host Jason Amoroso as he interviews artists about the lyrics, deeper meaning behind the song, the creative process, and the musician's personal journey that shaped the work.
These songs are also featured in Revelation Breathwork classes, where music and breath combine to create transformative, somatic experiences. Discover how you can breathe to these powerful tracks in our online breathwork healing community at revelationbreathwork.com.
The Sound of Healing
'Something More' by Audrey Assad
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In this episode of The Sound of Healing, Jason Amoroso sits down with acclaimed singer-songwriter Audrey Assad to explore her deeply moving song, "Something More," from her latest album, Feel It All.
Together, they unpack the song stanza by stanza, reflecting on self-compassion, the inner critic, anxiety, journaling, healing, and the simple yet profound practice of returning to the breath. Audrey shares the inspiration behind the song, why she wanted to write an "examination of conscience" rooted in compassion rather than shame, and how the lyrics continue to reveal new meaning to her over time.
The conversation also explores Audrey's creative process, her experience with Revelation Breathwork, and what it was like breathing to music that already held deep personal significance. It's an honest, thoughtful conversation about being human, embracing all parts of ourselves, and discovering that sometimes, when we've lost our meaning or all feeling... there's nothing left but breathing.
Whether you're navigating anxiety, grief, self-doubt, or simply longing for "something more," I hope this conversation meets you exactly where you are.
Connect with Audrey Assad
🌐 Website: https://audreyassad.com
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/audreyassad/
✍️ Substack – The Violet Fields:
https://thevioletfields.substack.com
Curious About Trying Revelation Breathwork?
In this conversation, Audrey shares her experience of breathing to music that holds deep personal meaning. If you're curious to experience Revelation Breathwork for yourself, we'd love to have you join us.
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About The Sound of Healing
The Sound of Healing is a podcast exploring the music that moves us, heals us, and reminds us who we are. In each episode, Jason Amoroso sits down with the artists behind the song for conversations about creativity, healing, spirituality, and the human experience.
Click Here: Learn more about the healing power of Revelation Breathwork.
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Email us at hello@revelationbreathwork.com
Welcome And Meet Audrey Assad
SPEAKER_04Welcome back to another episode of The Sound of Healing. I am so honored to have the legendary Audrey Asad here as we as we dive into her beautiful song from her new album, Something More. Audrey, thank you so much for being here today. So Audrey Asad is a singer, songwriter, and pianist known for her poetic honesty and spiritual depth. Her debut album, The House You're Building, was named Amazon's 2010 Christian Album of the Year and iTunes Breakthrough Album of the Year. Over time, her music has evolved beyond traditional Christian genres into a more expansive exploration of faith, doubt, and healing. Her latest release, Feel It All, is Incredible, came out this year in 2025, continues that journey with raw, emotional openness and self-discovery. Audrey's work invites listeners into reflection and presence, blending art, spirit, and vulnerability. And she has two of what I think are the best covers in the world. One is the cover of Thank You, the Alanus Morris song, and the other is The Middle from Jimmy Eat World. If you haven't heard those, go wherever you stream music today and listen to something more, Thank You The Middle, and then have fun exploring the rest of her catalog. All right.
Listening To Something More
SPEAKER_04Well, let's listen to something more. There were so many great songs, and that is one of the many beautiful ones that that we decided to focus in on today. So let's listen to it together to get into the vibe, and then we'll talk about it a little bit.
SPEAKER_02Am I kind of? Am I on his with myself? Am I willing to examine all I've done? Am I tended with what's broken? Am I brave enough to get work? Am I searching?
Why The Song Had To Exist
SPEAKER_04That song hits me so deeply. It's so intimate. It's so personal. The word that comes up too is like it's so confronting, but in a gentle way. And thank you for bringing it through you into the world for all of us.
SPEAKER_01I appreciate that. Um, yeah, I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00Thank you.
SPEAKER_04Oh my gosh. What was going on in your world where the song came through?
SPEAKER_01Um, so I have been working on this album for well, by the time it came out in um September this year, 2025. It had been about five years like since I started working on it. And such a long time. And in that process, I sort of had a lot of time to think about like what do I want this album to be like, and what kind of songs do I want to be on there? Because I've been, you know, sort of on my own journey with just how to how to be in the music world, um, what to write about, what to say, and so I've been really thinking about that. And as I sort of looked at the songs, I was like, yeah, there's nothing on here that maybe feels more akin to worship music, let's say, or something um very intentionally meant to help center and keep ground and you know, feel your feelings. And the whole album is called Feel It All. And I was like, I don't know, it just doesn't have that that one be still is on there, which is another one that feels that way to me. But yeah, so something more was like written to kind of complete the record. And I had been thinking a lot about self-examination when I wrote it. And I have other songs that I've written in the past that are sort of self-examining songs, but I think they have a little bit more of a tone of uh maybe some just innate shame that I don't think I could really help feeling. It's just kind of part of the suit that I'm in, you know. And I wanted to write something that was a little bit like tough love, but very, very compassionate toward the self. And so that's that's kind of where that came out of.
SPEAKER_04Well, that I guess that makes sense when I when I felt the word confronting come up. That's that's tough love, but gentle at the same time. Wow.
Spiritual Music Without The Labels
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it kind of becomes a little bit too for me from my experiences uh over the years going to like 12-step type environments. Um, because I've just kind of gone to a few different meetings to see what they're about, and like there's that that feels very similar to me to this song. It's kind of like no no frills, like no cushions, like metaphorically speaking, but but very, very kind environment, you know. Um so that's what I was looking for.
SPEAKER_04That's amazing. I've had the same experience in some some 12-step um environments as well. So let me ask you this has this has this been discovered by the 12-step community and like becoming with the the anthem theme song?
SPEAKER_01No, I don't I don't think that's a thing. Uh I don't think they're uh linked up like that. But um yeah, who knows though?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, who knows? There's definitely a life and energy to the song that's making its way around. Um what kind of responses have you heard or seen, or if people share with you on the song? I know the album just came out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, um, I mean there, you know, have definitely been a few, and I think a resounding theme among the feedback has really been that it's sort of unusual to tr or hard to find maybe music that is like spiritual but not religious or not like uh new age as well, because it's just not the genre I'm in, and I think some people don't that's not what they're looking for, but they want something that feels spiritual to them in a sort of specific way, and so I think something more seems like that kind of song, you know. It's like a prayerful song.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it really it really is. Have you performed the song live yet?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, I have. Um handful of times, yeah, because I've played a couple of shows in 2024, like after it was written sometime in that year. Um I don't remember exactly when, but it was over a year and a half ago. Somewhere one and a half to two years ago I wrote the song and then had a handful of concerts last year and have played it. And um I definitely feel something, you know, when I sing it that feels like it scratches an edge for me. I don't know. The type of the type of song that it is. It feels so centering to me. Um, so I'm glad that it feels that way to other people too. That's really all I could ask for, you know, is that it's communicating.
SPEAKER_04Was it an easy write where you're like, oh, I need another
Writing Fast And Choosing Compassion
SPEAKER_04grounding song. Let me just, you know, or what did the did the lyrics just come through? Like, how does that process work?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it was definitely one of those, like, the ones you're really waiting for in terms of just like so many songs don't come out this way, but this was definitely like it was ripe for the picking for some reason. So I don't remember exactly how long it took, but I don't think it took longer than a couple of hours. It was sort of a pretty pretty quick process writing it. And all I think I started with was like I know I want it to be like what in Catholicism, where I spent many years, we called it an examination of conscience, where you're sort of taking stock of like your integrity, basically, you know, the state of your your heart. And so I wanted to do that. I knew that I wanted to do that, but I wanted to do it in a way that felt less rooted in shame or rooted in um some concept of badness, you know, ultimate or original sin, that kind of thing. But still asking, like, have I been honest, have I been kind? Have I been searching for wisdom? Like, am I doing that? You know? Um and so the desire to sort of write an examination of conscience that didn't feel rooted in shame sort of birthed the song.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I love that. I was I don't know about raised Catholic, but I I was in the yeah, I guess yeah, raised Catholic, where it was uh got confirmed, baptized, confirmed, all that stuff. But yeah, the uh the shame and the guilt is strong in the Catholic tradition. So to have the this song and that being your background but written from a different place maybe that's why it resonates so strongly as well. I mean, it is so pure and true, and I'm just wondering like again, this is gonna be the anthem for all the recovering Catholics out there, as they like to call themselves. I don't identify as a recovering Catholic. Yeah, it's a term people use.
The Lyric That Pushes Back
SPEAKER_04Let's look at some of the lyrics if you know you're willing to share a little bit about them, but just this first stanza. Um, you know, what comes what comes up when when I read it, and you know, maybe a certain line that you want to share more about. Am I kinder than I have been? Am I honest with myself? Am I willing to examine all I've done? Am I tender with what's broken? Am I brave enough to get well?
SPEAKER_05Am I searching for a deeper wisdom?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, it's interesting.
SPEAKER_01One of the things that has jumped out at me several times since the album came out listening to it is like a line that it sort of troubles me. I'm like, I kinda wish I could rewrite it. Um, am I brave enough to get well? Because I'm like, oh, there are so many people that are absolutely not feeling brave. And like sometimes wellness isn't a matter of like I don't know, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and just being brave, you know what I mean? And it's not always that simple. And so I've had a couple of feelings of like, oh, I almost wish I could say something different, but at the same time, I think there is a courage that it requires to try to face yourself, you know? And um I am really, really young in facing myself, I feel it's kind of still a challenge, and I think probably always will be, but um, yeah, it's it takes some gumption to like get up and be like, I'm gonna be real with myself today, like no bullshit, you know. This is not I'm not gonna I'm gonna try not to live at the mercy of my ego all day. And uh that's a challenge. It's challenging and it requires effort and bravery. So that jumps out at me too. It's like, man, hats off to anyone who tries to be self-aware and who tries to be whole or to be integrated. You know, that's it's like the deepest work there is well that's what the song's about, right?
SPEAKER_04Integration. It's you know, accepting all the parts of ourself, the parts especially that we are ashamed of or we don't like or we're trying to make different or change. So I find that first line, like the first line of that song just sets the tone. Am I kinder than I have been? Because I think the answer for probably most of us is uh I'm I can definitely be kinder than I have been. Usually first to ourselves. I mean, I don't know if that's what you were writing about to yourself.
SPEAKER_01That's definitely part of it. Yeah. I mean, and and just to others as well. Just but either or. I mean, I think that's a huge part of it, you know.
SPEAKER_04What's your self? You could talk about self-examination and and self-reflection and self-awareness. Like what's your process for that? Is it just a moment-to-moment kind of gauge, or do you journal, do you have practices to help you be more aware?
SPEAKER_01Um, oh man. I mean, I do I do a fair bit of uh journaling, yeah. I would say that's I don't do it every day, but I do it every week several times, and it's definitely uh a major a source, I guess, of connection to whatever's happening in me. I've always said I don't feel like I've fully lived my life until I've written about it. It's like I really have a connection to writing words um in songs or in journal entries. It helps me integrate what I'm experiencing. So often I end up writing things that are even almost a little bit foreshadowing because it's almost like my mind knows where I'm going in some way, and I'm so I'm writing a song for the person I'm gonna be in like three months or six months or whatever. Um, like the songs unfold in meaning over time, which is so prismatic and magical. And I think probably anybody's songs do that to them as time goes by, they are looking at them from a different vantage point, and I think that's one of the best things about music, you know, it grows with you.
SPEAKER_04That's so funny because in the last episode I did with an artist, they said the exact same thing, and I'd never heard that before. Like I get from a listener standpoint, you hear a song two, three, four, five years later, you're different. So how you hear it and experience is different. But from an artist's perspective, the same thing. Like, oh, like who I am now, and I wrote that, and that's so cool.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is cool. It's uh it's an ever-unfolding thing.
SPEAKER_04So let's how about the next section? Like, can I see I'm not my mistakes? Will I learn to let them go? How do I feel beyond my heartache and hold on to something more?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
Inner Critic And Process Over Outcome
SPEAKER_01I mean I feel like this whole verse is just about my inner critic and sort of my relationship to that. Um I feel like my inner critic is like a I've got a whole character associated to this thing. So I think there's visuals. I've named her. I'm like, I I I live with this person. She's horrible, you know, like the my inner critic is a is a really rude and uh disruptive person. And it's like learning to love that part of me is is the hardest, and learning to um love and appreciate the parts of me that have been at the mercy of my inner critic is hard, and yeah. Um so definitely some catharsis there around. But it's like questions too. I'm just like, well, I don't even know. Like, you know, I've been in therapy and I've done all this work, you know, and here I am still running up against the same old shit, you know, and I'm like, well, I guess maybe I have to think like the process is the point, like it's not necessarily outcomes we're after, and so yeah, that sort of verse sort of speaks to me about that.
SPEAKER_04I think that's so honest to what you just said, like the process is the point. I I often ask myself this too, as kind of a my own gauge, and I was just talking to someone today about this very idea. It's like, well, what if for for me, like what if I'm always gonna be worrying about the future? What if like I can't get rid of it, the right mindset won't fix it, the right person, like it's just it's just I'm always gonna have it. Like, can I accept that more if it's a part of me instead of resist it or try and change it? Or like can it's just a it's just in there. And I think for me, when I just acknowledge that it's here, maybe it's here forever, I don't know. But like it's a part of me. It has like less for me, it has less strength because I'm like, okay, you're here. I'm not fighting you, and it's not fighting back. Like, you know, when you push something and you push on someone. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01And it's I think you're also accepting it's like sometimes we unwittingly think like, oh, maybe if I love that part of myself and accept that part of myself, that part of myself will want to come to the party and like be a great guest. It's like I don't know if it works that way. Like the whole thing is if you're accepting that part of yourself, you're saying, if you never change, like I still love you and I still accept you, even if you are always like this. And I don't think that's an easy thing to do, actually. You can think it and do it, and then you need to do it over and over and over and over again. You know, it's not one and done situation.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I think it's another way we try and like trick ourselves. You like exactly what you said. If I oh, if I love this, then I and I heal this, then it's gone. It's just another way for us to like get it out of here versus what you just said, which is uh unconditional love. Loving without any condition needing to be different. And that that is the challenging part, I think, for everybody. Can I love this part that's always always afraid of everything, always sees the worst case there, is always an asshole or is critical or whatever. Like, can I love myself? That's a part of me too. So you know, what you're writing is you know really honest. Think that's why the song hits so deeply. It's because it's it's honest. What is there something specific?
Holding On To Something More
SPEAKER_04Just curious when you say, and because the title of the song is something more, and you say, and can I hold on to something more? Is there anything specific in the something more?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. It's I have to admit that when I wrote that, I wasn't, I was like, what am I saying? But as I've as like I I sort of had a feeling I was trying to get at. Like I'm trying to I'm trying to gesture at a feeling that I want to have, which is like not being uh limited to this myopic view of like who I am, my identity, and like you know, my little story about how everything works. And like, is there something beyond me that I can hold on to? Uh I don't know the answer to that question. So like it I know it feels like it. I know that I when I feel certain types of connection, I feel something that feels bigger than me. It feels like it's outside of me in some way, but also within me and the the resonance of that. And so, like, whether that's a live music event or a dinner with friends or a prayer or whatever, you know. So when I feel that, I think like, oh, that's what I want to hold on to when I'm like drowning in my self-doubt or drowning in my self-loathing or whatever. So I didn't really know what I was saying at first, but I feel like I understand it a little differently now.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and even as you're talking more, it's like, oh, you're talking about the heart of the feeling of like a an intuition, even if I don't know specifically what the something more is, but there is something more, and I and I know it, even if I can't put my finger on it. Maybe my finger's not supposed to be on it. And then I was like, oh, I'm asking that question from like logical mental cerebral brain, which like I personally think can literally not know the something more. It's like outside of the realm of its grasp, but it's trying to make it known. And so you Yeah, what you're saying now makes oh it lands a lot more.
SPEAKER_01This is the tension that births language, though. It's just like the tr the attempt to explain it and understand it, you know, makes sense. But yeah.
SPEAKER_04Alright, this next this next stanza, I don't need to know your story. I don't need to know your name. I don't need to understand you anymore. Just who who's the you that you're talking to there?
SPEAKER_01Um the Lord, God, um, higher power. You insert deity of choice, really. And so it's either one you don't whichever one you thought you had to understand in order to be okay. Whichever one that is, that's the one it's about.
SPEAKER_03I love that.
SPEAKER_01It could be your father, it could be your dad, it could be, you know, really anything that keeps you in that place of just feeling like you gotta figure this thing out or you're not gonna be safe and okay, and you know.
SPEAKER_04So Yeah, this is really like an out-of-the-box message I'm getting, you know, what I'm now that you're sharing more about it, like in the best way. It's like get out of the box of what you thought you knew or what you think of yourself. There's something there's something more out there. Beautiful. That's at least how I'm hearing it.
Anxiety Lives In The Body
SPEAKER_04All right. Next one we're almost we got two more. Can I breathe when I'm anxious? Breathe in deep, breathe in slow. How do I look beyond my weakness and hold on to something more than everything I thought I knew before? Can I hold on to something more? So you're introducing this which re repeats this idea of like breathing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, this is the part where I wanted to keep the format of the examination of self. Uh so can I do this? Am I able to do this? Like, am I kind? Am I honest? Can I breathe when I'm anxious? Because the thing is, like what I have learned, or I think I'm learning this anyway, is that the feelings um that we experience that interrupt us or trigger us or whatever, you know, these more difficult, challenging emotions. Like they get expressed through the body, really, and felt in the body, and we try to get ourselves out of their uh or out from under their weight with our minds. It's like so you're you do breath work so you understand what I'm saying, I think that like there is a strength and a power in just the most simple of actions that we do every day without realizing. And so if I'm taking stock of myself, I want to be like, you know, have I have I been taking intentional breaths? Am I moving my body and taking a walk? Like, am I that's a spiritual discipline, you know? It's a an emotional discipline. It's not just something you do with your physical parts. It it involves all of the things that make us who we are. And so I think I, yeah, it's become very important to me to retain a connection and to remember to come back to breathing because I do get triggered a lot and I do dissociate and I do shut down and I do all those things just like maybe as much as I ever have, but now I have a little bit more of an ability to come back to the breath, to come back to my body. So that's and it's like I need that. I am so dissociative, actually. So, you know, so it's kind of like a reminder to myself to just stay here, touch grass, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yes. Yes, and it's in line. Is that what the title of the album, in a way, like when you say feel it all, is that what you're referring to as well, what you just talked about right now?
SPEAKER_01I think it I think it says something about that, you know, um, for sure. Just trying to like accept all, reject none, you know, um, accept what's here and be with that.
SPEAKER_04So yeah, you've shared so many things. I mean, I before this, I was working in Major League Baseball as the as basically like the head of all peak performance, mental toughness, mental skills, and and what you just shared is like when you're worrying, when you're stressed, when you're in your head so much, you are not breathing at all. Like pay anyone who's listening to this, just notice your next critical thought, your next judgmental thought, your next trigger, your next worry, anxiety, whatever it is, and just notice, oh my gosh, I'm not really I'm breathing, but I'm not really breathing. Yeah. So what you're saying. Yeah, right, just enough to like sustain systems. But and then when you come back to the breath and the body, what you're saying also is is what we do, Revelation Breathwork. It's why we exist. It's like because I'm the king of the overthinkers, like I relate to everything you're saying. I can live up here all day long, but then I'm not present. And I'm not really allowing myself to feel what's there that wants to be felt because there's there's wisdom in it, there's information in it. And when I'm up here, I I miss it all. And then yeah, so everything you're saying is really landing. And I just want to reflect back and just I appreciate your humility so much because it you're in you embracing your humanity and you being like, Yeah, I'm still trying to figure it out. Like I'm I I might never get over this thing. I might always be like, like it that's so not just refreshing, it's like honest because it c I just know it's come from a lot of a lot of work, probably a lot of dark nights of the soul, a lot of despair and doubt. Um and so like when you are sharing these things, it's it's real because it's so like you embody it, you live it. And that I think is for me, that's the most spiritual thing is to be embrace our humanity fully instead of a lot of people are trying to use spirituality to get out of being human instead of like you said, accepting it's it's all of it. It's like both ends.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I still do. You know.
SPEAKER_04There's the humility, it's true, right? I think and I think I I think we all do, like any and all people do, especially spiritual teachers or people who are living in faith or whatever. It's like you can't deny that part of the human experience. So and especially in I think more faith-based areas, like using like the logic or i it's very easy to stay in the intellect and ideas versus in the trenches of the somatic embodied experience. And um that's I think where we offer, where your music offers people a place to a space to come and have that have that experience, which in my takes a lot of courage to meet those places. So yeah. Thank oh my gosh, thank you.
Faith Shifts And Living Without Landing
SPEAKER_04All right, so that's probably a good segue if you're open to sharing, because I think your your journey is important. It's a journey that a lot of people are in the process of right now, which is and just your own journey of evolving from maybe more traditional Christian world and music into something different, and what that's been like for you, both in like how has that been to step into new territory and to step out of old and that process.
SPEAKER_01Much like what we were just sort of speaking about, there's sort of a I guess a realization I keep coming to over and over, which is sort of that like I there is no landing when it comes to spirituality ultimately. It's just treading, you're floating, you're treading water, you're interacting with it, you know, constantly, and it's uh it's a dance for sure. Um so all this to say, like I've kind of reached a place where I'm sort of like, man, I everything that was in my past, which you know wasn't a very conservative Christian upbringing, and then a long stint in Catholicism and um lots of different phases since then trying to understand and expand and you know, let go of it all because I have a tendency to fixate for sure, to hyper-fixate on trying to figure it out and understand. And like I've read all the theology books when I was a Christian, you know, um in the way that I was a Christian, I it was so about the mind and what I could know. And um, yeah, I've sort of been like, well, life has taught me that you can't really know much. And uh so if that's true, then where does that leave me with, you know, all of this? And I have to look back and marvel. I'm like, man, I mean, every little thing that I've been through that I've believed, that I've preached, that I've deconstructed or reconstructed, it all makes me who I am, and it's all a part of the story that I'm living out, you know. So I feel a lot of acceptance, I think, for having gone I've gone through a lot of change. Um but weirdly, it's brought me back to in some ways to feeling more connected to to where I come from uh in terms of that stuff. So I'm kind of just like I don't know how to I don't even know what to call what I am, but I feel at peace. You know, I feel like I've integrated where I come from with what I know now, which is that you can't know a lot of things. And it feels like all that can live together. Um but yeah, I feel I feel grateful for each each thing that I've gone through there for sure.
SPEAKER_04Man, I have so many questions. I'm so curious. Um okay, can I the first one is, and I don't really have these conversations with a lot of people, and I feel like your perspective's gonna be just important. Um when you say Christian, how do you define what it like when somebody identifies as a Christian? What is like what's your understanding of that?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I think historically speaking, it means someone who follows the belief system of you know, the general acceptance of what is Christian, which is that Jesus Christ is God, that he was born as a human and was fully man and fully God, and then died and rose again, and like all of that is basically what I think historically Christianity is. It's it's a religion about Jesus, you know. And so it has all these core beliefs, and there's sort of a list, a small list of ones that are foundational, and I think it's kind of that that kind of thing. Um and I don't think it always means that anymore, you know, but it did for sure.
SPEAKER_04I've I've had the privilege of getting to know Ruthie Lindsay over a little bit less than a year. I met her this year, an incredible person, woman, soul, and Eric, her amazing partner. And I think that's how we got introduced.
Audrey Tries Breathwork And Breaks Open
SPEAKER_04And then I shared a little bit about Revelation Breath work with you, and then we I was had the privilege of giving you an experience of that, and I'm curious what that was like for you.
SPEAKER_01You know, it was so interesting. I went into it with no expectations because I didn't really know, you know, what to expect. And because I I also could tend to put a lot of pressure on myself to perform well in these situations, like be a good breathwork student, like do it really good, you know, like make sure you do a great job, that kind of internal pressure. And I was like, I'm just gonna let that go and like try to really relax into the experience. And you had asked me to select songs ahead of time, and so I didn't really know how they were gonna be. Now that I've done it, I kind of have more of an idea, but I didn't really know how they were gonna be placed or what the pacing of it was gonna be. Um, and I found that I went through a great deal of physical discomfort. Uh it was it was challenging. I was like very challenged aptly. And I have like a I don't know if this is part of it, but I have like asthma and I have allergies, and it's like breathing, and it's always been uh a challenge with nose, and sometimes my nose doesn't open, you know, and sometimes I so I was like, Woof, this is and then you know, the breath went to my head, and I was like, I'm I'm dizzy, I'm lightheaded, you know. So I was getting all the all the things you said that might happen, they all happened. And I was like, wow, this is I am working through it. I'm on the edge. I am edging against the boundary of my capacity. But personally, I found that to be extremely powerful, especially when it kind of went into an easier section um after we crested the the peak or whatever. I felt so, so relaxed. It was like I wasn't really expecting that. Like I sort of felt like it dropped me into a state of uh like almost sleep, you know, but not sleep. Um just above sleeping. And the song that played, uh I remember the one that really got me was um it's called Go Easy Kid by Monica Martin. And that song always gets me, but man, after having like basically climbed Mount Everest from what's what it felt like. Um I heard that song like on a cellular level or something. I heard it more deeply than I had ever heard it. And it was yeah, it was very powerful in that way. Um, and I I felt like I carried something from that song, which I already loved, you know, already had a relationship to the words and the melodies and everything and her performance. Um but I I felt like I took some things away from that song that I hadn't maybe been able to like fully glean from it, and that was a really cool experience. So it was very restful, even though it was challenging. There was sort of a I would ultimately characterize it as a restful experience because of where it took me. And like it's really good to confront the edges of your capacity. It's uh it's a rewarding feeling to sort of be willing to in a safe way, like push yourself um to feel more, to be more open to what's happening, you know.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that's awesome. Uh really just yeah, recognize you for it takes courage to show up and do the work when you're at capacity or when it feels like I'm not sure what's gonna happen here, but I feel like I'm safe and I feel like there I can keep showing up. Um, that's when a lot of the breakthroughs happen. That's when I think we realize how much capacity we have and how much usually we hold. I'm curious, did you did you go for the primal scream? Did you make sounds? Like what was your experience like outside of just physical discomfort?
SPEAKER_01I did, I didn't primal scream, but more because uh I have primal screamed in my life, but I my voice is in a weird spot right now after having a baby a year ago, and like the diaphragm and my throat all feel a little like it's very tied to your pelvic floor, and so I'm kind of like I was in feeling a little protective of just making sure that I didn't damage anything because you can really develop nodules on your vocal cords screaming wrong once or twice, you know. So I was like, oh, I don't know if I feel just right now where my body is, you know, but I did I did let out a holler, like a hard, hard holler, which felt great. Um, and it's another that's a timbre that I don't explore much, so I was like, oh, that felt felt good to yell, you know. Um and I'm trying to remember if I made other sounds. I mean, I know I know that I definitely shed tears when Monica Martin came on. I was so uh so emotional during that song, and that felt release, you know, for sure. It was the nice dynamic climb, climb, climb release. It was great.
SPEAKER_04That's how many people say I love that song. I've heard that song so many times, but I I haven't heard it like that before. And after you, I had never heard that song before, and then when we played it in your session, I'm like, oh so I've played it many, several times in our classes since, and I have a note to reach out to her to connect with her as well. Because yeah, when you're in that state and you hear those lyrics and the music, it's it just hits deep. So it's awesome. And that's what people are gonna have with your music, and they're already big fans, where it's like, oh my god, every song is I'm going through an Audrey Assad you know, experience.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's going to be incredible.
Where To Connect And Final Fun
SPEAKER_04So tell us what you're up to now since the release of the album and how people can connect with you.
SPEAKER_01Well, just basking in the joy of having released this project after five years of working. And my uh husband, Jeremy Clive, produced it, mixed it, mastered it. So it was a family, family effort, and I'm really proud of it. And um, you can connect with me on Instagram, and I have a sub stack called the Violet Fields um that I write.
SPEAKER_04You can put the link somewhere here in the show notes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, sure. Um I write there about life and the inner world and uh random stupid things that happen to me. Um and yeah, so that's that's the main two places that you find me. But I'm on Facebook, I'm on TikTok, all of that stuff. And I'd love to connect with you guys. Hit me up.
SPEAKER_04Awesome. Bonus question, super fast. Sure. If you could be any animal for a day without the risk of being killed or eaten, which animal would you be?
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's interesting. Um a cat. I'd be a cat. Yeah. Just uh want to see what that's like, you know. Are they as are they as maniacal as we think they are? You know? I don't know. I'd love to know that.
SPEAKER_04Awesome. Well, thank you so much, Audrey. It's been such a a pleasure to spend this time with you and so far getting to know you and just grateful for you making the time and sharing yourself with us today.
SPEAKER_01Thanks, Jason.