Nanci Griffith Quotes

I definitely use my music to kind of alleviate my stress and get me through specific moments in time where I'm just being really tough on myself.

The main reason I did 'Captain America' was because I wanted to get out of my own head and stop taking my work so seriously.

I use music as therapy. Whenever I'm feeling angry or needing some 'me' time, which is quite regularly, I'll go and bang a piano or flesh out something on a guitar.

Music is so therapeutic for me that if I can't get it out, I start feeling bad about myself - a lot of self-loathing.

Music stops you from thinking.

Anything that can keep me distracted and from my own brain, it's good.

Looking back on it, now I can identify the points in my life when I wasn't playing, and music - and didn't have that outlet - those were the points when I was most unguided and self destructive because I didn't have that channel to get those energies out. I'm a much healthier person when I play music.

It's incredibly liberating to spend an hour talking to someone and not caring about what you sound like. It's about understanding myself. Sometimes I'll speak to my therapist for an hour a day. It's become part of my routine.

Music and art and culture is escapism, and escapism sometimes is healthy for people to get away from reality. The problem is when they stay there.

I originally started redoing houses to deal with stress. I found that the hour I could go to a job site every day took my mind off the 24/7 of thinking about my clients.

Music for me is not just being on a stage and singing. It's my coping mechanism.

I have been able to tap into all the negative things that can happen to me throughout my life by numbing myself to the pain so to speak and kind of being able to vent it through my music.

I don't have a therapist, so I use me as my own therapist when I'm making the music.

I have time to breathe, time to be myself more often, I am a lot more relaxed and less guarded.

I will go running when I'm stressed out. The running helps, but more than anything, I'll put music on and then I'll run. I'll cry and get it all out.

My ideology was, if I just make very happy music, very happy music, then people will forget about whatever their problems are. I will forget about my problems.

I write music, really, to make myself feel better.

I have given up reading books; I find it takes my mind off myself.

We've all had stress creep up on us without even noticing it until we lost it on someone who didn't deserve it, and then we realize that we probably should have checked in with ourselves a little earlier.

Music is almost like a therapy for me. It helps keep me centered and think straight. Before I discovered it, I was walking around, and it felt like there were 25 extra pounds of gravity on my shoulders. It's like you're mute or something.

I use the music to vent, and a lot of the stuff that I am writing about or was writing about contained a lot of anger and anxiety, stress and depression, so that's how the album came out so dark.

It may sound lame, but I've been journaling since I was in third grade. I love it! It makes me feel calm and happy.

When I'm working I don't have room to think about myself and my own issues. It's really freeing. There is no room for me, which is really nice.

When that music comes on, I just block everything around me out.

I don't journal to 'be productive.' I don't do it to find great ideas or to put down prose I can later publish. The pages aren't intended for anyone but me. It's the most cost-effective therapy I've ever found.