I Tried Tiger’s Eye Crystal Therapy to Improve My Singing

This is my last week of crystal therapy! I am now working with Tiger’s Eye, another Solar Plexus stone. If you want to see my other crystals in this month-long project, here are Turquoise, Blue Topaz and Citrine. 

Please note: this blog is for entertainment purposes only! I am not a doctor and am not making any recommendations. Even if you think crystal healing isn’t real, hopefully this will be an interesting look at my typical work week. I’d love to know your thoughts on crystals though, so please let me know!

Tiger’s Eye Crystals for Singers

Right away, this stone was my favorite of the bunch just based on its looks. I’m shallow, I know, but look at it:

It has these golden stripes that change color when I move it. This stone is said to fuel your passions and give you courage. Apparently, pairing it with Citrine is “the ultimate power cocktail in crystal healing.” This is great because I already have a Citrine, so we’ll see what happens.

Since I struggled with a lot of anxiety last week, I’m hoping this stone will balance that. I’m happy to see that there are a lot of Tiger’s Eye meditations on YouTube, so I will continue to work on meditations this week.

Tiger’s Eye is created when Quartz forms over existing Crocidolite and eventually replaces it. Basically, it’s like Quartz and Crocidolite had a baby that can give you more confidence and success.

Roman soldiers wore amulets and talismans of Tiger’s Eye to give them courage and keep them calm. It was also used by ancient Egyptians to represent divine vision and was used for the eyes in their deity statues.

One thing I keep seeing in my research is a “crystal grid.” I saw it so much that I decided to research that specifically today. Crystal grids are designs laid out on a template using crystals. You set your intention and create a map with the stones to help you focus on your goal. There are plenty of templates online and you can also buy wooden ones or printable templates.

These look very pretty, but also very expensive. I enjoy my little stones but I can’t imagine getting that many of them for this project. I don’t know what I would do with them afterward and that’s a lot of money for something I’ll likely forget about. If you have the discipline to work with them, the artistic ability, and, most importantly, the money to spend, this might be a fun project.

Day 1

I was off to a good start when the first thing I did was reach for my Tiger’s Eye and put it in my necklace. Then I went to the mirror, and oh my god. My face had broken out much worse than it was last week. I work from home so nobody really cares, but still.

Last night I had two gigs but couldn’t finish them. My allergies were so bad I could hardly breathe. I know, I’m starting off today by complaining and being annoying. Luckily, both of my clients have allergies too so they understood. Today should be a good day to finish those jobs.

Today I’m just feeling kind of scattered. I have a ton of new project requests to sift through and respond. If you’re curious about that process, it goes like this:

• Read each project inquiry form or email
• Review any demos submitted
• Decide what projects I won’t fit (due to timelines, vocal range, etc)
• Respond to the ones I can’t work on with referrals to other session musicians
• Respond to the ones I can work on with further questions and/or quotes

Of those I respond to, some don’t ever write back. Many people inquire without serious interest, and that’s fine. I still respond to everyone because you never know if they might need you in the future.

It’s mentally taxing to do this because it involves a lot of careful listening, consideration and time in responding. If I’m not in the right head space for it, I don’t like to do it because I don’t want to sound distracted or give wrong information.

I did the two songs tonight and felt fine, but then I started rehearsing for my upcoming gig and my voice just collapsed. I am so nervous about it and I know that singing is a mental game, so I have to just work on my confidence. Maybe this Tiger’s Eye can help with that?

Day 2

I got terrible sleep last night. My two geriatric Chihuahuas woke me up 3 or 4 times to go outside. I’m positive they don’t’ have UTIs so I think they’re just old and can’t hold it well. I need to find a solution because this is becoming a regular thing. I might put pee pads down so if they wake up at night they can just use them and not bother me until the morning.

This morning I got my oil changed and canceled a meeting with my accountant to finish up these two projects. I’ve kept these clients waiting long enough and I want to make sure they have what they need. Although I sang them last night, I still need to go through and edit them for background noise and make any changes needed. New job requests are pouring in. If you read my Citrine post from last week, I had hardly any clients and it was getting a little tough. I’m happy things are on the upswing again.

I got three new projects and have at least 8 potential clients to respond to, which is great! A little overwhelming, but great. Also, my allergies are pretty bad still. I haven’t been wearing makeup at all because of my skin breaking out and my eyes and nose running nonstop all day.

Clearly, I’m not too happy about it.

Also, just so you know, I normally never take selfies. My friends complain that they have no pictures of me because I never want to do selfies with them, but I’m doing them here so you can see what I do all day. I sneeze, rub my inflamed eyeballs and respond to clients from sunup till long after sundown. Then I sleep for about 3 hours with my two dogs waking me up to pee constantly, and repeat it all the next day.

My co-writer came over tonight and we worked on our songs for our upcoming show. I got through maybe 3 or 4 and then my throat started to hurt. BUT – I now know what I’m doing wrong. When I sing, I’m tensing the lower part of my throat muscles up. I do it to give myself enough resonance inside my head to hear myself. So now that I know what to stop, I just need to learn how to stop doing it, haha. I don’t know if this is something I can fix before the show but I emailed my vocal coach to see if she can fit me in for some extra lessons. This isn’t a problem for me during session singing because I can take breaks or do whatever I want to relax my voice between takes. I’m kind of glad I’m doing this show because it’s helping me learn some important things about my technique.

Wait…if I hadn’t been writing about my daily life and my reactions with these crystals, I don’t know that I would have come to this realization about my technique. Does this mean that crystals have actually made me a better singer? Holy crap, you guys.

Day 3

I woke up to a completely exploded inbox. Two new orders came in last night while I was sleeping, many more inquiries, and I’m just so happy. I love being busy and I love organizing incoming chaos. That being said, it was a little overwhelming this morning. I’m also very active in animal causes so I get constant emails about new laws being passed, cruelty cases, action alerts, etc. I streamline every email into one inbox to keep things simple, but sometimes it’s anything but.

Today I have a lot to do besides just my new gigs. I need to edit my latest blog and vlog to post tomorrow. I have a lot of writing to do. This weekend will be busy, but fun and exciting. I’m taking a winemaking class and seeing one of my favorite authors live. I have VIP tickets to meet him and I’m so excited.

Today I’m also determined to relax at some point. I haven’t done that at all the last two days and I need rest for my projects tonight. So I’m going to dedicate an hour or two to just reading and/or watching TV. I tried meditating with my Tiger’s Eye yesterday but my mind was all over the place so I don’t think it really did anything.

Last night I ran through most of my songs and tried to really focus on relaxing my throat. I sang very softly and didn’t try to push anything. I was able to get through the whole set without any pain or hoarseness! YOU GUYS. This whole crystal project lead me to figure out what I was doing wrong. I’m blown away!

So this means that for the show, I’ll need to make sure my mic volume is pretty high, both in my monitor and for the audience. I really hope the sound guy is good. My partner tends to play the guitar hard, so I need my mic up so I’m not straining too much.

Day 4

This morning started off in a rush. I went to complete my outfit for the show, and I think I’ve got it figured out:

The suit jacket is way too big on me. I look like a kid playing dress up. So I took it to a tailor this morning. My outfit will be dark satin leggings, a blue top and my suit jacket. I’m not wearing heels because I’m already going to be nervous. I have some new Guess hightops that I think will go well with this look.

I came back and waded through my mountain of emails, then there was a knock at the door. My shot glasses arrived for the show!

I’m so excited! I’ve never had merch before! The photo is my partner and I. We couldn’t decide what to call us as a ‘band,’ and ultimately we decided to just be Mella. It’s different enough and it can be a band name as well as a name.

I could only complete one of my projects last night. The others I needed clarification on a few things, so I had to set them aside. Tonight I’ll have to work on those.

Also, today is the big day – I released my first post on crystals with my interview!

Another thing I learned from singing last night: My range changes depending on the song I’m singing. I kind of suspected this before, but last night I got to see it in action. I had to hit a high F for two songs. One was pop-country and one was a classical theater piece. I had such a hard time hitting it in the pop song, but in the theater song, it came easily. I think my mentality was totally different. When I put myself into the mindset of a classical singer it was so much easier. I then went back to the pop song. Obviously I need to sing it differently, but I punched in that line and used the same mindset from the classical song. It worked! #SingingHack

That one I don’t know if I can attribute to crystals. I was focusing intently on the difference but I wouldn’t have had that opportunity if I didn’t have the exact same note on two songs. Who knows, but either way I’m happy I made that discovery!

Day 5

The morning started out pretty good. I’m pretty sure my other dog (not the sick one from the last two weeks) has an ear infection, so I’m going to have another vet bill shortly. I’m going to try to clean it out with peroxide and see if I can get it to go away on its own, but ultimately I’ll have to take her to the vet either way.

I went out to run some errands and came back to my email exploded with angry rants from a client. They expected their project done by tomorrow, and I haven’t started it yet. This is not my fault, but I am the professional so it falls on me. I was not prepared for the onslaught of threats to talk about how unprofessional I am and how disappointed he was with my service. I have never had this situation happen before. So here’s what I did:

1. Freak out and panic that my career is over
2. Take a few breaths and also a Xanax
3. Remind myself that the client is not being realistic about deadlines
4. Brainstorm some solutions

Ultimately, I think the client is going to be disappointed. This is a large project with a major scope and we had less than a week to finish it. However, I need to own up to my faults here: I did not confirm we could finish it by then, but I also didn’t say that we couldn’t. I should have been more up-front about reasonable deadlines to curb expectations. What’s done is done, so all I can ultimately do is move forward and hope we can get it finished. I probably won’t though, so I also need to look into damage control for my brand. I don’t know how much influence this client’s review will have, but I don’t want to take any risks.

Tonight I had plans to go out with friends to an arcade, but I might have to cancel and focus on this project. It all depends on the instrumentalists and how quickly they get their parts done. I just need to breathe and focus on my other clients for now because that’s really all I can do.

I bought magnetic fake eyelashes for my concert. They are supposed to be much easier than putting regular fakes on because there’s no glue needed. I suck at fake eyelashes so I thought these would be easier. They weren’t. It took me 40 minutes of increasing frustration before I ended up with this:

The left one fell off immediately after taking this picture.

I’m just trying to look as good as possible for this show. Since I don’t play out often, I feel like I really need to step my game up and make it good. I was considering going somewhere to get my hair and makeup done professionally, but I figure I have enough time to do my best on my own before I go that route.

Later in the day, I heard a knock at the door and surprise, I got our bracelets for our show!

The logo is REALLY small, but I’m going to bring a sharpie and write stuff on their bracelets if they want. I hope people like our stuff and our songs. I’m so nervous.

Things with the client escalated until I ended up having to refer them elsewhere. I do not like failing at projects. Two of my other projects were accepted with client compliments, which is great, but I was hung up on that one the rest of the day. I had every intention tonight of doing yoga, meditating and maybe working out. Instead, I had a stiff drink to ease my nerves. I’m not a good drinker. I have very little self-control, so after the first one, I thought, “hey, it’s Friday! I’ll have another!” After the second one, I thought, “hey, I’m too tipsy to do yoga now, so I might as well have another!” so now I’m on my third (and final, I promise) drink of the evening. After this I’ll go to bed. I’m not happy about this. I really wanted to ease my stress. I should have done the yoga and meditating first and had a drink to wind down, but here I am. The night is ruined. I need to remember this next time I want a drink. I don’t even enjoy it really.

Day 6

YOU GUYS I HATE DRINKING. I woke up at 2:45 am and could not get back to sleep. Since I wasn’t hungover, I decided to punish myself by going to the gym. I then drove around, enjoying being out at this time. It’s so peaceful when you’re the only person around and it feels like everyone else died in the apocalypse.

Then I went to the gas station and the guy complimented my Tiger’s Eye! I considered telling him about my project, but I looked down, said thank you and walked out. Why be social and make friends when you can be incredibly awkward and die alone?

So anyway, I do not enjoy drinking. It was nice to be up when no one else was, and to go to the gym without 300 people there for once, but I don’t want to do it again. I thought my winemaking class was today, but it’s actually tomorrow before I see the author speak. That’s nice because I don’t want to have to look at alcohol today. Tomorrow should be fine though.

I ended up being glad I woke up early. Since I was up, I happened to check my work email and I had an urgent song request come through. I was able to get right on it and send it back within an hour. I normally don’t do this but I thought hey, since I’m awake I might as well! So then, since I was in my booth, I figured I’d finish up a few client edits. Then early this morning an overseas client requested a Skype meeting, so I was able to do that right away.

The face of someone who’s severely sleep deprived but still TCB

I have literally been up since 2:45 am and working since 4 am. It’s 10:45 now and feels like it’s 2 pm. I’m not tired at all, more like wired and super awake. I’d love to try to go back to bed but it’s not happening.

In the evening I worked on my setlist again. I identified one song in particular (Outer Space) that gives me trouble. I consistently sing wrong on it because the chorus is where I tense my muscles up hard and strain to keep the notes in high energy. So I’m going to dedicate time to working on that song and figuring out how to undo that behavior.

Crystal therapy, you guys. It helped me with this. I’m amazed.

Day 7

This is my last day of this project! Other than the follow-up work I’ll do, of course. Next week I will spend one day with each crystal and try to identify what I get out of each one.

I got up early and went to my grandma’s to film my final video. I also saw this picture of my first modeling job ever when I was 12. Get ready to cringe:

UGH, I KNOW, RIGHT? SO AWKWARD.

That hat. I don’t even know. This was for a local store at the mall. The mall is now closed, probably because this picture drove all of the customers away.

So today I have my winemaking class and then my author speaking. I’m really excited for both!

Update: The winemaking class was actually a beer making class. Still fun, but I’m not at all a beer drinker. I do have a new appreciation for it, and I learned that it’s way too complicated and expensive of a hobby for me.

The event was SO FUN and I’m so glad I splurged on VIP tickets. We were front and center and got to meet him.

Being the musician that I am, I asked him his favorite type of music. He said, “exclusively musicals. I hate all this contemporary crap.” He then asked me what my favorite is, and I said, “I like all music, so there’s nothing you could have said that I don’t like.” He said, “even ‘Cats?” and I said, “Okay…there are relatively few things you could have said that I don’t like.”

Here is my video recap of the week:

So that’s it for my project! Next week I’ll have one final recap of each crystal and my thoughts, but besides that, I’m so happy I did this. It was so fun and interesting to look at my life like this and I’m not gonna lie, I kind of want to keep doing it. Maybe not for blog/vlog purposes but just for myself.

What are your thoughts? What’s your favorite crystal? Please let me know!