Lizzo Pens Powerful Message About Embracing Her Feelings After Years Of Hating Them: ‘She Realized Breaking Rules Was Her Power’

Lizzo

Lizzo Pens Powerful Message About Embracing Her Feelings After Years Of Hating Them: ‘She Realized Breaking Rules Was Her Power’

Lizzo is baring all in an open letter.

After sending an “I quit” message on social media this week, the “Truth Hurts” singer, born Melissa Viviane Jefferson later clarified that she wasn’t quitting the music industry, but instead, she meant she was going to “quit giving any negative energy attention.”

Now, she has shared a vulnerable message about what she’s gone through from childhood through adulthood, dropping her stage name and referring to herself as Melissa. 

Lizzo

She penned the lengthy message on Tumblr early Friday Morning (April 5), and began with,

“Melissa hated her feelings. She buried them in a chest in the 5th grade (along with her ability to express them). Other peoples’ feelings on the other hand was her forte. She could process, decipher and regurgitate other peoples emotions effortlessly.”

The “Juice” singer added that she was an expert at hiding her true feelings, and could have earned a Ph.D. on psychology, becoming Dr. Jefferson. However,

“Fate would have a different hand for Melissa her talents were exhausted on mediating family fights, friend group drama, and charming her way out of confronting her own feelings.”

Lizzo

She continued and revealed that even stating the word “feelings” out loud “seemed silly,” as it was “something reserved for ‘cry babies’ and water signs.”

Lizzo looked back on what used to be a “typical” Sunday evening, where she would read or write her own fan-fiction projects while indulging in cranapple juice.

“And then like clock work her father would yell her name, ‘MELISSA!!!’ Emotionless, she’d get up dust off her Winnie the Pooh shorts and make her way downstairs. On the long walk down the hall to the stairs leading to the living room brawl, she’d go through her check list: 1.) Don’t cry.   2.) Stay neutral; Deescalate 3.)Don’t take anything personal. This isn’t about you.”

She recalled heading down the stairs and seeing her mother crying and thinking, “she broke rule number 1,” adding,

“Her father, Michael was proud and angry, his big belly filled with self righteousness. She knew he would be unyielding in his resolve and at this point her only option was to deescalate. ‘Rule number 2.'”

She shared that she wanted to comfort her sister “the water sign” who was “on the floor nearly fetal, face red and raw with emotion,” but that would be a violation of the third rule.

“It wasn’t about how Melissa felt. Even though she felt like screaming, “VANESSA, YOU DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG. DAD—YOU JUST HAVE PENT UP ANGER BECAUSE YOU GREW UP IN THE HOOD OF DETROIT AS A BLACK MAN IN THE 60s AND 70s. YOU NEED A HEALTHY OUTLET LIKE.. I DONT KNOW… THERAPY?!?!?! THIS IS A WASTE OF ALL OF OUR TIME. I LITERALLY JUST WROTE THE BEST SAILOR SATURN x CHIBI USA FANFICTION EVER AND THIS IS KILLING MY VIBE!” Instead, she decide to hear every one out. She decided to help. To calm her dragon of a father down. To be a translator for her emotional sister. To not take it personal. To stay neutral. To not cry.” 

Her father died nine years later, and Lizzo played the flute and shared a message at his funeral service. Even then, she still tried to follow her three rules and support her mother, however, she had a moment after she went outside to call someone and fell on “the stairs of the funeral home.” She cried by herself “in the cold Detroit snow.” Lizzo wrote of the breakdown,

“It’s okay to break the rules sometimes, she reminded herself. As long as no one else sees it.”

 

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From then on, Lizzo recalled how she “carried the stones of her family’s traumas uphill for years. She was strong.” 

She wrote,

“When men began to befriend and reject her, saying ‘you’re too good for me’ but not too good to make them feel good. She carried that. When childhood friends began to cut off the strings of her heart, saying ‘We can’t be friends anymore’. She carried that. When her family separated like dandelion seeds, it seemed like they’d never be together again. Melissa slept on so many couches, floors and car seats sometimes she didn’t know if she’d see them again. She carried that.” 

Lizzo

She continued,

“Dying was never an option though sometimes she didn’t mind the thought of it. Peace and warmth were two things she’d desperately yearned and hadn’t felt fully since the womb.”

She wrote about one night in a “roach-infested studio” where she slept in Houston and questioned why she wasn’t allowed to break the rules.

“Is my suffering for a high purpose? Or is my suffering trying to kill me? She cried.  She escalated.  She took it personal. But it wasn’t enough. She wanted to scream in a microphone in a sea of shadowy faces. She drank whiskey and wove her pain into rock music.” 

It was at that moment she declared that music would be her lover, a decision that served as a turning point in her suffering.  She began to break her rules through her music, despite her inner Dr. Jefferson’s desperate attempts for her to stop, and even fell in love, she said.

“No matter how much training she’d done she couldn’t help but take every thing her lover said and did personal. But it was ok. Because in all her resistance she realized breaking rules was her power.”

Lizzo

Lizzo concluded by sharing that she ultimately fell in love with her feelings that gave her “life” and “purpose.”

“They weren’t always logical, as feelings seldom are. They were sloppy and embarrassing and rude and so f*cking uncomfortable. But they were hers. And they were real. And when she sat alone sipping wine, staring at the moon…They were the only ones still by her side. Ready to break the rules for her because they loved her.  And she finally loved them back.” 

Let’s send Lizzo some kind words in the comments.