That's ok.

For a lot of musicians touring is a huge part of their career. Being on the road playing for audiences can be amazing, fulfilling, exciting, and a dream come true. However, touring can also make a significant impact on our mental health in a negative way. Being away from loved ones and routines from home, can shake up our existence before the new tour life is established. We all have our issues that we are dealing with and we bring them with us on tour, whether we are aware of them or not. Sometimes the atmosphere on tour can be very stressful where people can feel on edge and sometimes the culture doesn’t allow you to show your true emotions. I want to create a safe space for you to help you cope with emotions, thought patterns, and situations that often come up and can expand when you are away from family and friends. 

Awareness and planning can go a long way in having a successful tour and help in keeping an even keel even when unplanned circumstances occur. 

Pre-tour 

Together we will talk through the tour plan, size of the tour, travel arrangements, length, and your role. We will discuss any prior experiences with touring and what you would like to change, or keep, for this tour. We will map out any potential challenging issues, how we can work with them and come up with a plan on how to better sustain and improve your mental health. Common coping strategies that significantly affect our mental health, such as sleep, diet and exercise, can be tricky to manage on the road. We will come up with attainable goals that will structure your days and times when you are not working. 

Tour 

Everyone is likely missing their family and events back at home, such as birthdays, weddings, having alone time and space to “not to have to be on '' all the time. This goes for both musicians, artists, and crew alike. Knowing people from one offs, gigs, and studio time can be different from spending time with people day in and day out. Different sides of one's personality and private issues can appear that can affect both the social and working environments. Like any other family, your touring family may need some work so that the touring environment remains positive, constructive and minimizes the strain on relationships.  

I am available to join physically during pre-production and/or parts of the tour to meet with crew and musicians for counseling and guidance in order to help mitigate any issues that have occured and also continue the work established during pre-tour meetings. When not present, I will be available during set times to meet via FaceTime, Zoom etc.  

Post-tour 

Once the tour is over it can be difficult to revert back to pre-tour existence. Adapting from having your days planned out where meals, work and downtime is scheduled for you, to being back in scheduling your own life with family time, finding work etc. can be a real challenge and difficult to navigate. Coming off a tour and coming down to a different reality can have the opposite effect of the excitement of starting a tour. Missing the high of performing almost every night and missing your tour family further adds to a feeling of leading a double life. I will work together with you to decompress, helping you with transition and keeping any depression and anxiety at bay that might occur.  

Do not hesitate to get in touch and we will find out what best will work for you and your situation.