Athena Tan

What exactly is a ‘mental storm’? This question surfaced in my mind three hours ago when I was listening to MENTAL STORMS from the ENFJ album (LEW, 2018). Everything about this song was magical and perfect – from the strumming, to the vocals and the poignant chords matched with poetic lyrics.

The term ‘mental storms’ conveys deep internal conflict. Of course, internal because of the word ‘mental’, which speaks volumes about some sort of distraught weather condition wreaking havoc in a very personal place – our mind – where mental processes take place.

As someone who suffers from anxiety – not to be confused with Anxiety, the disorder (more information here) – on occasion: before tests, during tests, after tests, receiving results, going for events, taking a selfie – I felt greatly calmed by the fact that someone was singing about mental storms. Because I feel that I UNDERSTAND what this neologistic-term, a ‘mental storm’ is. I feel that I have these mental storms very often.

If I were to define a mental storm it would be as follows:

A tangled ball of thought rolling into one’s mind.

I made the graphic of a ‘mental storm’ as rather representative of the term itself – a literal storm in someone’s mind. I felt calm when I was making it. As mentioned above, I felt calmed by LEW’s Mental Storms as well.

Therefore, I want to posit the idea that talking about our ‘mental storms’ is a form of therapy. I used to think that holding in my worries and telling myself that “this will pass” was a good way to overcome the anxious thoughts that continued to hit all walls of my skull, but it’s really only the most efficient.

Often, we should force ourselves to confront what we’re feeling by laying out each worry on the table – plain and bare – and imagining that the tangled thought ball in your mind is halting and unraveling itself.

It’s safe to say that I’m now a fan of Lewis Loh. He weaves in second person pronouns ‘you’, with lush and soothing vocals dispensing a very thoughtful and lovely message to ‘you’, the listener. Find out more about the Singaporean songwriter/singer here.