From Dr. Carolyn S. Phillips, co-founder:

The idea for Songs for the Soul was born from my personal experience as a professional caregiver working through compassion fatigue. Compassion fatigue, also called secondary traumatic stress, has been described as the “cost of caring” and can result in deep emotional, physical, and spiritual consumption leading to emotional pain and exhaustion. It occurs when empathetic caregivers indirectly experience the grief and suffering experienced by their clients or patients.  

For 14 years, I cared for people with cancer.

First as an oncology nurse, and then as a nurse practitioner. It was meaningful work that I loved. Oncology nurses work closely with patients and their families, sometimes over a number of years, and the relationships were rich and dynamic. During this time, we offer hope in times of despair, we celebrate remissions, we support patients if their cancers reoccur, and we comfort patients and their families when treatment is no longer working and death is imminent. Unfortunately, these unique aspects of the caregiving relationship may also increase the potential for cumulative, professional grief. 

I felt emotionally "numb."

I tried to journal about patients who had left lasting impressions in an attempt to articulate my grief. Writing about my experiences was helpful, but it was not enough. I needed to experience a form of expression that would resonate deep enough that I could feel again.

I needed to shake away the numbness.

I needed to "sing it out."

I hypothesized that, by adding music to my story, I could access a healing expression of grief. I hired a songwriter and began the process of turning my story into a healing song. Putting my story to music gave it an emotional expression that matched the intensity of my grief.

I sang my story, and I felt my soul take a breath.  

And maybe I never really knew her
but still she rearranged me.
I was there to catch a bright light fading,
And that fading changed me.
…
Oh, oh, oh you’ll never know
Oh, oh, oh you’ll never know
That I’ve been holding on to you

I wanted to learn whether the combination of writing and music would also help other nurses. In the spring of 2016, a group seven courageous nurses joined me in piloting this idea. The nurses met weekly for six weeks, writing about their nursing experiences, until each nurse had crafted a short story. At that time, I brought in a team of extraordinary songwriters for across the country: Natalia Zukerman (Brooklyn, NY), Erika Luckett (Sacramento, CA), Mandy Rowden (Austin, TX) and Kristin Davidson (Austin, TX). For a week, the songwriters met with the nurses to transform their nursing stories into healing songs. At the end of the week, the nurses and songwriters gave a transformative performance for their colleagues, close friends, and family members. Funding for the pilot program was provided by SVH Support, Santa Fe, NM.

I learned that, while each nurse loved the healing song that grew from her story, it was the act of sharing the collection of stories and songs with each other that proved to be the most transformative.

From this pilot program Songs for the Soul was born.

While the pilot program was offered to nurses, our vision is to offer services to all professional caregivers of society.