Child of the Sun: Creativity Beyond Conditioning

Singing Opera and My Relationship with Music

The inner child lives in all of us. She or he longs to play, explore, and express freely. Unfortunately, creativity is not always supported in a healthy way when we are children. Much depends on our parents, teachers, and the environment we grow up in.

Today I feel called to share my personal story related to music, singing, and self-expression.

When I was six years old, my mother enrolled me in a music school. At that time, the USSR had just collapsed and become the Russian Federation. The education system was very strict. Every day after primary school I went to my music school, where I studied piano, solfeggio, music literature, and other subjects. I spent hours there every day for seven years.

My favorite subject was singing.

I had a wonderful singing teacher who cared about me deeply. Even though I was still a child, I performed on big stages—at the opera theater and the conservatory—singing solos and playing leading roles in musicals.

It was fun. I was very open and vulnerable, and I loved being in front of people, sharing my joy through music.

But when I was around 11 or 12 years old, it became harder and harder for me to go on stage. Something changed inside me. Instead of feeling free to express myself through my voice, I started to feel afraid of the audience and worried about what “they” might think of me and my performance. I began asking myself: Am I good enough?

Even with these fears, I continued to sing.

When I turned 18, I decided to study opera singing at the conservatory. My hometown had the third-largest conservatory in Russia, filled with talented teachers and musicians. The pressure there was high.

At the same time, I had already started studying architecture at the university. For two years I ran between two schools, trying to manage both paths. Eventually, I collapsed from exhaustion and had to make a choice.

In the end, I decided to continue with architecture and put my love for music aside. For many years after that, I stopped singing completely.

As an adult, after going through years of therapy and a deep process of deconditioning patterns from childhood, I slowly opened myself to singing again. And what a joy it has been to rediscover it.

In my own yoga studio, together with friends, I have hosted many beautiful singing circles. Somewhere along the way, the weight of old childhood wounds began to soften. I started to sing again—not for performance, but simply for the pure joy of singing.

Working now as a therapist, I often notice something interesting. Healing does not always happen only by revisiting and analyzing old traumas again and again. Sometimes the deepest medicine appears when we reconnect with the activities that once brought us joy as children—singing, painting, dancing, playing, creating.

When we return to those simple forms of expression, something inside us remembers who we were before fear and self-judgment appeared.

In that sense, joy itself can become a powerful part of the healing process.

🌞 Child of the sun,

daylight swims in your eyes.

Innocence waits behind borrowed masks.

Wonder remains—unbroken, bright.

Love, child of the sun.

Play, child of the sun.

Shine, child of the sun.

Return to who you are.

Release what you never were.

Let the child inside

run wild and free.

Child of the Sun. Painted in my home studio at the beginning of 2026.