S2 E16: Exploring The Darkness With Amy Lee of Evanescence

This week on The Hardcore Humanism Podcast we are talking with musician, singer and songwriter Amy Lee of Evanescence. Many of you know Evanescence for their powerful songs such as “My Immortal,” “Going Under,” and of course my favorite “Bring Me To Life.” And Evanescence just released a new studio album called The Bitter Truth. Rolling Stone gave the album a great review, calling it a “take no prisoners battle for redemption.” And Spin magazine agrees saying, “Evanescence are stronger and louder than ever” on the album. And Evanescence just announced that they will be touring with Halestorm this fall so be sure to check that out those awesome shows if you can.

Now one of the things that I’ve always enjoyed about Amy’s music in Evanescence is how she has written about and explored darkness in her music. She’s tackled difficult themes such as death, addiction and depression but she always seems to have one foot in the light. There is a striving, a hope for, as Rolling Stone put it, redemption. And many people feel that in order to have light in our lives – to feel happy, fulfilled and connected, we need to crush the darkness. But sometimes when the world doesn’t feel good to us, we need to be able to experience darker emotions like fear, anger and sadness to accurately reflect our authentic reality. If we ignore our darkness, we risk avoiding and suppressing our feelings. And since we wouldn’t be coping with our feelings in a more direct way, we would actually become more anxious, more depressed and more likely to turn to unhealthy substances as we struggle with how we feel. And we wind up feeling disconnected from our true and authentic selves because we tried to avoid or suppress our darkness.

But at the same time, just as we don’t want to fear darkness, we want to be open to embracing the light. Even if things aren’t going how we want in our lives, it is critical that we allow ourselves to be in touch with the light – the happiness, the connection to others, the feelings of accomplishment – that we may feel as we pursue the life we want. This gives us hope, something to strive for – a reason to cope with the darkness. And we need that dynamic relation between light and dark in our lives to keep us moving forward.

In our conversation, Amy talks about the importance of exploring darkness, particularly in her music. And one of the issues we particularly talk about is the concept of grief. Amy talks about her sense of spirituality and how it guides her in her exploration of darkness and using her music to find meaning. One of the most important things that we can do to lead a fulfilling and authentic life is to not be afraid of darker emotions or difficult times. As we pursue our purpose, these times will come and these feelings will emerge. If we are truly pushing ourselves to build an actualized and authentic life, there have to be tough times. But our goal is to learn from them as we pursue our purpose, rather than see them as signs of defeat. When we face difficult times like loss, it is critical that we learn how to embrace the darkness while also having an eye on finding the light. Leading a purpose-driven life means pushing ourselves in ways that may not always work out. And we have to embrace all aspects of our experience to become our authentic self.