We talk a lot about music as healing. But we don’t always talk about how long it can take to even begin that healing. Or how fear can sit in the body like a bruise for years — until something shifts. Until you decide you’re ready to tell the truth.

Kat Button was supposed to release her first single 17 years ago. But fear is its own kind of delay — one that doesn’t always look like resistance. Sometimes it looks like silence. Like waiting for the world to feel safer than it is. Like believing your story is too much to share.

Now, she’s not only released two back-to-back singles about her mental health journey, but she’s on the verge of putting out her debut album, Refocus, a sonic journal of OCD, anxiety, ADHD, low self-worth, therapy, burnout, and hope.

Before our conversation, I reflect on “Liability” by Lorde — that devastating, gentle hymn for anyone who’s ever been told they’re “too much,” and believed it. I’ve felt that shame in my chest. Kat has too. And yet, here we are — making something beautiful out of the very thing we once tried to hide.

This episode holds:

* The long pause between wanting to be heard and actually speaking

* How intrusive thoughts and diagnoses shaped Kat’s music and identity

* What it’s like to write and release when the wounds are still fresh — and why she’s no longer afraid

* How she supports young people through anxiety and low self-worth using music

* The honest, non-linear story of healing — and what it means to come back to yourself

This one is for anyone who’s been waiting to begin again.

About Kat:Kat Button is a songwriter, educator, and advocate for mental health whose music helps make the hard things speakable. Her debut album Refocus (out this fall) is a raw, hopeful collection of songs tracing her journey through OCD, ADHD, and the long road back to self-trust. You can find her on Instagram at @katbutton_songwriter.

If this story gave you something real:Send it to someone who needs a little courage.Or better yet—send them a song.

Mentions & Links:

* Follow Kat: @katbutton_songwriter

* Theme song by: Lincoln Parish

* Featured song reflection: “Liability” by Lorde

* Subscribe to the show: comebacktoearth.substack.com

We don’t always notice the way sound holds us — until we need it.Until the noise in our heads gets too loud.Until the silence becomes too much.Until we hear something that softens the edges and invites us back home to ourselves.

This week on Come Back To Earth, I’m joined by Ralph Tashjian, whose work sits at the intersection of mental health, vibrational healing, and the transformative power of music. Ralph’s approach to sound is less about what we hear — and more about what we feel.

Before we drop into Ralph’s story, I reflect on one of the songs that’s helped me reclaim my own stillness: “Weightless” by Marconi Union. It’s a reminder that music can be more than art — it can be medicine. And this episode? It’s one long exhale.

We talk about:

* How sound impacts the nervous system and emotional regulation

* The difference between noise and healing sound

* Creating rituals of calm in a chaotic world

* How we each have a “home frequency” that music can bring us back to

This one’s gentle and grounding — like laying down on the floor with your eyes closed and letting the hum of something deeper rise up and carry you.

🎧 Listen to the full episode above, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Connect with Ralph Tashjian HERE

Could you say hello on Instagram?

Theme music by: Lincoln Parish

Comment on the episode HERE

We also make Dads Cry Too and What's Your Story?

What if the stillness we crave isn’t peace, but shutdown?

In this episode, we explore the quiet spaces we mistake for healing and the music that finally speaks the truth we’ve been holding in. Inspired by the haunting swell of Disturbed’s cover of “The Sound of Silence,” this story opens with a moment of misrecognition: assuming silence meant safety, when in reality, it was where all the unsaid things were hiding.

I’m joined by Jamie Lammers, a genre-blurring artist who makes synth-forward music that doesn’t just sound good it feels honest. Their work is part electronic atmosphere, part emotional confession. It’s the kind of music that invites you to stop pretending and finally feel something.

We talk about:

* The difference between emotional stillness and emotional numbness

* How music helps us tell the truth when words won’t cooperate

* The quiet power of making space for hard feelings

* Learning to recognize what we’ve buried and gently bringing it back to the surface

If you’ve ever held your breath through hard things… if you’ve ever worn silence like armor… if you’ve ever needed a song to say what you couldn’t—this conversation is for you.

Connect with Jamie Lammers HERE

Could you say hello on Instagram?

Theme music by: Lincoln Parish

Comment on the episode HERE

We also make Dads Cry Too and What's Your Story?