Shawn Mendes Reflects on 2023 Lessons & Welcoming the ‘Lows of Life’

Shawn Mendes has grown immensely throughout 2023.

The “In My Blood” singer took to Instagram on Tuesday (Jan. 2) to reflect on the past year, alongside a video of himself freely singing along to a harmonium. “Over the last year i spent a lot of time singing like this.. I found that in moments of extreme anxiety or fear if i sat down with my harmonium and allowed myself with full trust to sing whatever came out it would often ease the pain,” he wrote in the caption. “It felt so difficult at first to let myself sing without needing perfection but after a while i actually started to fall in love with the dance between the ‘right’ and the ‘wrong’ notes … i realized there were only moments of bliss and euphoria from the ‘right’ notes BECAUSE of the ‘wrong’ notes. The only reason i can sing in key is because i’ve learned to listen.”

He continued, “The biggest lesson for me this year has been to accept and welcome the lows of life… not to constantly need to change or fix something in order to feel high again, because i know if i really slow down and listen when i’m low there’s always something to hear.”

See his post here.

Mendes has been a longtime advocate for mental health, and has opened up many times over the years about his struggles with anxiety. In his 2020 Netflix documentary In Wonder, the singer was as vulnerable as ever. “It’s pretty intense all the time,” he says at one point in the film. “I really think about that a lot. If I tell the world that I’m just a normal human, are they going to stop coming to the shows and listening to the music and is all the craziness going to stop? Then you’re like, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t tell them. I should keep the trick up. Maybe I should pretend I’m Superman for a little bit longer.”

In July 2022, Mendes canceled his Wonder tour as he continued to work on healing his mental health. “After speaking more with my team and working with an incredible group of health professionals, it has become more cler that I need to take the time I’ve never taken personally, to ground myself and come back stronger,” he wrote in his statement.