Lizzo’s Coconut Oil album is essential for several reasons. One is for self love and self care. The other is for self realization that you held the power for whatever you need the entire time (unless you are in extreme psychical situations like Ukraine or Yemen or Palestine or other severely oppressed places where resilience, quick thinking and hope are essential for survival).
If the word “power” intimidates or confuses you, switch that word with “ability to go home in your soul that you had the entire time but didn’t realize.” And before you dismiss this as “that can never happen for me - I am cursed - nothing works out for me,” just give this read a chance and realize that indeed things may be stacked against you, and if they are, you need to be extra lithe at navigating to find or create your way.
This is where the song “Phone” comes in. In it, Lizzo, or the character in the song, loses her phone and panics.
Where the hell my, where the hell my phone, huh?
How I’m ‘posed to get home?
While the song colors a night out that results in confusion and hurt feet, the last line reveals the truth:
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my, where the hell my phone, huh?
How I'm 'posed to get…
But you're holding it
Oh
That simple “Oh.” is one of the best responses. After all of that panic, a simple “Oh.”
You’re holding the phone. You never lost it. You always had the power to go home. Even though you thought you lost you.
The lyrics reveal the agony that is trying to find something. Read the lyrics in full here, and in part below:
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my, where the hell my phone, huh?
How I'm 'posed to get home?
Okay, 2:15 and the lights come on, where my phone?
Looking 'round like where my phone?
Looking where my homies went
Where the hell my homies went?
Where the hell my homies went?
How I'm 'posed to get home?
How I'm 'posed to get home?
Walking home with my feet all sore
Walking home with my feet all sore
What the hell these Louboutins for?
What the hell these Louboutins for?
Walking home and it's damn near 4
Walking home and it's damn near 4
Yeah, I was getting it, looking real cute
Up in the club, man, how do you do?
Hair ain't a don't, hair is a do
Ooh, he fine! What's up with you?
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my, where the hell my phone, huh?
How I'm 'posed to get home?
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my phone?
Where the hell my, where the hell my phone, huh?
How I'm 'posed to get…
But you're holding it
Oh
The journey home can be agonizing. Fearful. Blinded by panic and assumptions of failure. Losing the phone. All of these illusions cut off reality and even physical sensation of holding the phone.
You Had The Power All Along
The premise is in other stories as well. In The Wizard of Oz, Glenda the Good Witch Of the North tells Dorothy about the power of her ruby red slippers. “You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.” In Dorothy’s defense, the brainiac Scarecrow asks Glenda why she didn’t tell Dorothy before.
“Because she wouldn’t have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.”
In Lizzo’s song “Phone,” after she asks her brain where her phone is, imagining herself collapsing in failure of not getting home, she is stopped in her tracks by Siri’s voice: “But you’re holding it.”
Both Siri and Glenda give permission to believe in the self.
Believing in the self is a journey, which at the end of the day, depends on no one but the self. But supportive friends and introspection help let the light shine to reveal the truth. Your truth.
Happy Holidays this season. Trust yourself. :)