“Ten Toes Down” CHNNR Song Meaning: Staying grounded in who you are
Introducing CHNNR, the new project by A.J. Channer (formerly of Fire From the Gods)
Former Fire From the Gods vocalist A.J. Channer is now making music under the moniker CHNNR, taking on the new name as part of a brand new season of life: a season of more wholeness than he’s ever experienced before.
CHNNR has released three singles, including his most recent, “Ten Toes Down” — a collaboration with rapper O.T. Genasis. The song is emblematic of his new stance in life and offers hope to anyone who has found themselves unsettled or lost in a mental health crisis.
What events inspired “Ten Toes Down?”
CHNNR’s new project comes from exploring patterns of past trauma and coming to a mental health diagnosis that allowed him to pursue wholeness.
“I always knew that something felt different. That I felt different in terms of the way I processed my emotions, the way I processed trauma,” CHNNR explains. “And now in my older age, after a lifetime of a career, after a lifetime of living and experiences, I found that I've suffered from a mental illness called Schizoaffective Depressive Type, which is all the trappings and bags of Schizophrenia with a major mood disorder.”
The diagnosis gave clarity to the ways he’d spent his whole life and career coping with his symptoms.
He says, “I had processed trauma and emotional battles by using music as a coping mechanism. I used substances as a coping mechanism. You know, some people will talk about it very vaguely and say, ‘I needed something to quiet the voices.’ I thought these were maybe inner thoughts. I didn't know that it was something that was actually happening to me. And I couldn't process that well.”
Throughout those long years without a diagnosis for what he was experiencing, he says, “music has been my only real safe haven and safe space to filter out those feelings, to filter out the negativity, to filter out the pain, the trauma, the hurt.”
Since getting the diagnosis, he’s received treatment, therapy, and been in supportive communities that propel his healing forward. It’s put him in the perfect position to create his new music from a place of greater integration and self-knowledge.
“Through a lot of prayer, through a lot of work in terms of sobriety, in terms of rehabilitation and recovery, I've been able to find life and play life on life's terms, and find that equilibrium and that even keel,” CHNNR says. “The trauma, the drama, the pain, the emotional stress, it's all peripheral now. It’s not front and center; it doesn't take up that space and occupy everything that I do. It's still there: the pain is still there, the trauma's still there. But I'm learning how to deal with it and how to process it in a way that is healthy. I think my music is reflecting that.”
What is the meaning of the song “Ten Toes Down?”
“Ten Toes Down” is a mantra from this new era of CHNNR’s life — but also a callback to where he came from.
“I'm a street kid,” CHNNR explains. “I come from the rough and tumble in New York City and London. The concept of ‘ten toes down’ is something that I've always known and always heard. No matter what, you gotta stay ten toes down. Because when you face so much adversity in life, even from a socioeconomic standpoint, you gotta know that no matter what comes your way, you gotta stand firm, because if you lose it, the way I've ‘lost it’ at times, you'll lose yourself. And then you're not playing this game on life's terms. You're playing it on someone else's.”
To be “ten toes down” is to be steady, to know who you are, and to be able to stand there without shame.
“When you're trying to be the conductor of your own orchestra, you're losing yourself. There's no way you can stand firm and stand resolute in the face of adversity if you don't have control of yourself,” CHNNR elaborates. “And that's what it's about, ‘Ten Toes Down:’ it's having control. It's about being grounded, about being solid, keeping that foundation firm so that no matter what comes your way, you don't get moved.”
CHNNR’s message about mental health
For CHNNR, his own experience has equipped him with proof: it’s never too late to find help and become a healthier version of yourself.
“I think that life has so much to offer, and no matter where you are in your journey, no matter what you've done,” he says to anyone who is struggling. “We believe in second chances. This is America, you know what I'm saying? Second chances is our game! We have to give ourselves a little grace, which is something that I had to do.”
CHNNR has been through his own process of forgiving himself, forgiving those who hurt him, and finding new ways to do life: “I had to be able to stand firm and stand in the face of my guilt and shame. My motivator is really just rehabilitation. Rehabilitating every aspect of my life. Substance abuse was a massive problem and a massive issue that I had. So I have to live life in a way of grace and love, and spreading that. It includes setting boundaries. I was a person that I didn't set boundaries in the past. I let everything and anything affect me, and I affected everything. So right now, it's just living life to the fullest. My kids, my music? That's what's keeping me 100.”
Whatever those core important elements are in your own life, the invitation stands to embrace them, to let them be the thing that keeps you grounded when your mental health or external factors try to rattle you. CHNNR fully acknowledges systemic issues in society that have been part of what he’s had to battle in the past. He knows that access to mental health care is an ongoing issue. And that’s where community can play a role in uplifting each of us.
“I think therapy, community: something else in your life that has to bear the brunt of and the weight of what you're going through, because you can't do it alone,” CHNNR says. “If that means depending on a higher power, if that means depending on a physical entity, a friend, a family member? Use a support system.”
He continues, “You know, I learned so much from people that have been in hospitals and have the scars to prove it. I've got the scars to prove it. You know, we're not faking the funk here: life gets hard. But there's hope, and there's a community of people out there. We'll embrace you, and share this with you, so you don't have to feel alone.”
That community is what HeartSupport is all about. If you need some of that community support, consider signing up for Support Calls so you can have a weekly call with a peer mentor who has had similar experiences to what you’re going through.
In closing, CHNNR wants you to know this:
“We can recover. When it comes to my fellow addicts and alcoholics and people that struggle with substances, I tell you that we can recover. There is hope. And for someone that's suffering internally and doesn't know how to express their feelings, who can only express their feelings through pain or violence and hurting others or hurting themselves, understand that there is a way out of that. That does not have to be your reality. You stand 10 toes down, you stand firm and resolute in who you are.”
