Reflections on Free Throw’s “Bear Your Mind”, and the Realities of Anxiety and Body Image

By Molly Louise Hudelson.

The thing about being overweight is that you’re never allowed to just “be.” You’re always expected to be dieting, to be exercising, to be losing weight. Healthy eating and regular exercise are very important; but if you’ve ever struggled with your weight you know that the feelings of self-worth (or rather, lack thereof) come down to a lot more than the number on the scale or the size of your jeans. And so there’s a certain anxiety about admitting that you struggle with your body image or don’t like the way you look because the solution most often offered isn’t, “let’s work through your self-image issues”, it’s, “just lose the weight and you’ll feel better.”

Enter Free Throw’s sophomore album, Bear Your Mind, released on May 26 via Triple Crown Records.

On eleven tracks of blistering introspection, the Nashville quintet do just what the album title suggests. Lead singer Cory Castro bears his mind out into the open, diving into his anxieties- and what causes and surrounds them- in a way that feels relatable, as if he’s an old friend sharing something deeply personal. While 2014’s Those Days Are Gone saw Castro getting his problems off his chest, now he’s working on solving them and getting out of his own head: “I can’t let all of my problems tie me down onto my bed / Got to get out of my head and find some happiness instead,” he champions on the album’s opening track “Open Window.”

But progress isn’t a linear process, and it isn’t always easy: in “Weight On My Chest” Castro struggles to fall asleep, kept awake by his thoughts as he admits, “I don’t know how to fix this/ Or if I’ll ever know true peace.” Anxiety is a funny thing; it can paralyze you and at the same time make you want to run away and crawl out of your skin. Even for the most social of people, talking about what’s on your mind is made only harder when your fears are rooted in how other people perceive you, something explored on “Weak Tables”, where Castro reveals, “On the outside, I’m a social butterfly / But on the inside, I’m stuck in my cocoon.”

And sometimes, despite our best efforts, the things that are supposed to help us feel better don’t work out- and that’s a tough pill to swallow. On “Andy And I, Uh…”, everyone sees Castro getting “better,” but he admits that “I’m not better, I’m indifferent/ And that’s not okay”: in a recent interview with Observer, he says the song “came at a time I was seeking anxiety medication and it made me feel neutral to everything around me. Emotions weren’t a thing.” When you want to get better and getting better doesn’t work out as planned (is feeling nothing really better than feeling sad, anxious, or depressed?), it’s easy to feel frustrated and out of sorts, “Like a puzzle from the thrift store/ Left in disarray.”

Bear Your Mind reaches perhaps its most vulnerable point on the penultimate track, “Better Have Burn Heal.” Here, Castro is working to overcome body image struggles, and finds that learning to love himself takes more than working out and watching what he eats; he struggles to “write down some self-praise” which leaves him feeling like “a captive in my own bones.” When you gain weight, you don’t feel like yourself; you feel stuck, surrounded by all this baggage that isn’t supposed to be yours.

That’s how I’ve felt, anyway, as I’ve put on some weight following knee surgery back in March. I’ve been diligent with my physical therapy and have gotten stronger, but as proud as I am of the progress I’ve made in some areas, I can’t help but be frustrated by the setbacks in others. And so when I heard “Better Have Burn Heal” for the first time, I was taken aback; I didn’t expect it to resonate as much as it did because I’d never heard a song that spoke so deeply- and directly- to my frustrations with body image and weight gain. This one cut to the core.

Songs like “Andy And I, Uh…”, “Better Have Burn Heal”, and “Hope Spot”- which lead to Free Throw’s signing to Triple Crown Records- were written about specific situations, with enough detail that you’ll know the story, but done in a way that’s open-ended enough for any listener to relate to. Bear Your Mind, then, is just as much your record and my record as it is Free Throw’s record. If you’re here to listen, it’s here to remind you that you’re not alone.

Bear Your Mind is available now here and streaming on Spotify here. Free Throw is currently on a headlining tour with support from Homesafe and Heart Attack Man; see a full list of remaining shows here. Keep up with Free Throw on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and their official website.