Hope you had a great Holiday Season!🎄 /  by Monique Nadeau

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday season! I know I’m a bit late on this, I’ve been busy with family and friends and partying too much! Haha…. 😂

I just also want to thank you all so much for your support and love for my Christmas song “Sing Together on Christmas” 🎄❤️ I can’t thank you enough! I’m very excited to be releasing new music in 2023, performing more live shows and more! Stay tuned for updates! Love you all XO

Monique Angele

Christmas Cookie Recipe! 🎄 /  by Monique Nadeau

If you are baking Christmas cookies, try out my favourite and easiest recipe ever!! Let me know what you think!! Would love for you to share your thoughts XO

Shortbread Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 cup of butter

  • 1/2 cup of firmly packed brown sugar

  • 2 cups of all purpose flour

Heat oven to 275 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cream butter & brown sugar until fluffy.

Gradually add flour 1 1/4 cups of flour to make soft dough.

Turn onto floured surface & knead in remaining 3/4 cups flour.

Roll dough 1/4” thick & cut onto desired shapes.

Add your own topping such as chocolate chips or candied cherries.

Bake on ungreased baking sheet in slow oven until set but not browned.

Shortbread Cookies


Trick or Treat Halloween Special! 🎃 First 20 emails get a free song! /  by Monique Nadeau

Trick or Treat! 😈 Halloween is just around the corner and I have a special treat for you all! The first 20 emails that sign up to my newsletter will get one of my songs for free! Hurry and sign up now here https://www.moniqueangele.com/sign-up-1

Let the spooky season begin! 👻

XO Monique Angele

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Laugh Everyday /  by Monique Nadeau

Today I’m going to talk about something that I think is crucial to keeping me sane during these crazy times. I try to laugh every single day. With all of the current events happening right now I think we could all use a good laugh. Hahahaha. Laughter is the best medicine.

No seriously though, I need to laugh every single day or I will literally go insane and get really depressed. It’s a heartbreaking and stressful time right now, I feel for everyone. It is not a great time right now. It’s pretty crap. I just hope everyone is ok.

So how to I get myself to laugh every day? Well I have a few things I do:

1) I find funny memes / meme videos and post them on my stories almost every day. It reminds me to not take life so seriously and giggle every time I look or watch the meme

2) I watch stand up comedy, live comedy sketches, comedy shows or funny movies. I like a pretty wide range of comedy, however some of my favourites are Tim and Eric, The Eric Andre Show, Trailer Park Boys, South Park, etc, Yes I do like the crude, bizarre and random humour! I also love The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Mel Brooks movies, The Office, Peep Show, The IT Crowd, anything with Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, John C. Reilly in it to name a few, etc, etc. 

3) I hangout or talk with my friends, all my friends have good sense of humour, they make me laugh. 

What I’m saying here sounds so well “duhhhhh???! Of course you should do that to get out of a doom and gloom state of mind and negativity, just watch some comedy or hangout or talk with funny people .” Ya it does sound simple but it works! I’m making it a routine every day. 

This helps me stay sane and happy during these tough and sad times.  Maybe it will help you? 

Thanks for listening. As always be yourself, lots of love and stay weird my dudes……………….

Bye for now  XO

New Live Music Video - Waltz /  by Monique Nadeau

Here it is!! 🤩🎶 My new live music video of my original song “Waltz.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGdr6wVYZNI

This song is from my debut EP and it was written to tribute my love for opera. I hope this brightens your day in some way 🤗It’s a silly little tune but I always love performing this live as I feel it’s uplifting and people can just dance the waltz 🎶
If you like it you can play it on repeat on Spotify https://bit.ly/WaltzSpotify
on SoundCloud https://bit.ly/WaltzSoundcloud
or Bandcamp https://bit.ly/WaltzSoundcloud
Lots of love to everyone ❤️

My First Bungy Jump! /  by Monique Nadeau

I never thought in my whole life I would ever bungy jump but I did it. I bungeed off the Kawarau Bridge in Queenstown, New Zealand. 

How did this happen? Well with much hesitation at first. I had to watch quite a few people jump off the bridge before I decided to go through with it. 

Once I was going to pay for the jump I asked the girl at the desk a few questions. I asked the girl “is skydiving scarier than bungee jumping?” I wanted to ease my mind a bit hoping she would say “yes bungy is less scary than skydiving” haha. Side note - I haven’t skydived yet but I will at some point after tasting the adrenaline rush of bungy. The girl at the desk responded, “skydiving and bungy jumping are different. In skydiving you are tied together to someone and they jump off the plane for you. Whereas in bungy jumping you have to jump off yourself and only you can do the jump.”

So after getting everything sorted and signing my life away, I walked on the bridge and waited in line for my turn. I was talking to the woman behind me to calm my nerves a bit. This was her first time too. She seemed excited but also nervous. With this kind of experience the longer you wait the more anxious you get.

It was finally my turn to sit on the ledge entry and one of the staff checked my harness again and attached a more cords, etc. I was concerned that my harness wasn’t tight enough but he responded that it had to have some give. The harness was more around my waist as they couldn’t do the traditional ankle harness due to previous weather and the water level in the river was too high at the moment.

It was my turn to go up on the plank. Eeeek! They attached the bungy cord and I’m on the ledge of the bridge. They have music playing in the background so it feels less tense but my nerves were running high.

I’m about to go off and I make the mistake of looking down. Holy shit don’t ever look down!!!!! This created the most fear. I’m about to jump 43 meters and there is a canyon and a roaring river below me. Shit!!!! 

I tell the guy on the ledge “I can’t do this”, I start to freak out a bit. And he responds, “Yes you can I promise” The moment he said that was the moment I mustered up all my courage and bravery to make sure that I did this jump somehow. 

I’m still quivering with fear as they tell me to wave at the cameras for the video. My smile to the camera is fake, it’s not a smile of joy it’s a smile of fear haha.

I’m determined to do this but shitting myself at the same time. The guy tells me to look out and go straight ahead like a swan dive. I was so sure in my head  I was going to swan dive but at the last minute my survival instinct kicked in and I went feet first instead. Oops, I had to make the jump anyways. There was no turning back now!

The free fall went so fast I don’t even really remember how I felt, it was a bit of a blank. There was no time to think at all, I just fell through the air. Before I knew it the free fall was over and I bungeed back up. As I bungeed back up I had the time to scream. 

During this moment I thought to myself I fucking did it. I did it even though my form wasn’t a perfect swan dive, I jumped off a bridge and survived! 

This experience was insane and exhilarating at the same time. It’s basically an emotional rollercoaster. I knew deep down I wanted to do an extreme sport in Queenstown and I followed through with it. 

What I learned from this experience is that I conquered my fears and never thought I would be this brave. You are braver than you think. I guess in the end I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie as I liked it. I would bungee again and do other high adrenaline sports/activities. 

You feel so alive when you do these unnatural and extreme experiences. By all means I’m not saying this is a piece of cake unless you do this all the time, but it is an exhilarating feeling you will never forget. I understand why people do these experiences, it’s amazing. 

With extreme fear also comes extreme bliss and joy. It’s hard to explain but that’s how I felt. I’ve never felt so free and alive before in my life.

Check out the video here: bit.ly/MoBungyJump

Until next time, lots of love,

Monique XOX

Why Social Media Kills Me /  by Monique Nadeau

I’ve wanted to write about this for a while now. This rant is completely based on my experience with social media so please don’t interpret this as an attack to anyone who uses social media.

Why does social media kill me but I’m still a part of it? Well the main reason I’m involved with social media platforms is because I’m a musician and nowadays you HAVE to have an internet presence. If you are not actively using social media you cannot be known to the world and are not taken seriously in your art. Yes, I know some artists who refuse to have social media accounts but realistically you need it if you want to get any gigs, promote your music and put yourself out there in the world. The music industry has changed a lot and the internet is an essential tool to promote your art.

The web is saturated with millions of musicians which makes it a very exciting time but also a frustrating time. Anyone is able to create music, post it on the web and promote it. It’s pretty awesome that you don’t need thousands and thousands of dollars to record and promote your music but it does make it very difficult for people to hear your music in the massive ocean of musicians on the web.

How do I feel when I scroll on my social media platforms? Well firstly I get completely overwhelmed and sucked into spending a lot of time just trying to keep up with what people are posting, doing, etc. It’s too much information and it makes me anxious. I am definitely a person that has a hard time responding to things quickly as it stresses me out. I try to limit my time on my social media accounts. 

People wear masks as they only want to show what they want the public to see. I’m 100% guilty for doing this!!  No one, I mean NO ONE has a perfect and happy life all the time like they post on their profiles. We want to look like we are successful and awesome at every moment in our lives. Why does this bring me down? Well because it’s like a slap in the face that constantly says: “Why isn’t your life perfect? Why isn’t your body perfect? Why aren’t you pretty enough? Why aren’t you travelling the world and seeing amazing places? Why don’t you have your dream job? Why don’t you have a lot of money? It’s the constant pressure that says “you are not good enough!” People only want to share the positive things in their life - I get it. Who wants to hear about negative things that are happening? I do feel like that the spectrum has gone all the way to one side saying that we need to be perceived that our life is amazing all the time. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely see people also post negative, unhappy experiences or subject matter, however it’s definitely not that common. There is the constant expectation that we put on ourselves that we need to be loved, beautiful, successful and famous or else our life is a piece of shit! Not true at all, it’s all bullshit.

You are probably asking why don’t I just get rid of all my accounts? Well like I said before I can’t as a musician as I need a social media presence or I might as well just perform to the birds outside as my audience. I’m going to try to be as genuine and real in my posts from now on because I’m not perfect, no one is!

If you think I’m full of shit that’s totally fine, I won’t be offended. If you feel any kind of anxiety, depression or pressure to be perfect on social media please share! We are all in this mess together so I’m trying to stay positive. 

I’m trying my best to stay real, stay weird and be myself.
Peace out and lots of love.

OXO


World Mental Health Day! /  by Monique Nadeau

World Mental Health Day


First of all, sending bigs hugs to everyone!!
I haven’t posted in a while as I have been working on myself to achieve a happier mind and body.
It’s World Mental Health Day today and I just wanted to share a few things from what I have learnt over the years and most recently about how to continuously improve my mental health.
I am no expert whatsoever in regards to mental health but I can share with you what has helped me achieve a happier mind.
My list that I’m sharing is always evolving from my experiences.


1. Follow your passions
Music is my passion. I always feel the need to keep creating, recording and performing music to feel whole.
Also anything artsy makes me happy - whether it be seeing a live show, drawing, dancing, watching film, etc.


2. Surround yourself with people you love and who make you happy
I really need my space but also need to be surrounded by people whom I love and make me happy. I need a balance between solitude and socializing. I’ve learnt to weed out toxic people in my life, and I’m still working on that to nourish healthy relationships.


3. Exercise
Enough said. Your body just needs it and my mind feels a lot better after exercising!


4. Seeking professional help
This shouldn’t be stigmatized anymore but it still is. We need guidance and help sometimes so don’t feel ashamed to seek help. I know this can be expensive depending where and what treatment you do. For me its worth it as I can’t have a healthy body without a healthy mind.


5. Be content with the NOW and be proud of what you have achieved
I usually really struggle with this one. I am always looking at pursuing future goals and dreams that I set for myself. I feel like I go hardcore on this sometimes that it makes me unhappy when I’m constantly trying to succeed my expectations. It’s hard for me to be satisfied with the now! Sometimes things take time and that’s ok. I just need to chill sometimes, sit back and enjoy the ride.

6. It’s ok to say “NO”
If you aren’t feeling something, don’t do it and just say no! Done.


7. Stop pleasing people
The more I stopped always pleasing others the more I started to please myself to make sure I was ok. People can think what they want to think, you don’t have control over that. The stress of trying to please everyone is not worth it as it’s impossible to please anyone anyways.


8. Putting yourself first isn’t selfish
I love to give and care people but sometimes you just can’t do it constantly. I used to put others first all the time and it started making me unhappy and physically unwell as I was not taking care of myself. It doesn’t mean you are selfish if you need to take care of yourself first.


9. Just don’t give a shit.
Sometimes we have to not really care that much! Life is too short.

6. Follow your heart and your gut.
You know deep down what you feel. If something doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. If something feels right, do it. Be strong and stand your ground. We all have self empowerment, so take control of your life.


I preach these statements but I’m always still working to improve my well-being.
I hope this maybe helps in some way.
Just let it out. Be free. All you need is love.


Lots of love,
Monique XO


What motivates you to keep pursuing your passion? /  by Monique Nadeau

What motivates you to keep pursuing your passion?

This is a question I almost face everyday but it’s an easy answer, “because I love it.”

If you love to do something why stop? It seems pretty simple but I can understand why some of us want to stop or we actually do stop pursuing our passion and dreams.

You will have obstacles that will interfere and disrupt your journey but that’s life. If you love to do something you will fight for it. Just go for it, you have nothing to loose.

Here are some points from my experience I have faced in my musical career so far.

Realities:

As an artist you are judged by others. Whether it be from professionals in the industry, peers, family, etc. there is always going to be a subjective opinion about your art. This isn’t a bad thing it just means that some people will like what you produce and some people won’t.

As artists we also get questioned “what do you really do?” and if we make any money from our music. Success is different for every person. Just because you don’t sell thousands of albums or don’t have a ton of Spotify, Soundcloud, Youtube plays doesn’t mean your music sucks. There is a whole business around the industry and it can be extremely difficult to be successful at it. The internet is saturated with millions of artist’s music. It makes it so exciting and accessible for any artist to put there music out worldwide but you can get lost in the ocean of songs on the web. Don’t get discouraged we are all trying our best to get our music out there for the world to listen!

The performing arts has a lot of rejection but that doesn’t mean you are a failure. You keep going because you love what you do. Ya it’s a tough gig but will you kick yourself if you didn’t try hard enough? I know I would. It’s the easy way out to stop when things get difficult. I am definitely one of those types of people that if you tell me “no” I’ll do it even more.

Positives:

How did I discover my passion?

For me I was pretty serious to continue pursing classical piano and voice and musical theatre ongoing but then realized that I loved creating my own music much more. I sometimes look back and say “I could have kept going with the classical music or kept auditioning for roles,” but I knew deep down that my passion laid in creating my own songs and performing them to the public.

Motivation:

Do I ever get discouraged? Yes of course I do! It’s inevitable in the arts but I can’t quit. Music is my life.

There is a constant voice inside my head that says “just keep going!” It doesn’t matter whether or not people or situations put you down. Use that negative energy and turn it into positive motivation to get better and pursue your dreams. No one is stopping you but yourself! If you want to pursue your passion that is all that matters at the end of the day.

Wishing everyone all the best and take care XOX

From the Heart /  by Monique Nadeau

Sorry I have been MIA lately. The reason being is because I’ve been feeling blue and I’ve been trying to keep my spirits up. I have been dealing with depression for a while and I’ve even written songs about it, such as my song “Hold On” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkFxdQuTL9o

I used to be scared or unsure of telling people because there is always the question of “what’s wrong?” or “how can you be depressed when you have so much going for you?” or that people judge you and think you are not “normal” ora are “crazy.” Honestly, it sometimes has nothing to do with any of that. Sometimes the dark feeling is just there and it doesn’t come from any situational circumstance. If it does come from a situational experience sometimes it can linger for years and possibly always stay with you.

For any of you who don’t feel ok, it’s ok. You can find help and you can get the support. Everyone is different on how they cope with depression. For me I find it helpful to turn to music, draw, run, dance, read, spending time with friends and family and therapy. I still have difficulty sharing with people that I deal with depression because there is still the stigma attached to it. I still feel ashamed to admit to people that I have this and I know other people may feel ashamed to tell people too. It shouldn’t be like this anymore. This is why some can’t get out of the darkness and don’t have the support they need to get better. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health. Your mental health can 100% affect your physical health. I want a society that allows people to feel comfortable talking about their feelings, not be judged and get the help they need.

I just want people to know that you are not alone if you are not feeling ok. There are professionals and therapies that can help you. Writing and performing music has helped me so much to express any painful feelings that I have. It doesn’t fix everything but it’s definitely an outlet and a therapeutic way of dealing with depression for me. I hope that everyone can find their own way to help them. Don’t be afraid to speak up and share how you feel because you are not alone. I will revisit this subject again in the future. This was not easy to write about so hopefully next time it will be easier.

Talk soon everyone and lots of love XO

Happy Canada Day! /  by Monique Nadeau

To celebrate Canada Day i thought it would be appropriate to post my music video of my original song “Hold On” that was filmed in the beautiful city Kelowna, BC. I worked with amazing renowned people in the Canadian film, style and makeup industry. It was an experience I’ll never forget and definitely my favourite video yet! Check it out on my Youtube channel. Happy Canada Day! XOX