'I found solace in song-writing with a guitar with one string in a Yorkshire psychiatric unit'

When Miranda Arieh first picked up a guitar, she was a teenager living in an adolescent unit at High Royds psychiatric hospital near Huddersfield, experiencing depression so severe that she had been considered a risk to herself.

The guitar had only one string- but Miranda began writing song after song on it.

Music gave her a way to express what she could not yet put into words. Songwriting became her solace and has remained a constant throughout the chapters of her life that have followed.

Now, after a six-year hiatus from performing - and having helped hundreds of people across Leeds during that time through her work with the NHS - the singer-songwriter, motivational speaker, and coach is returning to the stage.

She describes her show GROWN as an immersive evening of live music and personal growth, combining original music, raw storytelling, audience reflection and emotional honesty.

“When I began finding my way back to music after lockdown, I realised there were incredible concerts and there were brilliant personal-development events- but I couldn’t find anything that actually brought the two together,” Miranda says.

“So I decided to create the kind of evening I had always wanted to attend.”

Before the pandemic, Miranda, who says she has walked a “long road with addiction, trauma, and neurodivergence”, was a familiar face on the Leeds live music scene, performing at venues across the city.

But when Covid brought live performance to an abrupt halt, she found herself being drawn more deeply into work supporting people struggling emotionally.

She went on to create HEROES, a trauma-informed personal growth coaching programme whose name stands for Healing, Education and Recovery of Emotional Strength.

Created from Miranda’s own lived experience and developed in partnership with the NHS, HEROES, which runs through the Leeds Mental Wellbeing Service, has supported people across Leeds to reconnect with themselves, better understand and support their mental health and develop emotional resilience.

“Over the last six years, my work as a coach, trainer and motivational speaker has only enriched the creative part of me,” Miranda says. “In many ways, HEROES became like one mammoth ‘chorus’ within the song of my life.”

“I’ve spent the last six years helping people grow," she continues. “GROWN is my way of bringing that same spirit of growth back to where it all began - with music and my songwriting.

"I don’t want people to leave just saying, ‘That was a great gig.’ I want them to feel entertained, moved and more connected to themselves and their own lives than when they walked through the door.”

Drawing upon the highs, heartbreaks, humour and healing of her own life, Miranda says she will share the stories behind her songs with honesty, warmth and vulnerability.

The audience will be invited to become part of the experience, receiving a GROWN notebook and pen on arrival and being guided through reflective prompts, woven throughout the evening.

These moments, Miranda says, invite people to pause and reconnect with themselves and reflect on where they are in life, what truly matters to them and what they want from the next chapter.

“It isn’t self-help. It’s art that invites reflection and personal growth,” says Miranda, who was sectioned under the Mental Health Act at the age of 14 and spent nine months in hospital.

“I first picked up a guitar when I was living in an adolescent unit at High Royds. I was going through an incredibly tumultuous time with my mental health and living in absolute survival mode, with no parental support and a shattered sense of self.

“The guitar in the hospital had only one string, but somehow, I found myself writing song after song on it. Through music, I was able to express things I couldn’t put into words.

"Songwriting became my solace, and it has remained the thing that comes most naturally to me ever since.”