Kelsea Ballerini may be one of the most self-aware 31-year-olds on the planet.
Her understanding of self is a consequence, at least in part, of her profession. As a Grammy-nominated artist, Kelsea relies on a readily accessible well of thoughts and feelings to draw upon to articulate her worldview through song. But the rest of that enlightenment, well, that comes from a lot of hard work -- work that is evident on her album Patterns, out October 25.
"Thematically, this record is a love letter to self-assessment," Kelsea says, sounding more Nietzsche than Nashville as she explains the inspiration behind her fifth studio effort. For Kelsea, Patterns isn't simply an album title -- it's a call to action as she settles into her 30s, navigating new opportunities and new love.
"I crammed so much life into my 20s, and I've done a lot of work to be able to stand by all that life, learn a lot from it, and appreciate all of it for what it's been," she says. "[Patterns] is about finding the ones that serve you and appreciating and celebrating those, and then finding the ones that don't -- where they come from and how they relate to your interpersonal relationships."
The ability to recognize and break unhealthy or unfulfilling patterns is a skill Kelsea has spent the past three decades growing into -- through mental health practices, like therapy, and slightly more woo-woo interests, like astrology and the occasional visit to a psychic -- and it's one she's still working on today. "Ironically, self-awareness has not stopped me from doing things that I know are not healthy for me," she admits ruefully.
An only child raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, Kelsea began songwriting at age 12 -- around the time her parents, Ed and Carla, divorced. As part of her parents' divorce proceedings, Kelsea attended court-mandated therapy sessions.
She hated it. "I was young, and I was sad and confused, and I didn't want to talk to a stranger that someone else was making me talk to," she says.
Her second try at therapy didn't go much better, given that, once again, it wasn't of her own choosing. A 14-year-old Kelsea was sent to counseling after witnessing a shooting at her Knoxville high school. Despite the gravity of the situation, Kelsea remained reticent. "Being a Virgo, being very strong-willed, especially when it comes to things that are tender, like mental health, I need to feel like it's my decision," she says.
At 24, having already broken through with her debut album, The First Time, a couple years prior, she entered therapy a third time -- this time making the decision herself.
"I'd been on the road for four years, and I was exhausted," she says. "I was married [to Australian country singer Morgan Evans], and I was looking around at all my friends who have 9-to-5 jobs and still live in my hometown, and I was realizing I felt really removed, really different. I was starting to have questions like, What is driving me? Is missing Mom's birthday worth it? Am I okay? And am I happy? I couldn't answer these fundamental questions I should have been able to answer, so I got back into therapy, by my choice, and fell in love with it."
Over the years, Kelsea has attended biweekly sessions and also daylong intensives, during which she and her therapist dive deep into issues from Kelsea's past.
"My therapist asked me to bring in letters, journals, and pictures from my childhood that are significant to me," she says of one such intensive. "I went in having no idea what I wanted to talk about. I just wanted to dig deeper. We started in the morning, and it lasted seven hours. [By the end], I was exhausted, but I had a better understanding of a lot of things. I had the time to really untangle them."
Recently, Kelsea sought her therapist's guidance for a more pressing issue: insecurity about her upcoming gig as a mentor on The Voice, despite having already made several guest appearances on the NBC singing competition series.
"I've gotten to the point where, if people don't like my music, I'm like, 'Fair enough. Not everything is for everyone,' " she says. "[With The Voice], it was the first time I was putting myself in a position where people are just not going to like me."
When her therapist asked Kelsea how she would approach post-show feedback, she already knew the answer -- though she didn't necessarily like it: She should watch the episodes, critique herself, and ask producers for their notes. She should not doomscroll, hunting for negative reviews. "There's still that little know-it-all in me that has to know the full scope of it," she says. But "it's now on me to choose the right [course of action]."
Kelsea's keen interest in breaking and remaking patterns extends into nearly every facet of her life -- not just her mental health but her physical health too.
When the singer's star began to rise, in her mid-20s, she enlisted the help of a high-profile personal trainer ("she trained a lot of the really hot country girls," Kelsea says) to craft a workout program for her, which took the form of four or five strength-training sessions a week. After five grueling years of work, Kelsea was burned out and parted ways with her trainer professionally, though the two remain friends.
"It almost felt like I was punishing myself to become what I thought I was supposed to be, visually, in my industry," Kelsea says of her former routine. As a hard reset, she stopped working out altogether for a while. Then, over the course of about two years, she began slowly reincorporating physical activities into her life. She dabbled a bit in SoulCycle, which she still attends from time to time, but ultimately fell in love with the Lagree Method -- a high-intensity, low-impact workout that incorporates a Megaformer (inspired by the Pilates reformer) to train muscles to fatigue.
"I do it as much as I can," Kelsea says. "I love how it makes me feel doing it -- I feel strong. Having a good relationship with how I'm moving my body has changed everything for me." (And, not for nothing, she credits the Method with giving her a booty for the first time: "I'm proud of that ass!") She supplements her three- to four-times-a-week Lagree routine with walking her dogs, among them a nine-year-old labradoodle named Dibs, whom she calls "the love of my life," who was sadly diagnosed with inoperable cancer in August.
In recent years, Kelsea has also learned the importance of properly fueling her body, whether it be for a sweaty workout, a high-energy performance, or simple day-to-day life. After feeling "a little weird," she paid a visit to her doc and found out she wasn't getting enough of two essentials: salt and protein.
"I didn't realize that you had to have salt to absorb water," she says. Now she starts her day by mixing LMNT electrolyte powder into her morning glass of water. She's also upped her protein intake significantly, eating more red meat and carrying a Chomps meat stick in her purse at all times. "Chomps, cottage cheese, a good steak -- that's my trifecta right now," she says.
A typical day of eating for Kelsea starts with a couple of scrambled eggs with chimichurri on top, a side of cottage cheese, and blueberries. After drinking her electrolyte water, she'll have coffee -- her namesake brew, Ballerini Blend, from the Original Donut Shop, or a latte. For lunch, she is partial to turkey sandwiches and particular about how they're constructed. "I do layers of turkey and cheese, with sprouts and tomato," she says. "On one side, I put a little avocado. On the other, aioli." (To answer your questions: 1) No, the avocado and aioli never touch. 2) Yes, she likes both sides of the sandwich equally.)
For dinner, Kelsea prepares salmon with zucchini or a skirt steak with asparagus. And, given her Italian surname, it shouldn't come as too much of a shock that pasta finds its way to her table at least a couple of times a week.
"Cooking feels meditative to me," Kelsea says. "I'll put on a podcast or the Rat Pack, and I'll just disassociate and cook. Making something with your hands, then either eating it to nourish yourself or giving it to friends, feels very grounding to me, so I've been doing that a lot more."
Lately, Kelsea has been splitting her time between Nashville and Charleston, South Carolina -- the current home and location of Outer Banks star Chase Stokes, whom Kelsea has been dating for a little over a year, following her divorce from Evans. He too represents a pattern broken, as Kelsea says she's never dated someone quite so like herself.
"Chase is also a Virgo, and we're very kindred in 90 percent of the ways," Kelsea says. "It's been such a beautiful journey to figure out how to be in a relationship with someone who's truly a mirror of you. It's taken a lot of really intentional work, and you hear that throughout this new album."
That said, Kelsea warns not to expect a mushy-gushy love record. "It's not not a record full of love," she clarifies. "It is, but it's the nuance of it, and it's the in-between moments. How do we get to the happy-go-lucky, mushy-gushy phase? This is the process, but it took a lot of sorting through baggage together. I think we're both really proud of that."
In the Venn diagram of Kelsea's music and Chase's acting careers, the couple found an interesting overlap. Kelsea gives Chase advice on acting projects that have a level of musicality to them, and Chase is supporting Kelsea as she prepares for her first meaty acting part -- a currently hush-hush role fans will want to keep an eye out for this fall.
"[Acting] was one of the things that I was like, Run toward the things that scare you!" Kelsea says. "What if I suck on TV? Then you know what I do? I'll go put on my glitter and go back onstage. That's always going to be home base."
With that solid foundation under her, Kelsea is opening herself up to all the new possibilities coming her way -- breaking and remaking patterns, even when it scares her.
"I'm happy, and I'm in control of that happiness," Kelsea says, reflecting on the new path she's forging after the divorce and her last EP, Rolling Up the Welcome Mat, which chronicled that experience and helped her process it. "I feel grateful to have the people in my life that I do and to be able to put out a record on this level and play the rooms that I've always wanted to and also go home to my dogs."
Understanding what truly nourishes you, body and soul? That might be the greatest knowledge of all, and Kelsea now has it.
Photographed by Caleb & Gladys. Styled by Kristen Saladino. Hair: Jacob Rozenberg at The Wall Group using Pantene. Makeup: Kelsey Deenihan at The Wall Group using CoverGirl. Manicure: Julie Kandalec at Bryan Bantry Agency using Gelish Cream Gel. Set design: Sarah Caye.