Lauren Daigle Says Mental Health, Panic Attacks Informed New Album: 'My Whole World Fell Apart' (Exclusive)

The Grammy-winning singer released her third LP, Lauren Daigle, last week

Lauren Daigle is ready for her next chapter.

Last week, the Christian singer released her third studio album, which is self-titled — an appropriate move considering the experiences that inspired it.

Five years ago Daigle dazzled listeners (and celeb fans like Selena Gomez) with her breakout hit "You Say," an uplifting ballad that earned her comparisons to Adele along with two Grammys. But when the pandemic put her tour on pause in 2020 just as she was reaching new heights, Daigle fell into a pit of darkness as she battled anxiety and depression.

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"When I was 16 I had this vision of that tour, and I could see the crowds, the lights — everything. Then it all dismantled," says Daigle, 31. "You combine the disappointment with grief and loss and the state of the world... I felt like I didn't know myself anymore. I started developing panic attacks."

During that identity crisis, she adds, "I found myself at a rock bottom."

With the help of friends, family and counseling, Daigle got her mental health under control. And she channeled her pain — and a message of hope — in new music, like her new single "Thank God I Do."

Related:Lauren Daigle Taps into Her Ethereal Side for the 'Thank God I Do' Music Video — Watch! (Exclusive)

Lauren Daigle marks a new beginning for the singer, but it's also an extension of her previous work. In January, Daigle announced that she'd signed a deal with mainstream label Atlantic Records (in partnership with Centricity Music), and her latest LP features songs that are borderline-secular.

"I'd just be writing songs or coming up with different melodies and lyrics, and I remember thinking, 'This is different than what people have known of me in the past, but not different from myself,'" Daigle recalls. "For all the fans that have been with me in my journey from the very, very, very beginning, this is no different than a 'You Say' moment for me. These are other little pieces of me that you're now going to get to learn of as well."

As the album came together, "each song fell in a box of soul and spirit," she says.

"There's this Bible verse that says, 'The word of God is alive and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. It can cut through bone and marrow, soul and spirit.' And I'm like, 'The soul and spirit, they're so intertwined,'" Daigle explains. "Once this started to happen [as I was writing], I was like, 'That would be a song that I would write from the soul for the soul, and this is a song that I'd write from the Spirit for the spirit; these songs of heartache and longing and difficulty and joy and newness and all that, they're coming from this soul lane, but there's these other God songs that are also me as well."

Making the record "was this rebirth process," Daigle says: "My whole world fell apart, and I had to learn how to find myself again."

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