Note: This post has a few topics that I don’t explain. Polyvagal Theory and Mental Diet are the two biggest ideas that I would encourage you to run through Google in order to gain some insight. There is a good amount of information out there so I don’t feel the need to add my perspective/voice to the preexisting facts.
I have always loved music. Singing makes me happy and feel clear in ways I can’t explain. There is a release that comes from singing that I haven’t been able to replicate in other ways. Often times it is all that allows me to access and process some of the most sad and difficult emotions that are part of my past. There have been times where I have chosen not to feel my way through some tough situations and music is always the harbinger of truth… I hear a song that forces me to see what I was avoiding. I honestly thought something was wrong with me because there were songs that I couldn’t listen to without crying. I was in denial that there was anything to learn or process from the emotions that kept surfacing with music. When I finally started sitting and acknowledging what was there, I found that there were blocks that I could more easily dissolve with music. As I move through my days I sing often. It is a powerful tool.
As part of my path so far, I have learned about Manifesting, Law of Attraction, Mental Diet, and Conscious Creation. It has been enlightening to me, but because of these concepts, I found I struggled with singing for a time because the songs that I have always listened to and sung often have been quite emotion-dense and the themes were usually things like sadness and loss. Our popular media is deeply infused with powerful and extreme emotion. The idea of receiving more of what I was focusing on from these songs was an issue for me. I wanted to keep my mental diet from media exposure as uplifting and as grounded as possible but it was difficult for me to find music that wasn’t overwhelmingly emotional so I dramatically cut back on my exposure to music. This plan worked for a while but then I started to notice that I struggled with regulation of my parasympathetic nervous system. I work often to strengthen my Vagus Nerve but my anxiety skyrocketed despite all of the work I was doing using my usual tools of meditation, exercise, and breathwork. Singing and Music were another large and uncredited piece of my practice and when that component was removed, my other tools weren’t balanced with the level of support I needed and I struggled.
Lately I have adjusted my mentality towards music and my mental diet. I mistakenly thought that by exposing myself to ideas of strong emotional dysregulation that I was making it more difficult to bring better circumstances to my life. I thought that cutting out music and singing was the solution but I recognize now that I need music and song to help me keep my Vagus Nerve strong to manage my anxiety. I have been able to sit with the idea that the topics of songs are good examples of what I don’t want. I don’t want heartbreak and sadness. Now, I am better able to sing these songs to help me connect to the parts within me that need to be processed and worked through AND move forward with a clear idea of the very best things that I desire for myself. There is a new mindfulness here and I am able to use music as a tool for my healing and to move toward my intuitive purpose.
