Music Is Therapy
Posted on August 22, 2018 by Anne Sabagh, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
This article talks about the correlation of music and positive mental health. What music have you found therapeutic throughout your life?
One day, as I was scrolling through Facebook postings, I saw a several women in a photo wearing t-shirts that said, “Music Is Therapy”. The second woman from the left in the photo was Talinda Bennington, wife of the late Chester Bennington, lead singer of the band Linkin Park. The simple saying on the t-shirts really resonated with me, as music has long been one of my greatest forms of therapy. After seeing this picture, I knew I had to get one of those t-shirts. I got one for both myself and my husband. We have each gotten compliments whenever we wear our t-shirts. It seems many people agree with its sentiment.
For as long as I can remember, music has helped me to process almost all my feelings: Pain, joy, feeling misunderstood, wanting to run away from everything; anything and everything one can feel, music has helped me either work through, or at least feel like one other soul on the planet “gets” what I’m feeling.
One song in particular that has helped to remind me of one of my life’s most recurring lessons (a hard one for me to grasp, but true none-the-less), is George Harrison’s song, “All Things Must Pass”, from the album of the same name. Some of the lines are, “Sunrise doesn’t last all morning. A cloudburst doesn’t last all day. It’s not always going to be this gray. All things must pass, must pass away”. This song reminds us all that no matter what we are going through, it will not last forever. This can be especially difficult for me personally to remember when I am in the middle of a crisis; but if it is possible to just stop, wherever I am, and remember these words, that all things will indeed pass away, I am hopefully able to at least proceed forward, knowing that whatever I am dealing with, will eventually end.
Another song that comes to mind when I am not feeling so good about the way things are going, is a song by the band Sister Hazel called “Change Your Mind”. The chorus of the song is, “If you wanna’ be somebody else, if you’re tired of fighting battles with yourself, if you wanna’ be somebody else, change your mind”. When interviewed about this song in particular, the band said, “If you’re not happy with the way you feel about a given situation, change the way you think about it; change your mind”. That really rings true for me too. Sometimes I have felt stuck in a negative thought pattern, but have had my mood turn around completely for the positive when I re-frame what a situation might mean instead of thinking about it from a negative perspective. Perhaps the situation in question has a positive message to teach me; or perhaps I’m just looking at it through a negative lens and just have to change the filter in my binoculars, so to speak.
I am sure if I thought back through all the songs that have inspired me throughout the years, the list would be endless. I would love to hear from readers what songs have shown you that music is therapy. Sharing your stories of music that has been therapeutic for you will serve to help others who may be in similar situations to feel heard, understood, and less alone. And in so doing, you will be helping to spread the positive therapy of music, to others.
*Anne Sabagh is a Certified Life Coach based in Northern Virginia. She sees clients in person at Goose Creek Consulting in Centreville, VA. She specializes in working with people dealing with mental health concerns in order to help them develop their greatest mental wellness possible. She is a highly sensitive person and an empath. As such, Anne brings a great deal of empathy to her work with clients. She loves animals, music, and spending time with her family and friends. She lives in Northern Virginia with her wonderful husband Tony, and their beloved cat, Robin.
