Using Music to Help Process Feelings
Music has always been a big part of my life. It's a way to express what I'm feeling when I can't find the words. In this post, I'll be discussing 3 ways music can be used as a tool for self-care. People often struggle with family relationships, personal growth, and loneliness. Music and song can be a great way to help us process our feelings and get to a place of acceptance.
The song Bad for Me by Meghan Trainor, in particular, has helped me process my feelings about my family and helped me through my own process of grief and healing.. I hope you'll find it helpful too.
Lyrics:
And my, my therapist told me to write you a letter, mm
She said if I did, it would make me feel better
But it wouldn't do shit even if I sent it
'Cause you won't get it, you're too damn selfish, mm
Please don't make promises that you can't keep
Your best intentions end up hurtin' me
No matter what, I'll love you endlessly
But I gotta run, I gotta run from your reality
I know we're blood, but this love is bad for me
Damn, it's hard for me to let go
Of someone I held so close, mm
Damn, it's hard for me to draw that line
And leave you on the other side
But my, my therapist told me to write you a letter, mm
She said if I did, it would make me feel better, oh
But it wouldn't do shit even if I sent it
'Cause you won't get it, you're too damn selfish, oh
Please don't make promises that you can't keep
Your best intentions end up hurtin' me
No matter what, I'll love you endlessly
But I gotta run, I gotta run from your reality
I know we're blood, but this love is bad for me
[Chorus: Meghan Trainor]
Please don't make promises that you can't keep
Your best intentions end up hurtin' me
No matter what, I'll love you endlessly
I know we're blood, but this love is bad for me
I can't tell you what I wanna say
'Cause I, I'm afraid that you won't change
Sometimes I just wanna scream in your face
But when you're in pain, you just walk away
And when you lie (And when you lie)
There's a part of you that dies
That I'm left with (I'm left with)
It gets hectic (It gets hectic)
When you lie (And when you lie)
I wonder why I try
But you can't help it, you're too damn selfish, mm
Please don't make promises that you can't keep
'Cause your best intentions end up hurtin' me
No matter what, I'll love you endlessly
But I gotta run, I gotta run from your reality
I know we're blood, but this love is bad for me
I know we're blood, but this love is bad for me
I have shared in the past the emotional process of giving myself no contact boundaries with my family. I have also helped countless people over the course of my career figure out the boundaries they need to have peace and calm, heal their nervous system, and learn to feel more centered and grounded. In my opinion, boundaries are one of the hardest things we will ever do as highly sensitive people, survivors, and people in recovery.
When we face challenges relating to our families of origin, we don’t want to have any kind of boundaries. This is the truth of being a big hearted person. It’s uncomfortable to consider that people who love each other can also be cruel, manipulate, gaslight, neglect, abandon, or abuse. It’s often easier for our mental and emotional parts to categorize child abuse, neglect, or dysfunction as a problem in the love department in our families. We might prefer the simplicity of thinking about family systems that operate in this way as loveless or love lacking--and love certainly can be lacking in a home.
From my personal story and professional experience, love wasn’t absent in the family system. It was just wrapped in layers of dysfunction. Just like so many people out there, I put so much energy into trying to separate love and dysfunction, particularly with my siblings. I love my siblings, who I am no contact with. And, I know, with every fiber of my being, that they love me. Love was never our problem. Love was, and is, wrapped in manipulation, power struggle, emotional immaturity, competition, and insecurity.
If we come from a dysfunctional home, one of the things we grieve is that we cannot separate love from dysfunction, despite our best efforts. So many of us have tried so hard because our pure, innocent, and naive inner child says, ‘No, it is possible. Keep trying.’ As a highly sensitive tribe, we have somehow collectively taken the messages of allowing space, time, and energy to repair relationships and giving second chances, and morphed it into the idea that we should give unlimited chances and continue to overfunction and wear ourselves out. Highly sensitive people really have a tendency to chase, push, and pull other people toward healthiness. This is often fueled by desperation because we don’t want to process the loss, feel the feelings, or deal with the reality that sometimes we are overfunctioning to someone else’s underfunctioning. As we heal, we begin to learn to deal with this dysfunctional hope.
When I think about my siblings, I send them love, care, hope, and well wishes, while I maintain the boundaries I have learned that I needed, but never wanted. These boundaries are what gave me the time and space to ground, calm, soothe, and teach my nervous system that I didn’t have to keep responding with the old patterns that I’d learned as a child in my family system.
In our self care and boundaries work, we learn how to take care of ourselves, how to stop overfunctioning in relationships, and how to practice a sacred selfishness. We learn the difference between the selfishness that creates a refusal to grow beyond our comfort zone and keeps us locked in old patterns, dysfunction, and programming and a sacred selfishness. One of the wild things that happens when we first set boundaries is that we may experience a great clearing. There might be more space. And, we might feel lonely. But, the big surprise that comes from this awakening is that we actually have more healthy, non-codependent, reciprocal, respectful, and mature ways to relate to other people. We get to show up more for ourselves and other people.
This work is scary; it’s confronting. And, we can do it. We are worth the work. I hope, by sharing my story, I can be an example of someone who has made the choice to have very strong boundaries with people she loves very much. I don’t believe I could have healed if I had stayed in the family dynamic. It’s truly what I’ve needed to heal. I can say with full confidence and sincerity that I am 100% peaceful about these boundaries, and I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get there. It’s possible and, not only that, probable to get to peace with whatever boundaries are needed. I hope all of you, in all of the ways we deserve, work toward the peace that I believe is our birthright.
What are some songs you listen to to help you process your feelings?
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 7
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 71
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 10
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 51
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 37
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 12
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self Respect 1
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
Episode Tags
- ADD 1
- Abuse 14
- Alcohol 3
- Anger 8
- Bullying 4
- Childhood 37
- Codependency 7
- Covid 4
- Crystal Catalina 4
- Depression 15
- Detachment 2
- Disassociation 4
- Emotions 71
- Existentialism 1
- Faith 1
- Family 24
- Fatigue 4
- Focus 3
- Gratitude 11
- Grief 10
- Guilt 2
- Healers 7
- Healing 51
- High Sensation 4
- Hope 1
- Hypervigilance 7
- Introverts 6
- Lonliness 7
- Love 3
- Manifesting 5
- Manipulation 19
- Men 1
- Mindfulness 37
- Money 10
- Music 3
- Nutrition 2
- Overthinking 8
- PTSD 11
- Parenting 12
- People Pleasing 7
- Perfectionism 6
- Pets 4
- Relationships 12
- Resiliency 12
- Sadness 1
- Self Esteem 16
- Self Love 11
- Self Respect 1
- Self-Care 24
- Sex 1
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