Perhaps you can relate to the following: You are with friends at a restaurant, glad to be away from the pain of mourning. Music is in the background, beyond your awareness until suddenly your attention is riveted as a song starts playing that was special to you and your beloved. Now you are transformed: going full throttle into grief; the pleasant time with friends fading away.
Music is powerful. It can impact your moods, evoke memories, bring to the surface deep emotions both as a source of pleasure and pain.
You have been in relationship with music all through your life. If you take a “trip” back to memories going all the way from childhood to the present, you would be mind-traveling the history of you — who you are — often accompanied by music.
Music is there for us in our grief if we choose to take the time to allow ourselves that important connection. If you are a new griever, you may be avoiding any songs or musical experiences that were part of your relationship with your loved one. As time goes on song often offers solace, words expressing what you feel but can’t express, music reaching your heart.
Time has an impact. If your beloved family member or partner died years ago the pleasure of memory is often stronger than the pain of loss when you hear special songs. In the early days and months following death, your response may be overwhelmingly painful. Time alters our reactions to music but not always in predictable ways. Be gentle with yourself if you choose to avoid musical experiences that seem too hard to bear.
The evidence of the healing power of music, physically, emotionally, spiritually is boundless and offers us so much at every stage of grieving. Let’s consider some of those ways to harness the power of music.
Music For Pure Enjoyment
Music can be a source of pleasure or even escape, to go “somewhere over the rainbow.” Modern technology along with older traditional sources provide so many opportunities to experience a variety of music. Finding your music is finding yourself.
Music For Meditation
Get comfortable. Play music that you find relaxing, especially classical music to soothe stress. The research is conclusive that music can help alleviate stress, control blood pressure and offer other health benefits. You can go deep within while sitting quietly.
Music For Mood Management
Notice what works for you. You may want to listen to tragic songs or sorrowful instrumental music when you are sad and want to feel more deeply or you may seek the opposite and look for upbeat music to lift you out of your unbearable feelings. Music can help you grieve by matching what you feel inside and assisting in the release of those feelings.
Music As Inspiration
During times of trauma, music lifts people up. Think of the power of patriotic songs after 9/11, team songs at school events, a doctor singing Lean on Me to a lonely dying patient during covid, as well as the uplift you feel when you hear songs that touch you deeply.
Music As Ritual
Rituals can connect you to you to loved ones after death. Lighting a candle placed on a table with a picture of your beloved while a favorite song is playing can bring you back to cherished memories. Going to a gravesite or special place and playing the music you loved together can be sad but also be a comforting ritual. Music can help you create your own rituals.
Music With Others
In the old days, before modern technology, families or groups of people would share music together — attending concerts, musical theatre, drumming circles and sing-a-longs. That still often happens in churches, synagogues, schools. The power and sense of connection is very healing especially when you are feeling lonely or isolated.
Making Your Own Music
Maybe you loved an instrument from your younger years but now don’t play. Take it up again or learn a new instrument. If you are a singer or musician, let yourself take the time to play your music. Anyone can make music. You can sing, whistle, tap your feet. Don’t forgot to sing in the shower!
Music As Balm For The Soul
Our deep feelings of grief go beyond words to places inside hard to reach. Music goes into those deepest reaches of our being. There is healing and peace in the realm of the soul. Seek it when your heart is crying out for comfort.
In Kim Cannon’s book How Music Heals Us, she writes: “Music is your life-long friend, the soundtrack to your life and an incredible healing tool. It has the power to transform feelings of burn-out, stress, depression and anxiety and create experiences beyond your expectations.” These are insights worth keeping in mind.