Musical Manifestation
It’s been a shitty day—you woke up late, dealt with rude people, none of your friends can hang out, and no one seems to understand anything. You get home and put on the perfect sad playlist that flawlessly matches your mood and close your eyes…
What have you been listening to lately?
I think it’s really important to be mindful of the music we listen to and how it affects our emotions and, consequently, our lives. It's not totally about what sounds best to our own ears (because sad music can sound great sonically), but what will make us feel best in the current moment. Oftentimes, sorrowful tunes start cathartic, but then lead to a vicious cycle of replaying events in our minds. Sad tracks train our brains to look for things that remind us of those experiences in everyday life.
Beyond our emotions, music can also be used as a tool to cultivate the lives we want to create. Since we know that listening to music can produce natural dopamine, I think it’s fair to wonder how music can help us manifest our best realities. If you don’t know, manifestation, or what some call “the law of attraction,” is the idea of positive or “abundant” thinking to attract our dream outcomes into our lives. There’s a ton of ways people say to do this. Comparatively, I’d say listening to music is much like exercising our subconscious to break its limited beliefs through “words of affirmation.”
Doesn’t this exact same thing happen with the songs we listen to? When we fall asleep with a track playing or have it in the background of other tasks, we are training our brains to remember these songs. Then, one day, you realize you have every single word memorized. What kinds of differences would the words to Lizzo’s “Good as Hell” versus Ariana Grandes’ “Just a Little Bit of your Heart” make?
“Beyond our emotions, music can also be used as a tool to cultivate the lives we want to create. ”
Curating a music playlist can be comparative of building a “dream board”. Dream boards are another manifesting technique people use to visualize goals, dreams, and what our ideal lives would look like. Just like picking out pictures and motivating words, we can build playlists full of tracks that speak to the same details as a dream board, simply using an auditory sense rather than a visual one. Check out my European vacation themed playlist below for an example of experimenting with music manifestation.
Now, for a couple tangible examples of how what we listen to affects our lives…
We spend one to two months listening to holiday music in hopes of a wonderful Christmas Day. Do we usually have one? Yes!
I’d describe my music taste in high school as “down in the dumps.” When my parents got a divorce, all I’d listen to was depressing music or their wedding song; Shania Twains’ “From This Moment On.” I was constantly finding myself replaying what had been broken. It wasn’t until post-secondary school that I was obligated to listen to different genres of music like rock or golden age musicals and noticed I started feeling a lot better. This realization about my listening choices helped me move forward with the other struggles in my life, like making new friends or pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. Now that the music I surround myself with has changed, I’ve become more intentional with my listening habits.
As Gandhi said,
“Carefully watch your thoughts, for they become your words. Manage and watch your words, for they will become your actions. Consider and judge your actions, for they have become your habits. Acknowledge and watch your habits, for they shall become your values. Understand and embrace your values, for they become your destiny.”
Music is a constant and beloved presence in our lives…Gandhi’s wisdom illustrates how our ways of being are all interconnected.
In bell hooks’ all about love she explains,
“scholars try to tell us there is no direct connection between images of violence and the violence confronting us in our lives, the common-sense truth remains—we are all affected by the images we consume and by the state of mind we are in when watching them.”
The same applies to the music we choose to accompany our everyday lives.
While we’re walking to work do we listen to songs that will get us ready to be friendly to customers or frustrated at them? When we’re in the car with friends do we listen to sad music about how there’s no one in life who understands us or do we listen to nostalgic songs everyone can sing along to together? When we walk to school what kind of difference does it make if we listen to music that omits anxiety over music that reminds us everything will be alright. Nothing else makes me feel like cooking up a storm than jazz music. As hooks says we get into a “state of mind” consuming the media, but the best part is we have a say whether the effect is positive or negative!
There’s a lot of solid happy tunes out there that aren't too cheesy or unrealistic so don’t be quick to judge branching out. I hope this inspires you to be intentional and mindful about your listening habits, and to get the most out of your music and playlists.
Header by: Valerie Letts
