THOUGHTS & FEELINGS

When Music Works Like Therapy

I went for a massage to relieve the stress, but found more than just that

One evening I had a massage. While I lay there on the table, I tried to push all thoughts from my mind, and just relax — I needed it so much. I was comfortable with the masseuse as she was also my ‘waxing lady’.

Lying there, my mind filled with thoughts about my son, as at the time he had just tried to commit suicide again. The thoughts caused my body to tense again.

I needed to relax.

First, I tried to concentrate on her hands, but then I noticed the music.

Soft, soothing music.

Spiritual.

Like therapy.

Therapy, something I needed

The massage happened before I started seeing a life coach.

I wondered about it — therapy.

I used to push worries away and just get on with the everyday things. No fuzz. Just carry on. This meant I ignored my stress; sort of didn’t allow or grant myself feeling needy.

But I had noticed the signs in my body.

That was why I had booked the massage, after all. However, I knew it was like a bandaid on a wound that needed stitches. I wasn’t ready yet to admit to myself I needed to talk to someone where I could voice my own fears, my own feelings.

The combination of those thoughts, and my experience during that massage, made me wonder about using music as therapy.

I don’t have any go-to songs

There was a time when I listened to music a lot, but it had been many, many years since I had last just put on a playlist of my favorite songs. In fact, the last time I did something like that was when I still had cassette tapes.

Now that is ages ago.

After the cassette tapes, I went through a period where I played my favorite CDs repeatedly, depending on my mood. With the current day where you can make an entire playlist in Spotify or other music services… well, I have never hopped on that train.

My husband and I still listen to music, but only on random occasions, and where we play our favorite songs, none of those songs can serve me as some kind of music therapy.

Are there even songs that will help?

There definitely are songs that can help uplift me, but the same song will not help every time. I can listen to a rock song and one moment it makes me feel alive; makes me throw off all those negative things, but the next I am indifferent to it. A romantic ballad one moment draws tears from me, and the next… well, I feel nothing.

I like music, but am not always actively listening to it, and will not actively seek to listen to it because I need an uplifting.

Sometimes, however, the feelings overwhelm me.

Paint Your Wagon

I grew up with the soundtrack of the Western musical film, Paint Your Wagon. My husband also knows the musical, and one night, many many years ago, we played our favorite songs. He wanted to surprise me by playing the song ‘They call the wind Mariah’.

I listened to it, remembering my younger years, and the difficult relationship I had with my father since I fell pregnant with my daughter.

It was when he played Wandrin’ Star from Paint Your Wagon that I broke down. I sobbed. I couldn’t stop anymore. All the pain and sadness of my relationship with my father came out that night. I needed to get it out, to cleanse my soul. I came to terms with the fact that my father stopped all contact with me. Accepted it.

We started talking again when my mom fell ill in 2017 and talked until he passed away in April 2021. Not every day, and not even every week. But… we talked. Our bond never returned to what it once was, but we were still father and daughter, and respecting each other the way it should be.

A moment of tears

The masseuse first concentrated on my back, then my neck, and then massaged my arms, from my shoulders to my fingers.

By that time I was quite relaxed and not wondering about what to concentrate on anymore, but just… being. The combination of her hands on my body, giving in to the pain when she touched those tender pressure points, and the music enveloping us definitely helped.

She moved on from one arm to the next, and it was when she gently massaged my fingers, and then rested my hand in hers, while rubbing up my arm, that a thought crossed my mind: that’s so comforting.

Like her holding my hand in difficult times.

Tears filled my eyes, and that was when I realized how well the massage was working. I went there to get rid of some stress, and it worked.

Some therapy, right?!

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