Healing Through Music

Music, sound, vibration, light, and color create powerful medicine for healing. Ancient civilizations in our distant past intimately understood the applications. We are just beginning to scratch the surface of our present understanding, but one thing is for sure: Sound is a critical component of medicine in the past, present, and future.

There are limitless possibilities to how music can be used for healing. 

Music without Lyrics

Music without lyrics such as binaural beats tuned to specific solfeggio frequencies can be used to induce various altered states. The most common frequencies and their generally accepted uses include:

• 174 Hz: reducing pain physically and energetically
• 285 Hz: rejuvenating energy
• 396 Hz: relieving grief, guilt, fear
• 417 Hz: facilitating change, transforming negative energy
• 432 Hz: restoring well-being, releasing emotional blockages
• 528 Hz: inducing deep inner peace, repairing DNA
• 639 Hz: enhancing communication and understanding
• 741 Hz: promoting self-expression, realizing solutions
• 852 Hz: awakening intuition
• 963 Hz: connecting with oneness

When it comes to these frequencies and the exact numbers, there is a lot of controversy and confusion. The main focus of this post is on music with lyrics. I am not claiming that these exact numbers are correct for any specific purpose. Please use your own intuition and discernment when it comes to solfeggio frequencies.

Nowadays, I don’t specifically listen to solfeggio frequencies. I prefer music with koshi chimes, ocean waves, whale and dolphin sounds, Peruvian flutes, or other relaxing nature sound recordings.

Because there are limitless applications for how music can be used, I encourage you to think about how it could be integrated into your life. “I wonder if music could be used to aid/help/enhance/improve… (fill in the blank)” Allow yourself to imagine, and then experiment with it! Why not try to enhance your life a little more with music?

Music with Lyrics

The words we speak, sing, and repeat have great power. Words can be used to harm or to heal.

Music affects us in numerous ways, both consciously and unconsciously. It affects our energy, thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and more.

We get to choose which music we consume, for better or for worse.

Approached without intention, music can be used to keep you stuck in unhealthy habits, solidify limiting beliefs, and encourage negative thought patterns.

For example, if you passionately and repeatedly sing, “I won’t get over this,” you are are actively keeping yourself stuck in the energy of no change, of staying in this same situation, infinitely playing on repeat in your consciousness.

Approached with clear intentions for healing, music can be used to heal trauma, transcend limiting beliefs, positively transform energy, and create lasting change in your life.

For example, if you passionately and repeatedly sing, “I’m getting through this,” you are working through your current situation, actively moving yourself forward on the path of growing and healing.

When we listen to music and sing with strong intentions, we are amplifying the effects of the music.

There are so many different ways you can use music with lyrics for healing.

It amazes me how the same lyrics do not affect me the same way every time I sing them. One day, a certain lyric might not affect me significantly, and another day, those very same lyrics might be the catalyst to my healing process.

So, how do I actually use music with lyrics for healing?

When I listen to a song, I close my eyes and become fully immersed in it. I sing with my heart and soul. I allow myself to be completely present with each moment. I allow my body to move in whichever ways feel right.

I sing like this standing up every day, but I do not always do deep healing with music. I have experienced my most profound healing with music when I allow myself to lay down in the bathtub and truly focus all my energy into the process. I tend to go through this several times a month.

I feel any and all feelings that come up for me. Sometimes I choke up and start crying at a certain part in a song. When that happens, I allow myself to cry, however long or intense my tears want to flow.

I listen to one song on repeat or I create a playlist of a specific series of songs.

I listen and sing as long as it takes to transmute my emotions, to feel a cathartic release, to intuitively sense when the process feels complete.

I combine music with other healing modalities as I feel intuitively guided. This can include Reiki energy healing, self-treatment of certain acupressure points, or being in my Akashic Records.

Below I’ll share some of my favorite bands and their songs with certain lyrics that have been deeply healing for me.

VadaWave

I love VadaWave so much. Megan & Quinn are such beautiful souls and their music is passionate, moving, and inspiring. I highly recommend listening to all of their songs! Two of my favorites that have been deeply healing for me are “Stay” and “I’m Dead.” If you only get one thing out of this post, let it be this: Listen to VadaWave!

On the day they released “Stay,” I listened to it over 100 times. I simply couldn’t stop. As I sang it soulfully, my entire body and energy field were vibrating with aliveness. I had no idea music could make me feel quite like that. That experience is what really inspired me to begin creating music.

“Stay”

I need you
We need you
We’re all one
You’re wanted
You’re power
Light unlike anyone

“I’m Dead”

These grounds make my hands shake now
Still I keep chop chop chopping at my roots and
I’ve been done wondering the truth about why and when
We become what we become when were unbecoming

I’m dead so why am I breathing no
I have every reason ya
This beautiful body
Our beautiful bodies
I’m dead so why am I breathing

It’s riding in my blood
Thrives in smoke
Never get to know
Goodbye memory

Jimmy Eat World

“Table for Glasses”

Not asking of me anything
Saying nothing about what it means
Without anybody telling me
How I should feel

These lyrics have always felt like a breath of fresh air to me. It’s like, “I can breathe again, I can feel whatever I need to feel, I can just be.”

“You are Free”

Honey, you are free
As much as you can stand to be
You are free
And it’s anything you think that means
You are free
To be who you want
What you need
Yeah, who you want
What you need
Baby, you are free

Green as the Soul

Shameless plug here! I’m a musician and I’m creating music with purposeful lyrics and with instruments tuned to the optimal frequencies for healing. I’m so excited to share my music with the world. My first single, Wild, is out now!

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Consciously Creating Music

As the next wave of musicians, we owe it to ourselves and to the collective to do so much better.

It’s not enough for music to simply sound good anymore. It needs to be so much more than that.

I don’t wish to stifle anyone’s creativity. I only intend to inspire deeper consideration of how we use our words.

There are songs that we feel have to come out of us, and there are songs that we feel the world needs deeply. There can often be an overlap between those two groups of songs, but…

Let me tell you, I have written so many songs that I felt needed to come out of me, but the world didn’t need to hear. Those songs were just for me, for specific healing purposes, for certain periods of time—not to be published or replayed every single day.

Here are some questions to consider:

• Is it honest and true?
• Is it hurting or helping?
• Is it pushing people down or lifting them up?
• Is it telling a meaningful story?
• Is it expanding perspectives?
• Is it catalyzing?
• Is it transformative?
• Is it inspiring?
• Is it perpetuating toxic beliefs and habits, keeping people stuck in pain?
• Is it helping people work through what they’re experiencing, moving them towards growth, healing, and deeper understandings?

As musicians, we need to be more deliberate with the contents of what we are creating and putting out in the world.

We know the true power of music now. We really owe it to ourselves and the collective to create more consciously.

Consciously Consuming Music

A lot of popular music reinforces negative patterns rather than helping heal them.

When we consider the deep and lasting effects that songs have upon us, we need to be more conscious and intentional as we choose which music to consume.

The next time you’re shuffling through your music library, I challenge you to listen to the lyrics more carefully than you ever have before. I recommend truly taking the time to listen to the lyrics of songs in your music library.

When you do this, allow yourself to delete any songs that express messages that you do not want being absorbed and reinforced in your consciousness. If there’s a song that you absolutely love and can’t bring yourself to delete, I encourage you to intentionally shift your perspective when you listen to it.

We encode songs with emotional charges when we listen to them at particular points in our lives. For example, we may have repeatedly listened to certain songs during a particularly traumatic, depressing, or stressful period of time. Now, when we listen to those songs in present time, we feel ourselves falling into the past and we’re flooded with emotional memories. 

We can thank those songs for the gifts they’ve given us. Isn’t it beautiful that music was able to hold space for us to get through whatever we were experiencing?

Through intentional energy work, it is possible to transform those emotional charges and deeply heal our relationship with ourselves, our memories, and those songs.

Sound is one of the most powerful forces that exists. Let’s use it to heal instead of harm.

Which songs have been particularly healing for you? Let me know in the comments below!

For more posts about healing, visit Strong with Purpose.