How Music Can Help Us Embrace Our Emotions

Let music help you feel the feelings.

I never understood why my friends had sad music playlists. Why would anyone want to listen to sad music when they’re already in the dumps? What’s the point of wallowing in the sadness?

It turns out my thinking was based on unquestioned, black-and-white assumptions about emotions: some of them are bad, we can control them, and they get in the way of clear thinking.

Now I’ve come to realise we’re less in control of our emotions than we think, and trying to control emotions isn’t the best way to deal with them. Emotions aren’t just thoughts in our minds, but also physiological processes in our bodies. They’re an amalgamation of signals, telling us about our current state. Pleasant or not, they’re a constant backdrop to our awareness, like a tinted pair of sunglasses. And as much as we like to think we’re rational decision makers, we’re actually emotional ones (destroying emotional centres in the brain robs our ability to make good decisions).

So if we can’t control our emotions, they’re al…