After a l
ong, relaxing holiday weekend, it can be a little painful to head back to the fast pace of work and the real world. Take 30 minutes tonight to regroup with some journal therapy and your favorite tunes to make the transition easier.
Music can change your mood with a few notes. A certain song can evoke strong emotions and take you back to the time and place you associate with it. Use your music collection as inspiration when you need a jump-start to your day.
1. First, find a way to pick a song at random. Put your iTunes or MP3 player on shuffle and take the first song that comes on. Or flip through a stack of CDs or records with your eyes closed and pull one out and select a song from it.
2. Once you have your song, listen to it a few times in its entirety. Look up the lyrics in the album or on the Internet if you need to, and read them over while listening to the song until you feel well-acquainted. As you listen and read the lyrics, pay attention to any words or sentences that stand out to you. Jot them down in your journal as you go.
3. When you are ready to start writing your journal therapy exercise, begin with the words you wrote down while listening to the song. Why did these particular phrases have an effect on you? Do you relate to the message or the story or the theme of the song? Write down anything that comes to mind.
4. Now focus on the song as a whole. Do you remember when it came out? Were you graduating from high school or starting your first job or relaxing on vacation? Write the memories you have with this song—starting with who, what, where, when and why. What emotions does the song bring to the surface?
5. Your feelings toward your selected song may have changed over the years. In the context of your recent experiences and your current state of mind, how has your opinion of the song changed? Now that you are older and wiser, do you view it differently?
What song did you end up using in your journal therapy session? What were some of the observations you discovered?
I used this Bob Dylan (still can't believe he wrote it) tune for this exercise...amazing how the song you most needto hear just comes up!
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