Featured Fundamism: Listening to Music with Purpose
- By Paul Long
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- 09 Oct, 2017
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Welcome to our Featured Fundamism! We consistently profile a new Fundamism providing individuals guidance on activities intended to bring more F.U.N. to their lives. The goal is to provide education and exposure to things that could potentially help focus less on the things in life that tear us down and more on what builds us up. This Featured Fundamism? Listening to Music with Purpose!
WHAT:
Listening to music with purpose
WHY:
Music is a lot of things to lots of different people. I'm not a musician but I wish I was. To me, music makes me FEEL. Anything I want to feel, I can find a song that will help evoke that emotion. Like many of you reading this, I can think of numerous defining moments in my life and associate that memory with a song. Below is the most impactful example I recall.
The year was 2013. I was living in Portland, Oregon, with my wife, Melissa, and 8 month old daughter, Adalyn Grace, at the time. The moment I woke, I checked my phone to find in excess of 10 phone calls and 30 texts. My father, just 2 weeks removed from his 60th birthday, had unexpectedly passed in his sleep. A weird feeling came over me. I was numb and knew I had to make plans to get home to Kansas City to help my family in the grieving process while making arrangements for his funeral services.
After exploring flights to KC, we came to the conclusion that driving would be be more fiscally responsible than purchasing plane tickets. We began our drive in the evening in hopes of allowing our baby girl some sleep while mitigating the level of discomfort during such a trek. It had been a day since my father's passing and I still hadn't shed a tear.
It was pitch black as I drove through Utah with my headphones on as my wife and daughter slept in the back. My iPod, stocked full of 10K songs from just about every genre, was on shuffle when it happened. Death Cab for Cutie's, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" came on and I completely lost it. As tears rolled down my face, I was taken by the words of the song and was forced to come to grips with the loss of my father. It was therapeutic and I needed that release. Music gave me the power to FEEL.
In a 2010 Los Angeles Times article, Harvard neurologist Dr. Gottfried Schlaug explained that when an area of the brain is disabled due to trauma or disease, music provides a unique way to reach that area, sometimes restoring impaired functions such as movement, memory, and speech. There is also evidence that suggests that music can offer help to patients who suffer from pain, depression, heart problems, immune system issues and a rapidly growing list of ailments. Is it not then a foregone conclusion that music has healing properties? Perhaps we could even consider it a kind of medicine (a completely harmless and easily accessible medicine that we have unlimited access to 24 hours a day, without a prescription). Eureka! So, why in the world would we not avail ourselves of this miracle drug? While we are not exercising this fundamism to deal with serious illness, we are most certainly exercising it to engage our brains and provide a therapeutic and uplifting experience that can help you to relax, smile or get motivated.
HOW:
This fundamism is super easy to incorporate into your day. When I wake up in the morning, I turn on the shower, followed by my favorite Spotify playlist. Depending on what emotion I want to feel, I have the selection that will set the tone for my day. Every day, without fail, it wakes me up and puts a spring in my step as I prepare for the events to follow. My family also incorporates Hall & Oats dance parties and frequently have YouTube music videos playing at our house throughout our day. Our children LOVE music and we can definitively see a change in them when its playing.
Whether you are showering, driving to work, exercising, or even
relaxing at home, you can add a little music to the mix. It can act
as an energizer or a relaxant. You
choose the mood you are aiming for, pick some appropriately paced music and
it will do the rest. Remember that the Fundamism is "Listening to Music with Purpose." I challenge you to choose your music wisely based on what you want to feel rather than just turning on the radio and allowing the DJ to direct your day.
In closing, I'd love to hear stories of how you've experienced music. It can be anything from a song you associate with a particular memory, how music has impacted your life or anything in between. Let's share the power of music!
