Hello and happy Sunday!

This week, I want to mention the blending of two powerful forms of expression: music and writing. Both of these activities can, I believe, be combined together when we are processing our feelings.

Matching feelings to sound, and sound to feelings

We use music to match our emotional state, or to enhance how we would like to feel. This is why playlists are such a key feature of streaming services. 

Music can affect how we feel, and we feel a certain way when we listen to certain pieces of music.  

We all know this of course. But have you ever thought about actively using this if you are journaling and processing your thoughts and feelings in writing?

By combining sound with our journaling practices, we can tune our sensory and emotional state, and this can impact on how and what we write.

Writing to the Sound

When we write to sound, the elements of rhythm and tempo can entrain our brain, and this can create a feeling of flow. This could mean that you experience writing about your thoughts and feelings with a little more fluidity. It could also help to bypass the critical part of the mind. It depends on the sounds that you choose, and your relationship to that sound, but it is something that could be interesting to experiment with.

What type of sound? 

I believe that you can use any sound or music that you feel works for you. However, I am currently experimenting with a specific type of sound that I use in one of my trauma therapy modalities. It is called 'bilateral sound'. It is a standard piece of music with several parts, for example bass, percussion, guitar or other mid-range instrument, but one or all of the instruments are made to gently pan from left to right in the mix.  

This bilateral movement gently stimulates and can entrain our brain into its rhythm. This entrainment is said to be helpful for processing emotions, and helping us to more easily enter a flow state. Bilateral stimulation can be helpful for times when you want to go deeper than conscious thought, because it can give the busy thoughts-based conscious mind something to do.

Bilateral sound and Typing

In my weekly process journaling practice, I usually prefer to write by hand as it seems to help me access deeper insights. However, I have often thought about how it would be easier and more organised to type instead. So I have been testing whether typing whilst listening to bilateral sound can offer an alternative that works just as well. 

I am quite impressed so far. I have been using Apple Notes as a journaling app (because the Apple Journal app isn't available for Mac) and have been typing into that. It's fairly easy to organise notes in the Notes app, and you can also incorporate a voice note journal into it as well. 

So far I am seeing it work well for me. I seem to stop and think much less than I usually do whilst typing. The words flow a little better. I am going to do my weekly Sunday process on it today and see how it goes. Last week I used Audio Diary, which was good, but I did feel that I wasn't quite as spontaneous or deep with my processing. 

A Practical Exercise to try

Here's an exercise to try this week for your journaling: Either choose a piece of instrumental music that resonates with you, or choose one of these tracks from my bilateral music playlist. I have been using Steffen Lutter's tracks most recently, but I also like the Mark Grixti tracks too (both are gold coloured thumbnails).

As you listen, let your pen flow freely on the paper. Don't worry about grammar or structure; just write what comes to mind. Afterward, reflect on what you've written and see if any new insights or feelings have emerged. 

Did you feel like the writing flowed well?

Note: You will need headphones to get the bilateral effect.

I would love to know how you found this exercise. Do feel free to reply to this message and let me know what you noticed. Did it help your writing flow better, feel like it made no difference at all, or something else? I find for times when you want to just write spontaneously and creatively, it seems to help me flow a little easier.

Until next Sunday,

Donna