Music and Heartbreak
By T. Perry Bowers
I was just very recently divorced. People often use the term “nasty divorce.” I guess you could say that about mine. It was extremely painful, and there were things that were done that were intentionally hurtful. I’m not going to tell the story here because the details and the blame are not what’s important. I have a feeling that, with a little distance, I won’t remember much of what happened. I think I will just remember the heartache.
I will remember waking up and not wanting to get out of bed, yet also not being able to sleep. I will remember the constant pain in my heart. I will remember the anxiety that comes from not knowing your future with your kids, your home, and your finances. I will remember the pain of letting go and resisting moving on.
I will remember the emotional workout that it truly is to end a twenty-three-year-old marriage.
I’ve been in therapy on and off during this whole ordeal. For about a year, I was suffering from a lot of anxiety. It would come on at random times during my day, creeping up on me out of nowhere. I asked my therapist if he had any suggestions as to how I could cope with the anxiety, and he said, “Well, I use music.”
What a concept. So do I. I just didn’t realize it. I was using music almost every day. I’m a songwriter. I have been writing songs for almost forty years. It’s something I do so regularly and with such little effort or internal coaxing that I didn’t even notice I was using it for my own mental health.
Most days, I end up in the practice space with my guitar strapped on, my pedal board powered up, my amps on, and my microphone hot. I use a drum machine to accompany me, and I play. I play songs I’ve written, and I usually spend a little time writing something new. It’s cathartic and healing and wonderful, but there was so much pain there that I wasn’t breaking through.
If you had told me when I was a child that I would have a twenty-three-year-long marriage that would end in tremendous pain and anguish, I might have given up the ghost on the spot. I was always a sensitive kid. I’ve always been a sensitive person. I love my people, and I am loyal to the core. It’s been really difficult for me to come to terms with the finality and the rejection.
The pain was so deep and so intertwined with my psychological makeup that it wasn’t releasing. I had so much coming to reality to do that music wasn’t cutting it. Or so I thought.
Until about a month ago, I felt like I would never get over any of it. I had concluded that I would always be heartbroken and that I would just have to do the best I could with that feeling living inside of me forever.
But the more and more I played, the more and more I sang, the more and more I have been able to come to grips with reality. There is beauty in heartache. There is comfort in it. Heartache is the realization that what you had was worth something. It was a magnificent thing that was just not meant to last forever.
In that magnificence is romance. Stupid, silly, blue-pilled romance. Music is romance. Music is hoping that reality isn’t really the way it is. Or it can be. I started to emote more. I started to live in the moment of hurt. I started to say things in my songs that I couldn’t say in life. I started to admit my feelings. I was taking responsibility for the things I had done wrong and being pissed about the things that were done wrong to me.
I stopped filtering myself. I just started living into the depth of my experience. Things were coming out that I never knew were in there. Textures and rhythms, tones and notes kept ripping through the veil to the manifest world.
I was healing myself. I am healing myself. I still have a long way to go, but I’m getting there, and I have a tool. I think playing music, playing one’s own music, is one of the most powerful modalities of healing there is. The sound, the emotion, the words all come together to create a healing balm.
But I will say this, too. Music can be delusion. Just because we can create a beautifully romantic piece of sound doesn’t automatically help you face reality. Sometimes it is just a mechanism to keep you wallowing in grief. I’ve done my share of that as well.
When I started to shift my intention to healing, letting go, and seeing what was happening for what it truly was — toxic — I was able to start clearing the toxins out.
Just the simple intention — I want to heal, and I never want to repeat these patterns again — was enough for me to start lessening the grief and move to acceptance.
The bottom line is that writing and playing music is a powerful healing modality. Coupled with a strong focus of intent, it may be the single best way to move through difficult emotional times.
Oh yeah, and there is the discipline part. You have to have the will to pick up your instrument every day. You have to muster the courage to sit with the pain. You have to feel it and not numb it. In fact, music can amplify it temporarily, but it will give you some relief quickly.
The relief will come quickly, and if you’re truly willing to look at the cold, hard truth about why you allowed yourself to experience the pain, take the red pill so to speak, you’re going to be able to find wholeness again. It’s not a quick fix. It takes a bit of work and motion on your part, but it’s more than worth it, and I’m living proof. Living being the key word.
Even in the depths of despair, there is hope. Music, with its power to connect us to our deepest emotions, can guide us through the darkest times. It can remind us that we are alive, capable of feeling, and capable of healing. The journey is long and the path is challenging, but with intention, discipline, and a willingness to face reality, we can emerge stronger, wiser, and more whole.
