Caroline Cavanagh shows how to use music for quick emotional relief on day 3 of her program. Build a playlist of songs tied to good memories, like Sia's "I'm Alive" after a parachute jump or Elbow's "One Fine Day" from a conference. Keep it on your phone and add to it whenever a song lifts you.
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Hey there, and welcome to day 3 of our program. And did you know that statistically, day 3 is the day that most people give up on the program? So if you make a challenge to yourself to open the video tomorrow and do that one as well, you are going to be way above average. And that in itself might be quite a nice thought. But let's get on for today's tip, and it's definitely in my top 3 of all time, and it's all about the sense of hearing, and it's what I call a first aid tip. So if you cut yourself, you slap a plaster on it and it stops bleeding. It's kind of first aid, and this tip is like your emotional first aid, and I use it those moments when I mentally crash or hit a really low point. To, to stop that pain for a short period of time. And I've taught this to a lot of people, especially teenagers, and they love it. So let's talk about hearing. I'm not medical, but I've spoken to a lot of medical professionals and they've all concurred that hearing is deemed to be the first and the last of the senses to evolve. So it's really, really powerful. Powerful, and it's also on all of the time. So if you think when you're asleep in bed, you're not looking at anything, your sight's turned off, you're not tasting anything, that's turned off. Even your kinesthetic sense, your sense of touch, is dampened right down. But your hearing is working because if there's a sound that doesn't sound right, or your kid's not very well, you hear it and you wake up. So our hearing works really, really powerfully in terms of that Survival. But all of our senses are also really strongly linked to experiences as well, and the more we attach one of our senses or several of our senses to an experience, the more accessible they are. So, I can remember, for example, my first boyfriend used to wear a particular aftershave, and for a long time afterwards, if I smelt that aftershave on someone, thoughts of him would pop back in my head. Fortunately, they don't make it anymore, so I'm safe from that one. But think about smell of bread if you go into a supermarket, it can make you feel hungry. Our sense of smell is very strong and is very powerful to us, but also is our hearing. And so our tip today is all about using— let that car go past. Never goes past on roads here, but today. Typical. But so we are going to use this sense of hearing as our first aid tip, and what I would like you to do is to think of at least 3 songs that when you hear take you back to a really powerful positive memory or change your behaviour. So for example, one of my songs Takes me back to a really positive memory that, uh, it's a story I'm gonna tell in just a minute, but I'll tell you before I tell the story. So, if you wanna jump off at that point, that's fine. I've also got a couple of songs that, um, just make me wanna dance. I love Latino music, and even if I'm down, if Shakira comes on, I can't help just starting to jig. And as soon as you start to jig, the endorphins start rolling and you start to feel better. And we all have songs like this. So, your activity is to think of 3 songs and put them into a playlist. This tip works so well because we carry our phones around with us all of the time, so very quickly you can plug into that playlist, nip off to a toilet, out to the car park, whatever it may be, plug in, and for 5 minutes just listening to that music can change how you feel. And you just keep adding to it. I've probably got about a dozen or more of those songs now on my playlist, and in fact I've got another one that I added just this weekend. And the more you have, the more options you have, and I find it— I'm not really a fatalist, but it's weird how sometimes things happen. I can put that playlist on shuffle and the song that comes up is the perfect song for in that moment, whether it is a dance song, whether it's a memory song, or there's one song that's just got really, really powerful words. It's actually a very slow song, but the words are stunning. And if I need to hear those words, that's the song that comes on at the time. So very simply, get yourself a playlist and have it accessible to you— Spotify, whatever package you use— so that when you need that emotional first aid, you can go straight to it to ease the pain. So now I'm going to switch into Jackanory mode. So I'm very respectful of your time, so if you've got it, And you want to jump off now and get on with your day, that's brilliant. However, if you want to listen to a couple of stories, it may help put a little bit of perspective on why I've got the songs that I have. And now the first one is a song that takes me back probably about 7 years or so. I was working with a client of mine going through the Anxiety Alchemy process, helping her to become less anxious. And she turned around, she said to me, oh, Caroline, I bet you're never anxious. I was like, well, of course I am! And she then said, okay, so what does make— what makes you scared? And I said to her, I am terrified of doing a parachute jump. You know what I'm going to say, don't you? She went, okay, I challenge you to do it. Oh, bugger! I've got to do it now. So I put myself through the Anxiety Alchemy process, And long story short, I jumped 15,000 out— feet out of a plane, and I'm here telling the story. And when I got back into my car, turned the ignition on, and starting literally right at the start of the song was Sia, a song called I'm Alive. And I won't damage your eardrums by trying to sing it, but have a listen to it if you don't know it. But it was just the most perfect song. I'd just fallen 15,000 feet out of the sky, and the first song I hear is I'm alive. I'm alive! And I sat in my car and I roared with laughter. And even now, when I listen to that song, I can feel the adrenaline that was still surging around my body after doing that jump, and it makes me— I can't help doing it now— it makes me smile again, even thinking about it. So, 7 years on, the song still has an impact in lifting my mood when I need to do it. And the other song is actually one that I've added since Sunday of this week, I was at a conference of professional speakers, and at the end of the conference, there was a song by Elbow, One Fine Day, and it started off with a group of musicians. I was playing the sax. We'd never rehearsed. We were all just working off a little bit of music that we'd listened to, started jamming together playing this song, and then we got everyone in the audience singing it, and the refrain just went on and on and on, and it was such a powerful experience. The energy of 100, probably 150-ish people all singing a song, all playing music, um, tambourines and things like that had been hanging around, people were just clapping. The positivity in the room was absolutely phenomenal. And again, I can't help smiling as, as that memory comes back and lifts those emotions again. I could tell many, many stories. There's one behind every single song, so I won't bore you with all 12 of them, but I'm sure you have something equivalent. So that's what you need to be looking for— things, songs that just by listening to takes you back to a moment that creates the feelings that were created when that experience was real. Because it works. So please feel free to send me your stories. I love listening to people's stories. I love having them shared with me, or what your top 3 songs are as well, because maybe you'll remind me of a song that might work for me too, and I can make my list even bigger. So thank you very much for listening. Tomorrow, um, I'm not quite sure where I'm gonna be tomorrow. I might be outside, might be inside. You'll have to wait and see, but I will see you then. Bye-bye for now, and I'm wishing you a wonderful day. Bye-bye.
