INSPIRATION | Relationship Playlist
Making a vision board to manifest my intentions is not a huge challenge at this point, as I’m pretty good with Photoshop Elements! I wanted to do something that challenged me.
I believe that every energy has a vibration. If you focus and surround yourself with negativity, you will have a negative view of yourself and the world. Focus on positive energy, and you will, in turn, have a more optimistic view of yourself and the world. I go back to the first element of Don Miguel Ruiz in his Four Agreements philosophy, “Be Impeccable With Your Word.” For me, that has evolved as a key to my personal happiness and something you can depend on when in a relationship with me.
I took a relatively short but intense, 10-week workshop focused on relationships over the summer that required that we do something creative to represent how we want to feel in our relationships going forward. I did make a vision board, but I wanted to challenge myself by making a playlist. I’ve been creating playlists on Spotify lately and wondered how I could represent how I want to feel musically. What would happen if I put that playlist on repeat? Listen all day to how I want to feel. Would it somehow energetically, vibrationally, find its way into my cells and imbed itself into my DNA?
I discovered there is often a disconnect between a melody and the lyrics. Some really upbeat and fun tunes have pretty dark or sad words that are definitely not how I want to feel. I decided to go through every song to see if it met one or more of my relationship feeling criteria. I have a file of “liked songs” that currently sits at 647 tracks. I used that list as the basis for my “how to feel” since I already like them. My aim was to get to 100 songs, and I missed the mark by 20+, which tells you a lot either about my tastes or that we as a society listen to songs that are more a reflection of our past than of our dreams. I also eliminated any “Bill songs” that made me sad, regardless of the lyrics. Mournful and wistful for times that simply cannot be again is not how I want to feel going forward. Happy feelings are so much harder than sad and negative feelings - I wonder why that is?
The final list sits at 137 songs, 8hr 41 minutes of playtime. I created a more robust list by googling “upbeat lyrics” and “happy songs” and chose a few familiar songs I enjoy and an equal number new to me.
The most difficult concept to pair up with any song was my desire to maintain “no attachment to form.” I chose Dido’s Life For Rent, specifically these words:
I've always thought
That I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
And live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
'Cause there's really nothing left here to stop me
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well, I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cause nothing I have is truly mine
If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well, I deserve nothing more than I get
'Cause nothing I have is truly mine
No other song comes close to how I want to feel when I have no attachment to form. And, words, either written or in song, only have the intention and power you give to them, your interpretation is the only thing that matters. You may look at these words and see one thing, whereas I may see something altogether different. And that’s okay.
I continue to tweak the playlist, the numbers may not be today what they were when I finished it. Has it energetically and vibrationally become part of my DNA? I think it likely has. There is nothing angsty or negative, and it plays regularly in the background.