I love music, as I believe it saved my life and made me who I am now. I am an individual who has been through really tough mental health struggles; my main struggles had to do with anxiety and loneliness, and I did get on the brink of depression. You see our mental health struggles are one of the most difficult things to talk about, and I was very scared of talking about it and speaking out.
I was aware that something was wrong somewhere, and that I had to do something about my situation, but I was clueless about what was happening to me, why I was feeling the way I felt, and how I could possibly stop all these negative emotions in me. I remember being in church, in the midst of all my friends, and everybody was so happy, and I was smiling and interacting with them, but inside me, I felt this deep loneliness that I could not explain. I told my self that I was being silly, like, I had so many friends that love me, and my family loves me as well, and I was sure they loved me, but I still just felt so lonely, and all I wanted to do was isolating my self and just get away from everyone.
I started looking for a solution, and tried keeping my self busy, to avoid my loneliness, and it worked for a little while, but whenever I had a day of my busy life, I would fall back into my loneliness, it was quite frustrating. After trying a few things I found that music was life-changing. The healing that came from the music I was listening to, was game-changing for me.
You see meditation helped me analyse myself and understand what was going on with me and why I was feeling the way I was feeling, but it also helped me understand what was helping me feel better, and why. I started to listen to a lot of gospel when I was feeling low, lonely or anxious because I realised that it was the message in the song that had the power to bring me to peace.
Gospel is all about telling you that you are loved, and that you are not alone, and that no matter who you are and no matter how many times you have messed up, you can still be happy if you choose to because God loves you, so when I felt lonely all I had to do was pull up a song that told me I was not alone, to make me feel better, and the gospel was the only place I could find a message like that in such a simple and direct way.
It was basically what someone would tell me if I had the courage to open up, but I was able to find comfort because someone through a song was telling me that it’s gonna be OK, and they did not need to know my story to be able to help. I could go on talking about all the ways music helped me, but today I am focusing on the message, as I realised that the message you listen to have the power to impact your mental well-being.
My question to you now is, what are you listening to that instead of uplifting you if putting you down? And how would you feel if adding or removing a few tunes from your playlist could really make a big difference in the confidence you have to face the day? If you are at that point where you are struggling but can’t find the courage to speak out just yet then my biggest advice to you is find some positive tunes that will directly tell you what you need to hear, (that’s what the Positivity Movement is here for by the way) so you can get help without you necessarily need to tell anybody your story.
The Positivity Movement is here to provide you with the right message, and my mission and passion is to provide you with the positivity you need when you are struggling.
Osaze Aigbe is the founder of the Positivity Movement.
