I didn’t set out to track my feelings or do anything intentional with music. I was just listening to it.
I was going through a more emotionally heavy period than usual. One of those stretches where everything feels a bit weightier, and I found myself listening to music more than normal.
It started with one of those automatically generated “chill” playlists. Without really noticing, I’d drifted toward slower, more reflective songs. The first one I remember really stopping me was “You And I” by London Grammar.
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There’s a line in it, “Did somebody tell you that life was easy? They were wrong.”
That pretty much summed up where my head was at.
Whenever a song really resonated with me, I added it to a “QuietStrength” playlist of my own. Not because it was upbeat or popular. Just because it matched my mood in that moment. Sometimes it was the melody, sometimes a line or two, sometimes just the feeling it gave me.
Over time, that playlist quietly turned into something else.
It became a record of how I was actually doing.
Looking back now, I can see weeks where almost every song I added was heavy and reflective. At the time I wasn’t thinking “I’m struggling”. I was just listening to music that felt right. But the pattern is obvious when I listen back.
The song that became my pressure valve
There was one track in particular that hit me harder than anything else. “Dislocated” by Áine.
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I had a lot of bottled up emotion sitting inside me. Things I hadn’t really let out or talked to anyone about. I played that song on repeat for pretty much a whole day. It ended up being my most listened to track that entire month by a long way.
Not because I wanted to feel worse, but because I needed it to get to me. Deep down I knew I needed that song to make me cry and let some of that pressure out.
And it worked.
It was like opening a valve. Afterwards, later that same day, I was watching something stupid and funny and found myself laughing my head off. That contrast and the pressure release mattered.
That moment in the playlist now marks the lowest emotional point for me. Not in a scary way, just in an honest one. It shows exactly how much I was carrying.
The turning point
About halfway through the playlist, something changes.
Not in a “everything’s suddenly fine” way but in a noticeable one. The songs get a little more energy. A bit more movement. Less heavy.
The track that really marks that shift is “Rein Me In” by Sam Fender & Olivia Dean.
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It wasn’t a fix. Nothing magically got better that day. But it was the beginning of things moving in a different direction. You can actually hear it in the music that follows.
After that point, the playlist slowly evolves. There are still reflective tracks, but they’re mixed with warmer, lighter ones. A few songs later I added “Don’t Worry” by Appleton.
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The title of that track felt like the first real breath of optimism creeping back in.
Toward the end of the playlist I even start adding music I used to love years ago. More upbeat and familiar with more life in them again. Not because I forced myself to be positive, but because my nervous system was slowly coming back up for air.
Even the random songs matter
There’s an upbeat track quite early on that doesn’t really fit with the mood of everything else around it.
At first I thought it was odd. Now I love that it’s there.
Because it shows that even during heavy periods, there are little moments where something shifts. Maybe a lighter day or a laugh. It shows a tiny lift.
Keep those songs because they’re part of the story too.
The songs don’t have to be “your kind of music”
Some of the tracks that meant the most to me aren’t from artists I’d normally listen to at all. They seemed completely random, but in that moment, they resonated and that’s all that mattered.
This isn’t about taste. It’s about emotion.
This isn’t about sad music
The point of this isn’t to build a playlist of low moods. It’s more like an emotional timeline. One playlist that grows whenever a song hits you in the right way, whatever that mood happens to be.
You don’t need separate playlists for happy, calm, sad or reflective. Just one and add a track when something resonates.
Maybe that’s once a week. Maybe once a month. Maybe three in one day.
Over time you can listen back and actually hear where you were in life. The heavy periods, the turning points, and the gradual shift forward.
Why it works so well for me
Music goes straight to emotion. You don’t have to explain how you feel or analyse anything. You just listen and something shifts on its own.
What I’ve also noticed is that the same songs can feel completely different depending on where you are. On heavier days, certain tracks can really pull at you. On lighter days, even the saddest songs don’t land with the same weight. They’re still meaningful, but they don’t knock you sideways in the same way.
That’s actually one of the reasons this works so well as a kind of emotional record. The playlist doesn’t just change because the music changes. It changes because you do.
And when you look back, patterns appear on their own. No pressure, no scoring, just awareness. Which is pretty much what QuietStrength is all about.
The nice thing is, things are on the up for me now.
I’m in a much better place than I was back when I started my playlist. And when I scroll toward the songs I’ve added more recently, you can actually hear that shift happening. The music slowly gets lighter. The tempo and the feeling change.
I never I tried to “fix” myself. Life just started to feel lighter again.
Want to try it?
- Start a playlist today.
- Add a song whenever something resonates. Not how you think you should feel, but what you actually feel.
- One day you might notice your own turning point.
If this brought anything up for you
Sometimes reflecting, especially through music, can stir things you weren’t expecting. If that happens, you don’t have to carry it alone.
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