A few weeks ago, I attended a gathering under the full moon at my friend Titus's house. He hosts small, intimate reflection circles with different themes each month, and this time we were invited to bring two songs currently moving us and reflect on how we've grown in the first half of the year.
Working through those prompts stirred something I hadn't fully processed before. They got me thinking about the relationship between music, healing, and what our nervous system needs as we navigate transformation.
When I think about the role music has played in my healing journey, it's been anything but straightforward.
There was a season in my life when I was caring for both my parents and my grandmother through terminal cancer, and those years required every ounce of emotional and physical energy I had. At the same time, I was running my family poultry farm, construction business, and handling countless other responsibilities. It was a very busy time, very command and control. My nervous system was operating in constant survival mode, managing life-or-death decisions and medical emergencies while trying to keep everything running.
It was during those years that music became impossible. For about ten years, I couldn't listen to it at all. This wasn't a choice I made consciously. Music just became noise, an overwhelming input that my already maxed-out system couldn't handle. Sound felt like it pierced straight through my nervous system, and there just wasn't space in me to receive it.
In that environment, I needed to control every input I could. My world became sterile by necessity: minimal stimulation, predictable routines, anything that might help regulate a system that was already stretched beyond its limits.
Music, which had once been a source of comfort, now felt like an assault. It wasn't that music was bad. It was that I couldn't control the emotions it would bring up. And when you're trying to stay functional in life-or-death situations, emotional flooding isn't an option.
So I chose silence. And looking back, I can see it was exactly what I needed.
When Silence Is Medicine
The silence wasn't emptiness. It was protection.
My nervous system understood something I couldn't yet articulate: music carried two kinds of overwhelm during those years. My mind was already operating at full capacity, making constant decisions about care, medications, business operations, and crisis management. Adding the cognitive load of processing lyrics, melodies, and musical content felt impossible.
But even more than that, music carried emotional triggers I couldn't afford. A single song could open emotional floodgates I couldn't afford to deal with, and I needed every ounce of focus to keep all the wheels turning.
So my nervous system made the choice for me. It shut down that input channel entirely, creating the sterile environment I needed to survive. Looking back, I can see it was exactly the right response. My body knew what I needed before my mind could understand it.
The Slow Return
But about a year ago, something shifted. Music started to find its way back in, softly and with real presence.
The return wasn't sudden. It was a gradual thawing that happened over a year or two. I'd have moments when my partner was out of town, and I'd find myself alone with the quiet. In those spaces, I began to experiment. I'd put on a song and just sit with it.
Often, I'd cry for hours. Not from sadness exactly, but from release. All those years of held emotion finally had permission to move. I needed that privacy, that guarantee of uninterrupted time to let whatever came up just come up.
This was my nervous system slowly learning that it was safe to feel again. That I had enough capacity now to let music in without being overwhelmed by it.
The songs that called to me during this time weren't random. They were specific messengers, arriving exactly when I needed them.
Songs as Mirrors
Certain songs began to land in my life like messengers. I didn't always know why, but some of them I’d let play for hours on repeat. They weren't just songs anymore. They became companions.
One of those companions I've been drawn to recently is "Broken Coastline". The melody soothes me. The words stir something deeper. There's a quiet urgency I've carried for a long time that sits in the tension of the lyrics: that feeling of needing to keep moving, keep pushing, keep offering what I came here to offer before the fire goes out.
But there's also a tension in it: the desire to give everything you have in this one wild lifetime, juxtaposed with the quieter fear underneath: Will there still be place for me when I can't keep pushing?
These aren't things I unpack out loud very often. But that's what songs like this do for us.
They become mirrors. They help us do our shadow work. Songs become the conversations we don't yet know how to have out loud.
Just like I wrote about in "How to Find Yourself in the Mirror," the things we're drawn to whether songs, films, or even our own reflection, often reveal what our soul is asking us to see. They show us parts of ourselves we haven't yet been able to name or understand.
Music works on us in this deeper way. These songs aren't random attractions. They're showing us exactly what we need to process, feel, or integrate. They help us do the inner work we might not even know we need to do.
Songs let us hold what is unresolved, allowing us to feel what we haven't yet put into words. They move through the body and subconscious in a way that feels safe, as if we're being witnessed, but without pressure.
The song becomes companion, witness, and breathing space all at once.
The Songs That Hold Us
Another song I've been listening to recently is "And It's Still Alright" by Nathaniel Rateliff. That song sits with me. It tells the truth gently. It doesn't deny the sorrow, but it also doesn't let me drown in it. It reminds me: I'm still here. I'm still alright.
And maybe that's the real story of this year for me.
The last six months have felt like a rebirth. A slow, painful dying of old beliefs, many of which I didn't even choose, but inherited. A lot of unlearning. A lot of stripping back dogma and ego and survival patterns that no longer fit.
What's emerging in their place is something quieter. Something more grounded. A return to my body, to truth, and to relationship that feels rooted and real.
At the center of all this is learning to live at a different pace. Stepping back from large-scale farming. Slowing the construction company. Releasing the relentless pursuit of more business, more growth, more of everything.
Each shift has been about learning to trust a different rhythm and letting the Spirit guide instead of me constantly pushing.
All this opened space for me to meet myself again. To begin processing things I hadn't yet touched or let surface. I was able to sit with the discomfort long enough for something more honest to rise.
There have been labor pains, grief, and the holy ache of not knowing.
But I'm learning to trust that, too.
Because what's coming alive in me now feels real. It feels like a new life being born. And even if I don't have it all figured out, I'm still breathing and I'm listening. All the songs have helped me get here. They've reminded me, again and again: It's still alright.
A Music Practice:
Notice what songs you've been drawn to lately, the ones you play on repeat or that randomly come to mind.
Choose one and really listen to it with your full attention.
Complete these sentence stems in writing:
Journaling Prompts:
"The song I keep returning to is _______ and when I really listen, it stirs up _______"
"If this song was trying to tell me something about my life right now, it would be _______"
Additional reflections to consider:
What might your nervous system be asking for right now: silence, gentle sound, or energizing music?
For those in silence: What is the quiet teaching you?
Take your time with these. Let the songs (or silence) do their work.
A Gentle Invitation
If you feel called to explore this, take some time this week to really listen, regardless if it to music or to silence. Notice what your nervous system is asking for. Notice what songs, if any, are trying to get your attention.
Sometimes the most profound insights come when we gather with others to reflect on these deeper questions. Like Titus's monthly circles that sparked this entire reflection, there's something powerful about sharing what moves us with trusted companions. If you'd like to learn more about Titus’s thoughtful approach to community reflection, you can visit his Substack "In Breath and Presence."
And remember: whatever you need right now is exactly right. Whether it's the healing power of silence or the medicine of song, trust your body's wisdom about what serves you in this moment.
How has music helped you? Let me know in the comments!
Keith Rowe is a breathworker, teacher, and founder of Vital Healing, a nonprofit where he helps people reconnect to the wisdom of the body and transform through breathwork, shadow work, somatic practice, and spiritual clarity.
He is also the co-creator of the Walking Pilgrim app, a 33-day journey of breath, presence, and personal transformation through mindful walking. Learn more at walkingpilgrim.com.