Love Songs & Visualization

© Copyright 2001 Robin Frederick and Sound Experience.
Used by permission of the authors.

Half speech, half music - like some mythological beast - songs have a seemingly magical power to revive long-forgotten memories and give voice to our deepest feelings. In fact, songs speak directly to some of the most primitive parts of the brain, evoking deeply-felt emotional responses, triggering involuntary recall of events, and conveying powerful messages while essentially bypassing the rational, analytical areas of the mind. As a result, they can be used as highly-effective affirmations and guided visualizations, ones that avoid the most commonly reported problem associated with these techniques - the disruptive presence of your "Inner Critic".

The Inner Critic is that little voice that believes you do not deserve love, good health, or success. While you are affirming that your life is filled with prosperity, your Inner Critic may be noisily reminding you of all your unpaid bills. The more you try to affirm, the more shrill and insistent your Inner Critic may become. Consequently you end up reinforcing a negative. But this is only the opinion of one part of your brain - your judgemental, analytical, rational left brain. There is a whole area of your brain that doesn't make judgements at all, and it is here that songs are processed and make their deepest impression.

Though the ability to speak and form thoughts into words and sentences rests almost exclusively with the left side of the brain, the understanding of the emotional tone of voice is a function of the right side. Thus both sides of the brain are needed to correctly interpret the content of spoken words, with most of that activity taking place on the left side. But when these same words are sung, the left/right division of labor shifts dramatically. Lyrics are absorbed and processed almost exclusively in the "non-verbal" right hemisphere. In fact, neurologists have reported that when the left hemisphere of the brain is sedated (or damaged), the subject is unable to speak but can still sing words. If the right hemisphere is impaired, the person can speak normally but cannot sing. (Anthony Storr, Music and the Mind) In songs, then, the right hemisphere is handling the verbal information rather than the normally dominant left hemisphere.

Now, there's a funny thing about the right side of your brain - it is not concerned with making judgements or assessing the factual truth of a statement; that's the left brain's job. Thus, words that are sung - words like "Love keeps lifting me higher." - can come pouring in and there's no Inner Critic around to say, "Hey, wait a minute!"

And there's yet another way in which song lyrics can sneak their message past your Inner Critic, one that will come in handy when we discuss visualization techniques. Good lyricists, like good poets, make extensive use of "right-brain language". Forget that sensible, linear, factual left-brain speech. The language of the right brain is a horse of a different color. A riot of imagery, a cascade of connections, sensations, and associations. The right brain speaks in metaphors, juxtapositions, and similes, using a whole range of poetic devices to express the inexpressible and describe the indescribable. Emotions? No problem. Hearts soar. Lips taste like wine. Eyes are mirrors of the soul. Imagine what your left brain thinks of that. Utter nonsense! Not worth even bothering about! But to your illogical, intuitive right brain, it's perfectly clear - this must be love! For better or worse, popular songs are essentially affirmations. All pop songs are centered around a repeated phrase called the "hook", usually the title of the song. Like an affirmation, the hook is often formulated in the first person and makes a statement that a situation currently exists. For example, an affirmation would be: "My life is filled with abundant love." A hook would be: "I got you, babe." Again, like affirmations, song hooks are repeated several times, often as many as twelve times or more in less than three minutes. And they remain in memory long after the song is over. How often do you find yourself humming a bit of a song or commercial jingle to yourself without even realizing it? In fact, advertisers are well aware of the power of words and music to lodge themselves in your memory, only to re-emerge at a later time.

The fact that song-affirmations can bypass our critical faculty does have a down-side. Unfortunately many mainstream commercial songs promote negative or unrealistically high expectations of love relationships. Though listening to song lyrics certainly can't make someone act in a way that is contrary to their basic beliefs or personality (as was alleged in a court case some years back), it's likely that a steady stream of similar, repeated messages can subtly shape our expectations, reinforcing one model of life, and especially love, at the expense of others. Affirmations, after all, do work. However, there are also many wonderful songs that affirm the supportive, nurturing, romantic relationships we'd all like to have in our lives. By surrounding ourselves with these song-affirmations, we can reinforce positive expectations, thus changing our attitudes and eventually our reality. (Here is a list of Top 20 Love Songs that can be used as positive affirmations. Use your BACK button to return to this article.)

Songs can be used in yet another way to create life-altering changes. As noted above, song lyrics make extensive use of vivid imagery and thus, if carefully chosen, can be used as guided visualizations. The presence of music with the images has a twofold effect, keeping the Inner Critic at bay while providing the emotional impact of a film soundtrack. Songwriters are adept at matching images with music to create a kind of emotional feedback loop - a technique called prosody. By adding emotions to mental imagery or visualization, its effect can be dramatically increased. Studies in the field of hypnosis have shown that the emotion accompanying an idea or image causes it to realize itself - the more emotion, the more quickly the idea becomes reality. (Dr. Daniel A. Araoz The New Hypnosis) It would appear that using songs to evoke feelings in combination with mental imagery can therefore create more rapid change than mental imagery alone.

Popular songs, then, share the characteristics of affirmations, can bypass the Inner Critic, and intensify emotions associated with mental images . Rather than elevator music, shouldn't we be looking at them as a life-changing tool that just happens to be as enjoyable to use as listening to the radio? If you are interested in using songs as loving affirmations and guided visualizations you will find a list of Top 20 Love Songs and FAQs at the following URLs.

Top 20 Love Songs
FAQs about using songs as affirmations and visualizations.

Read more:
Excerpt from Create Loving Relationships book
Dream Lovers: Make Them A Reality - by Lara Royce.
FAQ