Angry Sad Playlists that Bring Peace

How do you hold yourself?

For a couple years, I worked every Saturday and Sunday as the solo chaplain at Children’s Mercy Hospital, supporting babies, children, and teens through their dying process and their families through… hell. It was really hard work. And my body took on a lot of secondary trauma effects, where my nervous system was too heightened for too long. I regularly meditated, colored, and spent time with trees.

One extra thing I did on Friday evenings was attend a yoga dance. Moving my body through waves of music helped move out stagnant depressive energy and compassion fatigue. It helped me ground and center before heading into a weekend of what my body experienced as survival warfare.

What's yoga dance?

Yoga dance practice helps dancers flow through the 7 chakras or the 5 layers (koshas) of our bodies, and it’s free-form movement like ecstatic dance. There’s another practice (available at Be Moved Studio, downtown Lawrence) called 5Rhythms. Gabrielle Roth says it puts the body in motion in order to still the mind. The five rhythms are Flowing, Staccato, Chaos, Lyrical and Stillness. When danced in sequence, are known as a "Wave."

But sometimes there’s no class to attend, or comfortable public dance space.

Then what.

Do you have your own playlist?

I do. I have a few.

Sometimes I forget about them.

But when I use them, they are like balm to my soul, like empathy from a person (the singer-songwriter) across space and time, and like joining a group of people all singing these lyrics at a stadium concert. It surrounds me with feeling heard.

I learned to make specific kinds of playlists to help me move with and through emotions. My favorite is to start with a song that matches my current mood or struggle. This song is often from my childhood, teens or early 20’s. It’s raw. I might listen to it 2-3 times. But I don’t let myself get stuck there. I may be tempted to listen to even heavier songs, but I don’t. The next songs I listen to are more opening, lighter, and hopeful, reminding me of goodness, love, and mercy. I breathe more deeply. I move my body. I regulate my nervous system back to calm.

Sometimes, on a road trip, I get “triggered” (my nervous gets activated into flight or fight) due to vehicles making poor decisions that threaten my safety, or due to arguments with my kid in the car. I have a playlist I can dance to in my seat, wiggling my shoulders and ribs, and bopping my head. Or I’ll pull over and get out of the car. 

Your Turn. :) 

Building a Self-Regulation Playlist - Healing Harmonies

says:“First, find songs representing different emotions: sadness, anger, loss, grief, happiness, and calm. Music as a whole will also validate different feelings for other people. There’s no right or wrong here. Music is personal. A song that feels grounding for one person might feel unsettling for another. The power lies in how it connects to your emotional experience.To start, define the emotion you are currently feeling. Next, think about the desired emotion that you would like to be feeling. Now that you have defined the emotion you are currently feeling, find a song that matches that emotion for you.

For example, if you are feeling angry and you would like to feel calm, you can find songs that start with that feeling of anger and gradually move into a “less angry” sound, shifting into a more pleasant sound that finishes with a song that represents a state of calm. You can put as many songs into this process as you need.…Make a playlist that validates the whole spectrum of emotions, or make playlists for each emotion, whatever you choose. Before you press play, ask yourself, “What am I feeling right now?” and let the music meet you there.” 

I want to add a precaution- sometimes it’s NOT helpful to listen to really hard songs that might contribute to suicidal ideation. For example, there’s a song with the chorus, “I hate myself.” If you ever feel/think that, and when you listen to that kind of song it gives you a sense of empathy that helps you feel normal about the fact that many humans feel brief moments of self-hate or shame, then maybe it’s okay if you don’t get stuck there. If it liberates you from the self-hate, great! But if listening to that only compounds the self-hate, I suggest avoiding those songs.

Instead, you can pick a song that is one level less intense, or one notch lighter. Like if you feel a 10 out of 10 depressed, and listening to a depressing song with level 10 intensity will only keep you stuck there, pick a song at a 9 or 8. 

Here’s one of my playlists:     

(#18 is Only Love by MC Yogi)

If you can open Spotify, here’s the playlist link.

Out of the first 4 songs, I’d just pick the one that matches my inner mood.Then I’ll choose another 1-2 songs to listen to out of the next 4 songs the list (#5-8), which are a little shift of mood, and then another 1-2 out of the next few songs (#9-12) that shift further into balanced perspective. And then joyful dance songs. It depends on how much time I have, and how hard it is to shift.

SING!

If you can, sing along. Singing vibrates our vagus nerve (which sends messages from the brain to the organs and tissues and back up), which is the the nervous system highway. The vibrations on the vagus nerve help shift into the parasympathetic state (calm, heal, rest, & digest). If any of my songs are on your playlist, you could imagine me singing with you. We actually all sing together; our voice boxes are one organ shared amongst many bodies; our hearts beat blood with the same air.

🌷 I'D LOVE TO INCLUDE ANY OF YOUR QUESTIONS. PLEASE WRITE ME. :)

© Shannon Gorres, 2025. Written by a human, not AI or chatGPT. Please contact me to request permission before sharing. I will give you permission to share sections of it when you include "by Shannon Gorres, www.DivineNatureTherapy.com"