Have you ever wondered why a broken heart is comforted by listening to a sad song? Moments when your tears of anguish become a torrent and the body shakes in an emotional earthquake.

Why do you do this? Why do you torture yourself when love deserts you like the receding tide, and that someone you adore with all your heart leaves you standing alone, and forlorn, on a wind-swept shoreline? Perhaps, it is instinctive, the way the mind and body both attempt to regulate and cope with those sensitive, poignant, touching and traumatic experiences.

It is, of course, catharsis, and as defined by the Cambridge dictionary, it is the process of releasing strong emotions through a particular activity or experience, such as writing or theatre, in a way that helps you understand those emotions (Anon., 2025).

Music will allow you to do this, and perhaps greater than the reflection, something natural to soothe the pain. Not all are blessed with dulcet tones able to ‘sing like a bird’, but there is something innate in the behaviour.

And so, we can listen, ponder, cleanse the mind and consider what has gone before, both good and bad. It is a way of ‘lancing the boil’, needing to release the negativity yet retain those memories that make one feel good about one’s life. There is a happiness in so much that we do, not always realised as it can be hidden away, sometimes just on the surface, but often deep inside the subconscious.

Counselling helps, being able to talk through those debilitating dilemmas, address those concerns, calm the anguish, share the loss. Yet therapy also needs its tools, something to utilise away from session, especially for those times when you feel alone, afraid, uncertain and you only have yourself for company.

So, it is by no means a cure for all but listen to some music, become inspired, directed, and moved. Allow your own thoughts take you to where they want to lead, and although they may make you cry, that is probably the intention. Those tears streaming down your face will helps ease that troubled mind.

Works Cited
Anon., 2025. dictionary.cambridge.org. [Online]
Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/catharsis
[Accessed 16 December 2025].