The Memories We Feel: What a Song Can Teach Us About Healing

The Memories We Feel: What a Song Can Teach Us About Healing

There are certain songs that, from the very first couple of beats, transport me somewhere else entirely.

Butterflies flood my stomach. A rush of excitement washes over me, and suddenly I'm back in a different chapter of my life.

‘Breathe’ - by Telepopmusik takes me back to my younger days managing a diagnostic medical centre, surrounded by incredible friends. I was at my peak, living some of the best days of my life—although I didn't realise it at the time.

I was genuinely happy. I loved my job and the life I had created for myself. Even though I worked long hours, I still had the time and energy to socialise, embracing London life the way you do in your twenties. That period of my life is filled with joyful and exciting memories that are imprinted on my mind.

I can't remember every detail. Conversations fade, and moments become fragments. But what I do remember is how those days made me feel and the joy I found in truly living. There were difficult days too, but this song doesn't remind me of those.

Every time I hear it, the same memories return. The same emotions. The same excitement. And, almost inevitably, the same thought: If only I could relive those days.

These days, I might walk into the kitchen and forget why I'm there or lose my train of thought halfway through a sentence. But play a familiar song—a tune, a rhythm, a melody—and my whole body, mind and soul are taken back to a moment where that music became intertwined with a memory.

It makes me wonder: do we really need to remember an event in perfect detail? Would we even remember it exactly as it happened? Or is it enough to hold onto the emotions, the feelings and the sensations that remain long after the details have faded?

What Creative Therapy Has Taught Me About Memory

This is something I often explore through creative therapy.

People sometimes arrive believing they need to remember every detail of a difficult experience in order to heal. They worry that the missing pieces somehow invalidate what happened or make their feelings less real. But healing isn't about creating a perfect account of the past.

In creative therapy, we become curious about what the memory still carries. We explore the emotions that surface, the sensations in the body, the images that appear, the colours, the textures and the sounds. We pay attention to what the memory feels like, rather than remembering the event in detail.

For many people, revisiting a painful or traumatic memory in vivid detail can awaken the nervous system, making it feel as though the experience is happening in the here and now rather than in the past. The body responds as if the danger is still present, long before the mind has a chance to recognise that the event is over.

Creative therapy offers another way. Instead of asking the brain to relive the story, we create space to safely explore the emotions the memory still holds. As those emotions are acknowledged, expressed and processed, the memory can begin to lose its emotional grip.

Why Music Can Unlock Our Memories

A song is a perfect example of this. It doesn't hand us a factual timeline. It reconnects us with an emotional experience. Our nervous system responds before our thinking mind has time to catch up. We feel before we remember.

Perhaps that's because emotions are often the true keepers of our memories.

The details may soften over time, but our bodies continue to remember what mattered. They remember joy. Safety. Love. Grief. Fear. Excitement. Connection.

Creative therapy honours that. It reminds us that our feelings are not secondary to the story—they are the story.

Sometimes healing doesn't begin by asking, "What happened?"

Sometimes it begins by asking, "What do I feel when I remember?"

Because that's often where the real conversation starts.

So, the next time a song stops you in your tracks and carries you back to another time, don't worry if you can't remember every detail. Instead, notice what your body remembers. Notice what your heart remembers. Because sometimes our emotions tell the story far more truthfully than our memories ever could.