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Susan Cain’s insightful book explores why sad music resonates deeply with us, why it can be a motivating force, and how we can transform pain into creativity, healing, and connection. Through personal stories, research, and reflections, she examines the beauty in bittersweet moments, powerful ideas on turning sorrow into a creative offering, and recommendations for those who don’t consider themselves to be “creatives.”
I’m Mindy Peterson, host of Enhance Life with Music podcast, where we explore the ways music makes our lives better. And this is Microhance, a micro-dose of musical enhancement.
I love reading, and a former colleague (shoutout to Grace Maunula) recently commented on one of my LinkedIn posts, and recommended a book. Grace said: There is a fantastic book called “Bittersweet” that talks about how we need sad songs in our lives to help us process feelings. Super cool!
I recognized the name of the book’s author, Susan Cain, and checked out the book as soon as I could. It was a great recommendation. It was written a couple years ago, and the full title is: Bittersweet: How sorrow and longing make us whole.
Susan started writing this book to solve the mystery of why so many of us respond so intensely to sad music. And she starts the book with a pretty amazing and powerful story of her conflict (when she was young) with her mother that culminated during Susan’s college years. For decades afterward, Susan could not have a discussion about her mother without dissolving into tears.
Susan defines bittersweet as “a tendency to states of longing, poignancy, and sorrow; an acute awareness of passing time; and a curiously piercing joy at the beauty of the world. The bittersweet is also about the recognition that light and dark, birth and death – bitter and sweet – are forever paired.”
I found Susan’s exploration of the concept of “longing” to be very enlightening. It brought into my consciousness an experience and sensation that is a common thread in the human existence – certainly in my own personal existence – but one that is rarely, if ever, recognized and identified and examined. Susan says, “I call this place, this state that we’re longing for, ‘the perfect and beautiful world.’ In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it’s the Garden of Eden and the Kingdom of Heaven… It doesn’t matter whether we consider ourselves ‘secular’ or ‘religious’: in some fundamental way, we’re all reaching for the heavens.”
We often think of longing in the context of romantic love – yearning for a perfect and unconditional love (a longing that can lead us into a fantasy world that prevents us from appreciating the love and friendships we do have in real life. But Susan points out that “Longing itself is a creative and spiritual state.” And one of many ways that longing shows up is our intense response to sad music.
Bittersweet music speaks simultaneously of joy and sorrow, love and loss; it shows us that we’re not alone in our sorrows.
Rather than passively marinating in sorrowful emotions, Susan points out that longing guides us to action. Susan posits that bittersweetness is “an authentic and elevating response to the problem of being alive in a deeply flawed yet stubbornly beautiful world.” And “This idea – of transforming pain into creativity, transcendence, and love – is the heart of this book…[B]ittersweetness shows us how to respond to pain: by acknowledging it, and attempting to turn it into art, the way the musicians do, or healing, or innovation, or anything else that nourishes the soul. If we don’t transform our sorrows and longings, we can end up inflicting them on others via abuse, domination, neglect.”
This reminds me of a quote I read years ago by Fr. Richard Rohr, and it hit me between the eyes: “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it.”
As a creative and a musician, I was fascinated and inspired by the rest of Susan’s book exploring the relationship between sorrow, creativity, and transcendence. She exhorts her readers to look pain in the eye, view it as a catalyst of artistic expression, and turn it into your creative offering. Or find someone who makes it for you! Susan points out studies that regular listeners of this show will be familiar with: Consuming art, whether through concerts, museums, or other media, is associated with greater health and well-being, lower rates of anxiety and depression, and activated pleasure reward centers in the brain. Experience art created by others, and acknowledge poignancy, that deep and rich feeling of both happiness and sadness at the same time.
Susan asks in the book: “What is sadness good for?” Her answer: “The real reason for… all of our emotions – is to connect us. And Sadness, of all the emotions, was the ultimate bonding agent… Sadness triggers compassion. It brings people together.”
I close each podcast episode with a Coda, and I was tickled to see that the final chapter of Susan’s book was called, “Coda: How to Go Home.” In the Coda, Susan says: “So. What if I asked you this same question: What are you longing for? Whatever pain you can’t get rid of, whatever joy you can’t contain, make it your creative offering.”
If you have an experience of transforming pain into a creative offering, I would love to hear about it.
You can always connect with me on email (mindy@mpetersonmusic.com), Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
I’m Mindy Peterson, and I hope this inspires you to enhance your life with music.
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