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How To Transform Music Drama Into Mental Strength · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
• 0:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us, whether you're watching, listening, uh, whether you're here in the United States or somewhere across the world.
• 0:13
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  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, with a huge goal.
• 0:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We want to reach and help at least 3 billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond.
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  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And we're well on our way to doing that, thanks to you.
• 0:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So thank you, and we're gonna get started.
• 0:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, today's episode.
• 0:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we're going to look at how to transform music drama into mental strength.
• 1:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, we've all been there.
• 1:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We had a terrible day, boss was a nightmare, you got into a silly argument with a friend, and now there's a quiet dread setting in your chest.
• 1:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So you do what you have always done.
• 1:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You put on your headphones, your earbuds, find that one album that always seems to get you and press play.
• 1:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're looking for comfort, maybe an escape, but then something strange happens.
• 1:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The sad songs don't just understand you, they start to feel like they're drowning you.
• 1:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That melancholic singer isn't just a companion, they're an anchor, pulling you deeper and deeper into the funk.
• 1:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The album you love suddenly feels like a trap.
• 2:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And before you know it, an hour has gone by, and you feel even worse than when you started.
• 2:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is an incredibly common experience.
• 2:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We turn to music as a lifeline, only to sometimes find it tightening around us.
• 2:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But what if this happens not because of the music itself, but because we've been using it all wrong?
• 2:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What if there's a way to flip a mental switch to transform music from a source of emotional drama into a tool for building real lasting mental health strength?
• 2:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Stay with me because that's exactly what we're gonna break down.
• 2:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's time to go from being a passive victim of our playlist to an active conductor of our own emotional state.
• 3:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: First, we're gonna look at the promise, the passive versus the active switch.
• 3:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The core idea is there's a huge difference between passively listening to music and actively engaging with it.
• 3:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For most of us, most of the time, we're passive listeners.
• 3:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Music is a soundtrack to our commute, our workout, our work day.
• 3:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's background noise, a vibe enhancer that we just let wash over us without much conscious thought.
• 3:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And when we're in a good mood, that's totally fine.
• 3:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But when we're feeling vulnerable, this passive consumption can be a dangerous feedback loop.
• 3:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You feel sad, so you passively listen to sad music, which can then reinforce and deepen that sadness.
• 4:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like getting stuck in an emotional echo chamber.
• 4:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now let's be clear, passive listening isn't the enemy.
• 4:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Sometimes putting on a chill playlist and just letting your mind drift is exactly what you need to de-stress.
• 4:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The problem comes up when this is your only way of interacting with music, especially when you're going through a tough time.
• 4:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The alternative is what we call active engagement.
• 4:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So we're going to call this alternative active engagement.
• 4:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is about listening with intention and awareness.
• 4:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It means you're no longer just a consumer of the sound, you're a collaborator in the experience.
• 5:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're using music as a specific tool to achieve a specific outcome, whether that's understanding an emotion, processing it, or deliberately shifting it.
• 5:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Think of it like the difference between floating aimlessly in the ocean and actually knowing how to swim.
• 5:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you're just floating, the current takes you wherever it wants.
• 5:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You might drift to a beautiful shore, or you might get pulled out into a dangerous rip tide.
• 5:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But when you know how to swim, you can work with the water.
• 5:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can decide which way you want to go, how to handle the waves, and how to get back to shore when you need to.
• 5:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Flipping this mental switch from passive to active is the first and most critical step.
• 6:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's about taking the reins and deciding that you will tell your music what you need from it, not the other way around.
• 6:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now let's get into the proof.
• 6:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The science of sound and mind.
• 6:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This isn't just a feel-good mindset trick, it's a concept grounded in how our brains are wired to handle sound, emotional, and attention.
• 6:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're not talking about literally flipping a switch in your skull.
• 6:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The reality is way more interesting.
• 6:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your brain has multiple interconnected networks running all the time.
• 6:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you listen to music, especially songs with strong memories attached, you often fire up deep-seated neuropathways.
• 7:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can activate regions like the amygdala and hippocampus, which are major players in emotion and memory.
• 7:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This response is often automatic and powerful.
• 7:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's why a certain song can instantly make you feel nostalgic, joyful, or heartbroken.
• 7:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you're passively listening to a sad song while feeling down, you're basically letting those automatic emotional circuits run the show on a loop.
• 7:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: There's very little conscious intervention.
• 7:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But when you decide to actively engage, you recruit other powerful brain networks, specifically your attentional and executive control networks, which heavily involve your prefrontal cortex.
• 8:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: These are the parts of the brain responsible for focus, decision making, and directing your attention.
• 8:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's make this concrete.
• 8:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you intentionally decide to focus only on the bass line of a song or try to pick out the harmony, you're given your executive control network a specific job.
• 8:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This act of directed attention doesn't shut off the emotional parts of the brain.
• 8:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Instead, it changes the balance of power.
• 8:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like turning on the lights in a dark room.
• 8:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The room is the same, but you can now see where you're going and choose where to put your feet.
• 8:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: By guiding your focus, you can interrupt the automatic ruminating cycle that passive listening can fuel.
• 9:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's me.
• 9:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That ruminating cycle.
• 9:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Wow.
• 9:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Plus, research shows that enjoyable music can trigger a release of dopamine in the brain's reward system.
• 9:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A neurotransmitter tied to pleasure and motivation.
• 9:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: By consciously choosing music you know has this effect on you, you're giving yourself a tool to help nudge your own brain chemistry away from a state of sadness and toward one of motivation.
• 9:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's not a magic cure, but it's a way to actively participate in your own mood regulation.
• 10:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So when we talk about this switch, what we're really describing is a shift in neural strategy from being passively driven by automatic emotional reactions to actively using your brain's powerful attention systems to navigate, process, and influence your emotional state.
• 10:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's get into the practical steps, your toolkit for mental strength.
• 10:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Knowing the science is one thing, but applying it is where the real change happens.
• 10:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's break this down into four practical steps you can start using today.
• 10:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is your toolkit for turning music into your personal mental strength trainer.
• 11:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The diagnostic, step one.
• 11:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Name the feeling.
• 11:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Before you can change your emotional state, you have to know what it is.
• 11:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Often we just feel a vague cloud of bad, which could be a mix of sadness, anger, frustration, or loneliness.
• 11:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Using music as a diagnostic tool is the first step in active engagement.
• 11:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Here's the exercise.
• 11:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The next time you're feeling that turmoil, don't immediately try to run from it.
• 11:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Instead, scroll through your music and find the one song that feels like a perfect, honest reflection of the storm inside of you.
• 11:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now, listen to that one song with total attention.
• 11:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And as you listen, your only job is to ask yourself, what's the main emotion here?
• 12:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Is it grief?
• 12:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Betrayal?
• 12:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Is it a quiet, hollow loneliness?
• 12:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: By matching a song to your feeling, you give that feeling a name and a shape.
• 12:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This act of identification is incredibly powerful.
• 12:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It externalizes that emotion, letting you look at it instead of just being lost in it.
• 12:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're not ruminating, you're diagnosing.
• 12:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You stop being a victim of the feeling and have become an observer.
• 12:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Step two, the ISO principle, mood matching and shifting.
• 12:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now once you know your emotional starting point, you can start to shift it.
• 12:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But one of the biggest mistakes people make is trying to force a huge emotional jump.
• 13:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you're feeling deeply sad, blastingly and aggressively, happy song often backfires.
• 13:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It can feel jarring and dismissive, making you feel even more alone in your sadness.
• 13:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is where a concept inspired by music therapy, sometimes called the ISO principle, can be incredibly useful.
• 13:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The idea is simple.
• 13:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You start with music that matches your current mood and then gradually introduce music that guides you toward your desired mood.
• 13:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It works because the first step is validation.
• 13:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The initial music says, I get it.
• 14:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I know where you are right now.
• 14:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Here's how to build a simple mood shifting playlist based on this idea.
• 14:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Let's say you want to move from high anxiety to a state of calm.
• 14:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Track one, match the state.
• 14:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Start with a song that reflects your internal state.
• 14:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For some, this might be a fast paced rock song or an intense electronic track.
• 14:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For others, it could be a chaotic dissonant piece.
• 14:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Track two, introduce a little stability.
• 14:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your second song should be slightly less intense.
• 14:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Maybe it still has a strong beat, but the tempo is slower and the melody is more structured.
• 14:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're starting to bring a sense of order.
• 15:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Track three, begin the cool down.
• 15:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now pick a song that is noticeably calmer, an instrumental track with a steady rhythm, or a simple folk song could work well here.
• 15:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Track four and five, arrive at calm.
• 15:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your final tracks should represent your goal.
• 15:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This might be very slow, ambient music, a gentle piano solo, or even recorded nature sounds.
• 15:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Music that encourages slower breathing and peace.
• 15:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A quick word of caution.
• 15:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you're matching a feeling like anxiety, pay attention to how you feel.
• 15:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For some people, intense music can be a release.
• 15:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But for others, might actually ramp up the physical symptoms of anxiety.
• 16:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If that happens, just skip ahead to the calmer tracks.
• 16:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You've just created a guided journey for your nervous system.
• 16:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A gentle ramp instead of a jarring leap.
• 16:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Step three, the active listening exercise.
• 16:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A pattern interrupt for rumination.
• 16:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Rumination is that destructive habit of getting stuck in a loop of negative thoughts.
• 16:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Could be doom scrolling, social media.
• 16:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your brain just replays the same worries over and over, and passive listening can often be fuel for that fire.
• 16:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: An active listening exercise can serve as a powerful pattern interrupt to break that cycle.
• 17:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's basically a mindful practice where music is your anchor.
• 17:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Here's the exercise.
• 17:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Only takes two minutes.
• 17:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One, choose a song.
• 17:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: An instrumental piece is often great for this because lyrics can sometimes pull you back into your thoughts.
• 17:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Try to pick a song with a few different instruments or layers.
• 17:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Two, set your intention.
• 17:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For the next two minutes, your only goal is to follow one single element of the music.
• 17:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It could be the bass line, the drum pattern, the main melody, anything.
• 17:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Three, listen actively.
• 17:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Close your eyes, put all your focus on that one chosen song.
• 18:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One chosen sound.
• 18:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Follow it like a character in a story.
• 18:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Notice when it gets louder or quieter, faster or slower.
• 18:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Four, gently redirect.
• 18:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Your mind will wander, that's for sure.
• 18:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's what minds do.
• 18:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: When you find yourself playing an argument, replaying, you find yourself replaying an argument, or thinking about your to-do list, don't get frustrated.
• 18:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Just notice that your attention has drifted and gently without judgment, bring it back to the instrument.
• 18:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Why does this work?
• 18:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're giving your brains attentional networks a job to do, creating competition for your cognitive resources.
• 19:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It offers a temporary but profound break from the rumination loop.
• 19:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're not trying to suppress your feelings.
• 19:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're just proving to yourself that you have the power to direct your focus elsewhere, even if it's just for a minute or two.
• 19:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Step four, the lyric journey.
• 19:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The lyric journal.
• 19:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Decode your own story.
• 19:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Music with lyrics often feels like it's telling our story.
• 19:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We can use those lyrics as a tool for self-reflection and processing, a practice inspired by techniques used in music therapy.
• 19:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Here's a simple way to do it, which we'll call a lyric journal.
• 20:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One, select a resonant song.
• 20:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Choose a song whose lyrics are really hitting you right now, whether it's about heartbreak, hope, anger, or confusion.
• 20:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Two, focus on the lines that matter.
• 20:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You don't need to write out the whole song, just listen and jot down the specific lines or phrases that leap out at you.
• 20:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Three, ask why.
• 20:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: In a journal or a note on your phone, write down why those lines resonate.
• 20:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What specific memory do they trigger?
• 20:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What fear do they put into words?
• 20:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What unspoken hope do they give a voice to?
• 20:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Find the theme.
• 20:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Look at your notes.
• 21:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Ask yourself, what's the central theme connecting these lines for me right now?
• 21:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Is it a fear of being misunderstood?
• 21:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A desire for change?
• 21:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A feeling of loss?
• 21:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now this process transforms the song from something you passively absorb into an active tool for self-discovery.
• 21:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It helps you externalize what's going on inside.
• 21:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Make connections you hadn't seen before, and find the words for feelings that might have just been a confusing mess.
• 21:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You're using an artist's words to help you find your own.
• 21:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now, section four building long term.
• 22:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Resilience.
• 22:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: These techniques are fantastic for managing tough emotions in the moment, but the ultimate goal is to build lasting mental strength and emotional resilience.
• 22:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that means using music proactively, not just reactively.
• 22:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: One of the best ways to do this is to create what you might call a mental strength soundtrack.
• 22:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This isn't one playlist for when you're sad.
• 22:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a collection of playlists you build in advance to help you access different mental states on command.
• 22:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For example, a focal focus playlist, an instrumental music like lo-fi, classical, or ambient that you use only when you need to do deep work.
• 23:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A courage playlist.
• 23:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The songs that make you feel like you can run through a brick wall.
• 23:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is what you play before a big presentation, a difficult conversation, or a tough workout.
• 23:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: A resilience playlist.
• 23:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Songs that remind you of your own strength and past wins.
• 23:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The anthems that have gotten you through hard times before.
• 23:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: By repeatedly pairing this music with a specific mindset, you can create a helpful mental cue.
• 23:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Over time, just pressing play on your focus playlist can signal to your brain that it's time to concentrate.
• 23:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This idea that intentional music can help build resilience is supported by some interesting research.
• 24:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For instance, a 2025 study in a BMC journal looked at an eight-week music therapy program with 256 participants.
• 24:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The results showed that the therapy significantly boosted the participants' emotional resilience, which in turn improved their sense of well-being and even their employability.
• 24:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now, it's important to note this was a formal therapy program, not just a personal playlisting, but it highlights the incredible potential of using music with intention to build lasting coping skills.
• 25:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Some studies also suggest that actively making music is associated with resilience too.
• 25:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now section five.
• 25:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's when the music is no longer a tool for processing.
• 25:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's a crutch for rumination.
• 25:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you notice this happening, that's your cue to consciously switch to a different technique.
• 26:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And this leads us to the most important point of all, a critical safety warning.
• 26:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The techniques we've talked about are tools for managing day-to-day emotional wellness.
• 26:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They are not a substitute for professional mental health care.
• 26:31
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Music can be a fantastic supplement to therapy, but is not a replacement for it.
• 26:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You are struggling with persistent depression, severe anxiety, trauma, or having thoughts of harming yourself, please reach out to a qualified therapist, a counselor, or a crisis hotline, a crisis support hotline.
• 27:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Seeking professional help is an act of profound strength.
• 27:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For years, for years, you may have been letting your music dictate your mood, using it as an emotional crutch that sometimes gives way.
• 27:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But now you have a new blueprint for your relationship with sound.
• 27:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: The power isn't just in the music, it's in how you choose to engage with it.
• 27:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can move from being a passive recipient of emotion to being the active, intentional conductor of your own inner state.
• 27:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can use it to understand your feelings, guide yourself from anxiety to calm, interrupt negative thought loops, and build a foundation of mental resilience.
• 28:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So the next time you put on your headphones, don't just listen, engage.
• 28:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Turn your playlist into a training ground for your mind.
• 28:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Now I'm curious what song makes you feel powerful?
• 28:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Share it in the comments below.
• 28:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And let's build an awesome community playlist of resilience.
• 28:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And don't forget to subscribe for more ways to master your mental well-being.
• 28:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Voices for Voices podcast.
• 28:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We appreciate you being here.
• 29:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you can give us a big thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, reshare, repost, word of mouth, get that phone out if it's not already out.
• 29:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Reach out to 25 Connections, share Voices for Voices podcast.
• 29:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They're all free things to do.
• 29:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We greatly appreciate you.
• 29:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're praying for you.
• 29:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We love you.
• 29:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We support you.
• 29:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And we will see you on another episode of the podcast.
• 29:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Till next time, let's celebrate all the voices in the world and let's be a voice for not only ourselves, but somebody else that may not be able to share their voice.
• 29:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We'll see you later.
• 29:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much for joining us.