TL;DR
Grief ambushes you at random—at the grocery store, in the car, at work. Emotional regulation isn’t about controlling your feelings or forcing positivity. It’s about intentionally moving through them.
I use a 6-mile walk with three playlist phases:
* Processing grief with sad/angry music (Evanescence, Linkin Park)
* Transitioning with songs that hold both pain and hope (JEM, “The Climb”)
* Rising with uplifting music about reunion and growth (Stevie Wonder, Kenny Loggins)
Create your own version: pick your practice (walk, drive, bath), build your playlists, make it routine. You can’t control when grief hits, but you can decide when and how to process it.
The ambush happens when you least expect it
You’re at the grocery store, and a song comes on. You’re driving to work and pass the hospital where they died. You’re fine, you’re functioning, you’re holding it together, until you’re not.
The anger slams into you. The longing swallows you whole. The sadness wraps around your chest until you can barely breathe.
This is emotional dysregulation. When your emotions control you. When grief decides when and where it’s going to flatten you.
And everyone talks about it. The breakdowns. The triggers. The moments when you lose it in public and feel like you’re losing your mind.
But what we don’t talk about enough is the other side: emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation is not controlling your emotions. Not forcing yourself to “stay positive.” Not spiritual bypassing with gratitude journals and toxic positivity.
Real emotional regulation is something different. It’s the intentional movement through your emotions. All of them. The ugly ones, the scary ones, the ones that make you want to crawl back into bed and never come out. By giving yourself a safe, intentional space to let those emotions move through you, you reduce the risk of an ambush.
Stick with me to the end. I’m going to give you a practical way to use emotional regulation and we’re going to practice this!
The Feedback Loop You Can’t Ignore
Your thoughts and emotions exist in a constant feedback loop. Negative thoughts trigger negative emotions. Those emotions reinforce negative thoughts. Round and round it goes, pulling you deeper into the spiral.
But here’s what makes this powerful: the same loop works in reverse. Positive emotions can shift your thoughts. Positive thoughts can shift your emotional state.
The key is you can’t skip the hard part. You can’t bypass sadness and land on gratitude. You have to walk through it.
Try This Right Now
Before I show you my technique, let’s prove this feedback loop is real. You need to experience it in your body, not just understand it intellectually.
Find a quiet space where you can close your eyes for a few minutes. We’re going to deliberately shift your emotional state using only your thoughts.
First, think of something mildly irritating from your past. Not the death of someone you love—we’re not trying to blow out your emotions here. Choose something smaller. An argument with your partner. Someone cutting you off in traffic. Getting passed over for a promotion. That frustrating interaction with customer service.
Close your eyes. Bring that memory into focus. What were you wearing? What did the other person say? How did it feel in the moment?
Sit with it for 30 seconds.
Now check in with your body. How do you feel right now? Is there tension in your jaw? Tightness in your chest? Has your mood shifted even slightly toward irritation or frustration?
Notice that. You just changed your emotional state by directing your thoughts to something negative.
Now, shift to a happy memory. A birthday party with your kids. Your favorite vacation. Your wedding day. The day you got your dog. A perfect meal with friends. You choose.
Close your eyes again. Really feel into it. Who was there? What were you wearing? What did it smell like? What made you laugh?
Sit with this memory for 30 seconds.
Now check in again. Has your mood lifted, even slightly? Do you feel a little lighter? Maybe a small smile at the corner of your mouth?
That’s the feedback loop in action. Your thoughts directly influenced your emotions. And those emotions are now influencing your thoughts—pulling you toward more memories that match that emotional state.
This is why grief can spiral. One sad thought leads to a sad emotion, which leads to more sad thoughts, which deepen the emotion.
But here’s the powerful part: if thoughts can pull you down, thoughts can also guide you back up. Not by denying the hard emotions, but by moving through them intentionally.
Let me show you how.
My Deliberate Emotional Journey
Every morning, I walk six miles. And I use those miles to regulate my emotions, intentionally.
This isn’t random. It’s a deliberate arc: processing or metabolizing “negative” emotions (less desirable), transitioning, rising, or reinforcing desirable emotions. Music is the vehicle that carries me through each phase.
I do this by curating a list of songs designed to trigger emotions in me. Yes, I am deliberately activating emotions like longing, anger, and sadness.
This is what it means to be planted, not buried. I’m not stuffing grief down into the soil, pretending it doesn’t exist. I’m using it to grow upward. I’m moving through it with intention.
Let me show you exactly how this works.
Your Emotional Regulation Playlist: The Complete Arc
Here’s what this looks like in practice—an actual playlist that takes you through the full emotional journey.
Your songs will be different than mine. Your arc might take a different shape. But the structure—process, bridge, rise—that’s universal. This isn’t about copying my playlist. It’s about understanding how to create your own.
If you want my playlist, here you go!
PART 1: PROCESSING THE GRIEF (Miles 1-3)
These songs give voice to what you’re feeling. They don’t fix it. They witness it.
“My Heart Is Broken” - EvanescenceRaw desperation. The feeling that you can’t go on. This song doesn’t try to make you feel better—it lets you feel broken. The summer Shayna passed, I listened to Evanescence’s self-titled album almost every single day for months. This track became my anthem for those days when breathing felt impossible.
“Lost in Paradise” - EvanescenceThe disorientation of grief. You’re somewhere that should be beautiful, but you can’t feel it. Everything is muted. You’re physically present but emotionally somewhere else entirely.
“The Other Side” - EvanescencePure longing. Wanting to cross over to where they are. This is the ache that never quite goes away—the desperate desire to be reunited with the person you lost.
“Tracks of My Tears” - Go WestThe mask we wear. The pain we hide. This song acknowledges that you’re functioning on the surface while breaking underneath. There’s something validating about hearing your hidden grief named out loud.
“Numb” - Linkin ParkFeeling disconnected from everyone and everything. The exhaustion of trying to be what everyone needs you to be when you can barely hold yourself together.
“In the End” - Linkin ParkThe futility. You tried so hard, did everything right, and still lost what mattered most. Sometimes you need a song that says “yeah, it’s not fair, and it hurts like hell.”
“Breaking the Habit” - Linkin ParkThe cycles you can’t escape. Falling back into the same patterns of pain, the same thoughts, the same agonizing loops.
“Going Under” - EvanescenceDrowning. Suffocating. This is for those days when grief feels like it’s pulling you under and you’re not sure you can come back up.
“Lithium” - EvanescenceCycling between pain and numbness. Neither feels good, but at least numbness doesn’t hurt as much. This song captures that desperate negotiation with your own feelings.
By this point in my walk, I’ve cried. I’ve felt the anger. I’ve acknowledged the longing. I’m not stuffing it down. I’m not pretending. I’m honoring what’s real.
And here’s the thing: listening to sad music doesn’t make me sadder. It gives my sadness a container. It makes me feel less alone. Someone else took the time to write down, to perform, the words that mean so much to me. Amy Lee knows my pain. Chester Bennington knows my anger. You share this universal thing with another human being who understands.
PART 2: THE BRIDGE - HOLDING BOTH TRUTHS (The Turn for Home)
This is the pivot point. These songs don’t deny the pain, but they begin to shift your gaze toward hope.
This is the most important part of the entire technique: you can’t go straight from “My Heart Is Broken” to “Walking on Sunshine.” Your nervous system will reject it. It’ll feel false, like you’re lying to yourself.
You need songs that say “this is brutally hard AND you’re going to survive it.” Songs that hold both truths at the same time. The pain is real. Your resilience is real too.
“You Will Make It” - JEM“You will make it through this.” This song sits perfectly in that liminal space between acknowledging how hard it is and believing you’ll survive it. It’s not bypassing—it’s that gentle hand on your shoulder saying “I see your pain, and I believe in your resilience.”
“Hall of Fame” - The Script ft. will.i.amAspirational but grounded. It acknowledges where you are while lifting your eyes to what’s possible. “You can be a champion” even when you’re in the struggle. Especially when you’re in the struggle.
“The Climb” - Miley CyrusMaybe the ultimate transition song. It’s literally about the journey being hard but that’s where the growth happens. “Keep on moving, keep climbing, keep the faith.” It doesn’t promise it gets easy. It promises it’s worth it.
This is where the real emotional regulation happens. I’m not flipping a switch from sad to happy. I’m acknowledging “yes, this is brutally hard AND I’m choosing to keep moving toward life.”
PART 3: RISING TOWARD LIFE (Miles 4-6)
By the time I hit these songs, I’m ready to lift my head. To remember what I’m living for.
“Sweet Reunion” - Kenny LogginsThis one’s about coming back together. About the promise that separation isn’t forever. It lifts me up with the reminder that Shayna and I will be reunited. Not as a someday fantasy, but as a spiritual certainty grounded in evidence and experience.
“Higher Ground” - Stevie WonderI didn’t learn until much later in life that this song is about reincarnation. About spiritual evolution. About moving upward even through struggle. It shifts my perspective from “why did this happen to me” to “what am I meant to learn and become through this?”
“A Place With No Name” - Michael JacksonThere’s something hopeful and mysterious about this song. It points toward something beyond our everyday reality—a place of peace, of reunion, of transformation. It helps me remember that physical death isn’t the end of the story.
“Here Comes the Sun” - The BeatlesAfter the long, cold, lonely winter—here comes the sun. It’s been a long time. But things are getting better. This song acknowledges the darkness while celebrating the light breaking through.
“I Can See Clearly Now” - Johnny NashThe obstacles are removed. You can see the bright, bright sunlit way. Not because the rain never happened, but because it’s passed. The clouds are gone and you can see forward again.
“Walking on Sunshine” - Katrina and the WavesPure joy. By this point in my walk, I’m ready for it. I’ve earned it. I’ve walked through the valley and I’m climbing back out into the light.
“Don’t Stop Believin’” - JourneyKeep going. Don’t give up. The journey continues. This is about persistence and hope and refusing to let grief have the final word.
“Rise Up” - Andra DayThe resilience anthem. “I’ll rise up, I’ll rise like the day, I’ll rise up in spite of the ache.” This is choosing life even when life has broken your heart.
By the time I reach my house and I’m starting my day, I’ve gone through the complete cycle. I’ve processed the guilt, the anger, the sadness, the longing. I’ve gotten all that stuff out. I’ve cried the tears that needed to be cried. (And tears are good for you—I wrote a whole article on that recently.)
And then I’ve reset myself. I’m starting my day with gratitude, with hope, with the ability to look forward.
Why This Works
When you listen to music that matches your emotional state, something powerful happens. You’re not suppressing or avoiding—you’re processing. You’re giving your nervous system permission to feel what it’s feeling in a safe, bounded container.
And here’s the key: you’re doing it intentionally.
You’re not waiting for grief to ambush you at the grocery store or flatten you in the middle of your workday. You’re creating space for it. Honoring it. Moving through it. And then gently guiding yourself back to the surface.
This is the opposite of emotional dysregulation, where feelings control you.
This is also the opposite of toxic positivity, where you pretend feelings don’t exist.
This is intentional movement through the full spectrum of human emotion.
How to Customize This Practice for Your Life
Maybe it’s not a 6-mile walk for you. Maybe it’s:
* A 20-minute drive to work
* Your morning coffee ritual
* An evening bath
* A workout at the gym
* Journaling with background music
The practice doesn’t matter. The structure does:
* Create space for the difficult emotions
* Honor them fully—don’t rush through or minimize
* Intentionally shift toward emotions that serve your forward movement
* Make it routine so your nervous system knows what to expect
And the music doesn’t have to be these songs. What matters is finding:
* Songs that witness your pain
* Songs that hold both pain and promise
* Songs that lift your eyes toward hope and meaning
The Gift of Going Through
Here’s what I know after years of walking those six miles: the only way out is through. But “through” doesn’t have to be chaotic. It doesn’t have to be random. It doesn’t have to flatten you when you least expect it.
You can create a container for your grief. You can give it time and space and music and tears. And then you can gently—without denying its existence—guide yourself back to the surface.
That’s emotional regulation. Not control. Not denial. Intentional movement.
You can’t control when grief hits. But you can decide when and how to process it.
Grief will ambush you. But it doesn’t have to control you.
Create the container. Walk through it. Rise.
What songs give voice to your grief? What songs help you rise toward life again? I’d love to hear how you move through your emotions intentionally.
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