Practicing Mindfulness: Hand Clapping, Foot Stomping Folk

The meditative sensation of tuning out the outside world and the narration in my head had always seemed very far out of reach for me. I’ve struggled with anxiety and ADHD all my life and have a hard time simply relaxing and living in the moment. This became extremely overwhelming when I was in college. I was constantly stressed about one problem or another and had no idea how to manage it. So, I tried taking a yoga and meditation class. But when my instructor told me to clear my mind, I could never seem to stop myself from free falling through a stream of consciousness no matter how hard I tried.

I would try to focus on the air filling my lungs, but then I would think about the friend I forgot to text back.

I would try to feel the touch of my fingertips on my thighs, but then I would think about an important concept from one of my classes I would have a test in soon.

I would try to force my mind to go completely dark, but then I would start working through the Lord of the Rings fan fiction I had been meaning to write.

I dealt with racing thoughts, over stimulation, and hypersensitivity due to my neurodivergence. Not even the activity that so many found relaxing could help me feel confident and comfortable in my own skin. Which is why after college, I borrowed my parent’s RV and went to live in the mountains of Northern Arizona.

This is where I learned about the concept of mindfulness. This is an aspect of meditation, but is much more friendly to the way my mind works. It isn’t about clearing your mind so mush as calmly accepting your place and your feelings. This was the first time I allowed myself to just exist, and not question if I was failing or succeeding. I could let the present moment play out as I walked through the pine forests beneath the San Fransisco peaks.

During this time, I also cultivated a playlist of indie and folk songs that fit the natural, mountainous setting, and make me feel at home in the moment. Songs with big, rolling instrumentals, but folksy, rooted themes and lyrics. Oftentimes, they included hands clapping and feet stomping alongside violins and vacuous drum beats to convey a rustic atmosphere.

I also valued music that told a story. If a song could fit the natural atmosphere, but also tell the story of others struggling with their situations or with their mental health, it helped me gain perspective in a time when I felt adrift. This is another aspect of mindfulness. The ability to humbly accept your emotions as they relate to others and fit into a larger picture.

Here are a few of the notable bands, and why their music became therapeutic to me:

Of Monsters and Men

Hold your horses now (We sleep until the sun goes down)

Through the woods we ran (Deep into the mountain sound)

Hold your horses now (We sleep until the sun goes down)

Through the woods we ran

If I was to describe the vibe that I wanted to radiate from this playlist, “mountain sound” would be a good descriptor. I wanted to close my eyes, hit play, and feel like I was gliding through the forest and rolling hills, while branches catch on my hair and clothes. Or to look up at the peaks above with a sense of awe and childlike wonder. A sound that is big and echoing, but feels so down to Earth and genuine.

Being from Iceland, one of the members of Of Monsters and Men joked “There’s nothing fun to do so you have to do boring things like start a band”, but it’s clear that their background and their home impacts their music. Their songs can sometimes feel eccentric and youthful, but other times can feel cold and unflinching. “Little Talks”, for example, conjures imagery of an old abandoned house on a rocky coastline as an allegory for a struggle with depression, or possibly schizophrenia. It has a chilling, isolated feeling, but at the same time has the sound of two voices talking to each other like an inner monologue.

Arcade Fire

If the children don't grow up,

Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.

We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turnin' every good thing to rust.

I guess we'll just have to adjust.

Arcade Fire’s music is dripping with raw emotion. Maybe it doesn’t quite feel ‘zen’ or 'meditative' but I’d argue that mindfulness isn’t always calm. Sometimes acknowledging and working to accept strong emotions feels raw. Meditation doesn't mean shutting out your feelings to pretend to be calm, it means analyzing and accepting them as they come. For me, sometimes that meant blasting 'Wake Up' and letting the wild howling of the song release something internally atavistic.

‘Wake Up’ was popularized by the movie Where the Wild Things Are because it has similar themes of the complexities of growing up. The song prompts us to own our mistakes, accept our feelings, and utilize our abilities to effect positive change. These were all themes that I wanted to internalize in order to feel comfortable with myself.

Run River North

So I will fight to keep the fire burning in the night

For I found words to keep me still

Though I'm prone to go and make the same mistakes

I hear your voice calling out my name

Though their newer music has a more indie-pop vibe, they got their start in more subdued, acoustic sounds. Run River North was actually the last band I saw in concert before the Covid lockdowns and they had a positively ebullient energy in person. They use a particular style of folksy harmonies to explore themes of finding home and forming roots. Possibly fitting as they are descended from Korean immigrants.

LP

How are we living, living, living

Into the wild

Not all of LP's songs fit the vibe I’m going for, but I absolutely love Into The Wild for this playlist. Her voice in this song is beautifully resonate, and the it fits perfectly into the powerful, but natural tone. In some ways it feels lonely, but that sometimes comes with being in the wild. There's a sense of independence and strength from getting past sadness and loss. The actual song is vague in its message, but that was always the sense I got from it.

I also included Nice to Know Ya, but this is, admittedly, self indulgent. Though song does have her strong, echoing voice, its lyrics are about heartbreak and getting over an ex-girlfriend. LP is openly gay and this makes her romance music relevant to me as a fellow woman who dates women. It's my playlist. I can be a little self centered if I want to.

The Oh Hello’s

Well, even the great celestial hieroglyphs

Are bodies of dust illuminated, and if

The heavens can be both sacred and dust

Oh, maybe so can the rest of us

The Oh Hello’s has easily the most beautiful lyrics of any band I’ve ever listened to. Their newest four albums are each named after one of the four Greek Gods of the directional winds, and their music calls back to numerous mythological figures as allegory. The four albums tell a really unique story through the lens of mythology and metaphor.

The band has talked about how important religion is to them, but is simultaneously appalled by things that people do in the name of religion. The albums explore their process of realizing that morality is interpolation. “Like constellations” what is good and bad is a subjective, imaginary line. “Passerine” in particular, is specifically a response to the Charlottesville protests. The line “My palms and fingers still reek of gasoline/ From throwing fuel to the fire of that Greco-Roman dream” conveys the guilt by association they felt seeing the crowd lighting torches and marching through the street in the name of their religion.

I'm not religious. So, while not all of it is relatable to my experiences, I have a lot of respect for their level of introspection and the way they convey tangled emotions though brooding instrumentals. Before their newest four albums, they were exploring just as complex subject matter. Dear Wormwood is an album from the perspective of someone writing a letter to an abusive ex-partner, and Through the Deep Dark Valley moved between light, wild energy to ominous, dark sounds to convey various concepts.

This being said, it was very difficult for me to pick which songs of theirs to include. Most of their albums are best experienced in chronological order to get the entire picture. I did this many times on loop when I was practicing mindfulness. Their music is perfect for sitting in the mountains and contemplating big subjects.

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