Silencing the Inner Critic With Sound

Things have suddenly been kicked up a few notches. The article in the Providence Journal did not hurt. Since then I have been asked to lead a stress reduction seminar at an event for Women & Infants corporate donors and possibly to become a part of the programming at The Cedars in Cranston, which from what I understand is a nursing home and rehabilitative care facility.

Meanwhile, I have been dealing with a respiratory infection while I am in the process of getting ready to go to Florida on a three-week road trip to teach some workshops, perform healing sound journeys and do private sessions! I have also been experimenting with some of my own music and exploring the effects.

Up until recently I rarely played back my own sound journeys. Last summer I performed a sound journey at Yoga4All in Seminole, FL. It was the day after the terrorist attacks on Paris when I was in a very open and vulnerable space. I make it a practice never to compare sound journeys but I when it was over I felt that it was quite possibly the most powerful sound journey I had ever done and I became curious about it. I listened to it when I got home a few weeks later and was genuinely surprised by both the quality and the effect of the sound and frequencies- I was as taken with it as I had been the night that I did it and felt that it could be very powerful as a healing tool.  I began using it regularly for healing sessions with some of my cancer patients.

About to begin "Après Paris" Sound Journey at Yoga4All, Seminole, FL 8.7.15

I have been recording all of my sound journeys for the past 2-3 years on my iPhone but not actually listening to them. Since the surprise of the recent recording I decided I needed to go through some of my others sound journeys and start listening to them and seeing if any were worth transferring to CD. Naturally they are nothing like the quality of a CD recorded in a studio but what I have been discovering is that the effects are profound, even with the recordings in their rawest form!

A few days ago when I was sick in bed, I decided to listen to a short sound journey that I had done at my friend Lynn Carol Henderson's house. Usually the sound journeys are a piece unto themselves and between 50-60 minutes long, but this was just over 20 minutes as it was part of a house concert I had done at her house. When I lay down to listen my mind was very active. Quickly my thoughts subsided and my witness consciousness observed my body and mind becoming very still- this is for someone listening with a critical ear. I was listening to myself playing music waiting for the flaws, the imperfections, the voice of my own inner critic. But what I experienced was a silencing of that entire part of my mind. It was extraordinary. I had no idea how powerful these sounds could be. I understood from the perspective of a totally objective listener who was there for a particular experience but I did not at all expect to have that same experience- the experience that people share with me over and over in their own unique ways after every sound journey.

Getting ready for Sound Journey at the Henderson home, St. Pete, FL- August 2015

So this gives me a lot of new information about the real power of these sounds. I have been performing Healing Sound Journeys for years simply because I love these sounds and I love the experience of creating and exploring vibratory frequencies and the nuances and subtleties of pure tones and overtones. I know and trust that they are powerful, that they will have an effect, that they will activate different areas of the brain, create new neural pathways, entrain the brainwaves to alpha and deep theta states- that they are restorative and healing on deep levels, some of which the listener may be aware of either during the journey or later, and some which they may never be conscious of. They may simply know that something has changed on a deep level.

Last night I was unable to get to sleep as I had taken Alka Seltzer PM cold medicine for 3 nights in a row because my head had been so stuffed up. I was desperate for something to clear my head out and it worked and I slept soundly each night. It's amazing how quickly the body becomes entrained to the frequency of medication! Last night my head was clear enough that I didn't need the medicine. I was quite tired and lay down to sleep about 12:30 after reading until I was nodding off. As soon as I turned the light off however, I could feel energy buzzing through my body and I couldn't sleep. I lay there, very still and quiet for 3 hours- awake! Finally at 3:30 I sat up and looked around for my tuning forks with the delta frequency- but they weren't in my room. I lay down again and then thought, Hmm- what about a sound journey? I put the sound journey on that I had recorded at Lynn Carol's.

I felt the stillness settle into my body and twenty minutes later I was asleep.