Do you ever sigh? Do you raise your voice? Do you gasp for air? These may be indicators that you are internalizing your stress and tension. Your voice gives clues about the way you see yourself and on how you approach life. Do you express yourself freely? Do you let your voice be heard? Or do you hold back? Learning to utilize your own voice is a significant tool for self-healing.
Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Swiss psychiatrist and author of ‘On Death and Dying’, suggests that every hospital should install a soundproof rubber chamber. Patients and family members could then release their tension by screaming and pounding into the rubber walls.
While studying at the Mahut School for Complementary Medicine and Holism in Tel Aviv, Israel, I learned about the far-reaching healing qualities of sound. By toning specific sounds and vowels one can balance body and mind.
This became an important coping tool for me. Israel was rattled by terrorism and the images of burnt out buses and the photographs of victims on the front pages of the newspapers, became part of everyday life. The tension was unbearable. After our classes at Mahut fellow students and I drove to Ga’ash, 15 miles North of Tel Aviv. We stood on the edge of a cliff, high above the Mediterranean Sea and screamed our tension out into the night.
The shift in our bodies was immediate. We felt relieved and calm after our ‘Sound Therapy.’ It also allowed us to think clearly and to experience our reality from a place beyond fear.
My knowledge of sound healing reminded me of my childhood. I grew up on a dairy farm in Germany’s Lower Rhine Valley. My brother and I had the task of bringing in the cows at milking time. We loved to compete on who could call the cows the loudest. Our yells and screams sounded back from the levee across the wide-open green meadows, slowly setting the cows in motion, nudging them to come home.
In our modern society we are not able to express our voices freely. For example, if you feel stressed at work, you can’t scream at your boss without suffering negative consequences. Look at your day and observe how many times you are holding back? How often do you feel the immediate need to release tension and are not able to? Nowadays the only socially acceptable way to express your voice freely is at sports games. You are allowed to cheer your favorite team as loud as you can and scream at the top of your lungs!
Singing is also a healthy way to balance yourself. Toning the sound OM will allow you to experience the benefits of sound healing. OM is the universal sound of creation. OM is the sound that contains all sounds and it raises your consciousness. Practice toning the OM and feel the ‘M’ resonating in your forehead. You may focus your awareness on your Third Eye, which is located in between your eyebrows and is associated with insight and wisdom. Toning the OM directly affects your physical body. Its resonance balances the function of your pituitary gland and hypothalamus, which are responsible for the supervision of all bodily functions from the highest level.
Practice toning daily for ten minutes. You may incorporate it into your every day activities, e.g. driving or doing housework. You will feel more relaxed, peaceful and balanced. This is the best form of preventative medicine.
