Whilst sound therapy/sound healing with gongs, singing bowls and the like do have positive impacts on a person and can help to re-balance/re-harmonise, another aspect that can get overlooked is what sounds/words are we speaking to ourselves every day? Now, if these sounds/words are positive affirmations then good but if they are not then they can have a detrimental effect. Words like, “I’m not good enough, I can’t do that”, can gnaw away at a person’s body, raising stress hormones etc – you get the picture.
In my sound therapy practitioner course I hope to teach that sound therapy first starts with a client’s thoughts, that then become words that can either uplift or have a negative impact on the body.
I love the work that Dr Masaru Emoto did in his research of the power of the vibration of written words and spoken words on plants etc. His work showed just how detrimental negative affirmations can be.
By listening and observing what a client says we can help to empower them to take a greater role in their own well-being by doing simple things such as giving them a positive affirmation to say at home. We all can benefit from speaking kindly to ourselves as well as observing what we say we can also tone the OM and do vocal toning exercises – the voice is a free but powerful tool.
Did you know that toning can even be done silently! Again it starts with the thought, then we can verbalise this internally but the energy and power of that word/sound still transmits throughout our body. Moving on to verbally toning out loud takes it up another notch. In today’s current global situation, when we may feel our voice is covered/restricted we can use our own voice in a positive way to tone (OM or basic vowel sounds) and that can be a great tonic for the body, mind and soul.
We do not need to be concerned if it sounds right, it’s about rebalancing, so a tone that starts by sounding ‘off’ might after a few attempts sound more like what we were expecting it to sound – this just shows that the voice can produce the tone that we need at each moment in time.
Helen Campbell
Academy of Sound Therapy
www.academyofsoundtherapy.com
