Sound Body Wisdom is a coalescing of decades of training, experience, research, living, devotion and practice.
There are 5 landmarks that are foundational to this approach. I offer more about them here and why they persist in this work and practice.
Awareness, Curiosity and Kindness
These 3 skills are woven into every aspect of life, every exercise and the general lens for meeting self.
Awareness is this living potential within each of us that we engage to varying degrees. It is truly a powerhouse in the most vibrant sense. Our personal awareness and the path to strengthening it can inspire and lift us. It is not a burden to be dealt with, but rather a light to be cultivated. It adds no weight to our journey, yet gives exponentially to all that we are and everything we do.
Awareness is essential to nourishing ourselves and living with vivacity, and it is the foundation of this practice. The habits of the unconscious are invisible until you cultivate your awareness and then you begin to see glimpses, patterns and clues. In many ways, I feel that the commitment to knowing oneself is one of the most important activities of life. It is like surveying the land before you build a house. Understanding the ground of our habits—knowing where we get stuck or triggered—is essential knowledge for building the foundations of our lives.
Curiosity is a natural, developmental, and emotional tool in all humans. It serves many functions that keep us feeling alive and healthy. It engages us so that our minds and processes don’t become passive or stale. Curiosity flexes our cognitive and emotional brains so they expand, see new possibilities, and can receive new ideas. It opens us towards seeing what is currently invisible because there is always more below the surface or behind the scenes when it comes to anything in life, especially our mind body.
Curiosity prevents stagnation and complacency, keeps us from adopting information without question. It’s our greatest ally for evaluating when our perceptions have gotten skewed, when we need new perspective anywhere in life—or when we just need to infuse some fresh energy into our days. Curiosity can be an antidote to feeling bored, stuck, judgmental, or defensive. Curiosity compels you to look beyond the superficial and habitual to find a new perspective that can nourish you.
As we move through life, it is easy to forget about curiosity and let it fade to the background, creating a bit of a curiosity deficit. But like any muscle or habit, it grows stronger with practice. As children, this curiosity is supported more abundantly than it is for us as adults. We need to reclaim our natural function of curiosity and understand that it is positive mental and emotional hygiene.
As a developed skill, Kindness allows us a different perspective from which to view and engage life. It shows us how things are actually more connected than separate. It naturally creates connection as opposed to division. It works in tandem with curiosity in that it asks us to soften ourselves, and it is woven with compassion in that it asks us to feel deeply into our care. Kindness is a bridge, an ally, and a healing balm because it softens the edges and neutralizes negativity. When we bring kindness, we bring concern for the well being of all parts of ourselves and others. It isn’t selective; it is a nourishing quality that permeates everything it touches.
Kindness has a pro-active dynamic to it whether being expressed towards parts of our selves or other people. It doesn’t let us ignore or bury our experiences internally or externally but instead, asks us to reach out. It is an evolutionary part of our biology that seems to be growing. Apparently, as a species, we know that kindness and empathy go a long way for both survival and thriving. It is the alternative to selfishness because we realize that selfishness is not sustainable.
Dynamics of Language
Language is something we use not only every day while communicating with others, but also in communicating with ourselves in our internal world. It’s so easy to take it for granted or think our habits of language are insignificant, but they are actually quite powerful. Our choice of words and use of language can be the difference between entrenching a particular habit or being able to shift it. Words create structures, belief systems and worlds within us, and our constant use of them influences these creations.
I have found how potent it can be to shift our listening, our choices and our relationship to words, language and the nature of communication.
What you say and how you say it to yourself and others as well as what others say to you, all have a ripple effect. The influence of the word or the communication will vary based on your subjective experience but also the collective energy or belief in a word or concept, the context or environment the language is unfolding, the tone in which it is said, intention and so much more.
Everything is relational and the words we think, feel, speak and receive can have great influence on how we feel, think and act.
Along with this, the potential and potency of words and language are also related to their vibrational nature and how resonance and sound touch and influence us.
Physics shows us that resonance is happening all around us, at every moment, because all matter is in a state of vibration. This tendency of one field to call another into its resonance applies to all types of waveforms; from heart and nerve cells to ocean currents and the flights of birds.
There is a dynamic essence to language and words. These dynamics are the forces within that stimulate growth, development and change within the ecosystem that is each of us and, learning these dynamics for ourselves, is essential.
It can seem like a small puzzle piece or something very mundane, but there is so much more beneath the surface. I have found that the Dynamics of Language is a vibrant terrain to explore and to empower change.
Relational Parts Work
This is a framework for growing your relationship with yourself through the metaphor of “parts.” It offers guidance and reference points for sustainable shifts of inner dynamics. This work we do within us then becomes our resource for everything we meet in life. But it begins with our relationship to ourselves. Because as we know, everything is relational.
Relational Parts Work offers us the lens for understanding, that as a person, we have many different aspects to ourselves. That within us, there are different parts that can be present at any given moment. All of these parts make up who we are and have come into existence at different times in our lives. And we have a big picture ‘self’ that can hold, witness, guide, mediate and engage all of these parts. We are not fragmented, but constantly moving through the range of all that makes us whole.
This framework asks that we bring our awareness, kindness, and curiosity to observe, discern and differentiate all the different parts that move through us during the day. This may include joys and sorrows, fleeting thoughts, or persistent ideas. When we develop a relationship with the more common or manageable parts inside, it offers us valuable practice for working with the ones that are much more challenging or potentially overwhelming. Our skills allow us to become more aware of the parts that push and pull behind the scenes, offering us methods to connect more consciously with them. This work is really about developing relationships with our various inner dynamics. And honestly, many of us have some instinctive ways we acknowledge and address our parts already. We just don’t always realize we are doing it. Relational Parts Work offers a framework and the metaphors to explore this instinct that emerges naturally from within us.
Witnessing
Witnessing is a practice that involves a conscious commitment to cultivating your ability to be present with your inner experience without any criticism. You learn how to notice what thoughts or sensations are generated within you, which can then lead to more possibility and choice in the moment. Engaging the inner witness means you have created another possibility. You have activated a different area of the brain, as well as chosen to initiate the development of a new habit.
The brilliance in developing our practice of witnessing or observation is that it so masterfully creates a space between the event and your reaction. Herein lies the space of possibility because, instead of reacting, you can respond with your skills of kindness and curiosity.
Witnessing practice shows us how to stay present, without story or passing judgment, with whatever may be happening. Learning to stay in this neutral space means we choose to develop a new relationship. This new relationship is the wisdom of our witness holding space for what is unfolding. There is such a potency in being able to witness what you are feeling and thinking without getting carried away in it, writing a story about it, judging it or going on autopilot. This practice of witnessing shows us how truly empowered we are to choose our response and shape our experience through engaging our tools and resources in the moment.
Authentic Movement and Voice
Movement and Voice (or sounding) are ours from birth and even in utero. Movement is happening in your body right now, even as you read this page. This is because we are phenomenal movement entities. Fundamentally, we are designed, and we grow, based on patterns of movement. It begins when we are a new embryo with the motion of our dividing cells, and it continues through our entire life. Movement is essential and inherent in who we are as a species. Internally, it is part of our cognitive development and healthy function of cells and organs. Externally it is used for survival, environmental interaction, and connection. Not to mention, our developmental movement patterns as children have been shown to have a direct impact on our brain growth.
Finding our Authentic movement is also a form of expressive movement. And this is an important form of movement that can be as intimidating as it is nourishing. When people hear “expressive,” they often get nervous because it can be a vulnerable thing to express through our bodies. We have been conditioned with limiting beliefs or perspectives about ourselves in our bodies, experiences that might have made us feel less safe in our bodies, ways of disconnecting from our bodies and so much more. Learning to feel safe, shift perspectives and give ourselves permission to move expressively can sometimes be challenging, even though it is our birthright. Expressing through our bodies is a tool we can cultivate and reconnect with.
Scientists say that we are the only species without fixed behavioral responses at birth and that even the ones we do develop are not locked. Which means we are given the power of expression through this unique design of our species.
Sound has been a predominant healing modality since ancient times in cultures all over the world. Shamans drummed and chanted, and ancient mystery schools in Greece, Egypt, and India developed sound into sacred sciences. We see in the Bible that David played his flute to alleviate the depression of King Saul, and from the history books, how Greek physicians used flutes, lyres, and zithers to heal their patients. They also used vibration to aid digestion, treat mental disturbance, and help with sleep. Aristotle wrote that flute music could not only induce strong emotions, but also purify the soul. Some even say that the Great Pyramids were constructed using sound. There is clearly no absence of documentation for how sound, vibration, and the voice have been interconnected with our wellbeing and the essence of life.
The word “voice” is related to the Latin word vocare, which means “to call.” This makes me think of how people often reference what they refer to as their “calling.” It is work or a way of living that feels connected and aligned to something authentic and deeper, something inherent to themselves. It is a sense of feeling in harmony or resonant with life.
The voice appears to have roots in this essence, as it speaks to a deeper sense of connection and expression in life. Using our voice to express impulses and sounds from within us is our way of connecting to something authentic and resonant from the essence of who we are. It is our natural tool for tuning our mind body complex and spirit.
The voice is a conduit for emotions and energy. It gives access and enlivens us on a physical, emotional, and cellular level. The voice is the breath manifest, and it stimulates circulation and nerve energy in the body. It creates vibration from the inside out, working with breath to give an internal massage, enlivening our tissue and organs.
The voice is a powerful form of self-expression, empowerment and a means for being heard. With this in mind, it is no coincidence that the majority of people you meet in developed or modern cultures will be apprehensive or unwilling to “sing” in front of others. There is a high level of self-consciousness and vulnerability around using the voice. Perhaps this level of discomfort or self-criticism becomes elevated to match what we inherently understand is the power of it. Why else would we take away our authentic and expressive relationship to voice and sound?
Living fully means having access to all parts of ourselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Not every part may need to express itself every day, but the channel needs to be open for the potential and keeping this channel open involves awareness. Rediscovering physical movement, voice and sound through expressive exploration can uncover insights about our lives and certain conditioning that has suppressed parts of ourselves that are critical to our sense of wholeness and well being.