Move Through All of Life With Breath and Sound
“Life is amazing. And then it's awful. And then it's amazing again. And in between the amazing and awful it's ordinary and mundane and routine. Breathe in the amazing, hold on through the awful, and relax and exhale during the ordinary. That's just living heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life. And it's breathtakingly beautiful.”
–L.R. Knost
I have to confess: I have been following the trial between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard on social media. I’ve wondered why Johnny Depp would choose to put himself through a second trial. He had to know that all his darkness would be on display.
It’s difficult to watch. One article I read said this trial has ruined the celebrity mystique, showing us that movie stars have lives that are as messy and chaotic as ours.
But what a wonderful reminder that, no matter who we are, we all have our stuff. We all live amazing and awful and breathtakingly beautiful lives.
When we choose the path of healing, we will be brought face to face with our brokenness and our wholeness. If we want to grow in consciousness, we need to stop blaming circumstances. We need to be willing to look at and embrace the good and the bad.
What better way to do this than to breathe it all in?
Breathwork is the light in the darkness. It gives us the strength to face fears, to release old patterns, to forgive ourselves, and to transform.
Along with breathwork, we can use toning as a way to go even deeper into emotions. (Read Find Your Voice Through Toning.) This is simply a practice of making sounds as we breathe. Vowels are heart sounds. They are an expression of the inner life. The vibrations don’t come from the throat. They arise from the body, from the diaphragm.
When I use my breath along with toning, I step into my power, with my voice, my song, my body—all of me. This is what the whales do!
Toning is also used in Eurythmy. The eurythmist Werner Barfod, head of the Section for the Arts of Eurythmy, Speech and Music at the Goetheanum in Switzerland, details how to use vowel sounds to unlock energy in his book IAO and the Eurythmy Meditations.
‘E’ (I) invites us to be still within ourselves.
‘Ah’ opens the heart. It’s the sound of wonder and beauty.
‘Oh’ embodies both earth and heaven. This comes at the end of a session to integrate it all.
Connecting with sound helps move things. Everything is vibration and when we consciously bring those vowels alive in the breathing, our whole body takes part. Often this work creates the urge to move. We may gesture, sway, dance, rock.
How does your body want to move? In what ways are you already using sound to express yourself?
I came home recently to find that my dog had jumped on the counter and knocked down a box of something I had just bought. It was ruined on the floor. I made a frustrated sound and yelled at her, “You know better!”
I was very angry until I took a breath and realized that she was just doing what she does. She’s an instinctual being. I should not have left a box on the counter. That quick interaction made me see a part of myself I don’t like. I make mistakes.
But I also realized that making an angry sound helped the moment pass more quickly. It restored my clarity. I thought, yes, sound is powerful. It’s an efficient way to release energy.
When I work with clients to incorporate toning, I find that some people are afraid to sing their song. They also speak from a shallow place, with no connection to their diaphragm. This makes sense if you consider that most of us have learned to control our emotions.
However, emotion that is not allowed to move and flow becomes stuck in the body, causing dis-ease and distress. Have you ever tried to cry quietly? It usually doesn’t work, or, if it does, it doesn’t feel very good! When a child sobs, the belly moves, they make a lot of noise. That’s good! That’s energy moving.
In John Bradshaw’s wonderful book, Home Coming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child, he writes:
“Our sadness is an energy we discharge in order to heal. Sadness is painful. We try to avoid it. Actually discharging sadness releases the energy involved in our emotional pain. To hold it in is to freeze the pain within us.”
Whether you’re facing the awful or the amazing, whether you’re in the spotlight or feeling obscure and unimportant, take a breath. Discharge negative emotion. Find your voice.
Inhale. Exhale. Be present to all of life.