By Laura Mitchell.

I’ve been working internationally as a professional singer and sound healer for 26 years, and it is still incredible to me that every time I open my mouth the power of sound always has a new dimension to it; something new to experience, express and explore. Incredible to me that with each breath there is a dance between expressing all that which is within me, all that which is the universe, and the point at which they meet when we are truly present and Mindful.

Healing through sound

In the last year I had an injury to my spine which left me unable to walk and unable to perform on stage for a while. It was one of those events that can make or break a person – quite literally! It has been a time when my practice and all that I’ve learned have been imperative. It has been a necessary slowing down and shedding of skins, a time to really hone my own skills and healing abilities. It has been a time when the power of Sound and thought vibration have been revealed through healing.

Your voice is unique to you, and it is the expression of all that dwells within you. It is pure vibration, energy. It is also a way of communicating with and understanding the world around you – a way therefore of realising the union between the microcosm of individuality with the macrocosm of universality through the world of energy vibration. Everything has its own vibrational frequency and we are all busy attracting the things that meet our own frequency. But what if we would like to see different things happening in our lives and attract different things? This can all be achieved by using the voice.

It is possible to experience using your voice to relieve your body of old tensions, traumas, and to reprogram your subconscious so that you can find new ways of understanding yourself and communicating with the world around you. At this level there can be remarkable changes and shifts in the human organism, and all through the use of sound.

Tapping into those vulnerable places

Being asked to sing something seems to access a really vulnerable place. After so many years of professional singing I can still be completely flummoxed by being asked to sing something, anything, right there and then! I always find it really surprising that this can happen, and it’ a great reminder of how the vast majority of people feel about singing, their voices and making sound. So many people have been told or led to believe that they shouldn’t sing, aren’t musical, can’t sing in tune, or are simply afraid of making a sound.

So please, right here and right now, let me expel this myth once and for all – everyone that can speak can sing!

At the moment I am 6 months pregnant, learning Spanish, and studying as much as possible for my Mindfulness teaching qualification. What have I learned so far?

  • All new things take practice
  • Muscle memory takes time and… practice!
  • Patience and humour are the most important factors!
  • Doing something new – like learning a language and trying it out with other people is baffling, hilarious, difficult, and a bit like swimming in a choppy ocean. i.e. you can feel a bit like you are flailing around!

Singing is exactly the same – you may have to take my word for it just now – but it is about using muscles, muscle memory, playing with shapes in the mouth to discover resonation points, learning to breath, exploring and experiencing sound in the body and what feels good, feeling, expressing, communicating and connecting.

It can take a bit of time and practice but everyone can do it and it can lead to such an exquisite adventure that it is well worth pursuing.

Voice & sound resources

There are tools that can help us access these vibratory levels; asana that can be used with sound, techniques for singing and placing of vowels that can allow us maximum resonation in specific areas of the body and mind, body being/feeling, fine tuning our relationship with the body to clarify what works and what does not, honing our skills at interacting with both the inner and outer worlds.

Beyond this are the meditative levels that can be attained through using sound, voice, binaural beats and mantra. Finding freedom, attaining liberation and enlightenment are all things that many of us have heard before and possible to experience these using sound.

It all begins with you and your own unique voice and resonant frequency. We all have the power to be exactly who and where we would like to be.

More CMI Events

 

More about Mindfulness