Singing is invisible. You can’t see the actual music from the sound of the piano; it comes from the invisible ærial.

These words were spoken by a 5 year old boy and I believe that most of us are aware of this ‘invisible ærial’ although we will have different ways of describing it. Through it our intuition works, we receive guidance as to what to do  say next,  suddenly just ‘know’ what is right. It also transmits energy into which we can tune at any moment and which can be express-ed or manifested in hundreds of different ways. With this knowledge we perceive others and it is an invaluable tool in therapy and healing.

In the words of Albert Einstein:  

The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it intuition or what you will, and the solution comes to you, and you don’t know how or why.

In this article I will be concentrating on three disciplines that have helped me to understand ‘Energy Medicine’ in my own life and work, and reflecting on some of their similarities.

The first twenty years of my working life were spent as a classical musician and a music therapist. In the latter capacity I have worked with a wide diversity of clients, including children and adults with special needs, in mental health, in the community and with self-referred adults suffering from depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, bereavement and other life problems. I have also been involved in training students and as a supervisor.

Some ten years ago I recognised a need to widen my understanding of the human condition, both in terms of my own personal and spiritual journey and also looking to extend the skills that I am able to offer. This led me to study spiritual healing, to explore the deeper potential of my singing voice and also to train in body process work. Alongside all of these disciplines has been my own personal story, my ever-deepening journey into the spiritual realms and, more recently, some huge learning curves in times of personal crisis and major change.

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My first clinical training was in Music Therapy, which has been my main work form for some thirty years.

Only music itself can convey the meaning of its experience …
The statement of music is made moment by moment; what it expresses comes to life as it moves in time. Our experience, as we live with it, is defined by the character and iteration of its structural elements. Our mood is charged by its mood. Our emotions are tempered and held by the changing tensions of its harmony. When we live in the movement of a melody we become identified with it… When we live in the tonal and temporal structures of a musical composition…our participation integrates our responding faculties. It is out of this completeness of the relationship between music and the human being that music therapy in its truest sense arises.[1] 

I read these words in the early 1970’s as my own introduction to the profound understanding and insight of Dr Paul Nordoff (an American pianist and composer) into the therapeutic powers of music and its possibilities in application. I went on to train in “Creative Music Therapy” and have never ceased to be fascinated by what happens when we make music together and by the endless potential of “clinical improvisation”. The core musical truths that I discovered through this work have never been shaken. I have at some times needed an underlying knowledge of psychological processes, or referred back to tried and tested therapeutic models to inform or contain my work in a particular situation, but the joy has always been that it is in live musical interaction that the therapy takes place. The components of music themselves can provide a diagnostic tool, offer challenge or support, or open a door to potential change and transformation and the music that we make together is indeed the breath of our interconnected lives in that moment.

Each of us is on a different life journey, and everyone’s musical expression is individual, but whatever our past experiences or future expectations, improvisation can only take place in the here and now. This is its great strength.

Musical ideas are played and evoked and the material that is expressed in the first few sessions usually forms the basis for the work that follows. Gradually a picture of the client is emerging which is more than merely musical; one which may need strengthening, nurturing, challenging or holding in the weeks to come, depending on the direction that the therapy takes.

Many of the characteristics that occur in improvisation will have parallels in life, and by addressing issues musically one can affect them on the everyday level. To interact with another person we have to learn to listen and then reply; to be flexible in our tempo, our rhythm or our dynamic range. How easy is it to stay poised and wait for the resolution of a long note? How smoothly can I take the initiative in a dialogue? What happens if I introduce dissonance at a particular moment or encourage silence?

One client may choose to improvise in the Dorian mode while another finds expression in the Pentatonic; a withdrawn young woman who could only repeat two notes on the metallaphone breaks through her reserve to find melody and with it a sense of breadth and greater freedom which she retains long after the session has ended. And not a single word needs to be spoken! Nothing has to be justified or explained and yet the experience is as clear as the mirror that one chooses to look into.

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I had always been aware of the particular power of the voice as a means of self-expression and as a therapeutic tool. In the early 1990’s I began to take regular singing lessons and later explored my voice more deeply and freely on a year’s course with Chloe Goodchild. In the words of her 1996 course literature:

True singing opens up immensities inside you, way beyond the rational mind. It arises out of an intuitive listening, listening with an unconditional regard to the vibration of the voice inside you.

The voice is the most intimate and direct form of personal expression and for many of us the prospect of singing is frightening. Although the physical mechanism is more or less identical, no two voices are alike, because no two people “sound” the same note. This is both a fact and a wonderful mystery. When I play an instrument I am expressing myself through its particular timbre and pitch, but when I sing I AM the instrument and so I cannot hide. Physically, my body needs to be in balance and alignment so that I can produce the truest sound. Emotionally, if I am unstable or vulnerable this can be heard in my voice, affecting those who may be listening. But when I sing freely from the core of my being I meet my true self and those parts of me that I may still need to love, to forgive, or to be proud of. I have to learn how to connect with my bodily structure so as to be anchored safely, whilst trusting enough to free my voice and explore new places, which I can then communicate to others. I also learn to connect again with the energy flowing through that invisible aerial and to allow it to sing through me. Thus:

 … the gates of our souls are opened wide,
daring us to walk through into the garden
and to know that we are home.

What is it?
This emptiness we dread to find,
which is our deepest belonging?
Knowing as if anew,
that voice so far within.
Remembering,
as whispering reaches into silence, 
that it too needs to belong.[2] 

In our ‘civilised’ western world we are conditioned to understand and take control of situations with our minds. But the work that I am involved with reaches out further than this. We must be prepared to look underneath the obvious meanings of words and their associations and find the place where the non-verbal or pre-verbal state is all-important.

The power of the mind to correct physiologic imbalances is no longer the revolutionary idea it was once considered to be, but the use of sound and music to harness that power is only now being explored.[3]

It has become customary in many areas of our society to separate out the different aspects of our lives. Nowhere is this more prevalent than in orthodox medicine, where the part of a person that is diseased or malfunctioning is so often treated without reference to the rest of the body, let alone the psyche, of the patient. Emphasis is put on what is wrong rather than asking the question “What learning is there here that might help towards healing?”  But many practitioners today also know that true, long-lasting change cannot be effected unless the wider picture is taken into consideration. We must be ready to journey beyond individ-ual mind, body or soul to a greater integration of the whole personality.

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It was this understanding, coupled with a realisation that through the informed use of touch I could also offer another dimension to clients, that next brought me to the teachings of Aminah Raheem and her work in Process Acupressure. Here two important disciplines together create a new and potent whole; touch through acupressure is combined with Process Oriented Psychology  (the pioneering work of Arnold Mindell)

The aim of Transpersonal Integration is to facilitate a true psycho-spiritual transformation in which the client can recover the meaning and purpose of his own soul and integrate it with the personality structure. … The return to soul is an extra-ordinary journey that involves nothing less than the whole person’s commitment to his full development.[4]    

It has been proved that the body itself stores memories of incidents, trauma etc. By releasing blocked energy in the soft tissue through stimulating specific acupressure points we can also release the particular memory of the incident or events that may have caused this block to occur. The client then has the opportunity to understand and process what has happened.

Discover the process, amplify its channel, and a symptom can turn into a medicine. Process work saves me from judgements. If I think in terms of process, I cannot think in terms of good or bad, sick and healthy, past or future.[5]

Mindell uses the Jungian term ‘Dreambody’. Other practitioners talk of altered or trance states. Whatever the terminology, I find it to be true in all three areas of my work that if we can suspend the pressured, everyday thinking mind and  our preoccupation with linear time, we can enter a place where it is possible to perceive our lives differently, even for a split second.

And that is where healing comes in. In his normal state a client has this pain or that sense of failure; this buried childhood grief or that desperate depression. But in another state he may not have it. In other words, being in a state where he doesn’t have it, and experiencing being without it, acts as a fulcrum. His body, mind & spirit can reorganize around that experience of being without it.

It is exactly what has been taught by meditators for thousands of years; it is when the mind gives up that we see other realms of being, other realities.[6]

Just as Arnold Mindell talks of different channels so I work with different tools to explore these channels, depending on the need of any one client. Often they will compliment one another. I may approach a specific problem through touch, but the underlying issue that emerges can then best be addressed through music and non-verbal work; another client may wish to use her voice but can benefit first by clearing energy that is blocked physically. I therefore find it increasingly useful to be able to move from one discipline to another as appropriate.

But I also know that all three methods of working have many things in common, a truth that I find both fascinating and exciting. Whether I am meeting someone through musical interaction or holding them silently on the physical plane, I believe that my perception of their being is ultimately the same. In all three disciplines I endeavour to listen to a person’s inner truth and seek to enable him to find a renewed connection and self-empowerment, so that he can act on this understanding and live it in his everyday life. 

Dr Mitchell Gaynor, an oncologist in New York, uses accepted scientific methods alongside music and meditation, following his personal vision of  the wholistic approach. He writes as follows:

What so many of my patients have in common is not the specifics of their disease, but rather their inability to hear their personal life song. It’s as if the negative messages they’ve received & the traumas they’ve experienced since childhood have caused them to become tone-deaf to the true and unencumbered voice of their own souls.[7]    

When we are out of alignment with ourselves, we usually need to remember, literally to re-member, who we are. This can mean rediscov-ering what it means to love, ourselves first and then others. We may have lost all self-esteem or need to let go of patterns and expectations that we have lived with for many years. As our process unfolds we find that we are gradually taking responsibility for ourselves in a new way. We know that everything in the universe is in a constant state of vibration, including our own bodies. I believe that each one of us has our own vibration and that when we are healthy we resonate as harmonious beings. It is therefore not surprising that sound has been proved to have such a profound influence on the human body, mind and spirit.

A crucial factor in all three of the modalities that I have described is that they  require me to listen and of all the skills I can offer as a therapist, active listening is perhaps the most powerful. I do not have answers as to how another person may or may not wish to change, but by listening I give validation to her journey. I listen for the inner sound of my client, I listen to her as she connects to this energy and learns to be-friend and accept it and I listen with her as she reclaims her true self and dares to ‘walk tall’ again, whether that be in the direction of life or death.

And finally I know that none of the above is possible unless I am also listening to myself, to the intuitive information that I receive through my own ‘invisible ærial’.

Thus I find that I am as much on my own journey of healing, personal and spiritual growth as I am involved in travelling alongside other people. I am convinced that none of us can offer anything to others that we have not first understood in our own lives and I would like to end as I began by quoting the same boy, now a young man:

First you must have faith in yourself. Then you can love yourself. We have to BE Love before we can love other people.”