The Healing Power of the Human Voice

Greetings.

In my previous blog, I shared a lecture that I had given at Britten Memorial Church recently on Creating Our Own Reality. It occurred to me that I had never shared this lecture from Nov. 2009, also offered at Britten Memorial Church, on The Healing Power of the Human Voice. I am going to take this opportunity to share it with you now.

My own journey of healing through the voice continues as I continue my "Speech Level Singing" (see link to the Left) adventure. As my vocal range increases, I am seeing a real parallel in my ability to not only embrace, but to also continue developing my own inner male and female energies. In the past, there have been aspects of my feminine (or YIN) energy that I wasn't always too comfortable with, just as there were aspects of that more assertive, masculine (YANG) energy that I also held back from. I tended to stay somewhere in the middle -- neither too expressively feminine and for sure not too assertively masculine!! But my blossoming creative spirit just won't allow me to "hang out" in the middle any more.

In some recent vocal exercises, I have been exploring the very depths of my deep chest (YANG) voice and drawing out those long hidden sounds and energies. That feeling of deep vibration and the "reaching in and drawing out" of my masculine, or YANG voice and energy is wonderful and freeing. Being able to explore this "male" side of myself vocally is very exciting and liberating. At the same time, as my upper, head voice (YIN) range expands to reach ever higher, there is an equally exciting feeling of lightness and joy and power in that high "feminine" voice and energy that I have also been exploring and developing.

Pretty incredible how this practice of vocal exercises is also freeing both my male and female energies and freeing me to become more of who I am as a whole integrated human being.

Since I had promised to start showing more of my drawings of my Alien Friends, this one of the CELESTIAL COUPLE feels like a nice balance of male/female energies.

Here's to VOCAL POWER!

The Healing Power of the Human Voice

(Lecture given at Britten Memorial Church Service, Nov. 8, 2009)

By Barbara Sauvé

The topic I want to explore tonight is the Healing Power of Our Own Voices. The voice is one of our greatest gifts and its power to heal is quite amazing. And yet that power of the voice to heal most often goes unrecognized and unacknowledged and a great healing resource is lost. If we have pain or we feel anxious or depressed, how often do we think of using the vibration of the voice to relieve and heal whatever is happening inside of us? And yet that vibration has great potential to heal and transform.

The Throat Chakra, the energy centre that connects with the Voice is known as Vishuddha (Sanskrit) and the translation for Vishuddha is, literally, PURIFICATION. This energy centre purifies and harmonizes our energy.

Just think about what happens right here at Britten Memorial Church at a typical evening service. First we sing. And doesn’t that simple act of raising our voices together in song change our energy. I’m sure on an individual level each one of us feels better after singing one of these beautiful songs. Singing these “wonderful words of life” (as the song says) can help to clear out our anxieties and transform our negative thoughts. Just the simple act of singing these songs really can purify our energy.

And when we sing together, as we do here, we unite our individual energies and that brings us into harmony as a community. All of our voices merge together to become ONE VOICE. Imagine the power in that unified voice. Our singing also raises the vibration. The singing voice has a higher vibration than the speaking voice. A prayer that is spoken does have a certain power, but a prayer that is sung has even more power because of that increased vibration. So if you want to make sure your prayers are heard, try singing them!! And when we raise the vibration, we open the door for spirit to enter more fully. And the more fully we allow spirit in to touch us and to give us messages, the more potential there is for healing.

After we sing we have our meditation. We sit back and relax as words of healing and inspiration are channeled through the human voice. Then we all get up and connect with each other by saying hello. It is through our voices that we can meet and connect with each other.
Then we have a variety of lecturers who offer new ideas and new perspectives. They offer us words of comfort, encouragement and enlightenment and all of that comes through the human voice.

And then our wonderful mediums come forward and offer us comfort and healing and wisdom from spirit – and all of this is channeled through the human voice.

So we are actually tapping into the healing power of the voice every time we speak from our hearts, every time we sing beautiful words and every time we take in words of love and comfort from others.

**Note; The keyword here is Heart. When we speak or sing or chant from our Hearts, we energize our vital energy centers. When we use the voice for idle gossip or negativity, we deplete this vital energy.

The Throat Chakra is also the Creative Centre. It is through this centre that the Soul can express itself through our Creative endeavors. As we energize this centre through the right use of our voice, we awaken the Creative Spirit within us.

And think about all of the other natural sounds that our voices make – the sounds of emotions – laughing, crying, groaning, moaning, wailing, screaming, yawning, coughing, humming, and even sneezing. All of these sounds are intended, by nature, to be purifiers, to release feelings.
The word EMOTION means to move out from, to emote. All of these sounds are our birthright. We aren’t meant to hold emotion inside where it can accumulate and turn into tension or disease. Remember, this is the centre of Purification.

Children who haven’t been repressed will naturally and freely express their emotions. Unfortunately in this culture most children learn at an early age to hold back expressions of emotion. They learn to hold back their natural vocal exuberance. Certainly in “my day” as a child there was that old awful saying that “Children should be seen and not heard.” I know in my early training both at home and at school I learned to be very quiet so as not to make the adults angry. And a really awful school memory I have (that I suspect has happened to many us) was being told that I wan not allowed to sing in the choir because I didn’t have a good singing voice. To cut anybody off from singing, at any age, is a horrible thing to do. Singing is a totally natural form of expression. Most other cultures sing and chant and use their voices in many healing ways. Those cultures have no judgment about what a voice “should or shouldn’t” sound like. They just raise their voices in celebration, in grief, in joy, in pain, in pleasure.

When I was a young, and of course -- “quiet”, nursing student, (from a tiny, quiet, sleepy town) I remember my days in the maternity ward. The hospital I trained in was in downtown Toronto so there were women from diverse cultures. I remember well how “quietly” most of the Canadian women gave birth, despite their pain and discomfort. And I remember feeling quite concerned and uneasy when I would hear women from other ethnic backgrounds screaming and groaning and making other sounds that were very appropriate in that situation. Now that I think back, and I don’t know if this has been studied or not, but I’ll bet that the women who screamed and groaned and sounded their pain had easier births and less lingering trauma to their bodies. Just imagine what happens if your body goes into a contraction, for whatever reason, and you hold back the natural urge to scream or moan. The added tension of holding the voice and therefore the emotion, , back will create a stronger contraction and more pain.

If you have ever watched a powerlifter lifting extremely heavy weights – they almost always scream as they push the weight up. It is the power of the voice that gives these athletes the strength to lift impossibly heavier weights. If the powerlifter just remained silent during the lift, he/she would not be able to lift nearly as much weight. And there is a good chance that, if that powerlifter tried to hoist the same weight while holding the voice in, he/she would likely rupture something! It is the power and the vibration of the voice moving through the body that gives us added strength while simultaneously freeing the body of trauma. Allowing the voice to move freely through the body is actually a protective measure for the body.

The photo is Bev Francis, an amazing Australian powerlifter, turned bodybuilder. Her story is an inspiring one -- pure courage and power and determination. I had the incredible good fortune to train with her back in 1988. She is a remarkable and lovely woman. For sure she wouldn't be lifting those kinds of weights without the help of her voice.

As far as our cultural judgments as to what makes a “pretty” singing voice, I can tell you that we miss out on a lot of joyful energy and creative expression if we are shy to sing or make sound. And we miss out on the richness and beauty and power that comes through every human voice. I have a part time job doing activities in a retirement home and one of the things I do there is a sing a long. At first the folks there were really shy to sing and I’m sure most of them hadn’t sung for years, if ever. Gradually they came to trust me and began to sing. One of the most beautiful sounds for me was to begin hearing these 80 and 90 and in one case, 103, year old voices raised in song. It almost moved me to tears to hear these voices, finally finding some joy and freedom.

I would like to bring this to a close by sharing just a little of my own “healing through the voice” story. As you have probably gathered, I have had many issues and struggles around allowing my voice to be free and expressive. I could feel that a great deal of energy was trapped in my throat Chakra area. One day, just under a year ago, I reached a point in my life where I couldn’t stand to live with my voice trapped inside anymore. It is a miserable feeling. So I went searching for a Vocal Coach. I was really lucky to find a wonderful, patient voice teacher who teaches a particular step by step method of training and strengthening the vocal cords which ultimately does free the voice for speaking, singing, sounding, chanting, expressing.
As many of you know, I have had a lot of problems and challenges with my eyes over the past several years– because much of my energy was trapped in my Throat Chakra. The energy just couldn’t get beyond my trapped voice to support my eyes. When I began these vocal lessons, there was immediate improvement and clarity in my eyesight. I remember vividly, after the second or third lesson, I walked out of the vocal studio and initially felt a little disoriented because suddenly my eyesight was sharper and clearer than it had been for a very long time! I have no doubt that freeing my voice is healing my eyes (along with many other things!). Used properly, the Voice can create miracles!

I have given lectures here before about dance and movement. There is a saying “Dance as though nobody is watching.”
I would like to add,
“Sing and make sound as though nobody is listening!!”


Barbara