Sound~Yoga: Connecting to Your Body's Wisdom with Your Authentic Voice

Sound~Yoga combines asana (movement), pranayama (breathwork), toning, chant and meditative silence to relax the body, cleanse the mind, balance emotions and open the heart

As a Kripalu Yoga instructor, my primary intention is to create an opportunity for each person to connect with the wisdom of his or her own body. When we connect with that wisdom we are able to replace a sense of fear about our bodies with a sense of love and compassion for our bodies. This shift creates an openness of heart and mind that can lead to deep healing and transformation.

Two years ago, I found myself “toning” during my own personal yoga practice and realized that vocalizing could enhance and deepen the transformative experience of Kripalu Yoga. I began an intentional practice of toning and chant and soon experienced a profound sense of emotional release, physical relaxation and creative inspiration. I incorporate sound in my weekly yoga classes and offer others the opportunity to experience this healing practice through the Sound~Yoga workshop and private Sound~Yoga sessions.

We live our lives enveloped by sound. Right now, as you read this article, your mind is processing many different environmental sounds. Your body resonates with the vibrations of each and every sound wave. This resonance has a powerful physical, mental and spiritual effect.

Sound~Yoga offers an opportunity to understand how we receive and process external sounds. We learn how to respond to rather than react against the vibrational forces of sound upon your body. We learn to stop “blocking” sound (to stop using sound as a barrier) by gently focusing our awareness on the breath and the body. This openness to the subtle vibrational energy of sound has a profound effect on our ability to open our minds and attune ourselves to the subtlety of our lives.

We also create and transmit sound with our bodies. These sounds reflect our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual lives. Most of the time, we use our voices habitually, with little or no thought to our words or to our tone of voice. We use our voice as a tool to convey information or to make our conscious and unconscious needs and wants known. Have you ever had a physical response (positive or negative) to the tone of someone’s voice? Tone is the energetic quality of your voice.mSound~Yoga provides an opportunity to use self-generated sound vibrations to experience a deeper awareness of your authentic voice. Once this energetic connection to your voice has been activated, self-expression and communication are transformed. This vocal awareness leads to an opening of the heart and has a powerful beneficial impact on interpersonal relationships.

Sound~Yoga also connects us with the foundation of all sound: breath and silence. For many of us, meditation (connecting with breath and physical silence) is challenging. We may find deep breathing and meditative silence to be frightening. In order to discover the vital, nourishing energy of breath and silence, we must develop faith in, and rely upon, our own deepest experience. We must stop looking for external approval. We explore this habit of looking for external approval with the practice of Sound~Yoga. When we were children, we needed confirmation and affirmation. If we didn’t receive it, we built walls of protection, creating “performance” voices to please others. We hid our authentic voices behind these protective walls, blocking off what may have seemed undesirable to others. This wall of protection is also a wall of separation, a barrier to expressing ourselves authentically.

The combination of the movement and breathwork of yoga with toning (the practice of voicing elongated vowel sounds) has many positive benefits. On a physical level, toning releases stress and tension, inviting deep relaxation. On an emotional level, toning provides an opportunity to replace fear and pain with a felt sense of spacious peace and unconditional love. On a soul level, the practice clears internal obstacles and energetic blocks, facilitating a sense of authentic spiritual connection and purpose.

“Yoga” means “yoke” or “union.” Through Sound~Yoga we seek to dismantle the inner walls of protection and separation and, in doing so, unite body, mind and spirit more deeply and completely. Through this union, each person’s unique voice and energy is invited to shine forth with love and compassion.

This article first appeared in Healing Springs Journal. For more information on this publication, please link to: http://www.healingspringsjournal.com/.