Wisdom Voice - Session Stories

Session Stories

Wisdom Voice for Couples

Working with a husband and wife, I sensed darkness in the chest of the woman. However, they both wanted me to work with the husband. This man found it difficult to be with feelings, both his and those of his wife. He became distant when he felt strong emotion. His wife felt an urgent need for him to be present with her. The feeling states

that came up for the wife were dark spaces of melancholy, grief, pain and sadness. She asked the husband to practice comforting her. She taught him and he learned how to be present with strong emotion.

How was this done? I had the husband make sounds that I thought might comfort her. He would then try the sounds out with her as she expressed her feelings. She would give him feedback. It was love in action-a partner who truly wanted to be there for his wife, but had never known how. As he got more comfortable with his voice, she fine-tuned what the sounds of comfort, nurturance and nourishment were for her. They practiced together. When I last worked with them, he had found a way to comfort her according to her sensitivity and needs.

There was a sense of urgency that I felt in working with this couple. I do not know if, when we were working together, this woman was aware that she was dying of lung cancer. Within months she died. Her husband was with her lovingly throughout the entire process, supporting her and comforting her in the way she had taught him.

I have consistently witnessed the human desire to be soothed and nourished. It is a great longing in our souls to be nurtured. Through the creative process of WISDOM VOICE, we learn to recognize this need and to develop the ability to soothe ourselves with our own voices.

Wisdom Voice for Artistic Grounding

Another example of the work was with Maggie, an English professor, a writer, and a lover of the arts. She supported other creative people in the town where she lived. However, everyone who knew her experienced her as “not grounded”. Maggie was stuck in her head and because of that she was unable to bring her own work into the world. With Maggie I introduced sounds that brought her deep into her body, particularly into her belly. I had her place her hands on her body and feel where there was a vibration, a tingling, a resonance. I had her shift her very light, quick sounds to longer drawn-out sounds. When she became familiar with these sounds, I asked her to create a “Sound Altar” using these new sounds.

A “Sound Altar” is a way of honoring what is going on a person’s body and spirit. It provides a way to practice staying with an internal experience by holding a sound for a while.

Maggie later wrote to me saying that she had envisioned a Treble Clef (a musical notation) while we were working together. She noticed that later it changed position so that it became a Figure 8, and then became a gate through which she experienced herself passing. This gate opened Maggie to her next task in life which was to continue

working with her body through other modalities.

By accepting what is present, a space may open to create something beautiful-a poem, a song, a story, a painting. This is the alchemical process of turning lead into gold, pain and darkness into something creative and beautiful.

Wisdom Voice for Healing

I was working with a young man from a war torn country where nearly every family had lost an uncle, a father, grandfather or son due to war. A cloud of hopelessness was pervasive in this culture and was reflected in this young man. Trauma travels down through generations. People often have no idea that they have absorbed the past trauma of their family or their culture.

This young man, Joe, wanted to express the state of hope or hopefulness. However, when he did so, he sensed that something was off. He asked me to listen to his sound for hope. When I heard it, I was struck by the mismatch between the word, hope, and his sound for it. I asked him to contrast this sound by making his sound for hopelessness.

When Joe did this, I watched as his face expressed shock and confusion as he realized his sound for hopelessness was the same as his sound for hope. “What should I do?” Joe asked me. I answered by suggesting that he spend a little time daily making and listening to the sound of hopelessness that was so pervasive for him. Listening, giving something within us a space to be heard and felt, can free up healing energy.

It takes a tremendous amount of effort to push something back, down, or away. It can be freeing to give it just a little daily attention to be seen and heard. Joe’s task was to be with the sound for a few minutes each day. This is a process I have witnessed numerous times with many different people who, like Joe, are stuck. Over time as awareness grows, we can build a spectrum of sound. This introduces and teaches us new ways of living in our bodies via the Wisdom Voice that is available to every one of us.

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