As a child at school I was told I could not sing and because of this I couldn't join the choir...I loved singing and found this saddened me hugely, until just recently I could bring that thought to mind and feel the sadness within. I could not get on with the recorder, nor reading music, all tuition in my music lesson was basically too fast for me to be able to grasp what was needed before moving on, hence, I got behind and decided to avoid any participation in my music lesson, I guess I just believed I couldn't do it anyway....I still have the school report with the comments of 'Helen works very hard at entertaining the class' and recently I realised this was because I'd actually stopped listening not wanting to hear anymore that I was not any good.

I've been on an incredible journey for 5 years totally transforming my life and have amazing health and wellbeing and part of this transformation is because of sound. Sound is incredibly healing and transformational when it is the right sound, rich in harmonics which resonates with our very being.

I've dealt with my own negativity and mind-set for a few years now and then moved onto limiting beliefs of which using my voice was one of them, firstly I joined a local choir which I love and can sing most of the songs quite well and then I started a course of sound therapy using the voice, now that's quite a scary one, but something I was compelled to do and through this course I have found my true voice and the empowerment that comes with that and have learnt we all have a great voice, our own true sound which is not about being able to sing along perfectly with every song but our own unique sound from within which gets distorted by life's experiences.

An interesting comment from my daughter a few months before I started the course had stuck in my mind, she said to me 'this is how you sound' and mimicked me and then said 'are you actually listening to the music' and I said 'of course I am', but the reading involved with my course work revealed, in actual fact many of us close down our hearing to certain situations, such as hearing negativity all the time or being constantly shouted at, a child will just stop listening and it was then that it occurred to me, my daughter was right, I was not really listening and have now realised it was only the words I was taking in and not hearing the detail of the music at all. Since then music I've listened too many times before now sounds completely different to me, I'm hearing so much detail in the music with various instrumental sounds I'd not heard before. I'm pleased to say any limiting beliefs I had with regards to my voice have gone, which is amazing, I've challenged those beliefs, acknowledge they don't apply, thankful for any gift they provided me with and then released that belief. I have moved forward stronger than I was before and now find myself, listening intently to the music like a child with a new toy.

The reading for my course is fascinating as I’m discovering how our hearing affects our health in all manner of ways including curvature of the spine which can be cause for terrible back pain, discovered by a wonderful Doctor called Alfred Tomatis who has dedicated his life working with sound and changing people’s lives with his method to regain correct listening again, here is an extract from his website 'Someone may hear well but listen poorly, the sound message is correctly heard but poorly analyzed in an emotional framework. The brain protects itself by constructing barriers that can result in the development of various disorders. We say that « listening is disrupted »' his findings and means of correcting this hearing problem by retraining the ear is quite incredible, further information is available by visiting www.tomatis.com where you'll find details of his listening programs.

So the next time you listen to a piece of music identify all the instruments and decide if you really are listening or not....