Music Therapy (Week Ten)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYVxHkpiUaA&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%

    Above is a link to the Soundbath meditation video that I am referencing throughout this post. This week’s topic of music therapy was one I have been really looking forward to. Music has played a major role in my life since childhood(my grandparents were music teachers.) In high school, I was in the marching band, where music consumed my every waking moment(and the asleep ones too). Playing the flute always came easy to me. Due to that, it never really took much thought on my part. Whenever I played I always felt like I left Earth and did not land back on my feet until the music stopped, I will never be able to describe what was going on in between, I just remember starting, floating, and then the music ends. The first reading for this week describes this phenomenon as a trance. More specifically the text states: "Music during trancing provides a vehicle by which trancing individuals ender altered states of consciousness, where 'imagination becomes experience' and 'one is moved from the mundane to the supra-normal: another realm, another time, with other kinds of knowing (Beckers 2004, 57)” 

    Surprisingly the feeling of being in a trance did not occur when listening to the soundbath. Instead, I felt at home, safe, and at peace. Which was particularly surprising as I was having a panic attack just minutes before watching the video. The second reading for this week described these feelings as a part of the process of doing Nada yoga. "Nada yoga is the yoga of listening. It is a way to turn inward on a journey that may eventually lead you to enlightenment, but at the very least, nada yoga will fill your daily life with comfort, contentment, and what some call bliss. In nada yoga sound is more than what is heard through our ears. It is an internal sound that is not received by our external organs. By focusing our mind on this internal sound we re-unite our essential self with the eternal and the infinite. in this reunion, we find bliss in both the body and the mind."(Nada Yoga Reading). Nada yoga is something I am planning to start putting into my everyday life, as even after just trying it once, I can already feel the benefits. I am particularly curious about how someone would embrace this practice as a therapist for your clients, as I could see this being beneficial to so many different people, as both readings suggest as well. For fun, I am including a picture of me from my marching band days! Plus my boyfriend is in it so some extra happiness for me! I had a bunch of saving issues and ended up having to rewrite this four times before it finally worked, so I apologize if it is a bit short, it is still having formatting issues but I am sort of giving up on it at this point.