IMI Blog

The Healing Power of Music

Our life’s work centers around the workshops and training we offer on Guided Imagery and Music, meditation, expressive arts, and mind-body approaches. We are continually inspired by the deeper relationship with music that our trainees experience, and the connections they make about the power of music to impact us emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

For more information on this training, The Bonny Method of Guided Imagery and Music: Level I Integrative Therapies, and also on how to use music to enhance your life, or the lives of those you work with, visit our website at www.integrativemusicinstitute.com And follow us on facebook!

The community discussion for this blog…. Tell us about your relationship with music.

Gratitude Meditation

A meditation practice that is exceptional in it’s beauty and simplicity is Gratitude meditation.

In his book, A Year to Live, Stephen Levine writes “Gratitude is the state of mind of thankfulness. As it is cultivated, we experience an increase in our sympathetic joy, our happiness at another’s happiness…. we begin to feel a growing sense of gratitude for whatever happiness great or small that comes to those around us.”

Practicing gratitude increases our appreciation for life. It brings balance and kindness to ourselves. Try it. In a journal, write down three things you are grateful for every day. You will likely find that your sense of well being is heightened. And give at least one gratitude each day to a coworker, family member, or friend. You may notice your heart feeling warmer and lighter.

Body Awareness

So many people live in their thoughts and not in their body! Body awareness is the bringing attention to our body as it is in this moment, to the sensations of coolness or warmth, or the sensation of alertness or fatigue. It is another way to bring mindfulness into our everyday life.

In his book, The New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes, “Body awareness is the shifting of your attention from the external form of your body or your thoughts about your body, to the feeling of aliveness inside it.” He also notes that this practice “strengthens the immune system and the body’s ability to heal itself.”

As we strive to do so much, so many people are out of tune with their body, and experience stress related illnesses. Meditation that focuses on body awareness is something that we can do for ourselves that doesn’t require a gym membership or special workout clothes! We can also practice body awareness when we are in motion as well as sitting in stillness, or experience moving the body in exercise or dance, and feel the sensation of the body moving freely. We all could use more of feeling that sense of joy and freedom in our bodies, right!?

Getting Unstuck

Jon Kabat-Zinn is one of our favorite authors on the subject of Mindfulness Meditation. In his book, Wherever You Go, There You Are (is that a great title or what?!), he states, “Mindfulness is an ancient Buddhist practice which has profound relevance for our present day lives…it has everything to do with waking up and living in harmony with one’s self and with the world…it has to do with examining who we are, questioning our view of the world and our place in it, and cultivating some appreciation for the fullness of each moment we are alive. Most of all it has to do with being in touch.”

He goes on to say, “Mindfulness provides a simple but powerful route for getting ourselves unstuck, back in touch with our wisdom, and vitality. It is way to take charge of the direction and quality of our own lives, including our relationships within the family, our relationship to work, and to the larger world and planet and most fundamentally our relationship with ourselves as a person. The key to this path is an appreciation for the present moment and the cultivation of an intimate relationship with it through a continual attending to it with care and discernment. It is the direct opposite of taking life for granted.”

What do you do to get unstuck?

Mandalas are sacred circles

Mandala is a Sanskrit word that means circle, or sacred circle. Mandalas are all around us, in labyrinths, sacred sites, in the petals of a flower, the growth rings in a tree, the web of a spider, raindrops falling into a lake, the face of a watch, spiritual symbols like yin and yang, the Buddhist wheel of dharma, and the Native American medicine wheel.

Carl Jung, was particularly intrigued with mandalas, he believed that mandalas arising in dreams or drawn in waking life were unconscious attempts to heal one’s inner self. He believed that all images, even frightening ones, come in the service of wholeness.

Bailey Cunningham in her book, Mandala, Journey to the Center, writes, “Mandala making can serve as an activity for meditation and relaxation, or if we dare to explore the deeper aspects of our psyche, it becomes a tool for transformation.”

In our workshops and trainings we teach our students how to use mandalas as a tool for self-discovery, and how to create mandala journals for themselves and others. We both also use the MARI Card Test, an assessment tool that is based on mandalas and colors to identify unconscious issues related to one’s career, relationships, health, spirituality, and creativity. To learn more about mandalas, or to register for a workshop that includes training in mandalas, please visit our website.

Dwelling in Gratitude

Gratitude is something that we are very attuned to. We are so very grateful for the many blessings we have received. One of the nice things about Gratitude meditation is that it can be practiced very simply at any time.

The poet John O’Donohue in his book To Bless the Space Between Us, writes “It would be infinitely lonely to live in a world without blessing. The word blessing evokes a sense of warmth and protection, it suggests that no life is alone or unreachable. Each life is clothed in a raiment of spirit that secretly links it to everything else. Though suffering and chaos befall us, they can never quench that inner light of providence.” And he goes on to illuminate the gift that a blessing can be, the doors it can open, the healing and transfiguration it can bring.

Who or what are you most grateful for?

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