Using sound to stack the odds in your favor

Sound impacts how we feel. Think scary movies - the right music and sound effects heightens our sense of fear more than the picture on the screen. Don’t believe me? Try watching it on mute. Better yet, watch it with the Bee Gees playing in the background. Sound has vibrational frequency, and the higher the frequency, the lighter and more joyful you feel. The lower the frequency, the worse you’ll feel. This is why in our practices we often include different forms of mantra. People that chant mantra report feeling more expansive, clear, connected, and with a greater sense of possibility. They get the feeling that they are supported and that everything will be okay. It’s a great lens from which to see life since our behaviors are informed by the lens through which we see. 

Learn more about sound in the free 4 Pillars to Good Health mini-course. 

Sound can come in the form of music or the environment - birds, water, rain, the sound of wind blowing through the trees… or traffic, air conditioning, phones… each carrying different frequencies. You can generally sense the quality of sound by how they make you feel. 

Another sound is talk (words). They carry frequency that affects your vibe and can impact your thoughts. Gossip and judgment hurts. 

Then there’s “sound” that we don’t think of as sound that is constantly running when the screen is off, when the music isn’t playing, and when we’re alone: our thoughts. While these sound waves are different from the external ones, they are sounds nonetheless, and the most influential to your sense of well-being. In fact, the more hurtful your thoughts, the more vulnerable you are to the sounds outside of you. 

Stack the cards in favor of your success and well-being 

Notice your inner speak and how they’re making you feel. While your thoughts are not you, they directly impact your moment to moment experience and outcome of your life. Your head (ego) won’t necessarily inform you, but your body will, in real time. If you’re not feeling great, check your inner dialogue, the angle of your narrative. As outrageous and overrated the practice of affirmations feels for some of us crotchety folk, that’s why the attitude of gratitude, of hope and possibility is hailed as essential practices for transformation. Inspiration never speaks through a contractive, judgmental, comparative, limiting, “realistic” lens. It always speaks to the best part of you, your highest potential. You can train your mind to go there on repeat. Here are a few ways:

1. Use mantra - repeat them over and over again instead of repeating the self disparaging narratives. Get bored with, and stop tolerating, the latter and instead adopt mantra into your daily life. We not only use mantra every morning in the Sadhana Huddle, we then journal to bring our Soul’s message to the forefront. 
2. Walk away from gossip. Or be the influencer that you are and change the conversation. 
3. Your body is super intelligent. Check in with your body often and see how it feels. Check the quality of your thoughts. If they’re not serving you, shift your narrative. In what you might normally consider a bad outcome, you can either decide that you've failed (that’s one narrative) or that you've learned something invaluable, making you wiser and better equipped (another narrative). Feel both of those in your body and adopt the one that will move you forward.  

Sound comes in many forms, and while external sounds have the power to influence you, your elevated thoughts have the power to neutralize them. Repeating mantra - both yoga mantra and your shift in narrative - holds that power. Do your practice. Surround yourself with the right conversation.Train yourself to choose the narrative that allows you to unfold into your highest potential. 

Love, Savitree