hearing the music

A musician friend of mine is trying to get into a career of performing, but when he's singing, he has a hard time carrying a tune. I didn't know that this was even possible until my brother, who is a composer, informed me that many highly talented people in music can't automatically get their vocal chords to match what they are hearing. And, to my surprise, I have learned that the ability to carry a tune is something that can be learned.

I was on the internet the other day googling around to see what kinds of approaches people use to learn this skill and caught one snippet of information that stuck with me. It had to do with what you experience in your body when the tone you are singing is not matching the tone you are hearing. The writer described it as a kind of dissonant pulsing or thumping sensation. When you feel that sensation, it means that what you are offering is not a match to what you are hearing.

Lately I have been viewing any kind of negative emotion—from minor feelings of irritation to major sensations of unease—in a similar way. It's become more and more obvious to me that there are always two points of view occurring simultaneously in the human experience. There is the unconditionally loving, absolutely-fine-with-everything, calm, joyous serenity of the Inner Self (or whatever you wish to call it) and the hectic, threatened, judging mind of the human (or the ego, if you wish to call it that).

Negative emotion arises whenever the dominant vibration we are offering is not matching the dominant vibration the Inner Self is offering. In other words, when there is a mismatch between the way the Inner Self sees a situation and the way we are interpreting it, there is a dissonant pulsing sensation that we then interpret as jealousy, or envy, or anger, or resentment, or indignation or lack of some kind. The dissonance occurs before we assign the story of why or how things are "not right" to the sensation of vibrational clash.

So negative emotion, if you can catch it before you become too entrenched in the story you have given it, is actually nothing more than a clue. It's as though we are all tone deaf and are learning, first of all, to hear the clear tone being offered by the Inner Self, and second of all to align ourselves with it.

When we can align ourselves with it, there is only joy—no pain, no suffering, no resistance. We all align ourselves with our Inner Self many times a day for moments. Maybe when you first step outside in the morning and it's a gorgeous spring day and you take that first deep breath of fresh, cool air. Moments of thought-free delight are all moments of alignment.

This doesn't mean that if you aren't blissful all the time there is anything wrong. There is absolutely nothing to be gained by not enjoying the contrast of the two tones. But if you are in pain, or if you are reveling in complaint, or if you hare experiencing a feeling you don't enjoy, you can listen for the tone your Inner Self is offering. It does not have a problem with what's happening right here, right now. It can see the whole picture and knows that all is very, very well.

However, in order to align with the way the Inner Self is seeing the situation, you have to relinquish your own judgment about the current manifestation. It's a "despite the way things may seem to me, the truth is that..." kind of a thing. The current manifestation is very solid, very flashy, full of sensation. But if you continue to focus on it in a reactive way that generates negative emotion (the clue) it cannot change.

Comments

[Aileen Cheatham]

My mother-in-law's Master's thesis was about proving that everyone can be taught to sing. Interesting. I didn't know about the "dissonant pulsing or thumping sensation," that singing out of tune causes, but I feel something like that when I resist what is. It's a great alert mechanism that shows up even before I'm aware of the thought that I'm believing which opposes reality. The feeling also shows up when my motives are to get something.

[marian]

Hi Aileen... so good to hear from you! What you say about feeling the dissonance when your motive is to get something is wonderful. Of course! Because when we want to get something we feel there is something lacking and scarcity thinking always opposes reality. Thanks for that! I always appreciate another little reminder...