Hi Yall. I’m Melanie and I wanted to share why and how I started using Music and Nature to help me on my healing journey. Music has the ability to pierce through past hurt and pain that needs to be healed, especially when words are too much to express. Nature is the experience that was used for grounding and remaining present. Music and Nature are powerful medicines passed down from our ancestors. Today I’ll share a story of how I used the Jr. Djembe West African Hand Drum and Nature to help me move intense emotions tied to a past adverse life experience.
There was this one day, I felt compelled to take the Jr. Djembe, a chair, headphones and went to the yard with the chair facing the tress. I took my shoes off and placed my bare feet in the grass. Placed my headphones on which was helping me connect with the instrument, I just recently acquired it and was new to exploring my musical side. I then put on the Shamanic Drumming and Chanting playlist I was listening to often for grounding and connecting with the instrument. Often feeling a great sense of peace a calm over me when I would have this music on while drumming. This day was different though, I had no idea what I was going to experience today.
You see there was this image that kept coming to me from past experience that I was not interested in still having impact on me the way it was but talking about it only made me feel it more. Yall the emotions were so intense, most of the time I wanted to not experience them but I could feel the heaviness weigh on me and I knew I wanted to feel free from it. Being a therapist, I knew the emotions connected with this experience were stuck in my body and needed a safe way to move. The Djembe was teaching to begin to trust in myself and my intuition again. Additionally, when I am in nature, especially with my feet in the grass the safety inside my body increases. So today, when that image came through, as I was connecting with Nature and the Musical medicine of the Djembe, I trusted. As I was drumming, with the headphones on and my feet in the grass I allowed the image to come through, leading me immediately to tears and feeling intense energy surge through my body. I was shaking as I was drumming. The rhythm increased in intensity and loudness, my fingers dancing with the energy of the emotions coming through. Wow, the energy was bi in my body! The experience tried to scare me, making me feel like I was there again. Breathing with the wind, looking at the tress I was facing while feeling my feet in the grass, I felt safe to continue. I was drumming so hard and fast, almost matching the energy connected with this experience. I appreciate what the drum was willing to accept that day 😊 I can recall a moment when I had total awareness of my experience; feeling the energy of the tears and the past come through moving with the rhythm my hands were producing on the drum! Then the tears softened, I was able to breath more stable and the rhythm softened. It was cleared. I felt exhausted yet lighter and full of energy. Now the image can come though and just pass by with me having no emotional connection to it any longer.
I know when past experiences come through it can be scary and huge, so much so, the idea of moving it almost feels impossible. Music and Nature can soften anything from the past you need softened. I share this experience to help you identify other methods you can add to your healing tool box. In my experience Music and Nature truly has the ability to heal that which feels impossible, this is accessible to everyone! I encourage you to explore how you can include Music and Nature into you healing journey.
You got this!!!!
Melanie