Imagine you are a harp and all of your thoughts, experiences, feelings, ideas, fears, concerns, joys, everything is represented as a different string… I know… that’s one big harp!

Now imagine that something really painful or scary happened to you, or maybe it was something really exciting and overwhelming. Picture that experience as one of the strings on the harp. Because it’s something that either scared or overwhelmed you, you don’t like to play that string any more. In fact, you’d like to take that string off the harp and forget about it forever. However, that’s not how this harp works and you have to keep the string.

You go along for days, months, maybe even years not playing that string, trying to avoid remembering that really scary or overwhelming thing that happened. Then one day you accidentally pluck that string and all of those memories from that time come flooding back into your mind. What do you do with all of those feelings, emotions, pictures and memories in your head? You can write, draw, paint, dance, play music, sing, cook, laugh, any type of creative expression or action will help move those memories and feelings from your mind and body.

Now, here’s the cool part: I believe that every type of creative expression is a vibrational highway and how we’re feeling or thinking on the inside while we’re creating travels on that vibrational highway to the outside world. Sometimes our expressions are just for ourselves, and sometimes they are for others. I believe when we are honest with what we are feeling on the inside, our expressions can help others who are feeling the same way.

I will never forget when a local hospice called me to play harp for a young woman in a nursing home. This woman had listened to my CDs for months and the nurses wanted to surprise her with live music. I sat at her bedside and played the first chord. The waves of love flowing through this musical highway gently surrounded her and made their way into her heart. Something broke open and all of her pent up fears, anxiety, and unspoken feelings rushed to the surface. Her overwhelming cries of release were comforted by two nurses who climbed in bed and held her as if she were a child. I continued to play until she eventually fell asleep.

Using music to help others relax and heal is something I’ve grown into over the years as my relationship with music transformed from ‘performing for the outside’ to ‘expressing from the inside.’ I’ll be honest, it took a while to release my need for other people’s approval but it became easier as my self-love grew from within.

Loving and accepting all of my harp strings, all of my experiences, thoughts, feelings, fears, joys, everything, as part of the wholeness of who I am, was the key that opened my heart to the music within my soul that I now express and share with the world.