What is Ruha Embodied Voice?

Did you know that you can learn to use your voice for holistic naturopathic healing?

Ruha Embodied Voice is a healing meditative practice which invites whole-person participation and conversation with the Divine, through reverent breathwork, resonant anatomical vocal toning, vital speaking of sacred phrases or prayers, and singing.

The Ruha Embodied Voice method brings together the ancient wisdom and modern science of sound healing to empower you to become a master of your most practical, accessible and underutilized healing tool. The quality and quantity of our breath, along with the intensity and integrity of our sounds and words are always informing all twelve of our human body systems, plus impacting our emotional, mental and spiritual states of being. When we learn to take command of our breath and voice, we can fully connect to and inform ourselves and our systems with messages of safety, regulation, health, and we can choose our mental/emotional/spiritual states of being by speaking the languages of gratitude, connection, and expansion.

Ruha Embodied Voice method includes four key elements and invitations; here is some information about the method and what to expect during an individual session: 

Reverent Breathing. 

Modern science is reporting incredible health benefits for mindful breathing – simply becoming aware of the physical sensation of breathing, while allowing your thoughts to come and go without attachment/judgement. Health benefits of practicing mindful breathing include managing stress by down-regulating fight or flight responses in the body, supporting overall better mental health related to depression and anxiety, as well as contributing to improving memory and concentration. (Mindfulness & Meditation - Harvard University) If you paused right now and practiced this simple technique: inhale through your nose for four seconds, exhale out of your mouth for six seconds…(now four more times), you could lower your felt sense of stress and anxiety, lower your cortisol levels and heart rate, and be better focused on your tasks, all while increasing your capacity for emotional regulation! 

An invitation to go deeper spiritually, into reverent breathing. In the Aramaic language (the language of Yeshua-Jesus), Ruha means breath, air, and Spirit. We are invited to begin with gratitude in a creation kind of breath, as if we are receiving our very first gasp and taste of the Divine breath of life. We are invited to stay in this awareness until we acknowledge breath as our only possession and feel at home being breathed by the Divine breathing breath of all. The intimacy and the expansion of Divine connection and embodiment begin here. 

Another juicy nugget: in olelo Hawaii, Ha means breath, life, and even the spiritual essence of life! The first sacred phrases we learn to breathe, tone, speak and sing during many Embodied Voice journeys are Ruha and Aloha.

How this is integrated in session: First, we will connect in conversation for a few minutes, and I will listen to your voice and pattern of breath as you either vent your top five or fill me in on what surfaced since our last session. I will choose a breathwork technique for us to practice together, guide us to the creation breath, and the technique will be written on your personalized Voice Vitamin take home meditation.  

Resonant vocal sounding. 

Vocal sounding/toning practice consists of focusing intention and attention on a place or system in the body, while making a relevant single-syllable sound to resonate that area. The vocal vibration serves two important functions: it provides a kind of diagnostic function via echolocation, providing a reflection of sound, complete with density, texture and size; it can move physical and energetic mass, similar to the very effective sound wave lithotripsy procedure which vibrates apart kidney stones to be passed.

Emotions can be described as a chemical event in the body which are held in various places and layers of the body, whether the associated memory can be narrated. The Embodied Voice perspective is that the emotion/chemical event which did not fully process to productive vocal expression is essentially a trapped sound, which can take form, and is an opportunity for emotional completion/resolution and healing. Modern science has been listening in on simple humming and reports back on the powerful stimulation of the vagus nerve to activate and access the nervous system for transitioning the body out of fight/flight/freeze/appease and dis-ease mode. 

With greater depth and breadth beyond the hum, Ruha Embodied Voice practice follows the sonic anatomy mapped out by the brilliant and loving trio Eileen McKusick, and Isaac and Thorald Koren, creators of Sing the Body Electric. They have mapped approximately four dozen sounds that resonate throughout areas and layers of the body, which become incredibly powerful diagnostic and healing tools, when we are willing to be present with, and give voice to the deep, authentic and vulnerable emotions. (About — Sing the Body Electric)

An invitation to go deeper spiritually into resonant vocal sounding. “Then God said, “Let there be light”” (Genesis 1:3). I once had a beautiful meditation and subsequent breakthrough, considering this incredible creation scene in Genesis: before there was light, there was darkness, deep water, the Spirit of God (Ruach Elohim – wind of God, breath of God (Hebrew) Ruha – breath, air, Spirit (Aramaic)) over the water…and then boom, there was sound! Breath and voice were on the scene before light. There is a time in our lives in the dark watery womb when we feel, hear and absorb our world without the intellectual ability to understand our experience by processing language. This is a highly impressionable time and can be a very tender source of pain for parents and babies when, for many different factors, new life is not celebrated and/or there is emotional/mental/spiritual turmoil, physical illness, financial stress, etc.  This pain and tax on our body can be the sources of our most deep seeded hurts, fears and blockages, and they are absorbed and held as a pattern of sound in the body. We can speak light to this darkness and pain, with the reverent breath mentioned above, and resonant vocal sounding which connects us to the earliest and most vulnerable emotions/chemical events we experienced in darkness. 

How this is integrated during session: After breathing together, we will stand and I will lead you in vocal sounding in various parts of your body/system while I listen: For instance, I will say “please make the sound go go go for me”, and I will listen to your adrenals; we spend approximately 10 minutes in vocal sounding. During this time, I may ask your permission to enlist my tuning forks to listen to greater detail and texture available in your magnetic field; just like the human voice, tuning forks can provide both diagnostic and therapeutic support in the moment. As we encounter blockages, you will be guided to move them with the sound of your voice so they may be release (like the kidney stone). 

Vital sacred speaking.

Our words matter – what we say, how we say it. Wherever you align on the scale from linguistic relativism to linguistic determinism, there is no room for misinterpreting the fact that the words we choose to speak hold power. Each person chooses just how much power. The case for linguistic determinism suggests that the words we speak determine the thoughts we are able to think – like a physical boundary, our words can serve as the very blocks we struggle to move beyond. A simplified example could be speaking questions like, “Why am I/are they so stupid?”, “Why do we fight so much?” These words could frame our thoughts to think only about being stupid and fighting. “What good and intelligent things can I see about myself/them?” “What can I/we do to communicate better?”, could be chosen to remove self-imposed restrictive thoughts and potentially experience less struggle. There are also examples of how different languages shape capacity to think about and express different things and ideas. For instance, a quick internet search of, “which languages have the most vocabulary for love?” produces: “Sanskrit has 96 words for love; ancient Persian has 80, Greek seven, and English only one.” Interpret how you will, about how this could impact one’s ability to think about and express love. 

An invitation to go deeper spiritually into vital sacred speaking. Those who have ears to hear, say it with me. There is an invitation to speak the living words of Yeshua-Jesus, in his native Aramaic language, with him, like him*. They are medicine. The Hebrew and Aramaic alphabets are the same, and it is generally believed that each sound of the alphabet holds a distinct energetic and creative potential. It can be helpful to picture the periodic table of elements; each element on the table can represent one sound of the alphabet. Without knowing each element, it can be understood that different combinations and ratios of each element produce various chemical reactions or substances – some life giving, life sustaining chemical compounds that we take into our body. Vital sacred speaking works in similar fashion, with each sound, word, then sentence arranged in various combinations and ratios to create a pattern of sound which interacts with our body chemistry and biology – some life giving, life sustaining words and language we can speak/take into our body. By participating in the speaking with Yeshua, it connects us to the energetic potential inherent in the Aramaic language, and we can resonate and harmonize in loving devotion with Yeshua and the greater Divine power that freely flowed through him. 

How this is integrated during session: Based on what was vented or surfaced at the beginning of the session, along with what I am hearing during breathing and vocal sounding, I will “prescribe” an Aramaic (or Hawaiian or Spanish) word or phrase – your Voice Vitamin, for you to speak and take as communion and medicine. You will be given a demonstration of how to breathe, tone, speak and sing the word/phrase which you will spend daily time with on your own. The medicine cabinet consists of words/phrases from: Yeshua’s prayer (gospel of Matthew), The “I am statements” (gospel of John) The Beatitudes (gospels of Matthew and Luke), and several other well-known sayings of Yeshua about asking, seeking, knocking, peace, and love. 

*If you are unsure about connecting with and speaking the living words of Yeshua, that’s ok! In that scenario, we would follow a path of vocabulary from the Hawaiian or Spanish** language and could transition to a language of your own resonance and bloodline – sacredness is on the tongue of the speaker. This beautiful meditative practice and healing power within Ruha Embodied Voice is available for anyone with an authentic seeking heart. 

**I am not fluent in Aramaic, Hawaiian, or Spanish. However, I am fully qualified to teach you how to use sacred phrases from these languages with the intention of deepening the conversation with yourself and the Divine.

Singing.

It is our human birthright to sing! Loud, ugly, beautiful, joyful- whatever captures and expresses the feeeeling you need to express. There are so many physical, mental, emotional and spiritual benefits to singing – again, the modern science of ancient wisdom. When we can engage in (perhaps very dramatic) emotive singing, which begins in resonance with the deep, low, angry, or painful space, and ends in the space of gratitude and joy, we can experience a vocal emotional completion.

How this works in session: Emotive singing will be framed during session but will be practiced on your own, outside of session. Singing can be quite vulnerable; we want to nurture the birthright to sing with a felt sense of safety. Again, based on what surfaces during session or relevant to your chosen voice journey, you will be invited to choose three songs that keep you on the pathway of vocal emotional completion from feeling and singing the depth of your pain, through to feeling and singing gratitude or joy. Although Ruha Embodied Voice is a fantastic practice for singers/performers, the focus will never be on how we sound to another person, but how it feels within to vocally express.

What happens next: You will be given a personalized Voice Vitamin daily practice sheet which will include the breathwork we practiced, some supportive tones to sound, and a sacred phrase to embody – and potentially some other “homework”. It is recommended that you spend time with these tools each day until we meet again – in one to three weeks based on your rhythm of life. 

What to expect in the days following session: Expect that your body is processing and releasing (remember the kidney stone passings!). Listen to your body and be very kind and responsive to healthful nourishment, loving company, and rest. Listen to the Divine whisper (signs from the universe, serendipities, vivid dreams,etc) and write down your insights, hindsights and foresights. Each session can be seen as working with another layer or rung of the spiral, so schedule another session when you feel you are ready for the next layer.