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If Tryshe Dhevney had her way, everyone would open wide and say ahhhh… “Some people carry lavender with them, some people carry aspirin. I carry Ahhhh,” said Dhevney, who guides people into transforming their lives through the healing power of sound. According to Dhevney, by sustaining the sound of Ahhhhh all the way to the end of your breath, you activate your belly. When you activate your belly you draw in more air, release carbon dioxide in the body, oxygenate the blood in the lymph system, and increase endorphins, reducing your stress — all in a matter of seconds. “To underestimate the power of the human voice is to underestimate the power of breath in staying alive. Or to deny we need water. The sound of our own voice can provide a penetrating and prolonged shift in the internal vibrations of our body, mind and spirit,” said Dhevney, founder of Soundshifting™. “Simply put, you can open your mouth, make a sound, and change your life.”

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While I’ve found higher frequency tuning forks helpful for working with the aura, this weighted tuning fork, or Otto Tuner, also penetrates dense levels of the body, introducing a 64 Hz C. As well as healing issues of safety, the Otto Tuner brings about a quick shift in pain when applied to a specific area of the body, said sound healer Tryshe Dhevney.

Debra Cunningham first experienced the Otto Tuner at one of Dhevney’s workshops this fall, when she observed that she was experiencing lower back pain. "It just disappeared, and it hasn’t been back," said Cunningham. After she received a neck injury in a car accident in October, Cunningham began a program of chiropractic care and physical therapy. She also scheduled a session with Dhevney. "I got more relief from that than from anything else I had been doing," said Cunningham, explaining that the diminishment of pain lasted for a week.

"Things really shifted as she worked [with the Otto Tuner] in that area," said another client, who wishes to remain anonymous. "One session resolved it," she said of the pain in her liver area she had experienced for several weeks.

Dhevney has also gotten good results when working on a client with tendonitis, and in healing wrist inflammation she had developed herself. She applies the Otto Tuner to the meridians too. The only place she avoids is the head, because the head bones are delicate, and brain is close to surface.

People are not the only beings who benefit. "My cats love it," said Dhevney.

While she can start with an area that is painful, Dhevney also works intuitively, asking where the body needs help, and of what type. Sometimes she holds the Otto Tuner in place until the fork has stopped vibrating; at other times she will remove it, strike it again against her palm, and reapply it to that same area.

Dhevney also values working with higher frequency unweighted tuning forks, Tibetan bowls and crystal bowls. But she emphasizes that the effects from all tools are "accelerated by using the voice. There is more integrity in the sound because you’re bringing it about in your own body."

Adding the voice also brings about a more sustained shift, said Dhevney. She loves sound healing "because it’s so expedient. It cuts to the chase and shifts the energy." Then a person can choose to stay at that new frequency or go back to the old.

But the more a person practices generating healing sounds, the more their basic frequency shifts. They also become more aware of when they are out of balance and can shift things quickly, said Dhevney.

Dhevney introduced the Otto Tuner into her practice in Tucson after experiencing it at a workshop lead by Jonathan Goldman in 2001. But her work with healing sound began much earlier. She first learned about toning, or working with making extended sounds to promote healing, while involved in a Sufi order in the 1970's.

When she developed an acting company for young people in recovery from addiction in the mid 1980's in San Francisco, she introduced toning to the members of the company. Amazing things happened, says Dhevney. The young actors became more confident in their bodies, and developed better social skills and problem-solving capacities.

She continued to focus on the arts until 1996. Then in one of many synchronicities, Dhevney was asked to teach toning for clearing and balancing the chakras, or energy centers of the body, at Miraval Resort in Tucson, and in that same year was diagnosed with the hepatitis C and liver disease that compelled her to focus on using sound for her own healing.

Dhevney’s viral load had spiked to such a high level that two doctors thought she could not recover. When conventional treatments did not help, she turned to working with healing sound. A week later, there was no trace of the virus in her body.

In complete health now, Dhevney continues to teach workshops on sound healing, and also works with clients individually to help them find the specific frequencies needed for their healing.

"When the proper frequency is introduced into an organ, the aberrant frequency can't exist," said Dhevney, referring to a wealth of evidence on the healing effects of sound.

It can’t be that simple. You can’t just open your mouth, make a sound and change your life! Or can you?

Breaking the Sound Barrier

Early in my childhood I was taught to muzzle my voice, careful to say the right thing. Nothing spelled doom so much as a look from a disapproving adult. Don’t speak, don’t move, don’t feel and if you know what’s good for you, don’t tell the truth. These were the tenets of my time and my childhood as typical as they come. Eventually it became easier, if not safer to do what was expected—BEHAVE! That is to say, suppress my vibrant, curious, messy human nature. I wasn’t alone. Women of my generation especially, though not exclusively, live with a legacy of silence. Many of us traded being authentic for being good. We cultivated the art of choking back our words and speaking nice. Sadly, any experience of an authentic Self faded into a distant cellular memory.

As adults we coped—with trauma, negative emotion, multitasking, suffocating fear, stress, loss of passion and purpose. We accepted the unacceptable while our inner people-pleaser determined the course of our lives. I don’t know about you, dear reader, but in my life this was a recipe for disaster.

Studies show when we silence ourselves or repress our feelings there is potential for chronic, even serious health problems. This unconscious unexpressed anger can become so all-consuming that it can literally kill us. Most attempts at feeling better or “getting things under control” take time, money and/or special gear. It would not occur to most of us to simply open the mouth and make sound. Imagine the remedy as simple as saying “aaahh!”

Sounds good, but...

We all know that listening to a babbling brook or a favorite piece of music can change our moods. What most don’t realize is that the sound of our own voice can provide an even more penetrating and prolonged shift in the internal vibrations of the body, mind and spirit. Recent medical research shows that creating sustained primordial sounds can shift brain states, create health and transform consciousness with little or no effort. Dr. Andrew Weil, author, lecturer and founder of the Program in Integrative Medicine in Tucson, Arizona, states, “The new science of psychacoustics – the study of the effect of music and sound on the human nervous system – shows that [frequency] can relieve pain, help stroke patients, and benefit other conditions.” In recent years, noted French composer and bioenergeticist, Fabien Maman has been exploring and documenting the specific influence of sound on the cells of the body. He conducted experiments with two breast cancer patients who toned for three and one-half hours a day for a month. In one case, the tumor vanished. The second woman had surgery to remove the tumor and it was discovered that the tumor was “reduced and completely dry.” In his book, The Role of Music in the Twenty-first Century, Maman writes, “This finding indicates that the vibration of sound plays a determinant role in the transformation of cellular structure, acting directly at the most subtle level of the human organism. . .The diseased cell died because it was not able to accommodate its structure and synchronize with the accumulation of sound.”

Toning—making a sustained sound, usually a vowel tone—can change the entire molecular and cellular make-up of the body. Moaning and groaning are also forms of toning. So whether you make a specifically pitched tone or just having a good groan, sound heals!

Let it out!

There is a natural sound attached to every feeling—both physical and emotional. Yet it seems we've spent many years silencing that natural urge to make sound. We just have to let go and let it out. It’s our nature. Have you noticed that sound seems natural and spontaneous when we “ooo” and “aahh” over a sensational crème brûlée or experience the sweet rhapsody of a cooing baby? Not only is sound connecting us more deeply to the moment, it’s also massaging the muscles and tuning up the body. Don’t you feel better after a good cry or deep laugh, or find relief once you get things off your chest? Previously stuck energy begins moving with a simple thought—a decision to let go and let it out. The brain is responding—balancing the nervous system, strengthening the immune system and creating a visceral sense that all is well.

That visceral sensation is the nervous system responding to sound and restoring resonance throughout the body/mind and spirit. The body remembers how to do this. Many vocal sounds you make are spontaneous and unconscious. However, there are other sounds when made with conscious intent that impact the neural pathways in the brain and instantly change your emotional and physical balance. Research shows that once sound is introduced there is a notable increase in the amount of Alpha waves moving through the brain. You feel calm, less anxious and able to access your extraordinary natural wisdom and capabilities. Whether it’s peak athletic performance you’re after, increased creativity or simply just feeling good, one tone can make the difference. The evidence is in your experience. You feel better.

Some of the most basic daily tasks take on new vitality when you make sound. Let’s say you lift something heavy. If you hold your breath the burden seems heavier and you may rip or even rupture something inside, some organ you’ll want to keep for a while. If you release sound during the lift, as body builders do, a strength surges through your muscles, focusing your attention and making the lift easier and less damaging to the body.

Seven Seconds to Sound Health

Just spending minutes a day consciously making sound can shift the dense frequencies of stress or disharmony and lift your spirits.

But why take my word for it? Give it a try! Get comfortable, relax your tongue and the muscles in your neck and face, open wide, and in a mid-range pitch that feels comfortable for you, begin to tone, aaaaahhhhh. Stay with this tone for a minute or so and then stop and listen to your body. Don’t you feel better—a little more peaceful, more relaxed, less stressed out? Just seconds of toning will energize the breath, oxygenate the entire body, relax the muscles and stimulate the flow of energy through your body. As you hold these tones you accelerate the release of any resistance, emotional and physical, and create an experience of being in the flow. What have you got to lose except maybe a little suffocating fear or the stress of a vein-popping day? Not only will you feel better, the world around you will reflect your good feeling as well.

Play with your voice every day. You can tone while in your car, puttering in your garden (plants love taking a big drink of your voice), while putting on your makeup (a sonic facial), playing with your pet, and working out—even yawning. Experience the power of your own voice as you access a deeper resonance and calming power within. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way and Vein of Gold, sums it up beautifully: “The human voice and our conscious use of it as an instrument can penetrate and heal even the deepest shadows of our human condition.”

You’ve come this far, why not play with all the vowel tones?

• Sit comfortably.
• Imagine a little cord attached to the center of your chest bone gently lifting and extending your chest and spine upward and relax your belly muscles.
• With that lift, notice how effortless it is to breathe into your belly and lower back.
• Relax your jaw and tongue and let your mouth fall open (the width of two fingers).
• Ease into the vocals by simply letting out a loud sigh, at the end of the sigh push the rest of the breath out of the belly. Repeat a couple times.
• Slowly give voice to the vowel tones ‘aa’ (as in play), ee, ah, oh and ooo (as in smoothe) sliding the tones higher then lower. Sustain each tone to the end of each out breath.
  
  According to noted author and lecturer Dr. Deepak Chopra, “The body is held together by sound, and the presence of disease indicates that some sounds are out of tune…primordial sound is the mysterious link that holds the universe together in a web that is the quantum field.”