Healthy Harmony

Understanding Harmony For Healing,

By Debbie Rosas

When it comes to fitness, health, and well-being, there’s nothing more essential to me than creating harmony as often as possible in every circumstance. As I approach my 75th year, I find myself reflecting on the moments of disharmony in my life and how they have shaped me. Those moments brought more than just pain and suffering to my life — they reached into and touched every layer of my whole being: physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.

If only I had been taught earlier how to sense and cultivate harmony — how different might my life have been? The good news is that my body and life led me into the art of sensation and of movement — a profession where harmony is not just a concept, but rather, a lived experience. Harmony intentionally forms the foundation of everything I research, teach and practice in my own life. It is the cornerstone of nurturing a healthy body and a fulfilling life.

In music, harmony is the blending of two or more sounds into a powerful union, creating vibrations which no single sound might achieve alone. In the same way, harmony in the body and life may become a seamless integration of our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual selves. Whether in relationship with myself or others, harmony arises when these elements come together authentically, with a focus for creating something greater than their parts.

An ancient Chinese text, the Da Dai Li Gi, offers timeless wisdom about music and harmony: “One must examine the sounds to understand the tones; one must understand the tones to understand the music; one must understand the music to understand the customs (laws). In this way, the path to order is made perfect.” Reading this, I’m inspired to ask myself, “What secrets await me, when I commit to understanding the way of sound and harmony?”

In meditation, sitting quietly, I’ve learned to sense the rhythm of my heartbeat, the melody of my breath, and the harmony of my thoughts, as they connect with my emotions. In these moments of alignment, I am brought into a state of deep connection with my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual selves. In this connection — this resonance — I feel a deep sense of peace, which is for me, as a dance of oneness with the Universe, which I call harmony.

In my work and in my personal life, music is more than sound. It is a sensation and a language of resonance that imprints a sacred geometric design into every cell of my body. This is as a silent force, awakening the many “ears” of my body and the rhythm of my spirit and soul to the song of the Cosmos. This sacred resonance reminds me that harmony begins within me and radiates outward, as life force energy influencing my world and even our world on Earth.

In 1985, I discovered a book titled The World Is Sound: Nada Brahma. Nada Brahma — which means “the world is sound” —describes a harmony in the Cosmos that weaves itself from what was once formless into what is now form. It shapes everything from the Earth to the Universe. This book’s wisdom revealed to me, the profound idea that everything is formed by sound. This experience transformed how I approach listening, living, and moving through life.

It also deepened my researching, crafting, and writing for The Nia Technique education programs, even as it expanded my creativity when using music for my own teaching practice, to guide me into a relationship with listening. It taught me to create a dialogue with sound and resonance of life itself, and to listen, sense, and connect deeply with the harmony of my body, mind, emotions, spirit, with nature and the people, world and Universe of which I am a part.

Through music, I’ve come to see myself as part of a Universal symphony, contributing my sound and vibration to the collective harmony of human existence. On any movement floor, I’ve experienced what yogis call “Satchitananda,” an absolute bliss consciousness; a harmony of music, movement, and “magic” in aligning my sound with the sound of the universe to create an extraordinary sense of wholeness and oneness. A profound sense of harmony.

My body has taught me to attune myself to harmony and to the changing rhythms of life, to embrace these shifts with grace without resistance, and to always return to silence and harmony. John M. Ortiz, Ph.D. captures adapting and learning to change so beautifully in his book, The Tao of Music, when he writes that it is up to us to learn how these processes affect our lives. I believe that he is right. Harmony is nature’s way and it is also the body’s way.

I’ve learned that to truly live in harmony, I must blend rhythm with melody and then actively choose harmony as a way of life. I’ve learned that I cannot afford to ignore the sound and rhythm of my body, my life, my natural world and my culture or my society in my greater world around me. My choices create sound — whether harmonious or discordant — and that sound shapes the design of the Universe and the Earth, in which my whole being is nested.

I choose to listen as carefully as I am able and in this, I choose harmony. By harmonizing my sensations, thoughts, feelings, and actions, I express an authenticity that respects my connection with all that exists. Through my body, I tune into a universal rhythm and melody. With the power of my mind and the choices I make; I may create harmony that heals, inspires, and unites. This focus and intention creates meaning and purpose for my body and life.

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