In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

by Peter A. Levine

Along with multitudes of other people, I have experienced various chanting and ancient “sounding” practices that facilitate healing and help open the “doors of perception.” Singing and chanting are used in religious and spiritual ceremonies among every culture for “lightening the load” of earthly existence. When you open up to chant or sing in deep, resonant lower belly tones, you also open up your chest (heart and lungs), mouth and throat, pleasurably stimulating the many serpentine branches of the vagus nerve.u Certain Tibetan chants have been used successfully for thousands of years. In my practice, I use a sound borrowed (with certain modifications) from some of these chants. This sound opens, expands and vibrates the viscera in a way that provides new signals to a shut-down or overstimulated nervous system. The practice is quite simple: make an extended “voooo …” (soft o, like ou in you) sound, focusing on the vibrations stimulated in the belly as you complete a full expiration of breath. In introducing the “voo” sound to my clients, I often ask them to imagine a foghorn in a foggy bay sounding through the murk to alert ship captains that they are nearing land, and to guide them safely home. This image works on different levels. First of all, the image of the fog represents the fog of numbness and dissociation. The foghorn represents the beacon that guides the lost boat (soul) back to safe harbor, to home in breath and belly. This image also inspires the client to tak...