Janet Smith Warfield

Two Perspectives on Drumming as a Tool for Transformation

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

And I failed at drumming.

Fifteen years back, I made an attempt at learning drumming. With a cluttered mind, I could not. I took the help of a coach. And all I remember about his coaching was that he had a slew of drumming magazines. My shock was, that while India did not have a single magazine on music in those days, the USA had four magazines on drumming itself.

I learned one or two simple beats and could not progress further. I have had few failures in life but drumming has been one of them. Passion did not help, coaching did not help, practice did not help. The pressures of life had sucked too much out of me or my mind rather.

Then I came to know of the power of Baroque and Jazz. In a book on Mind Power Techniques, Raj Bapna says that since the rhythm/beats in Jazz/Baroque is random, the mind cannot predict anything. Since it cannot predict, the mind which loves to make a fool of itself by staying in the past or future, fails to fool itself. The mind is almost forced to live in the moment. So you find peace.

And I found peace in Baroque. Oh my God, it was so tough to find a baroque music cassette in those days. After all, being digital immigrants, we were not lucky to have Youtube.

Then after years of meditation, I found deep peace and clarity. But by then, learning drumming had gone down on the priority list. (Does drumming heal? I am not sure. I have not experienced it.)

I found Baroque, I found peace. I found meditation, I found deep peace. When you are at peace with yourself, you are at peace with the world.

May peace be with you too! Amen.

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Dr Amit Nagpal is Chief Inspirational Storyteller at AL Services. He is an Author, Speaker/Trainer and Coach. He is also a Social Media Influencer and blogs on Linkedin as LinkedIn Influencer-Marketing. His special interest and expertise lies in inspirational storytelling, anecdotes and visual storytelling for brand building. To know more, visit  www.dramitnagpal.com. 

AL Services offers content development/story writing, consulting, training and other services in the area of brand storytelling. To know more, write to amit@dramitnagpal.com. 

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

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Drumming is a practice that uses sound, rhythm, and vibration to heal. By fully immersing oneself in the experience, the drummer can enter into an altered state of consciousness that is sometimes verbalized as “journeying between the physical and spiritual worlds.”

Cultures all over the world have practiced drumming for thousands of years. The experience is an end in itself, not preparation for a performance.

When the drumming becomes synchronized, it is very powerful. Drummers often take turns setting the rhythm and beat.

The circle itself is the perfect form within which to drum. All participants are equal. All are necessary. Each plays a part. The part each drummer plays shifts from moment to moment, depending on needs, resources, and the flow of energy.

Here’s a video of drumming on Siesta Key Beach, Florida: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xII63ZPMIcE

According to Michael Drake, a shamanic drummer:

Current research is now verifying the therapeutic effects of ancient rhythm techniques. Recent research reviews indicate that drumming accelerates physical healing, boosts the immune system and produces feelings of well-being, a release of emotional trauma, and reintegration of self.

Other studies have demonstrated the calming, focusing, and healing effects of drumming on Alzheimer’s patients, autistic children, combat veterans, emotionally disturbed teens, recovering addicts, trauma patients, and prison and homeless populations. Study results demonstrate that drumming is a valuable treatment for stress, fatigue, anxiety, addiction, hypertension, asthma, chronic pain, arthritis, heart disease, mental illness, cancer, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, emotional disorders, and a wide range of physical disabilities.

http://shamanicdrumming.com/drumtherapy.html

Additional Resources:

http://shamanicdrumming.com/our_store.html#music-videos

https://archive.org/details/SacredSongsAndChants

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. For more information, see www.wordsculptures.com,  www.janetsmithwarfield.com, and www.wordsculpturespublishing.com.

Can we make a distinction between judgment and discernment?

Judgment, to me, means pointing a finger of blame, seeing myself as superior, separating myself from another. Discernment, on the other hand, means simply noticing – noticing how others are acting, how they are speaking, how they are relating, and simultaneously noticing my own thoughts and emotions. Then, I can decide how I am going to act (or not) in a particular situation.

There is always a dynamic going on, a dance of consciousness if you will, both within myself and between me and another. I absolutely need to pay attention to that dance so that I can dance as well as possible. If I dance well, I become a co-creator with my Maker. Together, we create a peaceful, powerful, prosperous planet.

Have I experienced rage? Absolutely! Have I experienced terror? Absolutely! But having experienced these emotions, what am I going to do with them?

I truly cannot know the torture another person has experienced. Who am I to judge him? However, it is vital that I notice how his conduct affects me so that I take appropriate action to protect myself and the things I value.

I recently returned to the States after three years in Honduras and three-and-a-half years in Panama. It is interesting to discern some cultural differences. These are, of course, generalizations.

In the States, those who act out their pain with violence are generally behind bars. Those who move out of dysfunctional relationships, instead of reacting with violence, live relatively free and harmonious lives. This does not mean their lives are unchallenging.

In all the Central and South American countries with which I am familiar, there are few effective governmental, legal, or police systems in place to dissuade people from acting out their pain with violence. Nor are there educational systems in place to give children the skills they need to live productive, non-violent lives. As a result, pain acted out with violence frequently rules. There is little trust and little security. The people who live behind bars and high walls in these societies are the people who redirect their pain to productive, non-violent activities, not the ones who act out their pain with violence.

What have I done with my own rage and terror? Stopped, looked at it, briefly considered acting out on it, and then, with a combination of grief, anguish and relief, turned away and followed a new, more productive path.

The biggest danger with words is self-righteousness. Often, without even realizing it, we grab hold of someone else’s words and repeat them, massage them, exaggerate them, and argue for or against them without any direct experience with which to give the words appropriate meaning. We manipulate these words in our heads without making any experiential or emotional connection to what we are saying, other than learned emotional connections that are triggered by the words themselves or by whether we like or dislike a particular speaker. Whenever we do this, we are functioning entirely in our heads and subconscious emotions without any grounding in the context of awareness of our own personal experience and choice.

How many of us take the nightly news as gospel when we haven’t personally experienced Iraq or Afghanistan and the many different nuances that play out in those countries in every single moment in every single life? Have we even stopped to consider how distorted and limited the view of a single reporter may be, and yet, many of us accept it as truth without thinking further.

Words are Shorthand for Human Experience

Just as shorthand is a method for transcribing words quickly, words are a method for understanding and communicating our human experiences. Even words like “heaven” and “hell” can be given meanings related to personal human experience.

From the moment we are born, parents, priests and educators teach us to chop our experiences up into words: “Mommy” and “Daddy”, “blue” and “green”, “good” and “evil”, “right” and “wrong”. As science, technology, psychology, and philosophy develop, we make up new words: iPod, space station, animus, ego, epistemology.

Sometimes we use the same words to chop up our experiences. Sometimes we use different words. None of the words is either right or wrong. They are simply little black marks on white pieces of paper or guttural sounds we utter.

However, we all give words emotional overtones. We can call this “creating filters”. Suddenly, those guttural sounds or little black marks on the white pieces of paper become charged with fear, anger, love or joy. The emotional charge often depends on what each of us has experienced in the past in relation to the words we are hearing now and the emotions with which we’ve filtered those past experiences.

The Same Words Can be Used to Describe the Same Experience

Sometimes we use words in the same way to chop up our experiences. For example, if you and I are both looking at a daffodil, we might exchange words about the beautiful yellow flower with the strange odor. We are using the same words to describe the same experience. Our communication is clear because we are both focusing on the same object.

The Same Words Can be Used to Describe Different Experiences

Sometimes, you and I may use the same words to chop up different experiences. If you are standing on the gray sand next to the Atlantic Ocean in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the cold, gray waves may be rolling in as breakers, the beach may be crowded with bathers, bikinis, tan bodies, little children building sand castles with their fathers, red, yellow and blue umbrellas, seagulls squawking overhead, black scallop shells, a boardwalk peppered with bikers and joggers, and casinos in the distance. The water may be cold, murky, and thick with stirred-up sand. With a land breeze, nasty, biting black flies appear. You might verbalize this experience as a “day at the beach.”

I, however, if I live in Roatan, Honduras, might use those same words “day at the beach” to verbalize a very different experience. On Roatan, it is rare to see breakers. The sea is often a clear, placid mirror of blues, greens and turquoises. Seaweed gently washes up on the white sand. Weathered driftwood and palm trees dot the deserted, narrow stretch of sand bordering the sea. An occasional boat accents the skyline. There are no sun tanners here, for the tropical sun burns tender skin far too quickly. Instead of nasty, biting black flies, I am tormented by chitres, those dastardly, invisible no-seeums that, with a single bite, leave a welt the size of a tennis ball.

Atlantic City and Roatan are very different “beach” experiences, but you and I are using the same word “beach”. Our communication is not as clear as it could be. Instead, it is as murky as the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. If you had never experienced the Roatan beach and I had never experienced the Atlantic City beach, we might even argue about whether beach sand is really gray or really white or whether the ocean is really gray or really blue.

With the words “heaven” and “hell,” many of us have been taught that these are physical places “we” go after our bodies die. How can anybody really know that?

There is, however, a different meaning we can give to the words “heaven” and “hell” within the context of our personal experiences. Who has not suffered the hell of his own anger? Who has not suffered the torture of her own fear? Who has not experienced the total beauty and personal immersion in a heavenly sunset? Who has never experienced the limbo of his own purgatory where he feels stuck and unable to move forward?

Different Words Can be Used to Describe the Same Experience

Sometimes you and I chop the same experience up differently. For example, if we are both looking at the same flower garden, you may be looking at roses and I may be looking at trellises. You may talk about the beautiful red flowers with an exotic odor and I may talk about wood patterns and climbing thunbergia. Different words can be used to describe the same experience where the speakers have different focuses. When this happens, communication again becomes as murky as the Atlantic Ocean. Until you and I realize we are simply looking at different aspects of the same experience, we may argue about what is really in that garden we both see.

Old Hag or Young Woman?

You absolutely can get what you want simply by shifting your focus from what’s “out there” to what’s “in here.”

It’s all about noticing your thoughts, noticing your emotions, choosing the ones you want, and taking the necessary action steps to make them happen.

What’s “out there” doesn’t change. What changes is what your mind and emotions do with what’s “out there.”

It’s just like looking at an optical illusion. Once you understand the different ways your mind can organize “what’s out there”, you can choose what you want to see, what thoughts you want in your head, what emotions you want in your heart, and bring them into your life.

For more food for thought, listen to Linda S. Thompson’s interview of Janet Smith Warfield on The Author’s Show,

http://www.wnbnetworkwest.com/TVAuthorsJWarfield.html

Two Perspectives on Mantras as a Tool for Transformation

Dr. Amit Nagpal, New Delhi, India, and

Dr. Janet Smith Warfield, Florida, USA

Dr. Amit Nagpal’s Perspective

What is a Mantra?

According to Wikipedia, Mantra (Sanskrit) means a sacred utterance, numinous sound, or a syllable, word, phonemes, or group of words believed by some to have psychological and spiritual power. The Sanskrit word mantra- (m.; also n. mantram) consists of the root man- “to think” (also in manas “mind”) and the suffix -tra, designating tools or instruments, hence a literal translation would be “instrument of thought”.

Mantra Chanting

There is a saying in Sanskrit, “Mananaat traayate iti mantrah” which means, “That which uplifts by constant repetition is a Mantra.” The recitation of Sanskrit Mantras transforms you by uplifting you to your higher self and the sound plays a critical role here.

Silencing the Mind

When one is fully immersed in the moment, it becomes a meditation of sorts. Yet it is a difficult skill to practice for a layman. One finds answers to life’s challenges in silence, rather than thinking or worrying. Yet those who have not experienced true silence may find it difficult to understand this. Here is a parody on mind:

The more she thought, the less she could think,
And the more she thought that ‘she thought’, even less she could think.
Then she thoughtfully gave it a serious thought and found it all unworthy of a thought,
And she experienced that the best state was actually a state of ‘Thoughtlessness.’

Love your thoughts tenderly.

Most people get irritated by the constant flow of thoughts in the mind and feel helpless. The important point we need to remember is that the dislike for the mind’s noise and clutter of thoughts does not solve but rather increases the problem. Most people fail at meditation and give up. Mantra chanting is an easier (though cruder) form of meditation and contemplation.

Here is a short poem on finding the beauty of silence by treating thoughts tenderly rather than disliking them:

She saw an army of a thousand thoughts coming.
She sent a thousand thoughts to greet and love them.
They got busy greeting—hugging each other.
And she wisely found, ‘The beauty of silence’.

Conclusion

Personally I regained my lost creativity by chanting the “Nam Myo ho Renge Kyo” mantra for one hour every day for a period of six months. Two stories explain this journey in detail, “How I regained my lost creativity?” and “3 Life lessons that led to Social Media Success.”

Once you experience the bliss of silence, you automatically become regular in contemplative practice. As they rightly say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

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Dr Amit Nagpal is Chief Inspirational Storyteller at AL Services. He is a Social Media Influencer,  Author, Speaker/Trainer & Coach. To know more, visit www.dramitnagpal.com. (His special interest and expertise lies in inspirational storytelling, anecdotes and visual storytelling)

AL Services offers content development/story writing, consulting, training and other services in the area of brand storytelling. To know more, write to amit@dramitnagpal.com.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield’s Perspective

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What are mantras?

According to Thomas Ashley-Ferrand, mantras are sacred words of power. According to others, they are energy based sounds, embodying the highest spiritual state. Yet others refer to them as sound mysteries that change consciousness.

Some time ago, a friend sent me an email with a link to a series of SoundsTrue audios about Sanskrit mantras:

http://www.soundstrue.com/shop/STSearch.do?searchTerm=Thomas+ashley+farrand&searchDomain=author&selectedType=All+Products&searchPage=0&selectedComponentGroup=All&selectedItem=bestsellers

Knowing that I was working on another book about word energy, my foreign rights agent had previously mentioned Sanskrit as a language I should explore. Western language uses symbolism and meaning. Sanskrit uses the pure vibration of sound.

I ordered the audios and began listening. There was a mantra for bringing abundance into your life. Phonetically, it sounds like “Om schreem kleem Lakshmi ay Namaha.” Most of it is toned on a single note, with the “ay” one note higher and the “ma” in Namaha one note lower.

This longer mantra is composed of seed mantras. “Schreem” is the principle of abundance. “Kleem” is the principle of attraction. “Lakshmi” (pronounced “lockschmee”) is the Goddess of abundance, a beautiful woman with abundance flowing from her hands. “Namaha” means to salute.

According to Sanskrit philosophy, you can attract abundance into your life simply by saying, over and over, the simple seed mantra “schreem.” The longer mantra is supposed to be more powerful. I decided to play with the longer mantra and see what happened.

As I was driving to the Tampa airport to fly to Panama, I repeated the mantra over and over. Then I forgot about it.

When I arrived in Panama, there was a penny lying on the ground beneath my feet. Three days later, in Boquete, my travel agent, out of the blue, gave me a free $3 phone card. Then, my agent at the bank gave me two free 2011 calendars.

As so often happens in Panama, I fully expected the taxi driver who took me back to Boquete to notice that I was an American and triple his fee. He didn’t. It happened a second time.

Greetings, meetings, lunches, and dinners kept flowing in.

I’ve been wanting to facilitate healing workshops and had always wanted to go on a cruise. Suddenly, I was offered opportunities by PacificOrient Caribbean Cruises out of Australia and WhaleWatchingPanama around Coiba and Contadora Islands off the southern coast of Panama.

The kicker happened shortly before I arrived home. I’d been getting about ten hits a day on my website. Suddenly, the hits jumped to over 100.

Is there something going on here that I don’t understand but that somehow seems to work? Or is it just that as I focus on abundance, I become more aware of the abundance all around me flowing into my life? I don’t know the answer, but I think I’ll continue chanting the mantra.

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Dr. Janet Smith Warfield serves wisdom-seekers who want understanding and clarity so they can live peaceful, powerful, prosperous lives. Through her unique combination of holistic, creative, right-brain transformational experiences and 22 years of rigorous, left-brain law practice, she has learned how to sculpt words in atypical ways to shift her listeners into experiences beyond words, transforming turmoil into inner peace. To learn more, go to www.wordsculptures.com,  www.janetsmithwarfield.com, and www.wordsculpturespublishing.com.