For as long as I can remember, I have always loved music. As a child, my brothers joked that their only indication that I did not have Attention Deficit Disorder was when I’d lay in front of the stereo listening to Beatles albums for hours at a time. A song sometimes instantly connects me to a specific feeling or moment in life. Other times a song simply grabs me because of its sonic qualities. In essence, music connects me with others or to my inner-most feelings. Joy, pain, anxiety, melancholy, loneliness, love,  and, playfulness–among a myriad of other emotions–are all part of the musical landscape.

So it should be no surprise then, that music is a type of universal language for the human condition that can transcend age, race, and culture, etc.

So why am I contemplating the emotional ties of music? In times of sorrow or depression, I spend countless hours grieving and trying to understand how I got there. Several years ago, I practiced group therapy trying to understand this loss. In group, we shared both our joy and pain and attempted to connect to each other both for support and means to find deeper connection and understanding. These sessions sometimes brought connection and other times a reminder of the pain and struggles that landed us there in the first place. But the one constant of this group is that we showed up, attempting to connect and share in ways that both healed, caused pain and continued us towards a path of understanding and acceptance, and ultimately to a place where our individual voices grew and were heard.

Regardless of my emotional state, I have turned to music as a place of refuge, both as an enthusiast as well as amateur musician. I have seen these lines blurred between my musical pursuits and how I showed up for my group therapy sessions. Essentially, in music I am trying to find “my voice”, that authentic expression, growing in my voice as well as the ability to collaborate with others. The pursuit in personal relationships is essentially the same, wanting to grow in my authentic self while sharing that voice in a community of others. In the end, it is the awareness and pursuit of that authentic voice, regardless of musical or relationship endeavors.

With music as a metaphor for our expressive essence, I, therefore, see each of us as a unique and beautiful instrument.

As children, this instrument is newly formed but usually limited to a few notes or melodies. As we grow in our instrument, changes occur. Under the right circumstances our instruments are nurtured and mature, and we learn to expand our unique voices through words, sounds, melodies, and songs. These musical expressions can span a broad spectrum of emotions, and as we grow in life, we expand individually and in collaboration, bringing opportunities to produce more complex and nuanced arrangements.

For some, however, their instrument–through a series of internal and/or external forces–can become out of tune or merely produce “rote” songs; or worse yet, their instrument goes largely out of commission. They simply resign not to play it. This decommissioning can extend to whole groups or communities, i.e., instrumental collaborations that create either large cacophonies or worse, a deadening silence.

What then can help nurture or reveal our authentic voice, our unique and beautiful instrument? To extend this metaphor, we can look to a music instructor or producer–i.e., a group therapist–as a teacher to tend to these instruments. A teacher/instructor can aid in the re-tuning of an instrument or teaching basic or more advanced chord structures or looking at more cohesive or impactful arrangements, both individually and collectively, listening carefully for those beautiful note qualities that have always existed and finding ways for each instrument to fit within the larger soundscape. Ultimately, it is the instrument, however, that must at some point find its voice again, sometimes with help from other more accomplished musicians/producers and through their own exhaustive practice of trial and error.

However, I once again need to extend this music metaphor. As I’ve moved beyond therapy and into spiritual transformation, I now see our unique instruments as coming from ONE SOURCE. To the extent that we can become still and silent and let go of that limited personality within, we have the opportunity to hear from a deeper source: the source of all creation, the purist fountain of creativity, the one true maestro. For many of us, we simply cannot hear this deeper voice: the eternal silence and fluctuating vibration. We believe that our songs and melodies are the cumulation of our own experiences, our own minds, senses and emotions. But if we can sit still and silent long enough, perhaps we can stop chirping our rote songs to hear something deeper within; we can find our magnum opus. At first, it may sound like a far-off transistor radio, echoing from a distant galaxy.  But with growing awareness, those sounds and signal become stronger. We’re able to filter out our own and others extraneous noises and distractions. Those far-away sounds become clearer, and our unique instruments can listen and play those divinely inspired melodies. When played this way, every note is both a singular expression and a grand symphony.

In the end, there might be significant wear and tear to each of our instruments–but that seemingly worn-out or detuned instrument when played authentically–can produce the most exquisite, timeless masterpieces, whether epic in size and stature or just some jangly enigmatic ditty.