Why offer Dynamic Listening? – My personal story

My intention in sharing this story is to give you a better understanding of why I consider Dynamic Listening so valuable, and how it can be useful for adults, based on my own background and experience. Currently, many of the clients who use Dynamic Listening are children with learning disabilities. I don’t fall into this category, nor do the majority of my clients, yet it has been a great asset to me on my own life journey. I have heard and read many case studies where people of all ages and circumstances have benefited.

In March, 2005 I was talking with a man who has knowledge of Listening Tests and the work of Tomatis. We had a copy of a Listening Test I received in Sept. 1993, done by a friend. At that time, in 1993, I was told that the Listening Test suggested that I was highly sensitive. I don’t remember anything else. It was welcome feedback since I was learning about my own personal sensitivity. At that time, I was also intensely involved in work with sound which had begun 9 months earlier. I felt myself to be quite sensitive to the world of sound and enjoyed an external validation.

I asked this man, “If you didn’t know this person and you saw this Listening Test, what might you say about such a person?” The answer, as I remember it, went something like this: “I’d say that this person sometimes has difficulty being in crowds. He is very sensitive, maybe more than most people, and has possibly experienced a few psychotic episodes in his life. He probably needs time alone to regenerate.”

The answer amused me. Psychotic episodes? Not me. What does that mean anyway, I thought, though I didn’t ask. Twelve years had passed after the last test, I had a lot more life experience and I had a much better appreciation of the qualities of my own sensitivity. And yes, I did need time alone. But psychotic episodes?

I left and reflected on his answer, and memories came back. There was that semester when I was a junior in college that followed one of the most challenging and upsetting periods of my life, a time when all the ideals, values and dreams I lived for had been shattered.

Another time, soon after college, I was renting a room in a house briefly in Oakland and the owners, a couple, would occasionally have vicious verbal fights. I started having nightmares and at one point, felt so crazy that I went looking for some kind of anti-psychotic drug therapy. I was talked out of this by a volunteer at a local health clinic, moved out and began a job that led to coordinating the crisis intervention section of the Berkeley Free Clinic.

And yet another time, more recently while in Mexico living and working at a resort in 1998-99, the only way I felt I could survive was by working, so I kept myself busy almost all the time. I had the intention to make things work no matter what, so I found things to do that I thought would contribute to the resort. Without that intention and some stubbornness, I probably would have left long before I did, because the situation felt horrible to me.

What was it about the Listening Test in 1993 that might suggest the interpretation I received in March, 2005? On that first Listening Test, the bone conduction curves were above the air conduction curves on the graph used to show the results of the test. This meant that I was hearing primarily via my bones, especially the bones of the skull, and secondarily by air conduction which is how we normally hear and think of hearing. How I was listening and processing information physiologically had a big impact on my psychological experience. A picture of what this can mean was given to me when I started the Dynamic Listening Program. “Imagine that your nerves are on the outside of your skin rather than underneath. It is like you become a raw nerve when you are using bone conduction as the primary means to listen to the world.”

After that conversation in March, 2005, I decided to investigate further and possibly receive the Tomatis work. I had another listening test were much different than 12 years ago. I decided to do the program nonetheless and had results that met and exceeded my expectations.

What was I looking for? I wanted more focus, a deeper relaxation in my nervous system, and more musical singing ability. I got all that and much more.

A summary of the results I experienced included:

• Sudden improvement with movement coordination (I was already coordinated, a good athlete and quick learner, so this really caught my attention).
• A shift into a much deeper sense of self-confidence, self-acceptance and self-knowing that I had worked so hard for from that time 28 years ago when I first struggled as a junior in college.
• Expanded vocal range for singing.
• More ease in the upper part of my vocal range.
• A dramatic jump in my ability to sight-read and sing music (as if a year of practice had taken place in a week).
• Much more ease in standing for lengthy periods of time and more relaxation in my hips and back.
• More clarity with my intuition.
• A quieting of the inner chatter.
• Much quicker processing of information.
• And, a couple months later I began an aerobic training which I have sustained to this day.

These results were significant to me in part because I had spent the previous 6 years involved in an ongoing study of intuitive development, clairvoyance, meditation and spiritual tools and skills. The sudden jump after Dynamic Listening of intuitive clarity, quieting of the mind, increase in self-confidence and self-knowing after these years of study was surprising and welcome. The skills and techniques I learned in these past 6 years have also become more effective since the Dynamic Listening. It’s as if things work much more easily than before, and I am not fighting against myself in some unrecognized way.

To experience the shift in movement and coordination was also welcome. I had been having knee problems when backpacking for many years, and had reached the point where walking down rocky mountain paths was tenuous because my body felt like it was fearful of stumbling on the rocks. I began a daily practice of Awareness Through Movement Lessons based on the work of Moshe Feldenkrais in January which was helping immensely. The improvement jumped to another level almost overnight after just a couple of sessions of Dynamic Listening in June. Now, I am able to run down rocky mountain paths. Also, I am finding tension in my body disappearing which I remember from the end of college and had never been able to resolve, even after 1000’s of hours of bodywork, acupuncture, yoga, workouts, dancing, etc.

What about Dynamic Listening contributed to such changes and results? You will find on the webpage, Why It Works, a delineation of some of the science and principals of Dynamic Listening and the work of Tomatis. What you will read there applies to me.

I am convinced that in our modern, chaotic, stressful, and demanding world, Dynamic Listening fulfills an essential need. It can support those with learning challenges, anxiety, burnout, lack of energy and vitality, and lack of fulfillment from results with psychotherapy. Dynamic Listening can also enhance the effectiveness of people’s experiences with yoga, meditation and other personal awareness techniques. Dynamic Listening can enhance performance in many different areas of life from athletics to work, by working on systems of the body – auditory and vestibular – which have a much more profound affect on quality of life than has been previously understood.

This has been my experience. I want to share it with others. I will be integrating Dynamic Listening with bodywork, sound and voice work and other therapeutic techniques that I have learned and utilized over the years.