Music Is Sound Healing
Jim Donovan is a professional musician, writer, and educator. He uses music to help people achieve deep personal healing and transformation. On the course of his life’s journey he stumbled across an amazing discovery:
We can use the power of sound to stimulate our nervous systems to promote relaxation and memory function while reducing stress and inflammation as well as serious diseases such as depression, Parkinson’s, and epilepsy. Known to ancient Chinese, Hindu, African, and native American cultures, sound medicine techniques are now being rediscovered in modern studies of the Vagus Nerve Brain-Body pathways.
Jim’s Dream: “In a perfect world the information I teach would be taught in kindergarten and elementary school. It would be part of Western medical practice and prescribed by doctors before pharmaceuticals in many cases. It would be used for preventative medicine the way diet and exercise are today. It would be prescribed for stress, anxiety, sleep problems, depression, and pain relief.
Kids would come out of school with a whole body of knowledge and experience managing their own stress. This would taught to them like ABCs. Teachers could use this too! If and when this happens, I know that attendance and behavior problems will improve and learning will increase.”
Jim’s Story
From Jim’s earliest memories, music was a constant companion, especially when life was challenging. From the age of 8 Jim wanted to play, but the family was poor and he didn’t get to play until he was 15 and earned the money from a job at Burger King to buy his own drum set. Playing the drums was life changing, Jim says: “It gave me an instant way to move tensions, to move my teenage frustration and young adult frustration out.”
Jim went on to become a professional musician, landing a place with the American world music band Rusted Root. Jim traveled the country and the world with Rusted Root, and he lived many dreams. His intuitive connection to the transformative nature of music deepened over time: “We were fortunate to have success and play every night in front of thousands of people. I watched people react, dancing, laughing, crying to the music we were making. It was a visceral experience to people and I would meet them afterwards and hear story after story about how the music changed them.”
Jim also said he repeatedly heard audience members say the music was “life changing.” I asked him what that meant. “It’s hard to explain,” Jim answered, “But it’s as if the music made people feel more themselves, more comfortable in their own skin, able express emotion and let it out. They would say things like: ‘OMG you have no idea what you guys did. I’ve never felt anything like it before.””
Over 15 years from 1990 through 2005 with Rusted Root, such stories were identical. After 2005, when Jim left the band to raise his children, he found a new occupation teaching music at Saint Francis University and leading drumming workshops both privately and for the university. Interesting things happened: “I thought I was just teaching people drumming technique but what I found was that they would show up and then come back because – like our concert audiences – they said they were having a transformative experience. Only this was different: less euphoric, more relaxed. Some said it was the first time they’d felt really relaxed.”
From Music and Relaxation to Medical Breakthroughs
Within a year at Saint Francis, Jim was approached by university researchers wanting to study what he was teaching to see if it would help kids with autism. They invited kids with autism to drumming workshops. Autism educators observing the workshops couldn’t believe the results: Jim could keep the kids’ attention for 30 to 60 minutes – something that would otherwise be impossible. Saint Francis University obtained a grant from the Army to study the phenomena further.
Jim realized that if he was going to take what he increasingly perceived to be transformational therapeutic benefits of music to the next level, he would need to have a lot more research and to be able to communicate the benefits to everyone from the scientist to the layman to little children.
Jim began researching and writing, publishing his own “Drum Circle Leadership” book and also writing for the OmniVista Health Learning programs, for which he runs the “Jim Donovan Whole Body SOUND HEALING System.” Writing for OmniVista has increased Jim’s knowledge base and helped him branch out. He has developed training programs for autistic children’s support staff and teacher’s aides, as well for people in recovery, and in recovery centers across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and North Carolina.
Author’s note: I did a bit of my own research and learned that numerous medical studies of Vagus nerve stimulation (using electrodes or implants) have been done in the U.S., showing clinical benefits in treating heart disease, epilepsy, depression, and other diseases. If you google “Vagus nerve stimulation” you’ll find many references to such studies, as well as studies in India of the benefits of stimulating the nerve by chanting or humming. Jim’s core observation is actually that many therapeutic benefits can be obtained through sound and touch alone. Our nervous systems are then known to trigger release of beneficial chemicals, such as norepinephrine, acetylcholine, serotonin, and adrenaline. I’m not able to prove or disprove the science of this, just to say that since attending one of Jim’s workshops. I’ve been using the brain humming and brain tapping procedures. I find they relax me and reduce some chronic neck, back, and shoulder pain symptoms. I subscribed to the Jim Donovan’s Whole SOUND HEALING System myself to learn more!
As with all our True Stories of Giving and Inspiration, I’d like to close with Jim’s moments of greatest challenge and inspiration, and a call to action.
Moments of Greatest Challenge
Jim said his greatest obstacle was finding self-confidence, especially early in life: “Once I had success as a musician I thought I was cured [of a lack of self-confidence], but when I pivoted to education, it reared its head and I had to rebuild it. I’ve also tried hard to invent a life that I wanted to live (and still make a good living) rather than doing something imposed on me by normalcy. I’ll be 50 soon, and I want to look back on my life and say I would do that again in a heartbeat. I’ve realized I’m good at manifesting things, the next challenge is making sure I’m thinking big enough!”
Going forward, Jim has big plans. He wants to continue creating music-based products that are educational, and use his new Sun King Warriors band as a platform to get the word out on whole body sound healing: “Music is a way to reach a lot more people; we have a record coming out and will do something a little bit risky and audacious: We will give it away!”
Moments of Greatest Inspiration
After each of his children was born, Jim said: “I felt like my heart grew 2 sizes bigger. What it increased in me was my capacity to love people without needing anything from them. When I get in front of people I think: Love them first, then perform.”
Jim was also inspired by getting to play with some of his heroes: “When Led Zepplelin played Pittsburg they said we [Rusted Root] were the best band in Amercia and dedicated a performance of ‘The Song Remains the Same’ to us as Jimmy Page came out on stage wearing a Rusted Root t-shirt. This was reminder to me that anything is possible!”
Authors Note: At the workshop, Jim told us another inspiring story. During the Rusted Root days, playing as the backup band one night the group found itself on a stage in the middle of a completely deserted parking lot. It was time to play, and the band members looked at one another in disbelief and uncertainty. Jim recalls: “We were in a dire circumstance but we decided to go all in, to take pride in what we do, and to play like it was the last time we’ll ever get to play. This is something we did it consistently from the very first night we played together and I didn’t realize until years later the power of that mindset; whatever it is do it right, go all the way, and don’t hold back.” As the band played, a woman wearing sunglasses came out into the parking lot, walking a dog, and then it was as if they were playing just for her. After the song was done, she came up to the stage and introduced herself; it was Sheryl Crow! After saying “People need to hear you guys!” Crow referred Rusted Root to radio and concert connections in New York City, leading eventually to the band selling over three million records.
Call to Action
We should all take Jim’s story to heart and learn from his mindset and experience. Each of us will follow a different path, but we can all work on visualizing our dreams, being the best version of ourselves we can be, and going all in to the flow of giving and receiving in the stream of life.
Jim’s sound healing tools like brain humming may be an important addition to Technologies of the Mind we’ve already discovered here on Thirdways Communities. If you ever feel stressed, depressed, can’t sleep, or just plain curious check it out at the links provided in this post. And let’s talk in this space here about what works for us. Perhaps the time will come to get on board with Jim’s Dream!