The HOLISTIC EDUCATION and COMPLEMENTARY HEALTH aspect of our approach has come out of twenty five years of working in the field of personal growth and self development.

In my journey to become a singer and as the Director of THE COURAGE TO SING I found that practising vocal exercises and singing songs was not enough on its own to free my voice and music and truly make my heart sing. I have twenty five years of experience in the healing arts as a yoga and Qigong practitioner and have been practising meditation and relaxation techniques for over thirty years. These things have given me a spiritual understanding, strength and courage to continue to reach to be the best human being that I can be.

I have realised that talent alone is not enough to have success in the music business. You also have to have huge self-confidence, self-belief and emotional stability. I would like to give thanks to all the organisations, groups, trainers and practises I have studied with over the years. They include many life coaching trainings and leadership development trainings. Just a few of the wonderful teachers with whom I have trained and without whose work I may not even be alive let alone the Director of such a thriving organisation are: the work of John Bradshaw www.johnbradshaw.com; Tony Robbins www.tonyrobbins.com , Brandon Bays www.thejourney.com and Chuck and Lency Sepezzano at www.pov-int.com with particular thanks to the UK division and trainers.

Through this work and my own reading and research I have also incorporated principles from Neuro-linguistic programming NLP and healing with sound into our approach and syllabus. The term Sound Healing covers a great variety of techniques and encompassing virtually all aspects of the auditory phenomenon--from music to nature sounds to electronic sounds to vocal sounds. Jonathan Goldman www.healingsounds.com sound pioneer and author has spent the past three decades working to bring the healing nature of sound into mainstream awareness. He describes the human voice as "Perhaps the greatest instrument of healing" and talks about " Toning... to describe the use of the voice for release of pain and stress, and to help align imbalanced portions of the body.

More recently I have become fascinated by the work of Dr. Masaru Emoto documented in his book The Messages of Water. This is quoted from an online magazine article by S Barber issue Vol 1 August 2000 on the web site www.spiritofmaat.com

Here are some other effects that Emoto claims to have found in his research:

• Water from clear mountain springs and streams has beautifully formed crystalline structures, while the crystals of polluted or stagnant water are deformed and distorted.
• Distilled water exposed to classical music takes delicate, symmetrical crystalline shapes.
• When the words "thank you" were taped to a bottle of distilled water, the frozen crystals had a similar shape to the crystals formed by water that had been exposed to Bach's "Goldberg Variations" (see right) -- music composed out of gratitude to the man it was named for.
• When Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" was played to water, the resulting frozen crystals were split in two.
• When water samples are bombarded with heavy metal music or labelled with negative words, or when negative thoughts and emotions are focused intentionally upon them, the water does not form crystals at all and displays chaotic, fragmented structures.

In a recent interview, Reiko Myamoto Dewey asks Dr Emoto
"REIKO: Have you come across a particular word or phrase in your research that you have found to be most helpful in cleaning up the natural waters of the world?

DR. EMOTO: Yes. There is a special combination that seems to be perfect for this, which is love plus the combination of thanks and appreciation reflected in the English word gratitude. Just one of these is not enough. Love needs to be based in gratitude, and gratitude needs to be based in love. These two words together create the most important vibration. And it is even more important that we understand the value of these words. For example, we know that water is described as H2O. If we were to look at love and gratitude as a pair, gratitude is the H and love is the O. Water is the basis that not only supports but also allows the existence of life. In my understanding of the concept of yin and yang, in the same way that there is one O and two Hs, we also need one part yang/love to two parts yin/gratitude, in order to come to a place of balance in the equation."

In conclusion music is one of the most powerful and ancient healing tools known to humankind. It by-passes the intellectual and limited conscious mind straight into the sub-conscious where thoughts are created. Here real change can occur.

The thinking part of the brain is conditioned by experience patterns. By producing new and positive experiences using music, song, dance and therapeutic healing practices, old and redundant experience patterns can be replaced by positive and useful constructs and new behavior can occur.

When you are completely immersed in the moment; when you are enjoying yourself so much that you are mindless; when you are in a community where it is safe to release old patterns at a very deep level, then you are able to connect with the essence of your being. This is what some people call the soul level or the sub-conscious mind.