The Healing Power of Inspiration, Intention, and Coherence

by Kathleen Riley, Ph.D

Do you remember the first time you were really inspired to begin something, like play an instrument, dance, or draw? What called you to it? Is it still present within you? Here are some messages and keys for you to reconnect with your higher heart and soul’s inspiration.

I’ve been playing piano since I was four years old. There was a piano in the house and my mother played. As a little girl, I would go to the piano and touch the keys. I was in awe of the sound. It spoke to my heart.

What inspired you? Where did it start? Was it in your mind? Or was it in your heart? Let’s examine what often happens to this inspiration as we get older.

So, back to the beginning. For me, there was a powerful “aha!” moment when I first touched the keys. The wonderment unfolded the moment I played two notes together. I loved the sound. I had discovered a portal. The sound deeply resonated within me, and I felt connected to something bigger.

Through learning, I discovered a pathway for expression through sounds from within me. In the early years, I never had a reservation — it was joyous. There was no fear simply because there were no “wrong notes,” simply mistakes. I remember how effortless it was, once my senses “owned it,” to take it to memory. This was the foundation of sensory learning for me and being in touch with my heart.

When I was 13, I accompanied an older friend to visit a little boy named Duncan whom she was babysitting. There was a beautiful grand piano in the house. One day he greeted us at the door with a big smile. He asked if I would go to the piano with him. We walked to the piano and he said excitedly, “I want to show you something.” He played two notes, first separately and then together. He then looked up at me with joy beaming from his little face. He exclaimed, “Isn’t that just beautiful?” At that moment, something deep within my soul sang out a resounding YES! It resonated deep within my core and permeated every cell and fiber of my being.

But then what happens to it? What do we do with it? Throughout my years of teaching music, I always ask “Why do you wish to learn this piece?” Students of all ages and levels of skill would answer, “Because I love it!” And then I would ask the questions. Did you carry that intention with you when you practiced? Did you bring it and infuse it Iinto every day? And the answers would often be, “No, I forgot.” For older students studying in music schools as well as performers, it often quickly morphed into worry, concern, and anxiety. Worry about getting the right notes, making a mistake, or memorizing the piece. And underneath it all, there was a feeling of not being good enough.

Here are some simple yet profound ways to reconnect to and infuse that first inspiration. This gives a boost to the message that you’re trying to convey through your heart. It will then have the frequency and resonance to “speak” to every person through your sounds.

The magical key ingredient is to “tune” the frequencies within you! For you are the person sharing sound, music, or spoken word. The key ingredient is intention!

Let’s go back to little Duncan. Intention emanated from his being. He brought an intention of creating something beautiful and indeed he did, touching his heart, mine, and everyone else's in the room that morning. It’s the very same intention that creates the vibration and resonance in the tone of our speaking voice. My mother said to me as a young child when I would get cranky, “Honey, it’s not the ‘what’ you are saying, it’s the ‘how.’” As I grew older the learning was how to modulate my voice by “tuning in” with what I wished to convey.

The “magic key” lies within the powerful frequencies of every thought, attitude, and feeling emanating from our being through the signals generated by our heart. These affect everyone and everything around us. They have a powerful effect upon our sounds. Our thoughts and motivations are capable of creating dissonance and incoherence, or harmony and coherence, whether through our instruments or spoken word.

I learned so deeply about our hearts' intelligence through my training with the HeartMath Institute. Epigenetics and science have proven that all of our thoughts, attitudes, and emotions emanate from us, affecting everyone and everything around us — even the sound in my piano. Even though I cannot physically make notes go louder and softer, I tune in to listening for the sound between the notes.

I somehow create melodic lines that do get louder and softer. Let’s take a look at the “how.” The signals from our hearts, generated by our thoughts, attitudes, and emotions, travel up to the brain. In the brain, they go to the “magic spot.” That is the thalamus. It activates all of our sensory output.

Let’s travel through our thalamus into our bodies. The heart intends what we wish to share. The signals travel up to the thalamus. It travels to, what I call the inner ear, or “third ear.” Here we hear internally, milliseconds before creating sound, or speaking words. Frequencies are generated of what is to be expressed. Most are above the audible level and are transmitted through intention to the space between the notes, words, and sounds.

The thalamus connects these vibrations with tactile sensory awareness, allowing audiation through sound. These speak the language of the message through nuances. Audiation takes place when we hear and comprehend music for which the sound is not present.

For me, it’s an intangible frequency. It is immediately heard and understood at a deep processing level. Within us, it’s guided by the sensory output of the thalamus.

Let’s imagine a superhighway traveling down from the ear, through the arm, and out the fingertips. This also travels through vocal sound. The frequencies, stemming from the intentions through heart signals, align with tactile sensory awareness. This creates the frequencies of our messages through sound. In turn, it tunes our vibrational field. It resolves any dissonance into harmonic vibration. This creates coherence.

This impacts coherence and affects relationships and learning. Intention is capable of bringing people to a different level of consciousness. To paraphrase from Hazrat Inayat Khan, when a Sufi artist tunes his instrument, he tunes his own soul. Once he is in tune with his instrument, he has become one with the instrument. He is one with his audience.

Sound and music created with intentionality have healing effects upon us. Intentionality generated through our high hearts ignites the divine power of music. It heals, calms, and connects us all. We are all intimately connected; the frequencies of our heart strings vibrate in sympathetic resonance within the bioenergetic field of the Universe.

As you go through your days, remember to take a moment to set intention. Take a few deep cleansing breaths in your heart center. I invite you to plant the seeds of intentions in the garden of your heart. Plant gratitude, kindness, patience, compassion, forgiveness — whatever your heart is calling for. Listen to your breath and vision your intentions as they travel through your body. Invite yourself to become one with your intentions, and listen more deeply to the spaces between the thoughts, words, and sounds.

To discover more, I invite you to join Sounds of Coherence — a new online community. Learn tools and techniques to create and sustain coherence and wellbeing through intention and sound.

At the age of four, when she first began to play the piano, Kathleen Riley discovered the magical portal of sound. Following her innate gift, she pursued music through college and earned a PhD in Piano Performance to learn how to explore the nuances of sound and teach this magic to students. Her path led her into scientific studies in neurophysiology, psychology, and biofeedback, and she began researching the effects of coherence on sound, both physically and through heart coherence. Her research has been published in Biofeedback and Medical Problems of Performing Artists, and she’s also been featured in The New York Times and Scientific American.

Kathleen introduced her special techniques to the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute, has taught courses in Optimal Performance, and ran a Biofeedback Lab at the Cleveland Institute of Music. Her research with the HeartMath Institute, on the effects of shared intentionality among members of a string quartet and the audience, was filmed as a documentary called The Power of the Heart.

Kathleen chaired sessions for Ubiquity University on Humanity Rising and on Creating Coherence through sound, music and art. She hosted the program Sounds of Coherence for three seasons on the Awake TV Network, and has had four specials, including one for Jonathan Goldman’s 19th Annual World Sound Healing Day. She is completing a book about music, sound, intentionality, and the global field.

Click here to access a free PDF from Kathleen called ”Intentions From The Heart: How to Ignite Your Heart for Intentional Living.”