The Healing Power of Music: 1-hour of Self-Care with Ambient Cello

1. Introduction: Hello. Welcome to today's session, the healing power of music. My name is the Wong Janice, and I am a composer, cellist, and teacher who combines the power of ambient cello music with guided meditation. You might know me from my cello meditation music, live streams or one of my courses. I have dedicated my life to sharing my unique music, medicine, with the world, and I am so, so honored to be here, and thank you everyone for showing up today. The purpose of today's session, the healing power of music is to bring you to a deepest state through the cello vibrations and frequencies. In this state, bring awareness to three themes I have chosen, gratitude, self-empowerment, and self-care. By the end of the session, you may feel more grounded, calm, and more positive. We're going to start with a short guided meditation to calm the body, and then I will lead you through three pieces, which are all my own original compositions. Each piece combines layers of improvised melodies on the cello with effect pedals and a loop machine. For this session, you won't need anything specific, but I invite you to decide now how you would like to spend the next hour, whether it will be lying down on a yoga mat, for example, or sitting down on a meditation cushion, or journaling with your favorite notebook, or even just enjoying the music as background while eating lunch. It's totally up to you. I just recommend to get your best set of headphones to really immerse yourself in the music. 2. Guided Meditation: So now let's start with a short guided meditation. Close your eyes. You can open your eyes when I start playing but for now, I invite you to close your eyes. By closing your eyes, you make a commitment to being here, to filter out distractions, allowing yourself this hour for yourself, and to open yourself to the healing power of music. Connect with how you feel today, connect with your breath. Take a moment to reflect on why you are called to join this session. We are all here to practice self-care. Be proud for showing up. In a world where we are always connected, even here it is necessary to sometimes disconnect to take time out just for yourself to relax, to let go, to enjoy, and just be. Connect with the group energy. You are not here alone. We are so many beautiful souls altogether here. Feel part of a family, feel included, feel like you belong, and smile to yourself knowing you are here at exactly the right place. Connect with the now, and put aside everything else for a moment. Relax every muscle in the body from top to toe. With every breath, release any tension within and open your curiosity for this musical journey. Open yourself for any emotions that might arise during the session. Let the frequencies of the cello vibrate through your body. Breathe out stress, breathe out anxiety, breathe out worries. Breathe in love, breathe in light, and breathe in peace. Allow yourself to have this quiet moment to pause, reflect, and find calm and stillness in this musical moment of self-care. So let's get started on this beautiful journey together. 3. Introduction To Gratitude: For the first piece of today's session, I've chosen the theme of gratitude, which is also the theme of the first lesson in my course, Journaling with Cello for Grounding and Positivity. When we reflect on what is good in our lives, what we are so blessed to have, even the smallest things, our mind shifts to positive vibrations. The more positive vibrations we have, the more balance of the mind we will have. Meaning, it will be harder to throw us off balance. When you feel unbalanced, low, or in a negative mood, practicing gratitude can help you see the bigger picture of life and transform its feelings into positive ones. If you're already feeling good, this continual practice of gratitude can keep the stability in your life. In the next 10 minutes, using the music as inspiration, contemplate on the following question. What are you grateful for today? Feel free to write your answer and then meditate on it for the rest of the time. 4. Gratitude Meditation: Oh, yeah. Hi. 5. Introduction To Self-Empowerment : For the second piece, I have chosen the theme of self-empowerment, which is aligned with the lesson of the solar plexus chakra in my course, chakra cleansing with deep cello. It is a lesson about self-acceptance and bringing out our own power through affirmations. Sometimes we find ourselves relying on external validation and waiting for others to pay as complements to validate our self worth. But why should we wait around? What happens when the people around us don't reward us or tell us what we are waiting to hear. This can happen for example, in the workplace between managers and subordinates or perhaps the relationship between parents and children or between partners. This can lead to low self-esteem, lack of confidence, and a lot of self-doubt. At any given moment in time, practicing self-empowerment and reminding ourselves of what we are really worth is the best thing to do to help pump ourselves up and transform any negative feelings into positive ones. Why should we need others to tell us that we're good when we can do it ourselves? Self-confidence starts from within and not externally. When we start to repeat empowering mantras over and over to ourselves, our mind shifts to a positive gear and results in more balance of the mind. When the mind is stable and full of positive energy, there is no room at all for negative thoughts. In the next 10 minutes, using the music as inspiration, create your own personal power mantras by completing the sentence, I am. Feel free to write your sentences and then meditate on them for the rest of the time. 6. Self-Empowerment Meditation: Hello. Hello. 7. Introduction To Self-Care: For the last piece, I have chosen the theme of self-care. When we stop for a moment and put more focus on ourselves and our space, we can really put back the love into our core and create a sacred space to protect ourselves and give from a place of love and stability and not only project or spend our energy on other people, all things external to us. In the next 15 minutes, using the music as inspiration, answer the following question. What's something nice you can do for yourself this week? Feel free to write your answer and then meditate on it for the rest of the time. 9. Bonus Introduction: I hope you're enjoying this cello journey so far. We're almost at the end, but I see we still have a few minutes left, so I'd love to play you just a mini encore. It's a piece I'm working on. It doesn't have a name yet. This is the first time you'll be hearing it. Let me know how you're experiencing the music so far. Really curious to know and always love to hear from you. This is officially the last piece of the journey today, and thank you so so much. It's been my pleasure. 10. Bonus Meditation: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Hello. 11. Final Words: That concludes our session today. I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I have. If you'd like to be kept up-to-date, follow me at the Wong Janis or join the Wong family and you'll be notified when I release new music or host a live event, or when my next course is ready, which I'm actually currently working on right now. Thank you once again for your beautiful presence today. I wish you all the best. Take care.