The Sound of Your Heart

It starts off slowly, as many things do. Like the beginning of a hurricane, a few droplets of sound touch your skin, causing a shiver of surprise. The sensation moves through your body, informing your heart and mind of what’s to come. Your breath quickens as your body simultaneously beats, taps, and perhaps starts to sway. Then comes a crucial moment: do you play it conservative and cool, remaining where you are, or do you lean in fully to the vibrations, giving control over your body to your heart?

For this example, let’s choose the path we truly desire. Slowly, our body begins to heat up and move to the timing of the bass. Seamlessly, our joints carry us out of stationary positions and into haphazardly concocted movements. And before you can even comprehend your own actions, your leaping attempting to reach the heavens.

If you’ve ever seen anyone truly elated, 90% of the time they are not grounded to the earth. Instead, their being is flying, whether in a metaphysical manner or through the actual action of jumping up and down. It seems that the feeling of pure joy brings a need to be unbound from gravity and its constraints. This is evident when we are taken up in music’s grasp.

During my sophomore year, I attended a school dance. Whether it was the spring formal or prom, I have no recollection. What remained, however, was the act of jumping in unison with 150 other students. The desire to leave the earth’s bindings and fly was not planned or suggested by any individual. Yet, all of us fell into a stupor of exhilaration for well over an hour, ultimately resulting in the foundation of the building splitting in half, costing the school over $25,000, as we discovered the following day. Apparently, the gym teacher had arrived that morning and, upon seeing the massive crater in the gym floor, was slightly distressed… whoops.

All the money, drugs, and parties in the world do not bring about the happiness that I experienced that night, at a free event, in a sweaty old gymnasium. While I recall that memory fondly, I can experience peak moments similar to it within my own home, at my leisure. The defining features of these moments may be different for all of us. Mine involves movement, music, and me. Yours do not need to be based on the same environment as mine. Just listen to the sound of your heart and surrender to those feelings that lift you up and out of your own head. You are wild, free, powerful, and so much more.