Drumming Affirmations
excerpt: “History of the Groove” Russell Buddy Helm ©21014 all rights reserved.
The concept of drumming affirmations came to me when I had to save myself. My overly critical mind was consuming me alive. Commercials and movies have soundtracks that convince us how to feel. “A movie is 50% soundtrack.” George Lucas had said. Drumming can be a rhythmic device that will enhance any learning experience if the groove is positive and relaxing. Unless you are interested in getting energized by the up tempo beats. That is always possible but what I needed was a way to access my own memory banks and rhythmically reprogram how my survival mind works. The survival mind is a mechanism. It has good intentions but it can interfere with simple things. Drumming is a way to see the interference of the critical mind trying to control hands in a rhythm. It tries to stay in control when it doesn’t know what’s it doing. In other words, the intellect does not understand rhythm. It can work with it, it can learn rhythm, but essentially it can get blind sided by rhythm. That’s how commercials get us to buy stuff we don’t need; rhythm and music, of course. Once I studied affirmations, I realized a subtle point; most people speed up their affirmations which defeats the intent of the affirmation. Our belief system is sensitive to rhythms. We instinctively react to certain rhythms. If it is fast, there is adrenalin for fight or flight. This comes from learned history; if a tempo is fast, it probably means there is danger near. But if the tempo slows down, the system usually assumes that the environment is safe and will shut off adrenalin and secrete healing endorphins. This is one of the oldest forms of reactive behavior humans have adapted. So with drumming affirmations, it is very important to lay back the groove, even slow it down as the affirmation progresses, otherwise the learned affirmation might have an emotional charge of fear on the memory if it is learned with a tempo that speeds up. Our perception of reality is influenced by tempo.
excerpt: “History of the Groove” Russell Buddy Helm ©21014 all rights reserved.