Silver Linings 2008
September 6
Arctic 3 Room, Waterfront Hotel, Lahug, Cebu City 
Speakers : Dr. Bill Ramos And Marq Dollentes
Topic : Healing Through Music, Sound & Movement
Therapy Host  : Jude Bacalso 

Jude: I would like to introduce to you to the first gentleman. He calls himself an expressionist, I call myself a supermodel (laughs), in my dreams, of course. You can be anyone in your dreams. He is an expressionist who actually is a multi-media talent such as, just to mention a few, he sings, he write songs, he writes poetry, he acts, he directs, and he also produces among others, as an instrument of peace, and also as a way and means to awaken and inspire others to express themselves to live life to the fullest, like just what you are doing. You can say that you have done so far is not go through chemotherapy, it is not that at all. It is choosing to live, that is the biggest thing that you have ever done, so far. It’s to choose to live because you can choose to give up, right? You can just choose to say “Just wrap me up in a blanket!” Right? We have expressions like that, right?  Cancer? Wrap me up in a blanket!” But seeing you here this afternoon, you have chosen to live.  

This gentleman has worked with Kuh Ledesma, don’t you see the family resemblance? He has been with Kuh Ledesma’s group of companies and has travelled extensively throughout the US and Canada as production manager for Kuh’s concert tours with brilliant artists. He has appeared in two acclaimed independent hit movies, Compound, and Sa Pagdapo ng Mariposa. Hhmmm, sounds like one of my films in the past; and co-wrote a theme song of the movie with Keith Martin called Let’s Play or The Game of Life, which was in a soundtrack of the album by Isabella and Keith Martin. He is now directing and singing, and performing in shows through the expressions of One World of Music and Light Services. And I saw him put together his album called Yipee. I am also putting together my album, but it’s only a photo album, not a record, however, soon you will find out. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome him with a round of Cebuano applause, Marq Dollentes. Please give Marq a round of applause. Hello, Marq, you will be singing, dancing, and grooving with us. 

I will introduce you to another person who will be helping us out, you are familiar with him. He is a graduate of Cebu Institute of Medicine and internal medicine residency at UP-PGH; he also had medical oncology fellowship training at UP-PGH. He also took up Mind, Body, Spirit medicine care of the Center for Mind and Body Medicine in Berkeley, California and Washington, D.C., my home state. He is also the head of section of medical oncology at Chong Hua Hospital. He is vice-chairman of Kahayag Network of Cancer Support Groups, and member of the governing council of the Philippine Society of Medical Oncology. Ladies and gentlemen, please give a round of applause for Dr. Bill Ramos.

I leave you in their able hands and if there are any questions later on, I will be here also to facilitate that and I am dressed comfortably because I will also participate in all the movements that you will be experiencing this afternoon. So, how about a round of applause for Marq and Dr. Bill?

Dr. Ramos:

Good afternoon.

Marq:

A pleasant afternoon to all of you. My name is Marq and I am blessed and happy and delighted to be with all of you here today, and be a part of Silver Linings and facilitate this Healing through Music, Sound, and Movement Therapy.

Before we start, I just would like to share with all of you guys how this specific therapy has helped me when I was in my teens and in my childhood when I felt lost and I always have a feeling of despair and feeling of unease, which is basically just my unease towards life. I was just not at ease at my life situation and myself. So, I can call it some kind of a cancer of sorts.  

In my experience, music has brought me to a place of peace, of joy, of comfort, of guidance, and of bliss. At that time, I was not yet aware, but there were moments that I was just alone in my room and I would just sing or dance or do movements with my body, and that certain and various stuffs of music; and I would be in that state of enchanted timelessness, and I was just so present, so present that no worry, no feeling of unease was there. So, in that particular state, there is nothing. There is no disease at all. So, that is our purpose today, to just leave all our worries behind; for once not to think about our problems, which is basically the major cause of our uneasiness, our unhappiness, and our stress. So, we will take you to that place, which I have experienced for myself, which I call an enchanting timelessness.

For you guys, for your experience this afternoon, I do not how you would label that experience because for me, that is how I would label it, so every one of us would have to label it for ourselves, and discover it for ourselves. Dr. Bill?

Dr. Ramos:

Marq’s part in this session, he is actually the music in the music therapy. He has done all the music tracks that we are using for this afternoon. So, they are all original, done specifically done for Silver Linings except for the finale, which he also took part of; the video which we will show at the end. 

Mind, body, spirit medicine is actually a principle of medicine. We cannot call it a sub-specialty. You can actually apply the principle of mind, body, spirit medicine in whatever specialty that you have. So, it is treating the whole person – mind, body, and spirit. And health, the word health actually came from an old English word, which means whole. Whole means a whole person’s mind, body, and spirit because we are not just a body; we have the mind and the spirit. And the problem in one aspect can affect the other aspects of ourselves. I have the recent realization that cancer is actually a spiritual disease. So, it is not just enough to treat just the body.

I am sure a lot of you would agree when I say most, if not all, of the cancer patients are reborn. They are a different person after the diagnosis. So, that is very spiritual. The fact that it is very much linked with death is another reason why it is a spiritual disease.

When you do not manage the spiritual aspect of health, you are missing a lot in a patient with cancer. A lot of times, this is management of the spiritual part. This is usually done by the patient; and now, the doctors would like to help in managing that aspect.

For this afternoon, we would like to share a tool of mind, body, spirit, and the same is a technique that we use in treating the mind, the body, and the spirit.  You see, music…

Marq:

Hold that thought, Dr. Bill, I would just add that before I was not aware that I was already doing this therapy when I was a child, and when I was a teenager this is basically the therapy that I was doing. I was not yet aware that it was actually there in the bible that said, “Physician, heal thyself.” So it is very spiritual. At the time, I was not yet aware that God’s spirit was already bringing me into a state or a process of healing where I was not conscious that I was doing my own healing for myself; but it was just God and I was just listening to what he tells me to do. When I am alone in my room, I do these things. Those are moments that give us spaciousness to our disease. We do not have a disease in moments like that.

We are so glad that we have this kind of moments now for us to just think, not of our problems, of our situations.

Dr. Ramos:

To be at ease – that is the challenge, to stay in that moment of ease. That is what usually happens when you recognize the power of the moment, not worrying about tomorrow, and not regretting the past, just staying in the moment.  

With music therapy, you cannot help but be in the moment. When you listen, you are being in the moment. That is why music is a tool in mind, body, spirit medicine. One of the powers of that is being in the moment. Some people would say when you listen to music, you are transported to a different time and place, but that different time and place is just here and now, but a lot of times you are not here and now, that is why the moment can be strange; because most of the time, we are there in the past, regretting about the past, or worrying about the future, and we are more familiar with that than the moment.

The “physician, heal thyself,” was actually a quote given Hippocrates, but I am not surprised that it is also in the Bible. I used to think that “physician, heal thyself” was referred to physicians, but I had the realization that it is not. It refers to everyone. Every one of us are physicians, because Jesus cannot just talk to physicians, He was talking to everyone; and He was saying “physician, heal thyself.” Meaning, we can all heal ourselves because we are all physicians and we just need to believe, because it is our faith that would heal us. The chemotherapy, the surgery, the radiation, they are instruments to increase our faith, but it is our faith that would heal us. And with music, we want you to believe in music, believe in yourself. That is why we are putting guided meditation in this session.

Meditation takes a big part in music therapy. There are three kinds of meditation: the first is concentrative meditation, the second is mindfulness or awareness meditation, and the third is expressive meditation. Meditation simply means relaxed moment to moment awareness. All these terms are important. You should be relaxed, you should be in the moment, from this moment to that moment, and you are aware, you are aware of what is happening, you are aware of the emotions, you are aware of the feelings. Concentrative meditation, you usually focus on one thing. Later, we will guide you with the music, and we will guide you through your breathing, the focus on your breathing is a form of concentrative meditation. Mindfulness meditation is just when you are doing something with your whole being, that is a form of mindfulness meditation. That is why there is walking meditation, there is eating meditation, anything that you do with your whole being, when you are there, mind, body, and spirit – you are eating mind, body, and spirit, you are meditating. When you are meditating, you are relaxed, when you are relaxed, your body heals; when you are not relaxed, when you are in the fight or flight mode, your resistance drops. When your resistance drops, any kind of disease can come out. The immune system has a lot of roles in most of the diseases, if not all.

For mindfulness, awareness, and concentrative meditation, there are a lot of studies, so I am not here to convince you of the efficacy of those things, you just need to experience them in order to prove that it is effective. In expressive meditation, there are not enough studies, but based on history, it has been practiced since the olden times. Expressive meditation is expressing what you feel, or expressing your prayer through movement; that is why there is chanting, there were dancing in the old tribes; those are forms of expressive meditation. Later on, we will do shaking. We will teach you shaking, that is a form of expressive meditation, and we will do what I call soul dancing, expressing how you feel and whatever you want to express through movement, through your dance. And each must have your own dance. Nobody else can do your dance, it is just yours and yours alone. So that you cannot say that she is doing it better, I am doing it wrong. It is just yours and hers is just hers.

Later we will ask some of us to move some of the chairs outside because we will be doing the active. First, we will do the guided meditation using music as a tool. In meditation, yeah, some of you are doing it already, putting down the bags, finding the most comfortable position. In meditation, any form of meditation, breathing is basic, breathing is an essential part, and it should be relaxed breathing. What is relaxed breathing? You know, the most relaxed breathing that you can do. A lot of times, what makes our breathing not relaxed is when our tummies are so tensed. So, do not hold your breath. Relax your tummies, relax your abdominal muscles. That’s why babies have the most relaxed breathing. When the babies inhale, their tummies bulge out, because when you inhale, the diaphragm, the muscle of respiration, drops. It goes down, and when it goes down, your tummy should bulge. So if your tummies hard, if the abdominal muscles are tense, it cannot go down, when it cannot go down, you cannot inhale as much air, you cannot inhale as much oxygen; that is another benefit of mediation, you will actually improve your circulation because you are actually inhaling more oxygen. Most of the time, our breathing is rapid and shallow, and that is ineffective respiration. The effective respiration is slow, deep, and relaxed. So, try doing that.

When you sigh, you feel better, relaxed, just like your circulation has been restarted. Why? When the diaphragm is stimulated and goes down, there is a nerve there that is called vagus nerve, that is stimulated. This vagus nerve is a nerve of relaxation and it is part of autonomic nervous system or automatic nervous system. There is no other way but to relax, when you stimulate that nerve, it’s reflex is that you would relax. The challenge is now how long can you stay in that relaxed state after the sigh.

When you breathe for five to ten minutes, you are doing a lot of good for your body. And that’s learning to stop. A lot of times we do not stop, we just go and go and go. A lot of times we think that when we do nothing, we achieve nothing, that’s wrong. When we do nothing, we achieve a lot of things. We achieve relaxation, and that is a big thing. That is a big thing for healing.

When I guide, I also meditate, so I will also sit. The first track, if we can dim the lights, this track is made by Marq, it is called the Path of Light, so just listen to the music, find a relaxed position; it is usually with your arms on your lap.  (music in the background)  

You may close your eyes, do you feel comfortable? When we close our eyes, we limit the distractions from the outside world and focus on the inside.  

Go inward.  

Do slow, deep, relaxed breathing.  

In through your nose, out through your mouth. 

Relax your jaw, a lot of tensions are focused on our jaws.  

You can breathe out through your mouth.  

Slow, deep breathing.  

Relax your tummy.  

In through your nose, out through your mouth.  

Focus on your breathing, as you imagine your safe place; a place where you feel safe, where you are comfortable; comfortable to be yourself. Imagine that place and keep doing the slow, deep, relaxed breathing.

You feel your forehead relaxed, your face relaxed, your shoulders relaxed, your arms relaxed.  Do you feel heavy?  Then they are relaxed – your thighs, your legs, and your whole body relax.

Breathe in, a little more, deep.

Slower, deeper, more relaxed breathing as you listen to the music.

(music ends)

Okay, gradually, slowly, when you are ready, open your eyes and bring your consciousness back to the room. When you are ready, open your eyes and you are back to the room. Open your eyes and back to the room.

Thank you for doing it with us, and thank you, Marq, for that music, it is called Path of Light, and he did it especially for this session.

How are you feeling? Relaxed? Sleepy? That is okay, that means you are relaxed, because you cannot sleep when you are not relaxed. That means it is effective. Some people actually drifted into the sleep state.

Marq:

You can do that at night, if you want, if you cannot sleep. Do the breathing thing and it will bring you to sleep because you do not think about your problems anymore, about your worries.

Dr. Ramos:

During relaxed state, your body heals. That is why there is healing during the relaxed state. A lot of times we are not. Including me, including us. That is why I really take time to sit down and do my breathing. You can do it in the car before you go down, before you enter the house…

Marq:

Maybe before you start your day, the moment that you wake up, have a time for yourself, and breathe and relax so that the whole day is effortless, and you do not have to be so “Oh, what am I going to do next?  I have to go there! I have to go to the doctor. I have to buy something.” You know, slow down.

Dr. Ramos:

Yeah, it is like setting the pace for the day.

Marq:

And everything will go smoothly after this.

Dr. Ramos:

And it is a myth that we have to rush. It is a myth. Nature does not rush, and we are part of nature. You cannot force a flower to bloom, you cannot force the grass to grow. It will grow when it wants to grow, bloom when it wants to bloom, and we are part of nature. We just think that we are not.

So, that’s the concentrative and the mindfulness part of the meditation. Marq is going to do another type of music therapy. The definition of music therapy in mind, body, spirit medicine is any technique that uses music. You can either listen to music, you can write your music, you can move to the music, you can dance to the music, and that’s all music therapy.

I have this what I call comfort music. If there is comfort food, there is comfort music. I have the comfort CD, it is called Angels, it is Celtic music. During times when you do not feel like, you know, getting up or whatever, you just play that music, and it comforts you. If there is comfort food, there is comfort music, or a comfort song that you want to remember when you are down. Who would want to share her comfort song or music?

(someone singing in the background of the song Matud Nila)

I think most of Cebuanos would feel good after hearing Matud Nila, who would not?  

(singing the song Usahay)

That too.

That is still music therapy. My patients would do karaoke or videoke; I would say do it more frequently, do it more often – because it is part of your healing process. You are healing yourself when you do that. When you do something that you love, you are healing yourself. When you are doing something that you do not love, you are hurting yourself, so it is not worth it – doing something that you do not like. Forcing yourself to do something that you do not love, it is not worth it. It will not produce something good if you are feeling unpleasant. So, now I will turn you over to Marq.

Marq:

I am doing this song and I would like you all to just allow the words to sink into your consciousness and see where it leads you. This is also guided imagery, so whatever images come to mind, let it just flow out of your mind.  

(music of the song Imagine)

Dr. Ramos:

So, where did that lead you?  Do you have any images in your mind with the words? Peace. I actually made a video for that song and I just put peace, peace, peace, peace. I think that is the main message of the song.  

That is why it is important to know the intention of your music, of what you are singing, of the singer, of the musician, because you will feel it, you will feel that, the intention of the song. You can feel it through the words, and that is still a form of meditation, by focusing on the words. That is still a form of concentrative meditation. You can do that, when you listen to music. That is why I am inviting you to believe in music, to listen to music more.

The next part, I don’t know, is it possible to move the chairs? This part is the shaking part, it is called shaking meditation. It is based on Chi Qong, which is the Chinese form of meditation, martial arts, and we will be shaking, and that is for a long time. It is for eight minutes.

After the shaking is the meditative dance. I call it soul dance. I used to practice it before, and I usually share it when I give talks, and eventually they are able to convince me to lead the patients to the soul dancing. What I call soul dance is a form of meditative dance. I will explain because we do the shaking, after the shaking, it is straight to the soul dance, we won’t stop.

(Audience are asked to move to the chairs to the side to have more room)

For moving, I will guide you through the soul dance when you reach that. For the shaking, your feet should be ideally shoulder width apart. Your knees are slightly bent, it’s more relaxed when you do that and you won’t hurt your thighs, because this is long. And it is something like this. (demonstrates the movement)  

Okay? That is the technique. I will be asking you to shake more, to shake more.  I will coach you, I will do the cheering. Okay, close your eyes, start shaking, start slow. Shake at your own comfort. If there are parts that are aching, just limit shaking those parts.  

Just shake. Shake away your worries, your troubles. Yes, you are shaking them. A lot of times that’s troubling us is that we get stuck. Stuck at a certain phase, a certain mindset, so shake them off. Okay?  

Bend your knees, your hips, shake your hands.  

So imagine, shaking your disease, shake them off, shake that cancer away. 

Cancer was a diagnosis. Shake them off.  

Keep shaking.  

Shake your shoulders, let your shoulders go.

Keep shaking.

Shake at your comfort but keep shaking.

Keep shaking. When you have problem with balance, you can do the soft eyes, half closed, we call it soft eyes.

Keep shaking; shake your shoulders and your hands more.

Shake all the disease away. Focus on that, meditate on that. Shaking your troubles, your worries. Keep shaking, you are doing it! Let’s go!  

Keep shaking!

That’s the title of this track – Shake for Life. The more you shake, the more life you have. So keep shaking.

Keep shaking. That is good.

Your movement is healing you. Keep shaking.

Keep shaking your whole body. That is good. Be thankful for this moment when you can shake.

Three more minutes, shake, keep shaking now.

Keep breathing.

The track is Shake for Life, and that is the intention, so that is why we are doing it. Keep shaking.

Keep shaking. That is good. Shake.

Shake.

Keep shaking, shoulders, hands, head. Keep shaking. That’s it!

Shake with attitude. One more minute.

Shake your arms!

Keep your eyes closed, keep your eyes closed, then stop. Stop.  

Now, feel the stillness, feel the stillness that you are feeling, okay? Feel the stillness from your heart, each one of us has our own rhythm. We are going to the soul dance.  

Feel your own rhythm, in your heart. Each one of us has our own rhythm, our own wave. Move to that rhythm, let the music move you. Don’t move to the music, let it move you.

This is just soul dance. I invite you to dance. It is your own dance, nobody else can do your dance. Nobody can say that you are doing it better or lesser. Each one is unique, move to the music. Dance! That is good.

Dance more. Let your hands dance. Dance! Dance! Keep dancing!

Dance! Dance like you are dancing for God. That is the soul dance, when you dance for God. How do you dance for God? Yes, everything. Express it through dance.

There are certain emotions for this week; whatever emotion that dominates this week, express it through your dance. The unpleasant emotions of guilt, express it through dance. Express it out! Anger, hatred, jealousy, express it through your dance, express it out so it won’t stay inside, that is how you do the soul dance.  

Now, express the pleasant ones, dance for love! How do you dance for love? You are loved, dance for love. Dance for love, dance for joy, that emotion, with gratitude, grateful for that emotion of joy. Dance for love and gratitude!

For health! How do you dance for health? Is that your best dance? Dance for health! It should be your best dance; your own, unique dance, your soul dance.  Let your soul dance. Dance for health, and gratitude. Be grateful for this chance to dance. When was the last time that you danced like this? Live more often from now on.  

Dance for love! Your best dance! It is a form of prayer. That’s right, people, love your own. Dance for love, and love starts the rhythm, loving yourself unconditionally, accepting yourself unconditionally.  

Feel good? Okay, relax. Relax now.

Okay? That was for all of us, that applause was for all of us, thank you for dancing. That is the soul dance part. So the first part was the shaking. Anybody wants to share their experience? Who wants to share their experience? What happened during the shaking? After the shaking? Who wants to share?

Hormones, substances in our body that will cause the healing; one is serotonin, it makes us feel good. That is the substance that is encased by the anti-depressants. When you take an anti-depressant, your serotonin will increase, when you move, when you exercise, your serotonin actually increases. That is why you feel good, that is why you have the “rush” after jogging.

Another is the endorphins. Those are your indigenous, our own morphine-like substances. That why you have endorphins, they will also make you feel good and it will cause healing, and it would increase after movement, after exercise.  

So, the more you shake, the more you produce those substances, and the more you cause the healing.

Marq:

Of course, when you do that, you lose track of time, and you just enjoy the moment and you lose yourself in that moment, but actually, you are just here, enjoying and being in the presence of God.

Dr. Ramos:

Yes, that is another reason why there is healing, when you surrender to the moment, you actually forget about it. Who was thinking of the disease or of the governance of the world, or of PLDT during shaking? Nobody! So, you all surrender to the moment. When you surrender to the rhythm, you surrender to the music, you are actually letting go of all those things; and the challenge is to stay in that phase, to stay in that moment.

If you cannot stay in that moment, then find a way, then you experience that moment.

Marq:

When you wash your dishes, you can just wash your dishes without thinking of anything; just that. Then, if you are writing, just write without thinking of something else, or when you are doing your laundry, whatever activity, just like that, make it a meditation of your own.

This is hula-inspired video. When you talk about hula, it is actually in Hawaii. Before, they do not have a written language, so they use their hands or their body to express themselves, so whatever they feel, they do not only speak it, they express it with their gestures, their movements. So this particular video was shot with a friend in the States. There is a ministry there called the Saddleback Church, and their ministry is hula ministry, and so we got some of the dancers from there. The head of the hula ministry is Benny Lagos, and we shot this in Laguna Beach in Orange County. There were just three cameramen, I, Kuh, and Isabella. We did the camera for this and we had it edited. The dancers with us in the beach, they danced the hula along with Kuh. This is a very old song, it is called Silayan. They changed into a modern version.

Dr. Ramos:

It is called hula-worship.

Marq:

Yes, they worship while they dance the hula by the beach.

Dr. Ramos:

So, may we ask everyone again to rise. This is hula. There will be lead dancers. They will lead you. They practiced, don’t worry.  

Greg Orencio is a dance instructor; he is a very good friend of the Kahayag Network Cancer Support Groups. He is a volunteer; he does the dancing with the cancer patients every first Sunday of the month at the city gym for free. For the members of the cancer support group, first Sunday of the month with Greg, at the city gym, for free; third Sunday of the month, still with Greg, at Holiday Spa for free, 8 to 9.

We invite you to follow. This is the last. Video, please. I will also dance, so you have no excuse.

Dance! Come on, you can do it.

Keep dancing.

You are the star, remember.

A round of applause for everyone!  Thank you so much!  Thank you for joining us this afternoon.  Thank you.