The Therapeutic Power of Drumming with Greg Whitt: Bonus Episode

Dec 10, 2021

What are some of the surprising mental health benefits clients can receive from drumming? How does music interact with mood? What are some tips for therapists who want to start a drum circle?

MEET GREG WHITT

At Drum for Change, Greg Whitt facilitates workshops and retreats designed to connect people to one another and to the world around them. Greg studied holistic lifestyle practices in graduate school at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. His studies focused on how ancient wisdom traditions can benefit modern society. His studies support his work in leading interactive and experiential education programs in corporations, congregations, communities, and classrooms. Cleverly disguised as music, his programs are actually hands-on philosophy, teaching how to live, work, and play well together in a community.

Visit the Drum for Change website. Connect with them on Facebook and Youtube.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn or email him at: gregory@drumforchange.com

IN THIS PODCAST:

  • Drumming benefits for mental health
  • Music and mood
  • Advice for therapists wanting to start a drumming group

Drumming benefits for mental health

Dr. Barry Bittman, a neurologist, came together with a music therapist to study the benefits of music and drumming on people’s physiological wellbeing.

Together, they did clinical studies on the benefits of music alongside treatment when working with patients who struggled with burnout and cancer.

In their research studies they discovered the science that proves group drumming in a particular way will boost the immune system and reduce the stress response … other agencies have done similar work and validated that all this is true. (Greg Whitt)

Music and mood

It is a well-known phenomenon that putting on your favorite song or the songs that you loved from your youth will get you in a better mood if you are feeling down. There is science behind this.

We know that we can flip that switch and use music to change our mood. What we may not know is that the same switch is also changing our biology … it is [interesting] to do this in ways that aren’t just sitting and listening but are actually creating opportunities for engagement. (Greg Whitt)

Drumming, dancing, and singing are all ways in which people can engage with the music instead of only sitting and listening to it.

Becoming involved in the music and with the community that is creating the music has been shown to dramatically improve overall mood, wellbeing, and help people to regulate their emotions.

Advice for therapists wanting to start a drumming group

  • To start the group, you need a certain number of enthusiasts from the start who want to join in to get it going.
  • Consider the cost of purchasing equipment because renting can be a potential hazard in case drums or instruments are damaged by people.
  • Have some training in leading a drum circle.
  • Remember that it is not about drumming.
  • Take part in drum circles in your area to get an idea of what they can be about.

The measure of success isn’t musicality, and it’s not about the instruments that you use. It’s about the relationships that you’re creating during the occasion, and that’s what really makes all the difference. (Greg Whitt)

Connect With Me

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Resources Mentioned And Useful Links:

Visit the Drum for Change website. Connect with them on Facebook and Youtube.

Connect with Greg on LinkedIn or email him at: gregory@drumforchange.com

How Thoughts Become Your Reality, Interview with Cassidy Rey

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Holistic Counselor

Practice of the Practice Podcast Network

Transcript

[CHRIS McDONALD]

The Holistic Counseling Podcast is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Behind the Bite, Full of Shift and Impact Driven Leader, go to www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

Welcome to the Holistic Counseling Podcast, where you discover diverse wellness modalities, advice on growing your integrative practice, and grow confidence in being your unique self. I'm your host, Chris McDonald. I'm so glad you're here for the journey.

Welcome to today's episode of the Holistic Counseling Podcast. I'm Chris McDonald, your host, an expert in all things related to holistic counseling. If you are a new listener to this podcast, I want to say welcome. As a listener, you have access to my free nine-part email course, Becoming a Holistic Counselor. In this course, you'll explore different holistic strategies, how to develop your skills as a holistic counselor, and how to attract your ideal holistic clients. Go to www.holisticcounselingpodcast.com, scroll down, enter your name and email address today.

Back to today's episode, I am so excited for today's guest, Greg Whitt. I met him at a local drum circle when I was a school counselor, and he actually came to my school to help facilitate a session of therapeutic drumming with my at-risk youth. Let me tell you, it was amazing. The kids were so engaged and focused, full of joy just from that experience of drumming. Greg brings smiles and happiness wherever he goes. At Drum for Change, Greg Whitt facilitates workshops retreats designed to connect people to one another and to the world around them.

Greg studied holistic lifestyle practices in graduate school at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. His studies focus on ancient wisdom traditions to benefit modern society and these support his work leading interactive experiential education programs in corporations, congregations communities, and classrooms. Cleverly disguised as music, his programs are actually hands-on philosophy, teaching how to live, work, and play well together in community. Welcome to the Holistic Counseling podcast, Greg.

[GREG WHITT]

Thanks so much, Chris. It's a treat to be here with you today.

[CHRIS]

I love that last part of your bio about cleverly disguised as music, but it's teaching how to live, work and play together as a community. Wow, that's so cool.

[GREG]

Yes, I tripped into this thing that I do now, my livelihood by accident. What I've discovered is that it's a great gateway into helping people connect to one another and to the planet. That's been the real joy of doing this work for the last nine years, 12 years now for my living.

[CHRIS]

Wow. So can you tell my listeners more about yourself and your work?

[GREG]

Yes, so I am a professional drum circle facilitator. I bring a van full of instruments to your venue. You put people in chairs and I teach them to play nicely together. So there's a lot of ancient wisdom practices that go into this particular activity and now there's a lot of modern science and that proves what the indigenous people knew all along that coming together and making music in a way that's joyful is healthy and good for you.

[CHRIS]

So I was surprised to read you studied holistic lifestyle practices in graduate school. So what peaked your interest in this?

[GREG]

That's a really great question. I attended what at the time was called the Thai Sophia Institute, which was previously the traditional acupuncture Institute, and what's now called the Maryland University of Integrative Health. The program that I studied there was called transformative leadership and social change. Basically, it was ancient wisdom practices and philosophy applied in a modern management context. So I was looking for a leadership program. My background prior to drumming, I worked for a university for 10 years and before that I was in the military. So my interpretations and experiences of leadership were radically different from the stuff that I was studying in this place. But what I loved was that it was all focused on holistic lifestyle and bringing that holistic concept into the workplace.

[CHRIS]

So you fit in well with this podcast. I was so excited to see that, all things holistic here. So when did you start drumming? How did that lead to drumming?

[GREG]

Well, when I left the air force I wound up going back to my Alma Mata at NC State University and taking a job there, which let me finish my degree program as a lifelong learner. I was doing event planning basically. My first job there was renting out the dormitories for the summer where we had a camp of 300 kids come in to study arts and sciences for a week and at the end of their week, they aligned all those kids up to march them into the auditorium and give a slideshow to the parents so that the parents could take them away at the end of their camp.

They led that line of children into that auditorium with one guy playing an African drum. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was a case of, if you've ever heard someone say the music was so beautiful, it moved me, well, it was a literal thing. It actually got my feet moving. So I jumped into that parade and I marched along with that kid and landed at the end in corner of the guy that was drumming and said, what is that? Where did you get at? I've got to have one of those." That started this interest that became a hobby that became a side hustle that has now been my living for a lot of years. So it's a really strange way to break into something.

[CHRIS]

That's fantastic. But I think sometimes when you hear the drumming too, it just kind of draws you in.

[GREG]

They say it calls to you. It connects to something primal in human beings. I would say that's true for a lot of us. It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea and yet I find that lots and lots of people get really good benefits from it even when they don't know that they're coming at it and soaking in those things. They're still happening.

[CHRIS]

So true. So what have you noticed or read about for research as far as the benefits on mental health?

[GREG]

Well, one of the early adopters of that was a guy named Barry Bitman, who is a neurologist. He partnered with a music therapist and they did a bunch of clinical research working with burnout and cancer. So in their research studies they discovered the science that proves group drumming in a particular way will boost the immune system and reduce the stress response. Now lots of other agencies have done similar work and validated that all of this is true. So there's lots of people out on in the world that are practicing these different programs and lots of other ways of going about it that really taps into those old world village community ideas about how can bond and how we can reap the benefits of that connection through music.

[CHRIS]

And have you seen anything, any benefits from your experience?

[GREG]

Yes, lots and lots. You know, with all the years of doing this, I've been drumming for gosh, just over 20 years at this point. So I get to work with everything from school kids to corporate team building, to wellness retreats. There's been so many great success stories about how drumming provides this sonic massage that creates this sense of connection to other people, that removes a sense of isolation, that boost your T-cell count. It's just, there's so much goodness in it that you don't have to be the scientist to understand or access. That's really my work, is to make these ideas easy and accessible for anyone to take advantage of.

[CHRIS]

Just reminds me, we had an episode on sound healing using the singing bowls. So I wonder too, with drumming, it's almost like a sound healing, isn't it, overall mind, body, spirit?

[GREG]

It really is. I love that there's so much renewed interest around the idea of sound healing. That's nothing new and yet there are all kinds of experiences that you can attend now and training programs that you can attend about how to use these different instruments, everything from voice to crystal bowls, to flutes, to drumming all to enhance wellness. So it really becomes this lifestyle kind of medicine.

[CHRIS]

So in your business, what kind of places do you go? What kind of people do you bring drumming to?

[GREG]

So my tagline in my elevator speech as I work with people and those people are in corporations, they're in congregations, they're in communities and they're in classrooms, so about half of what I do is youth development kinds of stuff. So culturally-based school programs with kids in the classroom, summer camps, grief retreats for youth, it's kind of all over the place with those kinds of things. One of the programs that I promote is called drum beat. It came out of Australia and it's a mental health and counseling-based program that fosters positive behaviors for at-risk kids, basically.

That's a great one. Then another program that I've trained is called health rhythms. That's the one that Dr. Pitman developed. It's a 10-step protocol for consistently replicating wellness results using a group drumming format. So those kinds of concepts come into play and anything that I do, but they aren't necessarily the focus of what I do. So I've done programming with the north kind of medical board, with hospice agencies, with church groups. It's just kind of all over the map where this thing that you do, that's good for you helps you build relationships with your coworkers and it reduces stress, and you're getting a cultural introduction to world traditions, and you're promoting diversity and inclusion of because the ideas that everybody gets to contribute to the music making.

[CHRIS]

I like that concept that everybody gets to contribute. I think about when I've gone to drum circles, I don't know what it is, but there's some, it's hard to put into words, isn't it, sometimes like how that feels that connection between everybody.

[GREG]

Yes. You hit on something really important there, because it's about the feel. We have a cognitive understanding perhaps of what a drum circle is but that does nothing to tell you what that's going to feel like and how that's going to resonate in your physiology. So it's a heady thing that's really all about embodiment in practices.

[CHRIS]

Yes, I can see that embodiment, that's a word too, because I know, I've gone to the Asheville Drum Circle and I'll get up and dance and I see lots of people dancing, but it's like, you can almost just feel like you want to move and do something to the beat.

[GREG]

Yes. There's a song that I share a lot in my programming that comes from Burkina Faso. The song is all about, the loose interpretation is make this body dance. How do we come to life more fully? We all know that we're a mind, body, spirit connection, and yet that mind and spirit occupy this body. So the more vibrant we can make that the more vibrant those other pieces of our lives can be too.

[CHRIS]

Yes, so true. So it sounds like it's pretty much any kind of group you've gone to different ages and it's not certain specific groups you look at.

[GREG]

No, and I love it because any group can access it. It doesn't matter if you're three years old or 93 years old. You can still participate to some extent. You can still join in and you can still find this to be a rewarding and joyful experience.

[CHRIS]

You mentioned one of the groups you said, I think you said Drum Beat that was located in Australia, that's for mental health. So can you talk more about that? What is that again?

[GREG]

So Drum Beat was a program developed by a guy named Simon Faulkner who was employed by Holyoke, which is a big mental health provider in Australia. They were really looking at ways to combat issues of suicide and addiction in indigenous populations. So they came up with this participatory drumming program that they teach over a 10-week course. It's all about empowerment. It's about using repetition to encourage positive behaviors and so I had gone on to do another program called rhythm to recovery that is even broader in its scope and its offerings using similar formats, how do we use music to make life better?

[CHRIS]

I love that. How do we use music to make life better?

[GREG]

Yes, because we all know it. You turn on the radio and you put on your jams for back in your day and suddenly you're feeling young and energetic and you've got your swagger back. So we know that we can flip that switch and use music to change our mood. What we may not know is that that same switch is also changing our biology. It's really, really cool to do this in ways that aren't just sitting and listening, but are actually creating opportunities for engagement.

[CHRIS]

That's the difference, isn't it, engaging with it? So many more benefits from engaging and actually being a part of it instead of just listening.

[GREG]

I think it, I don't know the word I'm looking for, accentuates that, it up-levels that, if you will. You'll get the benefit by sitting and listening. You'll get more benefit by being in the presence of it in person and you'll get even more benefit by participating in the activities.

[CHRIS]

Almost like multi-layered.

[GREG]

For sure.

[CHRIS]

So what do you recommend if therapists or counselors listening would like to start some kind of drumming group in their community?

[GREG]

Drumming groups are an interesting animal. In fact, I was just talking with a woman about doing this in a small town here in rural North Carolina, not terribly far from where I live and to get a consistent drumming group, you need a certain tipping point of enthusiasts that want to join in and show up. So you've got to be willing to commit. You might need equipment and instruments providers or loaners because not everyone's going to have those kinds of things sitting around their homes. So there's a little bit of an investment. It certainly goes better if you've got some training experience and leading drum circles, and there's lots of opportunities for that out there.

I learned in the school of hard knocks for the most part and I don't necessarily recommend that as a method to get there but it's certainly a way that you can go. But I think the thing that's best to remember when starting a drumming group is that it's not about the drumming. One of my teachers, Christine Stevens, who's a dually trained music therapist and social worker talks about this. She says the measure of success isn't the musicality. It's not about the instruments that you use. It's about the relationships you're creating during the occasion. That's what really makes all the difference.

[CHRIS]

I had never even thought of it when I was prepping for this interview that it's not just the drumming, it's all the other parts and the community. That's such a different way to look at this and perspective on this.

[GREG]

So that's where I went with this when I got really head with it in graduate school, was how do I take these old world ideas and modernize them so that they can be readily used in our society today?

[CHRIS]

I'm thinking about therapists using, as far as therapeutic tool and counseling too, and how powerful that could be. I'm thinking of any age, like you said, from age three up. I just think that could be such a amazing tool to use. I know when I did my group I had learned some of the, I took a hand drumming class and luckily my school actually bought the equipment. So I know that's a difficult piece for a lot of people that may not have that, but we were able to use the equipment we had.

I just learned as I went or in different rhythms and just tried to think out of the box. I had one other counselor that was helping, we were helping each other out to figure out what would be a lesson plan for this? How could this be different? How could we play sadness on the drum? What would that sound like? How could we play? So fun. What would anger sound like? Then I think from the drum circles too, I learned just sometimes just playing a rhythm and let people imitate or let them add something in. So there's so many creative ways you can use this

[GREG]

That's a beautiful use of that too, because it doesn't rely on the folklore understanding of cultures that might be really, really different from ours. Yet, we all know what it's like to struggle to find our voice around particular issues. So if we can express those feelings in other ways, then we make that less risky feeling. Because I can share some banging really readily and I don't have to talk about it but I'm still getting the benefit of expressing it and being heard and getting validated, because you can take that same activity, oh, this is what my anger might sound like and have the group replicate that. So you're getting the affirmation of I've been heard and I've been understood to some extent, and you haven't said a word

[CHRIS]

Powerful. Yes. So its such a great tool, I think that if you can get some experience in local drum circles too, just to kind of see what it's like and try it out.

[GREG]

And drum circles show up in so many different ways. You've got got drum classes like you were talking about that are folkloric study of indigenous traditions from around the planet. Then you've got the freestyle drum circle of hippies hanging in the park in Asheville and doing their thing. Then you've got a facilitated drum circle, which is I do what I do, where you have a designated leader that's trying to make the best musical and connective outcome. Then you've got these focused drum circles that are more the idea of sound healing and the new age community and those kinds of associations where you're trying to bring up some good mojo, some positive energy with the activity. So lots of different ways that people can access this.

[CHRIS]

I hadn't even thought there's different kinds so that's good to know that and clarify that. I get yes, for counselors too, that might be doing it, that would be like a therapeutic drum circle I would think.

[GREG]

Yes. So that's been a lot of my interest of late, how do we leverage this in a therapeutic way and I'm not trained as a therapist or licensed as a counselor? So I really dance that line of what my responsibility and ethics are around sharing this material because I don't want to open doors that I can't close. So trying to do this in ways that are healthy and safe and wise and doing it with groups where you don't necessarily know what kind of transaction you might be having.

[CHRIS]

True. But yes, just staying in your lane, of course, if you're not a licensed therapist. But it sounds like you bring the therapeutic nature of this together with people and you don't need a license for that.

[GREG]

You can find the wellness benefit and way you go about it. In fact, I spent most of July working with the US Military teaching ideas about resilience to groups of people that were either returning from, or going to places overseas. So how do those folks handle stress? How do they connect to one another? How do they reintegrate into this world? And using music to access some of that conversation.

[CHRIS]

Was that the five elements model you were talking about to me?

[GREG]

Yes. So five elements is Chinese medicine stuff. If you've ever practiced Tai Chi or chigong you may have touched on these kinds of things. It's all related to energy work, whether that's Reiki or massage or sound healing. It's all about energetic blockages. So the five elements model of Chinese medicine, when you think of that medicine wheel, medicine wheels are really part of every culture. So my ancestry goes back and taps into native American, like many of us do. So they have their own model. Then when you look at all the African drumming that I've studied, they have their own medicine wheel model, and all of these have a lot more similarities than differences. That was really what I focused on in grad school.

So those five elements have lots of correspondences. If you can imagine a circle with lots of colors in it and then inside that circle is another little circle, so you've got that circle divided into four pieces of pie with a centerpiece and at the top, that's north and that represents winter and water. Then over to the right hand side, that's green. That represents spring and wood and down on the bottom, it's red and that corresponds to fire and the idea of summer, and then off to the left it's white and it relates to autumn and metal. Then in the African model, they add a centerpiece and that's yellow or gold, and they call that earth. I think of that as a thing that contains all the others.

So my contribution to this was to take that idea of that medicine wheel, that five elements model, and then layer onto that percussion sounds. So we've been talking about drums but in the percussion world, you've got other sounds. There's the drums, that's the fire, that's the south and the idea of joy. And then over to the west on that model that's metal. So those are all the bells. That's representative of the idea of thoughtfulness. Then up to the north that's water. Those are the loose sounds, the shaky sounds, all the Moroccans and the shake Ray and the tube shakers and those kinds of things. And over to the east, the wood, the green, that's all about possibility. So that's the wood sounds, the scrapers and the wood blocks and those kinds of things.

Then when you talk about that centerpiece, the earth, the thing that contains all the others well, that becomes the ensemble. So that's the musical model of that medicine wheel. Then the correspondence is in relation to wellness. It's all about connection and learning and activity and giving and noticing all of these things that are really factors in the happiness schoresheet. When yo you look at how do we access those things and that's how we keep learning. We grow, we give to others, we make it about more than ourselves. We notice the world around us and we appreciate and have gratitude for the little things.

Then within that five elements model, you have the five gifts. These are the things that I've been talking about with these groups and what I've been teaching the last few years, the idea that in the medicine wheel you want to create balance and harmony so that the wheel roll smoothly. So you become the observer of the spaces that you occupy, whether it's your home and your family, or it's your workplace, or it's your school. And the five folks of that wheel and the five gifts that you could offer would include listening, creating possibilities or opportunities, bringing joy, having thoughtfulness for others and sharing gratitude? So those things bring, I think, life into a more harmonious balance and create a more healthy environment. So that's really what I've been sharing through music.

[CHRIS]

I love how you mix it with the music too and to incorporate the different sounds for the different elements. Sounds like it's all about balance.

[GREG]

In some regards it's about balance, but in reality, there is no balance. They say work-life balance, that's always our goal, but there's really no balance. It's just how do we choose to spend our time? Where are we being drawn? So the Chinese model says, it's not so much about balance. It is about movement. So can we keep moving through these different seasons, through these different phases? Can we move from work to home and do that in a way that becomes more effortless?

[CHRIS]

What was the response to this five elements model?

[GREG]

It's always interesting what kind of response you get, but you get people that light up when they hear about a particular piece of it, so say you're thinking about your classroom, or you're thinking about your workplace and you say, "Hey, is there enough listening happening here?" If there's not enough listening, can you be that thing for the sake of everyone? Then it becomes an empowerment opportunity. Can I do this for everyone else? Can I take one for the team? When you consider these places where you spend your time, is there enough possibility? Is there opportunities?? Are you stuck. And can you introduce a way to be unstuck?

When you think about where you spend your time, is that place joyful? A lot of people think, well, joy isn't necessarily an appropriate thing for a particular environment, an office or a funeral, or whatever. Yet serious things don't have to be joyless. We can still bring that emotion and that goodness to the occasion. So this whole idea is empowering people to one, observe their environment, two assess their environment and three shift their environment by being the thing that's missing.

[CHRIS]

So being the thing that's missing.

[GREG]

So I'm just teaching it through a musical metaphor. So when we're having a drum jam, and I put all the instruments in the room, and everybody sees the big drum and they want to play the big drum, I grab that and I explain the model and say, "Hey, can we create balance?" If it's all drums, then that's too much of one thing and not enough of another. So how do we create some balance? Can you listen to the music and say, oh, well, there's not enough metal sounds here. So let me go grab a bell and introduce some metal sounds. Oh, there's no wood sounds in our song. Can I grab some scrapers or some wood blocks and introduce some wood sounds? So this becomes a metaphor for bigger picture thinking about life as a whole. So we're just using music to introduce that idea.

[CHRIS]

That's so cool, the bigger picture, I think. That's what I was thinking when you were saying that almost a metaphor for life.

[GREG]

Exactly. So let me show you a little diagram. Oh, this diagram means all these things, and then, oh, let's take that diagram and let's stretch a little bit, and let's overlay it on these different social groups that we're in. Then, oh, let's spread that a little further and say, "Hey, what is your role in this? Oh, hey, what is your ability to influence this?" So one of the big things about joy and contribution of fulfillment is how do I contribute? So this creates some ideas about how to do that.

[CHRIS]

I think you mentioned the word empowerment. Sounds very empowering too, what do you have control of.

[GREG]

Right. So you just have to get people past their timidity about one making music, because they're not used to doing that. So it kind of levels the playing field for the people that are joining in because most people haven't done this kind of thing. Then two, you have to have a bit of the ability to get over yourself so that you can participate and then contribute.

[CHRIS]

Yes. So what's a holistic strategy that you use as part of your daily practice?

[GREG]

Oh, that's a really good one. So years ago I published a calendar that was based on some of these things that I learned at the Thai Sophia Institute. It was a list of 31 practices that were largely Buddhist influenced, but lots from other wisdom traditions around the world. So I share that calendar freely as considerations or reflections for a given day. So for instance, if I opened up my calendar today, August 30th and it would say that my practice today is to give up trying and practice doing. So that's just a whole different way of looking at the world to say, oh, I'm going to try to do this, or I'm going to make an attempt at something instead I'm just going to, I'm just going to start.

Then it kind of takes you off the hook of having to be accomplished or successful or an expert at those things. I'm just going to do it. I'm a beginner at this thing and that's where I'm going to start. So I look at my calendar as part of my holistic practice and try to use that lens every day and then I practice a little breathing technique every day called square breathing that I find really useful. It really helps me unwind when I get stressed out and it helps me unwind at the end of the day to go to sleep. So that's a really handy one.

Then the other thing that I use a lot is the idea of mantra from Indian traditions but in a Western context. We learned it from a drummer named Baba Tanji, who had the first gold record ever in world music back in the 1950s. But he had this teaching approach that says, if you can say it, you can play it. The whole idea is that anything you say has a rhythm to it, and that you can create a pattern of music to go with that concept. So I use that notion to create positive affirmations for myself, then I can just repeat over and over and do that as one verbal, but two also as a musical pattern. That sets up a Sonic vibration, if you will, that then becomes part of my teachings? So it goes past a cognitive understanding and into a physical one.

[CHRIS]

But that's great way to keep that intention in mind, if you can say it, you can play it.

[GREG]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So for instance, if we wanted to do that together and to create one, I would ask you what's something that you want to foster in your life? What's something that you want to bring more of? What would you tell me?

[CHRIS]

Peace.

[GREG]

Peace. So what about peace? Do you want to have it?

[CHRIS]

Less stress

[GREG]

Yes, so less stress, more peace. That's a useful thing for lots of people. So if you were to say less stress, more peace over and over and over again, less stress, more peace, less stress, more peace, less stress, more peace, you're repeating that over and over to yourself and you're setting up that that idea inside yourself. If you're articulating that out loud, the theory is that you're leveraging the law of attraction. You're setting out that vibration into the world. Then you can take that a step further and you can create a musical pattern or a drum pattern to go with it. So for instance, for the words, less stress, if you tapped on your lap, less stress, less stress, then stress is the negative thing, but peace is the higher thing. So maybe you take less stress from your lap up to your chest, and that becomes more peace. So less stress, more peace, less stress, more peace, less stress, more peace, less stress, more peace. So then now you're actually using some of these ideas that come from emotional freedom technique ---

[CHRIS]

I was going to say that sounds like what happened.

[GREG]

Exactly. So you're just putting those principles to practice by activating these words that represent the world that you want to live in.

[CHRIS]

It sounds like in integrated into the body as well with it happening.

[GREG]

Exactly, because the body's not separate. That all goes back to the history of Cartesian studies. If you're familiar with Renee Decar and the whole idea and of his battle with the Catholic church and the church's spirit is our thing, but you can study the body if you want. So that was the beginning of Western medicine the idea that spirit and body are separate things and that is not the approach that holistic medicine would take.

[CHRIS]

Exactly, for sure. So, Greg, have I missed anything that you wanted to share?

[GREG]

I think those are really lovely things, that this stuff is interesting and it can be really heady and it's been researched and yet you don't need any of that to access it. So that's really what I love to share and to teach people that you can do this. In fact, I've got a bunch of colleagues that are doing this with me right now. When pandemic happened and everything's shut down and we heard that term languishing, about how we're all stagnant, we just can't figure out what to do with ourselves, I really saw this in the drum circle world because we're all as drum circle leaders focused on connecting with groups of people, and we weren't able to do that.

So we created occasions here in the United States and other folks in Europe were doing similar things just to come together and commune and figure out how to relate to each other in new ways. I made lots of friends internationally doing that because we were able to connect over Zoom. Previously, I might never have known these, but when I looked at all these colleagues who were suffering and I think about this idea of how can I bring the thing that's missing, how can I introduce joy, how can I bring possibility, how do I provide listening, what can I do to show gratitude and thoughtfulness, it clicked for me that I could take that calendar that I was talking about earlier and activate that with my friends all over the planet.

So I reached out to lots of these people and we decided to start this book project. So I'm creating an eBook right now. So I'm writing little essays about all of those little practices on that calendar and then my friends all over the world are illustrating it with videos. So it's just this body percussion kind of idea, how do we take these concepts from a headache kind of thing, create a little body percussions that you can practice them and then have different people illustrate them from all over the world? So I've got friends from the west coast of the United States and friends down in South America and friends in Scotland and friends in India and friends in Hong Kong that are all contributing to this project which was beautiful for me because I got to help them and I got to help me. So we're doing something really cool together. I just love that so much.

[CHRIS]

Almost like creating an international community instead of just a local one.

[GREG]

So bigger picture, always the bigger picture. We're creating little ripples and those ripples keep rolling out.

[CHRIS]

So what's the best way for listeners to find you and learn more about you?

[GREG]

So obviously, I'm online and doing virtual programming and in-person programming locally. You can find me on my website at drumforchange.com. There's Facebook stuff out there too, where I try to share local happenings or our fun ideas. But those are the best ways to reach out to me. You'll find little bit on YouTube too. I've really been diversifying some of what I do as I travel and research drumming. I've been collecting a lot of stories along the way, so I've just branched out into storytelling and joined our North Carolina Storytelling Guild and will be presenting at a festival coming up in November, just collecting these ideas and trying to do things that are joyful with them.

[CHRIS]

Well, thank you so much, Greg, for coming on the podcast today.

[GREG]

It's been my treat. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk about the things that I care about.

[CHRIS]

Yes. I know this is such a good learning experience for everybody. You had so many different ways to look at drumming I never thought of, and I'm sure listeners felt that way too.

[GREG]

Yes, that's the thing. We just have to remind ourselves that it's not about the drumming. It's about the people. So you're a counselor and it's not really about the counseling. It's about taking care of people and so the more of us that can adopt that mindset, the more the world's going to be a better place, I think.

[CHRIS]

I want to thank my listeners for tuning into today's episode. Don't forget to subscribe, rate, and review wherever you're getting your podcast. This is Chris McDonald sending each one of you much light and love. Until next time, take care.

If you're loving the show, will you rate review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform? We just started this and that helps other people find this show. Also, if you're feeling uncertain about your modalities and you want to build your confidence to be your unique self, why don't you to join my free email course, Becoming a Holistic Counselor over at holisticcounselingpodcast.com.

In my Becoming a Holistic Counselor course, you'll get tips for adding integrative care into your practice, what training you need and don't, and the know-how to attract your ideal holistic clients. If this sounds like the direction you are headed, sign up at holisticcounselingpodcast.com.

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