“Easy to use and essential for anyone dealing with stress. My n.o.w. Tone Therapy System really helps me!”

“I just LOVE the Tones. I use the System at night and first thing in the morning to be grounded and get prepared for the day ahead. It sounds beautiful, is quick and the feeling stays with me and helps calm the stresses. Thank you for a wonderful product!”

In honor of this time of year where GRADUATING STUDENTS of all ages head into their next phase of life, while their TEACHERS also transition and say many farewells, I’d like to talk a little about stress. Everything can bring it on, but change, growth and a move into the unknown are just the kinds of scenarios where stress can really strut its stuff.

That’s why I’m so thankful to hear from customers like the one quoted above, who is receiving benefits for life’s stresses. I chose this one as my graduation-gift to readers, because nothing says “I care about your future” so much as a great PRESENT. I’d like us to step together into the present moment, here and now, for the space of a few minutes. Stress, you can scram!

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could command stress to beat it whenever we wanted? That requires a couple of things, and one is just being aware of your stress—but, that’s like being aware you have skin! Stress can be such a normal state that we become inured to its existence—it just is, like you’ve been tasked with carrying a huge rock around with you everywhere. When we are aware of it, this can lead to resistance, self-judgment, further feelings of despair. Big or small, stress never, ever feels good. But isn’t it fun to inspect it some more, think about it and pick it apart? No, as a matter of fact, I just realized this is not fun at all. Some present.

Now, then, for something completely different.

To teachers everywhere, I thank you so much for working as hard as you do! What an interesting world a dedicated teacher can make. You show up and guide learners, and you do this in whatever capacity possible. Art teachers, thank you. History and math teachers, who I tried hard to resist, thank you for showing up every day to help us “get it.” Teachers of Special Education, you are shining lights because absolutely everybody matters and you help us remember this. Gym teachers and kindergarten teachers and professors to our computer scientists and dancers and doctors and nurses and the teachers who teach the future teachers, well ALL of you ALL, a big giant hug!!!

What an incredible mission teachers have chosen, and what an accomplishment each day, and each year, to move it all forward. It must be hard to say goodbye! And it must feel like your own graduation, too, because the work you’ve done is now about to spread even farther.

And to the students: they say you are the future, and that is true in a sense. But more astoundingly you are the NOW, right here today. To open the door to increasing your knowledge helps everyone, everywhere in the world. Doing your homework has increased the chance for you to have just what you need in situations you haven’t considered yet. You’ve shown up to school and applied yourself as much as you can, increasing integrity for all of us. You students help your teacher’s sense of accomplishment, you’ve helped your peers be part of a collective, and you are helping now to bring hope to this very moment. You don’t even need to be more, just keep being you. I love students!!! Thank you for caring as much as you know how, so that you can increase who you are by learning what you didn’t know before. The vulnerability into possibility into confidence, and even more trying of new things only happens because you opened yourself to being taught. The efforts you’ve made will lead to directions that are meant to surprise you.

THANK YOU STUDENTS!!!

Seriously, I’m inspired: let’s all be students of this world, let’s all begin to listen more, to engage, and to draw forth what is good. Let’s bring ourselves to a million little personal graduations in every year, advancing the cause by showing up and taking in a bit more of what is around us.

We can talk about stress all day, or we can be the student of our own teacher-selves and begin to write a new report for the class, just like the reviewer at the top of the blog who shook me away from starting to dissect, once again, tedious old stress—which is where this blog was quickly heading—and into sincere thoughts of gratitude.

Use whatever is at hand to come into presence and leave the blech behind! Sometimes it can be to sniff a flower or a chocolate piece and just let that settle into your mind, it can be a listen to music, a yoga posture, pondering the light and shadows, a breath, a smile while gazing out a window. Teach yourself these new tricks, tiny ones, just like how a teacher starts—we do not get calculus in 1^st grade for a reason, we do not write a book report before reading the book. Be kind to you and start small—the results will build.

And one more time:

Thank you. To everyone who is moving forward into another grade, another job, a graduation of any sort, or simply into another day, CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

You’re awesome, and I’m so glad I got to celebrate you today. Thanks for coming to my party.
–Alene    

For a tiny but full 3-minute listen to the wonders of n.o.w. Tone Therapy, click HERE.

The 3-Minute Question is our most frequently asked, and the answer takes many forms—grab my hand and come explore with me!
PLUS, an exciting announcement at the end!!!

“Three minutes is not enough, can we have more?”
Sometimes the question comes from a non-meditator who is surprised by how they feel when experiencing the Tones, and they want the feeling to continue. Often it is long-term practitioners of meditation who recognize the potency of the Tones and would like to use them for longer sitting sessions. Beyond that, there are those who would like to listen while drifting to sleep, or rocking a newborn, or giving a massage, or during acupuncture; really for any situation where beautiful sounds can apply. 

n.o.w. is something new, and it is different, and it will remain that, every single time you listen, into forever. And keep in mind something that has surprised us from the beginning: n.o.w. often reveals its brilliance, genius and functionality later. What can sometimes sound like high-handed concepts that we built into the System are only revelations and discoveries we’ve had as a result of having built it. We the makers of n.o.w. remain in awe, and we trust every component, or seeming lack of component.

The n.o.w. (New Origin Waveforms) Tone Therapy System, when used, is meant to create a specific result: the freeing from thought into mindfulness, more quickly and more deeply. We hope for it to open the doorway for you into timelessness and presence. There is a reason presence is a sought-after commodity in our lives—whether you see it as a bit of calm, or you see it as a bit of the eternal, bringing it into your life can make a world of difference (and can even make a different world).

n.o.w. is structured on pure simplicity, and it defies every attempt to make it more complicated. It aims to do its one thing: bring peace through sound, and it does this by providing an anchor to its particular tonal experience. Just listen and let the Tones be your wordless guide into wordless moments.

Before I head too far in my trip down Reverie Lane, here are governing principles that apply to n.o.w. and its 3 minutes:

• The n.o.w. System has to be so easy that there are no barriers to regular use.
• The n.o.w. System has to be so effective that it serves its purpose, which is to help people lead better lives.
• The n.o.w. System has to be so beautiful in sound that it makes using it something that you don’t do just because it’s good for you, like swallowing a vitamin pill, but you do it because you want to–like it’s the juiciest gummie-bear vitamin ever.

These are not just good ideas, they are parts of what make the whole System work.

Beyond that, there is a fundamental reason for the 3 minutes, which is to fit full Tone sessions—beginning, middle and end—into ANY life, EVERY day, twice a day ideal, and as many times as you’d like beyond that. You can listen for hours if you want, even overlapping, but you have to turn them back on so that the system plays fully each time. More on that in a sec.

Our self-created, perceived “issue” is that the 3 minutes can be so constructive, yummy and magical, that people want more. We love the Tones too. But can it work as the n.o.w. System if it plays at longer durations?

The answer is no. I swear.

The Tones, played long, would certainly work as meditative sounds in which to bathe your subconscious, they would be calming and very helpful, or create beautiful background, but lost would be the larger potentials of awakening and connection—connection to oneself, connection to all, connection that comes as a result of regular moments in true presence.

Regular use enhances the effectiveness of the System for the user, and then also more people regularly using the System enhances a collective consciousness. It makes sense! If you are more peaceful in your day, you have more peace to share, and the more people sharing peace make for a dandy snowball effect. Let’s add to this a weighty component: What shakes peace to the core—but is more a part of life and our connections—than the reality of death? Yet, from all evidence, we need death to have life. Reflectively, the n.o.w. Tones fade at the end of their minutes of swelling composition, to decay away until fully off (ready or not), in order for the life of the tones that came before to be all they can be. I have come to see that listening to n.o.w., with its end, becomes a practice in acceptance, which is a practice in peace.

The use of the Tone Therapy System is cumulative, just as any regular mindfulness practice is cumulative. The real miracle in using the System is not how you feel at the time of use, but what happens as a result of bringing yourself to this type of stillness, regularly. That part of you who sits outside of the worry and thoughts gets a chance to put the pieces together for you, to increase the ability to find your answers. Regular doses of stillness are just that good.

There really is nothing else like n.o.w. It is a lot like a very functional tool and it is a lot like art, but is something else altogether. We learned during development to stay open and inspired, and to avoid burdening the experience with clever ideas. In fact, while recording the Tones, creator and founder Michael Joly brought himself repeatedly to a “no-mind state,” deleting any sessions where he’d had thoughts occur, or if he felt he’d tried to be influential or musical.

When I think of the making of n.o.w. and also its time length, a story often comes to mind that is attributed to Michelangelo carving David. With investigation I found the following (thanks go to quoteinvestigators.com):

 In 1858 in “The Methodist Quarterly Review” was an essay comparing the methods of sculptors and poets.

“It is the sculptor’s power, so often alluded to, of finding the perfect form and features of a goddess, in the shapeless block of marble; and his ability to chip off all extraneous matter, and let the divine excellence stand forth for itself.”

In other words: in the creation of a thing simply remove all that isn’t the thing, and when all the things that aren’t the thing are removed, there you have the thing, revealed in its perfect form.

Our belief is firm that, when a person has the opportunity to release thought and step out of the world’s time-based mind structures, even if it’s only a few seconds, those few seconds share in the same timeless eternity that minutes or hours share in. To that end, time means nothing. I like to know that we kept chipping away to form as much nothing as possible.

Holy lol! This dang thing that is n.o.w.! Our partner Ruane likens the Tones to our core Universal Self and feels that is what we are hearing and why we yearn deeply to hold on, and I think she’s right.

Myself, I like to call it God in a Can.

Stay in Wonder!  —Alene

AND HERE IS The solu announcement:

Now that you’ve learned the basic “whys” of the 3 minute n.o.w. Tone Therapy System, I’ll let you in on the news that solu IS MAKING A NEW TONE EXPERIENCE and a revolution yet again. It is not n.o.w., but will be its own kind of awesome, and yes, with varying listening times. Stay tuned! (Enjoy that pun for no extra charge.)

For a full 3-MINUTE n.o.w. Tone Therapy System demo, click here.

This is a great example of the tricks and surprises n.o.w. has up its chrome-plated sleeves. Today I thought it would be fun to look side-by-side at these two very different reviews regarding sleep and the n.o.w. Tone Therapy System.

2 out of 5 stars

Does not help to sleep.

“Just does not work for me.”

5 out of 5 stars

Positively impacts my sleep.

“I love these! I use them every night before sleep. Since I started using them my fitness tracker confirms that I transition very rapidly to deep sleep and stay there several minutes longer than was normal for me before I started using them. They run for 3 minutes and I typically initiate them twice, but there are some occasions that I am asleep after the first 3 minutes.”

I have three initial thoughts:

One: People are so different from one another that the causes of sleep issues cannot help but run the gamut of everything; when one puts head to pillow, that head is connected to the person’s interior self, their environment, their day, their food, their history, brain chemistry, hormonal balance, ancestry, culture, their neighbors, their sensitivities, the kids and the spouse and the parents and the job, and…

I think that’s a good enough start to the list.

Two: The issue of not being able to sleep when it’s your time to rest varies in degree from person to person, from being only a minor frustration all the way to the kind of disorder that, for the sufferer, can effect almost (say it with me!): everything. I understand it to be a painful, maddening and lonely affliction. Those of us who can take sleep for granted are lucky people, indeed.

Three: The n.o.w. Tone Therapy System is NOT a sleep aid and never was! In fact, the n.o.w. Tones were designed to be a unique and superior aid to awakening.

But as it turns out, awakening might just make for better sleep.

We at solu listen not only to the Tones, we listen to you. And we hear so regularly from our customers about using the Tones for sleep that we cannot ignore the feedback (or, as I also like to call it, the “data”).

I’ve observed that just because n.o.w. is not intentionally a sleep aid, that doesn’t mean it won’t help you sleep, and sleep very well. n.o.w. in fact helps a LOT of people to sleep at night, from babies to the elderly. But, if you set out to use n.o.w. solely as a sleep aid, it might not work as you’d expect. Let’s look at why this could be.

First, we need to chuck from this discussion any comparison to sleep-sound machines, white-noise machines, pre-recorded guided imagery meditations for sleep, and all soothing sound-aids for sleep. These can all be very helpful in their own way (with a big shout-out to the inimitable Belleruth Naparstek and her research and ongoing development of excellent guided meditations, one of which a family member of mine uses for a fabulous night’s sleep!). And I say, whatever trolley will take you into dreamland, hop on it!!

Only, don’t put n.o.w. in that same category because it doesn’t precisely belong there.

AND YET: n.o.w. also doesn’t not belong in that category. Bear with me here for a moment, because when exploring the n.o.w. Tone Therapy System we find contradictions. The Tones do one thing: bring peace through sound, and they also do so many things, but they do them by not doing (lol, remember please that I said bear with me). We actually have come to see the Tones as a nothing, an experience that isn’t really a noun, which can lift the listener out of thoughts and out of regular time. It can deliver peace to you.

In other words: n.o.w.’s Tones give you a chance to experience disconnection from the human state of compulsive mental thoughts into the state of NO-thing and thereby, a connection to EVERY-thing.

Contradictions in terms are fun but weird. Let’s move on.

All the chitchat in the world about the “whats” of the simple n.o.w. System is not as exciting as the “results” of just plain using it and letting it show you what can happen when you bring a bit of peace into your life on a regular basis, and who you can be with a little less worry.

So let’s go back to sleep. 😊 It is clear from feedback that when n.o.w. helps someone sleep, it does this in a way that is different from soothing-sounds and sleep noise-machines. Our users tell us that n.o.w.’s Tones put them into a different state which allows sleep to be induced, and then carries them into a more restful condition of sleep. Some users tell us that the change in anxiety during the day has fostered better sleep for them, even when they don’t listen to the Tones at night.

I can certainly understand the disappointment of the reviewer who said it just does not work for her to help her fall asleep. Her review indicates that, most likely, she thought she was buying a sleep aid. I wish I could have told her that n.o.w. is more of a life aid, and that it’s worth using it as we suggest: listen twice a day for the full 3-minute session through the fade-away of the Tones when the units shut themselves off. And feel free to listen as many more times as you might want beyond that, and in whatever ways you might want!

The very positive reviewer seems to have discovered that n.o.w. can be worked with in ways unique to our suggestions, and that it can indeed help with better sleep. We love that they used their fitness tracker, too, to quantify! One listener, Holly, told us this:

“I have to tell you something exciting about the n.o.w. “knobs”: I’m a hard-core insomniac, and recently got “sober” from the Xanax I’ve been taking for years to fall asleep. What I do is read for as long as it takes to get sleepy, but last night it was 1AM and I was still wide awake. I brought the system into bed with me, figured out how to feel for the little buttons in the dark. Those blue lights are an amazing part of the nighttime experience! So I didn’t necessarily feel sleepier, but as I stretched out under the covers, I was in such a graceful frame of mind that sleep settled over me the way it’s supposed to do, such as when parents tuck you in and say, “Go to sleep now.”

The last time she reported to us, she had continued to use them to relax herself into a sleepful state, along with her 3-minute daily mindfulness sessions of listening.

Perhaps most gratifying is when we hear from someone getting relief for severe symptoms in their life; another customer of ours, Karen, got a set for herself and her adult daughter who suffers from a traumatic brain injury due to a car accident. We asked if they were aware of changes when using n.o.w.

“YES! My daughter (who has a very hard time settling her brain from TBI) can relax and shut down. And I get a feeling of lightness and peace.”

We also wanted to know if they’d been able to make listening to the Tones a regular practice.

“Definitely… for (my daughter) it’s part of our daily routine. Especially before bed.”

More and more we hear of people incorporating the n.o.w. System as part of their bedtime routine, and it makes so much sense when you consider that, by listening to the Tones, a great opportunity to release the thoughts that cling and repeat happens for your brain, and your body. It does not lullaby the brain to sleep so much as it relieves the entire being into a place of “ahhh.”

Sweet Dreams to you. I want you all to have them!  —Alene

To listen to a n.o.w. session for yourself, click here.