The Six Healing Sounds, a Taoist Practice for Emotional Reset

The Six Healing Sounds (Liù Zì Jué) is a Taoist practice, dating back to the 5th century AD, which is a meditative cleansing practice that incorporates qigong movements, mindfulness, breath and specific sounds that help release stagnant and blocked emotions, promotes harmony and balance, maintains emotional well-being. Balancing the emotions supports the healing of physical symptoms as well, enhancing flow and vitality.

We can use the power of sound and the intentional vibration, to help clear stored negative emotions and make room for new and positive experiences, emotions and thoughts. These Six Healing Sounds create internal vibrations of your vocal cords, using specific vowels to open up energetic blocks and stagnation, restoring flow and vitality. This is a powerful practice which requires deep breaths with long exhalations to vocalise the sound.

This practice brings calmness to the entire nervous system, transform unsupportive feelings or thoughts and enhance overall wellbeing. In addition, toning activates our vocal cords and opens up the throat chakra. This energetic center is associated with the communication, expression, creativity, and speaking one’s truth. The throat is also a bridge between the head and the chest. The healing sounds connect our brain with our heart, creating harmonious flow between the body, the emotions, and the mind.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the six healing sounds are associated with specific elements and their organs. Each of these vocal tones vibrates through the body in a unique frequency that activates a specific Chinese Medicine element and its related organs. The maiin(Yin organs) are the heart, spleen, lungs, kidneys and liver. In addition, the triple warmer, which covers the three Dantiens. Qi, the life-force energy, can get blocked from a bad diet or environment, stagnant lifestyle or repressed emotions, causing pain or illness. For example, if qi is stuck in the spleen, bloating, abdominal pain and poor digestion can result. In the liver, bad qi might be felt as pain in the lower right rib cage or having a quick temper (anger causes liver disease, according to TCM). Headaches can arise if stagnant qi is stuck in the head. 

Here are the sounds with their associated element, season, colour and emotions (positive/negative). When you inhale through your nose, you can visualise a colour into a specific organ and when you exhale through your mouth, whispering the sound, purge and release the emotion from that specific organ. Qi Gong exercises and affirmations can also be incorporated while practicing these special sounds.

HEART:

Element: Fire

Season: Summer

Color: Red

Emotions: Joy and love vs. hate, anxiety, overexcitement

Healing Sound: Haaa 

Inhale and imagine RED light filling the heart, exhale with the sound Haaa. It vibrates in the chest, heart, pericardium, san jiao, and thyroid. Transforms blocked emotions such as anxiety and self-doubts to joy, love, inner guidance, and gratitude.

LUNG:

Element: Metal

Season: Autumn

Color: White

Emotions: Courage vs. grief and sadness

Healing Sound: Sssssss

Inhale and imagine WHITE light filling up the lungs. As you exhale the SSSSSS sound, release grief and sadness from the lungs. Vibrates in the nose, activates the lungs and lower intestine. Toning Ssssss helps transform grief to letting go and the courage to flow with life’s changes.

LIVER:

Element: Wood

Season: Spring

Color: Green

Emotions: Kindness, compassion vs. anger, frustration, irritability

Healing Sound: Shhhh 

Inhale and imagine GREEN light entering the liver. As you exhale the SHOE sound, imagine releasing ANGER from the liver. Vibrates in the jaw. Opens the liver and gallbladder. Transforms resentful attitude into forgiving gratitude. Toning Shhhh helps transform anger into forgiveness and compassion.

SPLEEN:

Element: Earth

Season: Late Summer

Color: Yellow

Emotions: Nourishment, groundednes, trust vs. worry, overthinking

Healing Sound: Whooo 

Inhale golden YELLOW light into the spleen and stomach. As you exhale the Whooo sound, release worry from the digestive system. Vibrates in the lips; activates the spleen and stomach. Transforms survival tension into abundance and expansion. Toning whooo helps transform worries to fulfilment, contentment, and calmness; a sense of balance, harmony, abundance, prosperity, and clarity regarding the spiritual path.

KIDNEY:

Element: Water

Season: Winter

Color: Dark blue

Emotions: Gratitude vs Fear

Sound: Chwooo 

Inhale and imagine DARK BLUE light into each kidney. As you exhale the YOU sound, release FEAR from the kidneys. Vibrates in the lower abdomen, the spine, bladder, kidneys, adrenals and reproductive system. Toning Chwoooo helps transform fears to inner peace, confidence, and trust of oneself and others.

 “Triple warmer” (3 danteans) 

This is an organ that Chinese Medicine healers saw as a full body organ – most closely related to the lymphatic system and the immune system. This sixth sound is for the "Triple Warmer," which doesn't directly correlate with a specific organ but is closely linked with our neuro-endocrine system and helps regulate the metabolism of water, heat and energy throughout the whole body.

Season: All seasons

Color: Purple

Emotions: Peace vs. panic

Healing Sound: Heee

Vibrates at the waistline and activates the Navel Gate – good for overall healing and wellbeing.

Inhale and imagine CLEAR QI into the whole body. As you exhale the HEEE sound, allow the vibration of love, peace and harmony to fill your entire body.

Below is a chart with each of the organs and their associated emotions, affirmations, names of qigong movements, colors, and sounds, which you can be used as reference for your practice. We start with the lungs because this is the primary organ of release and letting go.

The Six Healing Sounds practice is a powerful self-care practice that you can do regularly to connect with the emotions that you may be holding onto in your body and transform and release them. Combining the sounds with positive affirmations (see chart above for sample affirmations), gratitude and intention is soothing and builds up your internal awareness and self-compassion, which boosts your ability to heal from emotional and physical pain. This practice can be integrated with your daily self care or yoga/ workout routine or anytime during the day.

You can use the video below as a reference, if you would like to practice the qigong movements with this practice.