About Denise

Denise Mihalik

MM, CSHP, E-RYT500, YACEP, CYVT

Certified Sound Healing Practitioner, Certified YogaVoice®Teacher, Registered Yoga Teacher, Classical Singer, Master in Music, Kirtaniya, and Bhakta Yogi.

Dreams

Born with a heart full of song, I spent my childhood belting The Sound of Music and dreaming of Broadway. But a prodigy, I was not. As one of four children who did NOT make the fifth-grade choir, I remember hearing music flowing from the choir room while I sat in study hall, bored and confused.

I had big dreams for middle school chorus, but my choir director labeled me as “untalented.” With pursed lips and cold eyes, he told me not to bother auditioning for the award-winning high school choir. “You won’t make it,” he said.

His student teacher, however, saw potential in this 7th grade non-prodigy and secretly took me under her wing. I began voice lessons, and my Broadway dreams unexpectedly morphed toward the opera stage. I learned the art of discipline and practice and made slow but steady progress. Not only did I make the high school choir, but I continued on to receive two music degrees— a BME in Music Education, summa cum laude, and an MM in Opera Performance. Post-graduation, I was one of two mezzo-sopranos accepted into an opera touring program and my dream of performing was up and running.

Healing

Opera tour was glamorous, grinding, and everything in between. One morning while traveling through Iowa, our set truck rear-ended our van at a red light and we all ended up in the ER. Diagnosed with severe whiplash, I was prescribed pain meds, ushered from the hospital to the stage, and was back on the road the next day.

A year later, pain from the untreated whiplash returned with such force that I could hardly function. A doctor flippantly told me I was getting old (I was 23) and prescribed more drugs. Knowing that the drugs only masked my pain, I refused and searched out alternative methods. Living in central North Carolina in the late 1990s, it was not an easy search, but word of mouth led me to someone who was learning craniosacral therapy while also secretly teaching yoga in her home.

These new practices were both empowering and incredibly humbling. I thought I already knew about breath, my body, my voice, but I really didn’t. She taught me to move and breathe in new and different ways, releasing stored trauma on subtle levels. I began to heal from the “inside out.” My physical pain started to subside as did the mental grip of lingering anger and resentment. 

Manifester to Disaster-The Perfect Storm

A few years later, my husband and I moved to my home state of New Jersey to be closer to my parents. The joy I had hoped to feel, however, was overcome by a harsh reality; I was losing my dad to addiction and mental illness, and I was also losing my mom to stress.

Just as yoga was a well-kept secret in my small circle of North Carolina friends, so, too, did my mom and I chose to keep my father's challenges and their divorce a secret. Mental illness was not spoken of at that time, and neither of us knew how to handle his many suicide attempts. My voice was trained to fill a huge auditorium, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't find a way to make my dad hear me.

The pain and immobility of whiplash was nothing compared to the feeling of being choked by my inability to save my father.

The perfect storm hit when my husband confessed his love for someone else, and as a result, self-doubt and stage fright raced out of control, and my career plummeted. My love for singing and my beautifully manifested life as I knew it were now a strangled mash of chaos, and my heart shut down. 

Decision

While working four jobs to make ends meet, I filed for divorce, took time off from auditioning, and hid from my father. A friend gave me a copy of Eat, Pray, Love, and I surprisingly felt the call to retreat to an Ashram. I booked a week at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram for my thirtieth birthday and while there, I practiced yoga and was exposed to formal meditation and group chanting. The silent meditations were torturous, and the chanting was even more so. I almost fled out of discomfort, but something made me stay.

The defining moment came during the Satsang one morning. I had survived yet another silent meditation and was struggling with the Sanskrit chanting. My opera brain needed a translation, and as I fumbled through the booklet, searching, I suddenly began to cry. Something familiar and comforting was embracing me, something that had been strangled—love, music, divine connection. My racing mind grew quiet, and the shards piercing my heart disappeared. For the first time in a long time, I felt again. I felt the translation, felt the essence of the chant, and felt the love in the room. My heart burst open, and I began to sing again, just as I did as a child, simply for the love of music.

When the Satsang ended, I walked down a tiny path that led to the frog pond. Standing on the small wooden bridge surrounded by water lilies and mosquitos, I sang my favorite opera aria. The frogs were a rapt audience. I wept because I was back.

When I returned home, I unplugged my TV, sat everyday in meditation, and began to research chant. There was not much information at that time, so I purchased a small singing bowl and began my own research on myself. I quickly learned that while I rang the bowl and sang OM, my mind was quiet and I felt a moment of peace.

Challenges and Blessings

My dad died shortly after my visit to the ashram. He died alone and wasn’t found for days. My mom, who was my rock and best friend, was diagnosed a few years later with a hidden, fast moving cancer.

In my mom’s last hour, she gave me a rare and precious gift—the gift of traveling with her to the light. Witnessed by both my aunt and the hospice nurse, I’ve since learned that it’s called a “shared death experience.”

In short, I rested my hand on my mom’s leg and was immediately and unexpectedly transported into a deep meditative state. From this state, my entire body began to tremble, and I knew we were saying goodbye to each other in human form. With eyes closed, I sensed that we were holding hands, even though we were now formless, and we traveled through several tunnel-like paths that eventually opened to reveal several beings of light. There are no words to describe the love that showered me as I watched my mom move into the light. And in that moment, she took her last breath. 

I was embraced by the light—and while in that Light, there was just love. Unconditional love.  In losing all that I thought would make me whole, I discovered that, no matter how broken I am or how much loss I experience, I am loved beyond measure.

But as amazing as that miracle was, I was still on a roller coaster ride of emotions, insecurity, and grief. And as time passed, the blissful feeling became harder and harder to access. 

I simply didn’t feel that I deserved to live in that space. I didn’t deserve to be loved that much, here in this human body.

I traveled to India and Nepal in search of answers, teachers, and methods that could give me permission to feel such love again. Not surprisingly, my answers came through sound. Sacred sound. And through these sound healing practices that I’ve learned and developed, I now accept that love. I was able to forgive, accept myself, and truly find my voice. 

I’ve learned a remarkable, divine language—the language of sound. From opera to singing bowls, I’ve transitioned from stage fright to safety. 

I now know that my song can’t be stolen, but, just as my piano can fall out of tune, so, too, can I. 

What we tune into matters

We all experience sound that harms:

—the discouraging words of a teacher, the desperate cries of a struggling family member, the screaming fictional voices in our head, a jack hammer.

And sound that heals:

—the soothing sound of a singing bowl, a transforming affirmation, shared laughter with a friend, a bird song, the ocean. 

Lower frequencies of fear, negativity, and stress are loud. They can easily drown out the still, small voice of hope, joy, and kindness. But even the tiniest light illuminates in a dark space, and divine sound rises above the bully. 

The embrace of light is indeed elevating, as are the sound tools to support these tumultuous times. I invite you to join me on this journey.

Tune in, tune up and feel nourished.

P.S. I invite you to read my debut novel, Journey to Sunyata - Mountains, Monsoons, and Magic, based on my life-challenging pilgrimage to Nepal.

The accompanying music, Light of Compassion, is also available.