Ari Urban shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Ari, so good to connect and we’re excited to share your story and insights with our audience. There’s a ton to learn from your story, but let’s start with a warm up before we get into the heart of the interview. What are you most proud of building — that nobody sees?
I’m most proud of building and fortifying a powerful relationship with my intuition through consistent stillness and reflection that no one and no thing can disrupt. The connection I have with my heart’s wisdom is my most reliable guide to navigate life and all of its challenges with more clarity, ease, and certainty. Making decisions more and more from love, and less from fear.
For me, that’s true power.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My name is Ari Urban and I am an award-winning classically trained violinist, touring musician, recording artist, and sound healing facilitator on a mission to share my music medicine as a path to self-compassion and inner transformation.
Over the past decade as a professional violinist, I’ve been privileged to work with world-renowned musicians like Yo-Yo Ma, Andrea Bocelli, Jacob Collier, Wyclef Jean, Michael Buble, and Bobby McFerrin among others; also contributing to Grammy-winning and nominated albums by artists like John Legend, Kirk Franklin, and PJ Morton.
It was through these incredible opportunities that I started to develop performance anxiety in my early 20’s – which became the catalyst for my own personal healing journey. At 2o years old I took a mindfulness meditation course that taught me how to start working with my mind, and that ignited my curiosity around the mind body connection; leading me to explore somatic therapies, inner child work, sound healing, and immersing myself in everything related to personal development. This journey of self discovery throughout my 20’s was what eventually lead me to combine my passions for music and meditation to create “The Art of Being Human” – A Music Healing Experience – where I combine the power of sound as vibrational therapy with soothing improvised violin music to bring energies of peace and rejuvenation to the mind body and spirit. This offering was born from a desire to share music not as entertainment, but as vibrational medicine – since that’s how I healed my own relationship with music.
At the same time I started creating original music that could further support listeners – which is why my commercially released music is centered around supporting inner work and personal practices – meditation, yoga, breath work, inner child work, shadow work, etc. It is meditative, reflective, and evocative instrumental music. My new album titled “Shadow Light My Way” is designed to soften your heart enough to let the light in… trusting the process of your own inner journey.
I’m also the co-founder of Music Free My Heart – where we host Music and Meditation events/workshops/retreats to get you out of your head and into your heart.
Amazing, so let’s take a moment to go back in time. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
As a child I believed I needed permission from others to live out my dreams that seemed unconventional and unrealistic. Now I know that wasn’t true. I was never meant to walk down a path someone else created. I’m here to chart my own path, day by day, moment by moment.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Suffering has been one of my greatest teachers because it has allowed me to find my power through my pain. Suffering has allowed my heart to continuously break open in ways that have created more space for love and forgiveness than I ever thought was possible. Suffering humbles me to this day. It humbles the parts of my ego that need to step back and remember they are not ultimately in charge. Honoring the role that suffering plays in the dance of polarity has also allowed me to make peace with the “messy” nature of being an emotional creature. Most importantly as a musician, accepting my own suffering has allowed me to express my pain through music, and to transmute it through artistic expression. And I feel a big part of my purpose is to create music that supports the full range of emotions in my fellow brothers and sisters; music that can hold them in a warm vibrational hug as they move through difficult feelings. Hence why my new album is called “Shadow Light My Way”.
So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. What’s a belief you used to hold tightly but now think was naive or wrong?
Growing up in Miami I used to believe that success meant impressing the people around me through status symbols. Slowly over time, I have learned to let go of others’ definitions of success and I’ve created my own personal meaning that resonates with my core values in life and what truly fulfills me.
Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: When do you feel most at peace?
When I’m meditating, and when I’m improvising my souls music through my violin.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ariurban.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariurbanmusic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arianne.urban
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCn8M-kukdZlU-3nC0tN1X7w
Image Credits
Sergio Assalari. Brooke D’Avanzo
