Sound is Powerful Stuff

Sound is powerful stuff. The beat of a drum, the vibration of the gong, the soft melody of a wind chime all seem to reach further within us than any other healing modality. There's good reason for that.

Imagine ripples made in a still lake when you add vibration to the water, maybe lightly slapping the surface. Those ripples reach out as far as the eye can see and regenerate themselves for some time. Now consider the fact that our bodies are made mostly of water. It makes sense that a vibration would have profound effects on our body and all that they contain. (Body, mind, and spirit.) There is also a ton of research out there on how overtone instruments directly affect brain waves bringing them into Theta waves, the state of the brain in meditation. In this level of brain waves the body shifts from fight or flight and moves into the parasympathetic nervous system/rest ad digest. All of the “noise” is silenced and the body is able to move into a space of peace and healing. Powerful medicine right?

I recently started reading a book by Asia Suler, “Mirrors of the Earth.” Highly recommend reading it. In this book she shares a bit about trauma that really stood out to me. She says, “trauma is anything that happens to you that violates your trust. You thought something was going to be one way, and then it was different, and that one moment of having your unspoken truth trust turned upside down forever changes the way you interact with life. Trauma is not what happened in the past, but what continues to live in our present.”

She goes on to explain how trauma lives in the nervous system and essentially creates stuck energy. Stuck places in the nervous system that need to be “shaken” loose and helped to flow again. Sound does exactly this. I often explain sound baths/sessions feel like a cellular message. Something you feel deep within your core and that you often feel some time beyond the actual session. Go back to the vision of the ripples in the lake. The water will never hold the same energy as it did before the ripples were introduced. The still energy had been moved.

Now, by no means am I saying go have a sound session and clear all your trauma. It’s just not that easy, but sound is definitely a tool to add to your belt in helping your body release old patterns and trauma by adding soothing vibrations to the nervous system and initiating some flow of energy. (There’s hard work to do before and after to keep your healing journey moving along, and it’s all part of this journey we call life.) Allowing our body/mind/spirit a small reprise from the daily stressors and providing an opportunity to switch into the parasympathetic nervous system for a bit is certainly a lovely practice. And considering the earlier definition of trauma, sound can support in releasing and shifting some of that stuck trauma energy.

The beat of the drum and the beat of your heart join. This is the way to create ripples of healing.