This Art of Healing episode is a special Sound Demonstration Episode with Sound Healer and Reiki Master Kathy Harmon-Luber.
During this episode, Kathy will be sharing the power of Sound Healing.
Kathy will be offering a Sound Healing Demonstration-I will notify you in the episode when you’ll want to get comfortable and situated for a Sound Healing Session for Grounding and Opening the Third Eye.
Kathy shares with us:
What is Sound Healing
The benefits of Sound Healing
How Sound Healing can heal energy blockages
6 Things that Happen in the Mind and Body During Sound Healing
Kathy Harmon-Luber is an inspiring, compassionate, and empowering author and wellness guide whose passion is helping people navigate the challenging terrain of the healing journey. With insight and enthusiasm, she opens people’s eyes to the potential of becoming more physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy by offering a toolkit of practical solutions. Her book, “Suffering to Thriving: Your Toolkit for Navigating Your Healing Journey ~ How to Live a More Healthy, Peaceful, Joyful Life,” is full of wisdom gleaned from decades of healing from health crises. Kathy is a certified Sound Healing practitioner and Reiki practitioner.
Welcome to the Art of Healing Podcast community. This podcast is devoted to helping you find what works on your journey to health and wellness. This podcast is devoted to providing information on many healing modalities. Learn more about:
Hello, Art of Healing Podcast listeners. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. I am so fortunate that I was able to have a very special guest come back, and during this episode we'll do a little bit of a demonstration. So, Recently, Kathy Harmon Luber had been a guest on my show, and a few of the things she talked about resonated so much with all of us. I had so much positive, feedback. So many questions on social media. So many questions in email about I. What she does, how does this work? And thank goodness she had time in her busy schedule to come back. So this is Kathy Harmon-Luber. So I'm gonna introduce her. And then during today's episode, we're going to go deeper into sound healing and being at this medium is podcasting. So fortunate that Kathy's agreed that she's gonna give us. A little demonstration. So as we sink into this, I do wanna remind you that whichever platform you're listening on typically allows you to download. So this one is you might wanna download to keep, but let me introduce you first to Kathy Harmon Luber. She's a certified sound therapy and sound healing practitioner, a reiki master, a class classically chained flutist, an award-winning fine art photographer. She's an inspiring author and wellness guide whose passion is helping people navigate the challenging terrain of the healing journey. Last year, Kathy launched a bestselling book, surviving To Thrive, your Toolkit for Navigating Your Healing Journey, how to Live a More Healthy. Peaceful and joyful life, which is full of wisdom gleaned from decades of healing from her own debilitating health crisis. I do recommend getting a copy of her book. I've been reading her book. It's got real time useful nuggets, gems, and it's organized in such a way that no matter where you are, you could start with this right away. So I'll put in this show notes how you can get a copy of Kathy's book. Kathy helps others find their compass and charter course for navigating illness, injury, and loss. Learning how not only to cope, but to become more resilient, joyful, and thriving. She's appeared in Authority Magazine. MINDBODY green.com, women's World Magazine yoga Magazine, where she's written a very wonderful article discussing what we'll be doing today, sound healing, and she's been a guest on numerous podcasts. You can connect with Kathy at www.sufferingtothriving.com, where you can download her free. Infinite possibilities, visualizations. In your show notes, you'll find links to Kathy's website where you can get to her freebie, and after this episode, when you're ready to get scheduled with Kathy, you can go straight to her website. Kathy, thank you so much for joining us. How are you?
Kathy:
I'm great, Dr. Charlyce thank you for the beautiful introduction and I'm so thrilled to be back with you again to talk about my favorite topic, sound healing.
Charlyce:
Nice. Very good. So, I thought we would start with what is sound healing? If you'll just give us your definition of how you work with your clients in sound healing. Yeah,
Kathy:
if you don't mind, before, excuse me, we do that. I thought I would just say something that has been, on my mind a lot about sound healing is, and, and I think your listeners will be really super interested to know. It is such a growing trend. In health and wellness right now, people are using it for better health and stress reduction and improved energy and focus and overall wellbeing and just all the good stuff. And the most fascinating thing is it is becoming more and more scientifically. Proven as a healing modality, and it's being used in integrative therapy departments in a lot of hospitals across the country and in nursing homes. There's really a lot of good science behind this and medical science behind it. And so for, for just my definition of, of of sound healing, it is truly just an immersive opportunity to be surrounded by healing frequencies. These healing frequencies that that can really not only. They sound beautiful. You know, you can go to a yoga center or or to a meditation center, hear a sound bath, and it sounds beautiful, but increasingly one-on-one sound baths are being found to be very, very effective. Where we use targeted frequencies to more or less air quotes, speak to the cells in our bodies to help them begin to heal. So, so again, it, it, it's simply just, Immersing people in an energetic environment where our bodies respond to, to the healing frequencies. Yeah. And help bring us back in, into balance, if you will. S specific frequencies.
Charlyce:
So as you say that using specific targeted frequencies and I know this one might be catching a little off the spot, but do, do you have an example on the top of your head? Cuz I have a response to that, but I'd like you to describe it a little more in terms of sound healing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, so, so
Kathy:
first let me say that when we do a sound bath, every sound practitioner is different. I happen to use the crystal bowls, the Tibetan bowls, native American flutes the gong. These beautiful little zair chimes drums, the whole thing. And so every one of them has, has a different frequency that speaks to our body. And the language they speak is the chakras, basically. For, for those who who aren't familiar, there are Many, many chakras. But, but, but most people go by the rule of about seven or eight of them. There are many more than that actually, but every chakra resonates at a different frequency. So in terms of the, the healing crystal balls, which I'm going to demo a little bit today I've, I've chosen the ones for, for grounding and opening our hearts, and for the third eye, for, for intuition. Every instrument is, is at a different frequency. And so that, that, that really helps us to define if someone comes to me and says, I'm having this certain problem. Any, anything from energy blockages that cause creative block to migraine headaches, to whatever it happens to be. We, we can look at the instruments and, and, and come up with a, a, a method of playing, if you will, that really helps to, to target on those areas and, and bring healing by, by removing blockages to our overall energy system, if you will. And in
Charlyce:
medicine we do that already. Yes. We sometimes don't acknowledge that we already use frequencies. We use light at different frequencies. One of our slower wavelengths of light, we use our x-rays. Yes. And in sometimes in medicine we speed that up. We go all the way to what's using MRIs and we can go really fast with things like proton therapy, which is similar to what Kathy's talking about. We have a targeted frequency where you're discussing however, you know, gentle and healing and I mean, not that what we don't do is healing, but at that point when we're using protons, it's being used for cancer. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. So can you describe what happens in the mind and the body during a sound healing session? Yeah, I love this
Kathy:
question. I love this question. Yeah, there are a lot of things that that go on. Actually, Six things, six things that go on in the mind and body when we hear sound or music. I, I've studied with a sonic scientist by the name of John Stewart Reid, and I have a little quote here for you. He says, today, the latest sound healing research continues to uncover new ways that sound can heal disease. Reduce stress, brighten your emotional state, making sound not only effective, but also enjoyable and fun. And research shows that carefully curated frequencies, release tension, calm the mind, and promote a deep state of relaxation. And as you know, as a doctor, those things are, are really fundamental to begin to. What each person can do to begin to heal. Okay, so the reason why sound works so well is these, these six reasons. The first is our bodies are anywhere between 60 to 75% water. Some people say it's as much as 85%. It probably varies by the body part and each individual person. But, but what is important is water is a superb conductor of sound, even more so than air. So fundamentally, our bodies are water. Our bodies resonate with the sound frequencies. Number two it's not only what you hear, like some of the most healing instruments. We can't even hear with our ears. The gong, which I'm going to play just a little bit later, has frequencies way above the human ear and below it, we can't hear it, but it is considered the most healing of all of the sound healing instruments. And that's because our cells respond because our cells are, are water, right? And so they are being the, the vibrations are being sensed at a very deep le level within our bodies. And the other thing is number three, when, when we strike a singing bowl or a gong or a drum or, or any other kind of, of stringed instrument that's, that stimulates the brain into what is called a theta state, a deep state of relaxation. And when we're deeply relaxed, It promotes healing it reduces anxiety, it can lower heart rate. You know, many of these sonic scientists are studying with medical doctors to, to figure these things out. So they're monitoring these things and, and seeing that that brainwaves actually do go into theta state. So, so that's really important. And number four, other scientists are finding that 20 minutes of music or sound can regenerate. Old blood cells. I think that's a pretty amazing thing right there, right? They, they, when they are reinvigorated, they absorb more oxygen. As we know, oxygen goes to our, our, our muscles, all of our tissues, our organs, and helps to, to promote healing. So at a very deep level, 20 minutes of music, It has to be music you love or sound, otherwise sound that you love can, can really begin to make these big changes. Number five is my favorite. Dr. Charli. It's kind of geeky science that that I like, but there's a researcher at U ucla by the name of James Jim Zuki, and he has been studying with doctors to publish an article that says Every cell in your body, Sings, it has its own unique sound, and obviously we don't hear it through our ears, but, but their machinery picks it up. They're, they're they're machines. And when cells are dormant, Or sleeping, they stop making their sound and that can lead to disease. You know, I don't know all of the, the medical science behind it, but, but when cells are, are dormant and not doing what cells do, that's usually not a good thing. And, and so, but what they have found that's even more fascinating than cells sing is that when we want to encourage them to not be dormant anymore. We use the frequency of that cell in order to stimulate it back to life and they, they've, they've seen this under laboratory microscopes in all a certain sound for a certain cell. We'll bring it back to life and what these, these scientists are now saying is, This portends amazing things for, for cancer research. You know, oncologists are getting very excited about this because if, if they're able to detect cancer cells, by the way that they're not, Using their air quotes again, voice, and they're able to bring them back into being other cells back into fighting them than then people have a better chance at cancer. I think it, it really is very ex and a very exciting time in both sound healing, but also in medicine as they sort of join forces to help people heal. And I guess number six is, You know, I kind of alluded to this earlier, but, but we're energy beings, right? Like Einstein put it this way, we are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned to the cosmos. So simply put, we operate on a low frequency or a high frequency, and sound helps us to come into a balanced frequency basically. And we know this, you know, just. Just anecdotally in our own lives, you know, if we're feeling really low energy or in a bad mood, you put on your favorite song and it, it really lifts you up. Right? So, so we, we see that in our daily lives to, to some degree. And, and now the science has really proving that our bodies do indeed respond to sound and music in a way that is very healing. That
Charlyce:
was so much information. Thank you. That's so amazing to hear. I'll tell you one comparison you were mentioning the singing of the body. Anyone that's been to the doctor. Had a heart problem, may have had something called an E K G. So that's a really good real life example of what you were saying As far as the cells thing. When we do an E K G, what's being measured is the cells inside the heart that produce an electrical signal. On a rhythm ver like a metronome as a musician, you'll know. Yeah, right. Two major metronomes in the heart. And an EKG actually measures how those are working. It actually reads that. So n not so much as a scene, you know, EKGs in where we are, you know, in history and in medical history right now is peaking up the electrical signal. But that was what I thought of when you said when cells should have been singing on the go dormant. Oh, I never
Kathy:
even thought of it in terms of an EKG before, but of course that makes sense, right? Yeah, like an ekg. Love it. Love it. So are
Charlyce:
there certain conditions that, in your experience, sound healing seems to really respond well to?
Kathy:
Yeah, I have my experience with my clients and then I have what researchers say. In my own experience, anyone suffering from, you know, just. Like, look, we coming through the pandemic. Everyone has been stressed out. We've lost people. And, and so just the, the stress and the burnout. The burnout of jobs. People who are burned out, caring for family members. As you know, stress is not a great thing for our health, and it can, it can really bring on issues, especially like in the autoimmune realm, which we talked about last time. And, and so anytime we can get stress levels to come down and help people find deep peace, that always is a healing thing. But I've also seen. Incredible results with, with people who've had migraine headaches or, or any kind of, of, of cluster headaches, that sort of thing. Autoimmune is, is another thing. I have found that in my own life that I've also helped many, many people who have autoimmune, who tend to get stressed out or triggered and flared up. And it really, the sound really does help to bring that down to, to a, a place of balance where symptoms can get under control. It's the kind of thing that, you know, it, it usually isn't just one thing, one, one sound session that is going to cure. Like, it's just like medicine. You know? You can't take one pill and, and cure diabetes, right? Like it doesn't happen. But sustained. Exposure to frequencies, whether that's going to a sound bath or doing sound on your own, has been found to have, have really good effects. I helped a woman who was about to undergo a very, very serious operation on her spine. Very severe scoliosis. As an adult, she had to have a, something built inside of her ribcage to hold her organs to prevent them from crushing. She and I had tremendous results with just getting her body to a point of, of being strong. Over, over months, but, but being strong and accepting the surgery and she's doing so well today. Things like writer's block, which we don't think of as a, as a medical thing, but, but people who go through creative block sound is, is pro profoundly helpful, but I think overall people find it, it just brings a very deep sense of peace and if they're having issues, Sometimes they get calmed down and what I tell everyone is, you know, work in concert with your medical team. Because sound is something to add to it. It isn't something that is going to fix things. You know? I think most of us, if you have something chronic, there's not one thing you can do. It's about putting together a whole protocol for yourself every. Person's body is different. And so everybody needs a, a bit of a different approach. So those are the, those are the ones that I have found. I, I even helped a woman not that long ago who, who had had hurt her toe incredibly badly, jamming at, you know, slight fractures. And she found that, that not only within the sound session did the pain go away, and this is the pain she'd had for like weeks and weeks that that. It lasted, it was lasting through weeks until to help through the recovery. So there is really something about, you know, if you, if you sustained an injury of any kind, Using sound healing to help your body your body cells recharge and align. But I'll tell you what, what researchers are finding. They, they find that both music and sound can reduce pain, lower blood pressure, and supercharge the immune system and decrease inflammation. And as we know, if you can decrease inflammation. Sometimes the pain level goes down. The other thing is on the, on the, the mind and wellness part of this is that sound has been found in these studies to elevate dopamine, which is the brain's happy drug, and it lowers the, the stress hormone cortisol. So even with only 20 to 30 minutes of listening to, to sound healing or. Music that you love, you, you can engage, you know, the, the dopamine and reduce the corti cortisol and, and get, you know to, to a more balanced place of wellbeing. And, and that promotes our healing, right. So, yeah, and, and I think just overall, like a lot of people say, even when people are not having like a really serious health thing, they find that it, that it just helps them so much to live in the moment. Like sound helps us to be present and grounded in this moment. Like all of us are too busy. All of us are, you know, zooming around, flying all over the place, juggling a million things. And if you can take a moment to just, you know, be in the moment of listening to sound, you are living in this present moment. And being in the moment is sometimes hard for, for people when they're, whether they're going through something physically or, or mentally. And so that alone is, is, is deeply healing.
Charlyce:
Thank you so much. That is beautiful to hear. I love hearing how. Sound healing could be part of a prescription in a way. Right. You know? Right. If I'm gonna prescribe Celebrex, if I'm gonna prescribe Yeah. You know, acetaminophen, can I prescribe sound healing? Why not? Mm-hmm. So for the listeners this is, I think the sweet spot now. Kathy has agreed to do a demonstration, a sound healing demonstration for us. So Kathy, I'd like to go ahead and just. Hand you the airwaves. Okay. As we're getting into the sound healing, is there anything you'll need from me as you're getting set up, or would you, do you need a few minutes or? I, I don't,
Kathy:
but thank you for asking. I, what I think what I'd like to say, just, just very, very briefly beforehand is a couple of really easy little tips for people if they are about to have a sound healing. Like this is just a very, very brief one, but if you're, if you're going to a sound healing, you know the, the, the days leading up to a sound healing or the moments before a sound healing, I, I asked. People to become more aware of just ambient sound around them. We get so closed off to sound when we're busy, when we're in the city, when we're listening to traffic or construction noise. Listen to birds, listen to the dog barking, listen to water running. You know, whether it. A stream, or whether it's your kitchen sink, the sound of chopping vegetables, acclimate your yourself to sound. Another thing they can do is, is to create an intention. So everyone who's listening today, I'd like to ask you to just take a second and, and, and state, you know, to yourself, what is your intention? For a sound healing. It could be very simple. It can be I accept this beautiful sound healing. It could be, I intend to find deep peace in this moment. Or it can be something much, much more personal. And I ask people to hold that in their hearts and then just kind of let go of the worries that they have. And then just take a couple of deep breaths. And relax and just, you know, feel your shoulders and, and your belly and your legs deeply relax and kind of ground into Mother Earth. You know, if, if this were a longer sound bath, we'd go through a much. Bigger more more robust grounding and and relaxation. But for now, just take a couple of deep breaths and I'm going to do a couple of things. The, the, the crystal bowls I've, I've chosen help us to ground. They help us to connect with our heart energy, and then they connect our third eye, which is our, our intuition. And so there was a, a very definite plan for the, the three bowls I chose, I usually use a lot more, but for today it'll be three. And I'm going to start by singing. A little
Charlyce:
before you get into it, Kathy, I just wanna remind the listeners if you're driving or if you're in motion you can keep listening. However, wherever you're listening, why don't you download a copy so that you can experience the session much later. I'm sorry I didn't mean to remind you all, but if you're driving you might want to download this later and tune in when you have more of your attention. Kathy, I'm gonna mute myself and I'm gonna let you go ahead and take over.
Kathy:
Okay. But thank you so much for saying that because that's obviously super important. Part of my intention for, for our, our demonstration today is deep peace and relaxation. And I'm going to start. Sometimes I, I sing during a sound bass, so I'm going to start with that and I'm, I'm singing onto the head of my drum. It. This is a song called Nene that I learned from Mythologist and author Michael Mead. And it's a song, it's a Yoruba song from Africa, which means Mother Earth Hold us for the World is hard. So no matter what you're going through, listeners. Feel held by the energy of Mother Earth and here we go. Hey, you. And when you're ready, open your eyes, wiggle your fingers and toes, and come on back and hold on to that feeling of peace and relaxation to bring through the rest of your day. Kathy, that was amazing. That was such, such a healing journey. I, it was a journey. I felt the grounding, I felt my heart chakra unblock. You know, you and I had chatted a little bit before. Now we're, we are getting to know each other. Yeah. But I felt this major block and my heart chakra just whoop, just open right up. Wow. Yeah, I felt, I felt the energy flow back into my hands, cuz for me personally, whenever I'm feeling blocked the energy in my hands, it stops right there. And I felt it start to just drum right back in. Wow. Good. So see, for you listeners again, if you are listening and you're on a, on a podcast platform, every platform you listen to allows you to download that if you want to go back through that sound healing experience. So just have a look in your show notes. There'll be a way to download, especially if you were in a place where you couldn't quite Absorb that whole experience. So, Kathy, for those, I just got a taste of that and are feeling that they need more, that they're ready to work with you. What's the best way to get in touch with you to get scheduled for a full sound healing session? Oh, thank you so much, Charli. The best way is it my website? Suffering to thriving.com. There they can look at the work with Kathy Page, and there's a contact form there. You can connect to my social media and private MessageMe or email me at suffering to thriving gmail.com. Thank you for that. Thank you so much. So listeners again, Kathy's website is suffering to thrive.com. If you will, check your show notes. You'll have a direct link to take you there so that if you got this session and you've got joint pain, Soul Pain, healing, pain, anything and you, you felt this was helpful and you need more, I would say get scheduled. You can also shine up for my weekly newsletter, cuz I always post a link to download this. Podcast directly just straight to your inbox. And I also have Kathy's contact information there, my weekly newsletter. All you've gotta do is check your show notes and it'll be there. Kathy, thank you so much for that beautiful, breathtaking session. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the idea of doing it. I, I'm just so happy I could share a little bit of that with your listeners and yeah. Thanks so much Dr. Charli. Thank you. Listeners, thank you so much for joining us. You know, this is a special episode. If you're listening to this podcast, leave me a rating. Give me a shout out on social media. This should be spread if you love others who are going through suffering. Share this podcast with them. They can be listening to this if they're waiting. In the waiting room of a doctor's office, or they're waiting to start radiation treatment, or they're waiting for surgery. Just anywhere free content, you can just send to them right there. Start some healing, start some soothing. I say let's share this. Kathy, thank you so much for joining me, art of Healing Podcast Listeners, we'll be back soon for another episode. Don't forget to take your show notes so you can download this episode. You can find Kathy. All of that information will be there. Thanks so much listeners. Bye-bye.
