A Little Alignment
In "A Little Alignment," we pour our hearts into conscious conversations about the things we love to geek out about -- psychology, philosophy, optimal health, art, science, mysticism, spirituality, success, relationships and more.
We live for those priceless "aha" moments that have the potential to awaken creativity and curiosity, and remind you of your beauty, power, and presence.
Our intention is to help you realign with your most whole and exceptional self.
Tune in as we navigate the beautiful path to self-discovery together. 🎙️🥂
A Little Alignment
Wellness Series Pt. 3 | The Science and Spirituality of Sound Healing
In today's episode, Kendra brings her deep knowledge of sound to our show as we discuss how the ancient practice of sound healing may hold the keys to unlocking your own moments of clarity and enlightenment, as well as elevating your overall well-being.
Sound can be immensely helpful in healing. I just want to remind everybody that you're also here not just to be in tune but, once you're in tune, to be able to sing. Utilize these tools so that you can live in harmony with self and with life and be this beautiful example of human being, not because you have a message, not because you have anything to prove, not because you have anything to fix, but simply because you have a song. Welcome to A Little Alignment. If you enjoy what you hear today, if you gain some value from our episode, please leave us a good rating and review at the end. Every single review counts. It really does make a difference. We would appreciate it with all our hearts. We're so glad you all are here with us, helping us create a little more alignment in the world.
Speaker 2:So today is part three of our wellness series and I'm super excited for this next part because, well, shit, I say we're excited about everything, but we are. But we talked about the body, through fitness and health, and then we talked about the mind and how to become more mindfulness. So now we're going into more of like the energetics of wellness, and it's really cool because I think all of these sort of pillars are really important. But we're lucky because we have Kendra here, who not only is she a fabulous singer and has a beautiful voice, but she also provides these amazing sound healings through sound baths and she's going to teach us all about how to leverage the vibrations, the frequencies of sounds and just how they work, and it's just all fun stuff. So I'm going to let you dive into it, but I'm excited to learn a little myself today too.
Speaker 1:Let's dive into it. Yes, sound is sound, and music and song, it's like it's its own language, really, and it's its own healing medium as well. Right and really truly, sound is everywhere, because sound is just what we call vibration that we can hear. Everything is vibrating and that's all sound is. It's a vibration that passes through a medium that acts as a, not a conduit I always want to say conduit but a conductor. It acts as a conductor for those to create sound waves, which then hits our ear, which then becomes what our brain registers as sound and, depending on the frequency of that vibration.
Speaker 1:it affects the pitch and the quality of that sound. But everywhere we go we're just surrounded by sound. We basically are in an environment of sound and vibration and frequency all the time. Yeah, literally always 100%.
Speaker 2:And it's actually, oh, you know, what's crazy and I just thought about it is there's actually some therapy where they completely eliminate sound altogether, but some people can go crazy. Sound deprivation, yes, from the lack of sound, because we've actually never really truly experienced full and complete silence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, the sound deprivation, that's like there's something in us that just feels like a wrongness to a lack of sound. That's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is so interesting. But yeah, that would freak me out too. But yeah, so we definitely pick up on vibration in the form of sound through our ears, but our entire bodies are really extremely receptive to these vibrations, to the sound vibrations. It can travel through our skin, through our blood, through our bones. I mean so much so that there are physicians that can use tuning forks to determine if there's a bone fracture. That is wild. I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1:And there's actually a lot of stuff going on around the world right now where they're experimenting with the same concept of using vibration and testing it up against the body and utilizing that to help make tumors smaller and also just less invasive ways to heal the body and to understand the body, and it's amazing and miraculous and wildly untapped potential in the world of sound.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's what I think is so valuable about even having discussions like this, because it's such a powerful tool that people have. That, I think, is that is majorly underutilized just because of the lack of education around what it is and the impacts that sound and these vibrations can have on the body. Physically. Right, it's incredible, it's so cool.
Speaker 1:It is really cool. I mean they've been sometimes things that we use for understanding what's going on in the body, like ultrasounds, for example, we can use. Those are high frequency sounds, essentially, that are moving through the body and because they're so high high frequency they move easily through liquid and soft tissue and if they bump up against something that's more dense, then that's how it creates the visual, with the electromagnetic visual of whatever's in there, whether it's tumor or baby, whatever. But they also use that same high frequency vibration or the ultrasound, which is what it is. That's what the ultrasounds are. Yeah, they can use that for other healing benefits.
Speaker 1:Those frequencies actually encourage your body to produce more collagen, which is beneficial to our lining and within our skin and all kinds of stuff, right, yeah, and also to reduce inflammation, which can really affect our health and our wellness overall.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I feel like inflammation is so much of the root of so many different things.
Speaker 1:It is it really, truly is and also to help regulate and increase blood flow. So all of that just with sound, really with a high frequency sound, amazing, right so, and then this I wanted to give even like a deeper scientific understanding of this, because there's some implications here that are incredible. And the reason that I want to talk about this is because I think when we talk what? When I talk to people about sound healing or like what you know, you're a sound healer, what do you do? Like that's so nice, that's so sweet.
Speaker 1:Music is lovely yeah, absolutely, music is lovely, but it's also really powerful yeah real power in what, how we can like, manipulate different vibrations and utilize them to heal, to elevate all of it right. So one example of that that happens in the body is and that also shows us that our cells are affected by sound is on it, on ourselves, we have the cell membrane right, and on that there's this cute little antenna guy. I picture him like you know the little mermaid, you know her little like gremlins. They're not gremlins, they're like the souls that she tracks. Yeah, the poor unfortunate souls. Yeah, the poor unfortunate souls, that's it.
Speaker 1:I picture them, these little antenna things, like little poor, unfortunate souls, and they're just like vibing, like a tuning fork, they're just right, and on these antennae are different proteins, right, and when they're exposed to a sound that resonates with it, so it's vibrating at the same frequency in its environment, then it changes the charge of those proteins, which then shifts the shape of the cell structure. Yeah, so it change. It literally changes the cell that sound and that's really amazing.
Speaker 1:These are the implications that I was getting at earlier, because the proteins on the on the cell, on the little, poor, unfortunate soul on the cell, when there's issues with the proteins, that is is related to cancer, obesity, arthritis, lots of big bads, yeah, right, so if we know that we can manipulate these with sound, then it's likely going to be in our future that we're using sound as treatment for these illnesses to heal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's been shows like heal right or like healing or something like that people will go to other modalities of healing, and that's when you see people dive into these things because they're in such a space where they're just willing to do anything to finally achieve, you know, wellness or health, or to really like overcome some of the bigger diseases, like what you mentioned. But imagine if we were to just sort of use this as maintenance, yeah, rather than having it need to be this big intervention. But again, I think it just comes back to a lack of education, so we can't fully utilize this tool without knowing more about it, but like, wow, I know it totally agree.
Speaker 1:I echo your sentiments. Yeah, it really is amazing and you know to your point the maintenance thing. I mean we can really harness sound and music to benefit us in a lot of ways. I mean just understanding how it affects us, even on a more, maybe a level that we can grasp a little easier than our cell membranes. Think about when you hear like a big sound, like a big loud noise, like a bang or a crash scares you, yeah, and immediately what happens to your body?
Speaker 2:your heart rate and your breathing change instantly. Yeah, it's like immediate reaction.
Speaker 1:Right, and it's to protect yourself. Right, like your body's just ready to go. It responds that you've been thinking about it, right. Whereas if you're out in nature or even just around nature sounds, and you hear birdsong and you hear water, where you hear the leaves blowing in the wind, it signals your body is safe. It's like you're safe, right, we can go into the rest and digest, right and so, and it's you don't necessarily think about it. Lots people go into nature thinking, oh, I love nature, it makes me feel so good, and really it's because the sounds of nature, mm-hmm, that are helping to bring you into this state of peace and calm.
Speaker 2:Right, safety, mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that this is something that people I mean I'll just speak for myself, I don't think about enough, right like I just feel like there's sound and it's just around me, but really thinking about being more conscious, or like intentional with the different sounds I allow, or like what music I select, will shift my state of being and so if you really want to utilize this it sounds like just add some intentionality into, like what you're actually allowing yourself to be exposed to sound wise mm-hmm, yeah, for sure this because our environment is sound.
Speaker 1:Essentially it's. It is sound, and sound is directly linked to our well-being and, like you said, like you give me more intentional about it. But the other thing that's really beautiful about it is you don't really have to think about it at all, like I was just saying, like when we hear certain sounds, our body responds without us having to logically understand it or think through it or solve any kind of equation or problem.
Speaker 1:Your body just responds, it interacts. Right, the vibration interacts with vibration. There's entrainment at play, which is when two different frequencies, or beats, I should say, affect each other. There's resonance involved, and I'll get into that a little bit more. All of that is at play here and it's just a communication really utilizing sound and the body Resonance. Let's dive into that, because that's a word that I just use. Resonance basically just means like echo. I mean, that's like the root term of the Latin term is echo, which it's kind of cute when you think about when you meet someone and you're like I just resonate with them, right it's like there's a likeness, there, a sameness.
Speaker 1:Just kind of like your drive, your vibe, yeah, and so every part of you and your body has its natural state of resonance, and when we fall out of resonance or there's stagnant energy, or whatever however you wanna phrase it, then it creates that dis-ease in the body that we've talked about many, many, many times, right? And so that's where sound healing can come into play.
Speaker 2:I wanna hear more about how to actually utilize sound, and I know that sound baths are something that come into mind when I think about sound healing. What is happening exactly with a sound bath, and how is that healing?
Speaker 1:I love this. Okay, so if you were to come to me for a sound bath, I'm gonna paint the picture, and to me or to anyone else, because I think some of this is unfamiliar and it can keep people away. So, like I don't know what that is, I don't know what to expect.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but people might feel like it's real far on the woo-woo spectrum, sure, which it's not, but I will say you have to experience it. Yes, which is what's really important also to this entire conversation is because, like, we're speaking to something that's actually more experiential.
Speaker 2:That's expressed through experience. Yeah, so I think people tend to categorize the things they can't put words around as woo-woo-ee, but really, like Kendra's explaining, there's so much science behind what's actually happening, even like on a cellular level, to speak to the changes and the impacts of sound, and so, yeah, I wanna hear about sound baths though, and what comes from those Love?
Speaker 1:to tell you about those, and just to your point, about the woo-woo like this is stuff that is ancient wisdom, this, every religion, every spiritual practice from the beginning of time has incorporated some kind of song or dance or chant. Music has been incorporated in worship, in consciousness across the board, and that's because there's some All cultures. Yes, there's like some intuitive knowledge. That sound connects us with this higher power.
Speaker 2:Or this higher level of consciousness.
Speaker 1:With each other, with this higher you know version of yourself, all of it right, with this true thriving in every sense of the term. And so, yeah, we. This is one way that we can really harness that sound baths, or one way to really harness that power of sound and sound healing, sound alchemy. So I'll tell you how I run a sound bath, and everybody's gonna do it a little bit differently, but this is generally what you can expect if you were to go in and get a sound bath. If it's, whether it's virtual or in person, you get comfortable, you lay down. That's what I prefer is laying down in a really comfortable position, making sure you're warm, you can be on a pillow, you can have blankets. If it is virtual, I do typically recommend headphones.
Speaker 1:Just so that you can really hear, especially with the binaural beats that we can create with different techniques. But, either way, you've got the sound that you're hearing, you're taking in and we start with some deep breathing, just getting centered. I usually have my clients ask a question to their body what is it that you want me to know, what is it that you want me to hear?
Speaker 1:And open themselves to receive it during the sound bath, because, really, when we're bringing the body back into a state of resonance, it also creates this clarity and this connection where you can commune with your body and understand what is going on a little more clearly, receive messages in a lot of way, a lot of forms, and I also, if they're comfortable with it, ask them to open themselves up to spirit, because something that I've seen over and over again is that music and sound actually also unlocks this higher realm of consciousness and connects us with a higher source that is also directly linked to vibration and all of it that exists in the ether, and so I ask them to open themselves up to that and any messages that may need to come through for them.
Speaker 1:And if they're not comfortable with that, are those things that they just want to relax, that's absolutely an option. I just love to offer them the option to even get as much out of this as they can, and you can definitely get those that out of it so they get comfortable. And then what I do is I actually tap into into the ether myself and I take breaths and I channel what I call channeling, which sounds kind of maybe a little woo-woo as well, but I really just feel my body and how it's responding to theirs and their presence and I call their presence into my awareness and into my realm and I just play the bowls intuitively.
Speaker 1:Now a little background here. Every bowl there's seven bowls, one for each chakra, which is your energy center, and your body is tuned to the C major scale and each bowl has a note in the C major scale. So the root chakra is the C and it was all the way up D-E-F-G-A-B for the crown all the way up. So I kind of play them more intuitively. And these are crystal bowls, these are crystal singing bowls.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1:Crystal singing bowls. Yes, there's a lot of different methods for sound healing and I think they're all amazing. This is just my jam. That's what I utilize and sometimes I have a little drum and.
Speaker 1:I also have a drone that I play that also can be really activating, like DNA activating, and so I play intuitively and sometimes I'll even sing more the angelic singing. I don't sing words because that can bring in a charge that words have and I'm not necessarily sure I need all the charge and they can be different for every person, right. So I don't use real words. I don't necessarily tap into light language I haven't discovered that myself maybe in some moments, but it's mostly just tonating with the voice, just wa-ya-la, you know. And then at the end I usually not always, but I'll run through with the mantras for every chakra as well, because those also are directly communing with that vibration and especially if they're virtual, it can help to bring that sound into their body even more when they chant.
Speaker 1:There's a mantra assigned to every chakra as well. So, and I do it in the note, so the C note and the root chakra is lam, so you would sing lam I don't know if that's a C completely, but lam and I have them sing that with me and we move all the way up the chakras. So it's lam, vam, ram, yam, ham, om and also om, but I usually leave the crown chakra just sound, no tonating, for a few reasons, but that can also help to activate each chakra and especially, like I said, from a distance, that can just bring in a different element to it, and I've had people walk out of a sound bath having all kinds of experiences.
Speaker 1:Almost always, almost always, there's a sensation of floating or out of body at some point during the sound bath, which I think is really powerful, because I think again, I think that brings this to a different realm of consciousness and you know, like we'll talk about with you in heart math there's a whole study about the biofield, the human biofield and the energy that exists outside of the physical body and that, just it is a testament that we're so much more than our flesh, right?
Speaker 1:And so I believe that we get into this, into more of our space, right, we occupy more of our natural space and it feels like we're coming out of our body, and out of our body into more of our natural space. We become one with sound, which is one with all right.
Speaker 1:So not only are we coming back into a state of resonance which, by the way, every chakra aligns with different parts of the body, different functions, different elements and different sheets of the bio, the biofield as well the human biofield, and so it cannot definitely affect us on a physical and energy level, mental, emotional level, but I also really have seen how it can help us tap into this spiritual self and connect in that way, which, again, is very healing in a lot of ways and educating in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2:It's so cool because, again, it's something that needs to be experienced to fully understand it. And it's happening. Like you said, it can happen like the healing and the transformation happens without you having to think about it.
Speaker 2:You know the vibrations and frequencies are impacting your cells and it's bringing up resonance with different energy centers throughout your body. That's going to also bring with that different emotions and things that can be potentially like trapped energy stuck in certain chakras or places in your body and, again, without thinking, you can experience really profound breakthroughs or emotional releases. And I mean, I'll speak for myself, but there have been times where things have come up that I completely did not expect, you know, and typically it's been through like a meditation matched with like a sound bath essentially.
Speaker 2:I've even done it in the sauna. I've had a sound bath in the sauna which was like super amazing, huge emotional release and, specifically like I remember some really powerful ones when I was grieving the loss of my little Toby, and it felt like it allowed me to release what I needed to release. But it also helped me get in touch with such like a deep love and feeling of peace that I really needed in that phase of healing. And so it's just wild, it's again. This is all just so hard to put into words because it's so much more of a feeling and like a resonance I mean a true resonance.
Speaker 1:It is. It's a true resonance in and out, right, like you become. You become an estate of resonance, which basically means that every part of you is vibrating at its highest, you know most natural frequency, which is its highest frequency, and then also in a state of resonance with everything you know, without right, like you're communing with spirit on an energetic level and you. It is an experiential thing. It's hard to put into words, but you do feel this bigger, like larger than life, something happening right, and that's why I like to for people to ask about, ask their body, what message it has for them, cause sometimes there's emotion that's trapped, that just needs to your body's just like.
Speaker 1:So you're opening yourself up to say I'm here, you know, if you need to communicate something with me. Aka there's emotion that you need to release or whatever. And there've definitely been moments where people have gotten messages too, where they're like whoa, I just had this like really clearly come through to me while I was in the state and I wasn't looking for it. It just was clear as day, or visions, like little imagery. It's pretty profound and it's all triggered by utilizing and harnessing the power of sound.
Speaker 2:And I think this also kind of goes back to something we had mentioned in the first episode of this series, when we're talking about, like, if you've had the intention of shifting your health or losing weight or whatever it might be, but there's something that you're stuck on. This is a modality where it might move or jolt something out of your body that is actually needing to move through you to allow you to fulfill the goal or to make the shifts in your life that you need to.
Speaker 2:And so that's why, I think you know, we go back and say there's the different pillars of wellness, but this is such an important one not to be overlooked, because there really is more to total wellness and you know we talk about the mind I'm gonna dive into heart math in the next episode so that the energetic conversation continues and it's such a big component of wellness. But yeah, I mean, there's nothing like the frequencies or the vibrations of sound to really help also target things that maybe just need some attention in a different way to help you navigate them.
Speaker 1:Love that, yeah, and you know, on a final note, I mean you kind of mentioned to like maintenance and not waiting till you're broken to, you know, to learn what it feels like to be out of resonance, necessarily, or to seek health and healing. But I also wanna bring in the creative element to this and the, you know, not just about surviving, but it's about thriving, right, and I mean we're all walking symphonies, as I tend to say. We're just full. Every part of us has a different, is like a different instrument, you know, and when we're all in tune, right, when we're in a state of resonance, then we're walking music to the world and we can sing more beautifully, more clearly, more powerfully, our song, if you will. And that's what we're here for, right, there's a lot of we're here for a lot.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of conjecture about why we're here, right, some people think we're here to pass some kind of test. Some people think that we're here, you know, to grow and all of that, and I think perhaps all of that is true in a way. But I also firmly believe that we're here simply just to be here and to experience life right, and for life to be experienced through us. And it aligns beautifully with this quote that I love. It is one of my all-time favorite messages from Maya Angelou. It's on my phone 24-7, it's like on my background, and it happens today to be the quote from Mindset Timer which also comes up on my phone.
Speaker 2:It rotates yeah.
Speaker 1:What did I say?
Speaker 2:Mindset Timer. Yeah, insight timer, but I know what you mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, girl, and it's the same quote today and I think that's so fun that it happened to come up today, as we're gonna be, you know, knowing we're gonna record this episode and she said a bird doesn't sing because it has a message.
Speaker 1:It sings because it has a song. And I think that we can really bring that message from my Angelo into this conversation, and I love that we're gonna close with it Because, yes, sound can be immensely helpful in healing, but it also like I just wanna remind everybody that you're also here not just to be in tune but, once you're in tune, to be able to sing right, and I mean that, obviously, on an energetic level and an experiential level to utilize these tools so that you can live in harmony with self and with life and be this beautiful example of human being, not because you have a message, not because you have anything to prove, not because you have anything to fix, but simply because you have a song.
Speaker 2:It's a miracle that each one of us are here, so it's not for just the sake of being here. There's a lot that had to go into making you be here, or allowing you to be here, I should say too.
Speaker 1:We can relish in that miracle instead of just sort of maintain it or just not lose it.
Speaker 2:you know Right, relish in it and really utilize it, and celebrate it Too magical and miraculous of beings to just float along. We're here to thrive. Yes, exactly so. Use all your tools to do so.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for letting me talk about this. This is the stuff that makes my heart sing, quite literally. Yeah, and speaking of heart singing, I'm really excited in our next episode to hear from you about heart math.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to talk about it. It is like such a I just get excited because it's something that I feel every single person needs to know about. Everybody needs to learn about it, so yeah, it's gonna be good.
Speaker 1:You guys are getting a little peeking to like our deepest passions, because this is mine, this is my jam music, sound healing, wholeness and heart math is Lauren. Yeah, that's mine, I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it so much, okay.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for listening. We love you. Love you, bye, bye.
Speaker 2:If you found any of what we shared today helpful, please share this with a friend, and we would so appreciate a rating and review to help us grow and reach more people. Also, please feel free to send us any feedback and questions. You can find us on Instagram. Kendra can be found at KendraDyerCrabb, k-e-n-d-r-a-d-y-e-r-c-r-a-b-b, and you can find myself at Lauren Penyadial, and it's L-A-U-R-E-N-P-E-N-A-D-I-A-L. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day.