Heal with Grace

57. The benefits of sound healing with Julie Afsahi and Jessica Cross

• Grace Secker / Julie Afsahi and Jessica Cross • Episode 57

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In this episode, Grace hosts sound healing experts Jessica and Julie to delve into the benefits and practices of sound healing through their recently published book 'Seasons of Sound.' They discuss the origins and effects of sound healing, the importance of a trauma-sensitive approach, and the different modalities and instruments used. The conversation highlights the accessibility and adaptability of sound healing practices, the significance of aligning with seasonal changes, and the growing interest in sound healing across diverse fields, from corporate wellness to neurodivergent communities.

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[00:00:00] Grace: All right. Thank you so much, Jessica and Julie, for joining me. This is a really important topic as you know, this whole podcast is about how to understand yourself and how to help learn the tools and skills that will soothe your nervous system, help you gain a better relationship with that mind and body connection.

And there's so many modalities to do that. and so sometimes it can be a little overwhelming, but I really hope that. You know, this episode will help tune in to really understanding sound and how that can help us. So, yeah, thanks for being here. 

[00:00:33] Julie: Thank you so much. 

[00:00:36] Grace: Thanks for having us. You're welcome.

so let's just jump right in, in terms of, you know, you both, come from an entrepreneurial like mindfulness background, but then you've written a book called the seasons of sound. And how did you have this, the idea for this book? How did you evolve into it? 

[00:00:54] Julie: Thanks so much, Grace, for having us. We're so happy to be here.

And this is Julie, if you're listening. I, it really was a product of just a lot of years of doing this work. And Jessica, I've been so fortunate. I have a studio north of Austin, a yoga studio called Soul Strong Yoga. And we opened a little over six years ago. And Jessica was early on To our staff, like one of our original teachers, and she brought sound to our community.

And over the years, she's led so many trainings, for our community and beyond. And I was more in the yoga mindfulness world, but also, practicing playing and studying the gong. So we just kind of combined.years of offering trainings together. and also just some meaningful conversations to come up with seasons of sound.

So it was birthed organically even though, you know, at the end of the day we did have a timeline. we had a training coming up and we really wanted everyone to have the book.But for us, we were so fortunate because it was just like years of training and conversations. So so much of the content we had already built, which was, it just felt inevitable, like it would end up being a book.

[00:02:14] Grace: So actually, can you, so our listeners understand, what is the concept of sound healing and its benefits? Like why, why would they be interested? 

[00:02:26] Jessica: Yeah, that's, that's a great question. And I think, sound healing is becoming a bit more on the forefront of minds and, you know, we're seeing soundbots, but sometimes it's a little, a little tricky.

What, what does that actually mean? So, sound healing, we like to say in a nutshell is a passive listening experience, where a recipient will be in a comfortable position. Sometimes they're reclined, sometimes they're seated, and they're receiving. sound from instruments in a calm, predictable manner.

so generally, you're in sound healing experiences. You're hearing singing bowls, kongs, chimes, drums, but that's a very short list of modern sound healing tools because, sound healing is far beyond us. You know, being able to recline, in a yoga studio, and listen to singing bowls, but it goes back millennia where we were, evolving with the sound of nature, the sound of our mother's heartbeat.

So we're basically through the process of sound healing, we're facilitating a returning, a returning to, you know, where we came from, the evolution of, Us as humans is also within our own lives, so reminding our nervous systems, that, you know, we're, we're safe, we're, we're held, by the sound and so that we can create space for, for healing, just like you talk about here on your show.

[00:03:47] Grace: That's really interesting because that's what I was going to ask. What is it? What's the impact right on our bodies and why are, some people are very drawn to it, right? Some people go to a sound healing or a gong bath and they're like, Oh my gosh, I loved that. And they keep going back. And I've always been curious as to what that is.

I've had actually different experiences. I kind of forgot about that. We can talk about, but, yeah. So what is it that pulls someone in? Like, why is that? So why does it feel good or expansive and like what's happening in the body? 

[00:04:16] Julie: Yeah, that's an amazing question. We talk about some of that in Seasons of Sound.

One thing you mentioned, Grace, too, is we do talk about preference in the book, because we can cite as much research as we want and You know, go into yoga, energetics and yogic philosophy, but at the end of the day, people's experience and people's preference. Of course, these things evolve and change over time, but they are going to make a huge difference in someone's experience of a sound bath.

So, we do take that into consideration when talking about, The experience for the nervous system. So just to backtrack a little bit, also something earlier, Grace, you talked about too, was like, we're always looking for more tools and more modalities to calm the nervous system and reach a deeper state of rest so that the body can restore.

And sound healing is one more offering that we can give to ourselves and to others. research is kind of interesting. One study that, We like to talk about that is more recent is about the Tibetan singing bowl. So if you're listening, those are the metal singing bowls, that are everywhere right now, like, literally everywhere, like the 5 store in Austin carries metal singing bowls.

so, so there was a study done with, nicer Tibetan singing bowls and. The study was done with a small group, but showed that people who were new to meditation were able to have a more quote unquote meditative, quote unquote, like relaxing experience with singing bowls versus meditating in silence.

And I think that's such a beautiful illustration of One way that sound healing can help people to enter that calmer state. Like maybe it's just a little bit of extra that they needed to be able to reach that deeper meditative state. 

[00:06:21] Grace: Hmm. Okay. So is there, are there a certain, well, okay. What I have learned before, so I have gone through yoga therapy training and we touch on sound and what I remember learning, where different frequencies of sound hit different wavelengths of our brain and our bodies, right?

Can you speak to that a little bit? Yeah, 

[00:06:42] Jessica: yeah, great. Yeah, great question. and we do talk in seasons of sound about different frequencies, of which there are many. I think we kind of, we, we touched on in them because there's just an endless list. so the, the different frequencies,are really interesting to kind of study to there's, there's frequencies, that are, have been related to Gregorian chance.

The self ageo frequencies, which we talked a little bit about in the book, which is fascinating because some of those are, with the frequency of love, the frequency of, letting go or releasing, et cetera. So there's a list of those. and there's even singing bowls that are now tuned to this aphasia frequencies, which I find fascinating.

we're when we're in a space for healing and we're receiving these frequencies, there might be an intention from the The practitioner to use a specific frequency and there might be an intention from the receiver to have a specific effect. sometimes those things are planned and they work together and sometimes the intention trumps the, effect of the frequency itself.

So, there's, there's interesting, research. It's not. Quite there. And I know, we talk about this a lot. The yoga research is catching up. There's so much more data. The sound research is, much more in its infancy. And I think that's why we're so excited about this, Tibetan singing bullet in meditation, research that came out earlier this year because it's one of the first that's actually using.

sound healing versus music therapy or using specific frequencies, from, you know, like a machine versus an actual instrument itself. So, To put a fine point on that, the frequencies are vast and they have lots of different abilities to affect the body and the brain waves. And we're still kind of unpacking what all of that means for us as humans and and how to bring that more into the research and actually be able to point to data of the effects of it.

[00:08:45] Grace: Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah, I can imagine. I mean, you know, depending on whether it is a group session, private session. You know, what the, as the practitioner is leading and using the sound bowl, that's going to be, it's going to affect people in different ways. Right? Which actually brings me to, and maybe you can speak to this that, I, so years ago, I think maybe my 1st or 2nd sound bath.

I was so excited. I went to this huge, I went, I actually went to a, with a friend and Joshua tree. And there's this, dome like Vortex, going into it. Right. And I was like, Oh yes, this is so my vibe and going in and laying down. And as the sounds started playing almost right off the bat, I started having sensations of like a panic attack.

And. I haven't had one of those as a teenager. That's not a normal thing for me. I've really worked through that. and I have skills and breathing techniques to learn to soothe me down. So I had to work really hard to soothe, soothe me down, but it was a, it was intense. I was like, why? I don't, you know, I don't know.

It was a pretty good time in my life. It wasn't great. I wasn't going through something super crazy. so what's happening there? Why does that happen? 

[00:09:59] Julie: Yeah, there could be a lot of, a lot of reasons for that, but just to talk about like a kind of basic concept in sound healing is entrainment and entrainment can mean a couple different things.

So, your body syncs up with the sounds around you. So, entrainment can refer to how if.something that you're perceiving as relaxing and calm your heart rate, your blood pressure will lower, so that you're entering a similar state of relaxation to the vibration around you. It doesn't have to just be sound.

It can be like the vibration moving through your body. Also, entrainment. Goes back to your original question to grace about brainwaves and what you learned in yoga therapy so it can help people enter the theta state. So where there's fewer brainwaves similar to when you're in kind of a wakeful sleep, not where you're just like having dreamless sleep, but where there's, images and dreams happening and sounds can help people enter that very meditative beta state.

When people tell stories of. Like I just started to panic. it doesn't necessarily mean that the sound healer Was playing anything wrong? I mean there can be a whole it kind of stinks because there's not a straight answer But sometimes for example, like if a sound healer, maybe they are not aware They might be playing two bowls Simultaneously at two different tones that together when your body, here's those two different tones.

It sounds very dissonant and perhaps even harsh. so sometimes it can just be the person was, you know. instruments simultaneously that don't necessarily go well together for our sense of hearing. but it can also, you know, from a yoga energetic standpoint, perhaps it could, you know, if you're going to get like woo woo and some of us listening are pretty woo woo about all this stuff.

you know, sometimes People will say things like it was like an energetic blockage and it just needed to pass through and be released. And sometimes people will say things like that happened to them the day after. So not even necessarily like, during the sound bath, they might feel just fine, super relaxed.

And then the next day say, oh, my gosh, you know, Julie. I cried for like 30 minutes. I don't even know why, but I, whatever needed to move through, move through. So sometimes too, it's perhaps like things were completely unaware of, and whether or not you believe in those things, you know, if you're listening, that's fine.

But just having done this now for a long time, Anecdotally, that's something that people quite often talk about is, oh man, like that was rough, but similar to a meditation practice, we often sit with discomfort in meditation and not every meditation practice is like rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes it might be really agitating and so annoying, but we just come back to the practice as a objective observer and see what happens next.

But unfortunately too, there can just be like plain old, they shouldn't have been playing those two singing bowls together. So since we weren't there, you know, didn't have access to the instruments. It could be like a fluke like that, or just something energetically that needed to move through. 

[00:13:31] Grace: Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely more on the line of and we talk about it all the time on here, just in terms of moving energy and understanding truly what's going on underneath the surface because, you know, when we're working on.

regulating the nervous system. It's not all, I mean, like you said, with meditation, it's not all like rainbows and sunshine. It's, it's hard work and there's a lot that needs to come out that we've repressed and put down and hidden down. Right. So yeah, I mean, totally. I see that as, it was, it was really hitting my nervous system in a place where I was probably in the stress response, even though I didn't know it.

So. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I 

[00:14:06] Jessica: think that's really normal too, by the way. I, and I, I'm glad that you mentioned that because I think sometimes, it's easier to say, oh, I had a great time. It was the best experience ever. And I love that we're normalizing the fact that it's actually pretty common that. We have attendees who are going through something, even though when you look out in the room, you wouldn't know they're, they're having, you know, some sort of a reaction to, you know, what's going on in, in the room and for whatever reason, be it the bulls or, you know, uncovering something that we weren't quite aware of in that moment.

they, it can feel a little, it can feel a little, you'd make feel a little alone when you see everyone's like, that was the best thing ever. And then you're like, I don't know about you, but I just felt like I went through like the dark night of the soul. And so thank you for sharing your experience, because I think it's really important that people hear it.

[00:15:04] Grace: Yeah, you totally hit what I was feeling. I mean, I was with 1 of my really good friends and she just loves it. You know, every time we travel together and every time we travel together and she finds a sound healing. She's like, let's go. And I'm like, Oh, but like. The same way we talk about doing this work, like really getting to know yourself and doing the inner work is going to bring stuff up and that's your work, right?

That's how you move through it. So any modality like sound like this, like sounds healing. I can imagine. I mean, it hits you in your, in your body, right? In your brain state, like it's going to activate some of that stuff that we need to be activated. It's just can be a little alarming at first. Yeah, 

[00:15:50] Jessica: it's not fun when it catches you off guard.

[00:15:53] Grace: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad I brought that up then. okay. Let's then actually, let's talk about, are there any common misconceptions about sound healing that you address or clarify? Maybe I love this part of it. 

[00:16:07] Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. I know. I'll, I'll let, I'll have Julie chime in too, because, there are so many, the list is so long.

you know, I think, In any tradition, there is misconceptions and sound healing is, is certainly not immune to that. I think, you know, 1 of the ones that I think of, you know, 1st of the long list is, the modern sound healing experience that we receive now where we, are, you know, in a studio setting or perhaps we're out, you know, at a gorgeous park and there's these crystal singing bowls and, You know, harps and these amazing instruments and thinking that this is, you know, Buddhist monks or sitting on the mountains singing crystal singing bowls.

and that was how. Sound healing has always been, and it just isn't the case. and, and that's the case for many of the instruments that we see today. Of course, in, in the book, we talk about instruments such as the didgeridoo that have incredibly long histories of use, 40, 000 years, potentially in aboriginal, Australia is the source of the didgeridoo.

And that's a very common, commonly used modern sound healing tool. As well as drums and the sound of our voice, the list is so long and things that have history. but the crystal singing bowls are modern invention invention along with a lot of the other tools. some of the, some of the history stuff I think is, is interestingly enough, one of the misconceptions is that all of these tools just must have, you know, a long lineage of use for us.

We can look back to the 1980s in Silicon Valley for the crystal singing bowls, which is, they're still great. Doesn't mean they're not, but, they're, they're, they're definitely a modern invention and I'll hand it over to Julie because I'm sure she's got some things to add to this one too. 

[00:17:57] Julie: Yeah, absolutely.

One of the things we talked about to in seasons of sound and it's passionate, you know, a piece of passion for us is a trauma sensitive sound bath and offering that to folks. So, 1 thing is. We really tried to nourish a sense of empowerment for everyone who's in the sound bath. So misconception is I need to be as still and as quiet as I possibly can.

And I am glued to, if you're on a yoga mat or a yoga blanket, like I am glued to this blanket. I cannot move. And rather we want people to prioritize their comfort. We show people where restrooms are, water is, how they can step outside if they need to. so that it feels safe. Much more safe, and if we're talking about, nervous system regulation, just people knowing that they have choice, it's like a really nice release of stress.

So, I think that's 1 big misconception that just and I work really hard at dispelling that if you're especially new to a location, you know, new to. Sound healing or new to the location that you're going to go to, feel free to ask questions, feel free to take good care of yourself as well. So we just try to empower people to know that they have choice, and autonomy in a sound experience.

[00:19:21] Grace: Okay, that's I could completely imagine and yeah, I've experienced that myself of feeling like, oh, and I deserve anyone, you know? Yeah. Okay. I'm glad you called that out. how has the response to sound healing changed over time? And where do you see it going? 

[00:19:38] Julie: It is like blowing up right now. I feel like I was at a bar mitzvah earlier this year and the amount of people who found out that I did sound healing and told me that they went to a sound bath was like, astounding.

I was like, what is happening? It felt so real. Just like this is San Diego too, but still it was like not like I didn't have to explain to anyone what a gong was or a crystal singing bowl. I think similar to, you know, yoga in the 80s and 70s, it was like really taking off in the US. I feel like we are kind of in a similar.

Phase of sound healing in the US. So I think there is nothing but expansion. And then also just the sheer number of people in our own community, interested in both our sound baths and our sound trainings that we lead for other healers. It's pretty incredible. And it's so diverse. It's not just from the yoga world, you know, people who are, like mental health experts, psychiatrists, psychologists, people who work in other areas of wellness, like estheticians, massage therapists, people who work with teens and children, like the interest in sound healing is so diverse, such as, so it just shows like it's really spreading into every arena.

Just, you have. Do you agree? Do you have anything else to add? Oh, 

[00:21:14] Jessica: I still agree. Yeah. You did. You did such a beautiful job of talking about the, wide array of folks that we're seeing in our different containers. And, you know, one that I found very interesting as well is the interest from corporate, wellness, wellness leaders or, employee experience.

leadership in different corporate settings. they are very, very interested in offering sound on a regular basis for their employee base. And I know there's, you know, look at the news. There's a big, you know, return to office. back in, not, not sure how to handle the stress. And, I think this is, you know, all of the politics of that aside, I think this is one of the beautiful things that's happening is people are in these, decision making roles are working harder to find things that are more applicable to their employee base.

so as an example, and I'm a yoga teacher as well. So, I am not being asked to come in and lead yoga classes. I'm asked to be, to bring in sound because People have a very short amount of time. They don't have time to shower. Even if the perception, I'm not teaching a hot sweaty class anyway, but the perception is that you've got to like, Oh, I've got a whole thing.

Right. I've got to like freshen up before I go to my next meeting. And I'm seeing people roll in. Setting their phones down from that call and onto a mat and they're just there and they're able to function and move into the next part of their day much more easily than if they were having to do the whole refresh thing before your next meeting.

And I think the benefits. I mean, I've yoga is my first love, so I could never say I could never say that isn't benefits to yoga. But I think the benefits and those that it can reach, sound healing has a, has even deeper reach for folks who are maybe a little, Oh, I don't do yoga, you know, I'm not interested in that for, you know, the myriad of reasons culture has somehow said that yoga isn't good for everybody.

Cause we all know everybody needs yoga. It's reaching more and more people, in, in settings that it may.that may not be reached by other modalities. 

[00:23:26] Grace: Interesting. And I could see it being so, I mean, similar to yoga or anything that we can do that takes us out of the analytical mind growing, going, going throughout the day.

So thinking about the future, thinking about the passing, but what you need to do, right? Like anything that can take us out of that and enter the moment present goes away. Do not disturb. Like, yeah, I could see that as long as someone can. Experience it, then they'll want more. Right? And so that's awesome.

It's becoming more widespread in corporate culture. Very needed. Yeah, indeed. Yes. Okay. So here's a population I'm curious about and you may not know this. It just kind of popped to my mind. What about sound healing for, more like hypersensitive or neuro, neurodivergent folks or autism or things like that?

Because sensory is, you know, difficult sometimes or can be a lot. And so in my mind, I'm thinking it could probably be really beneficial, but also would need to be very boundary or contained. Right. So, you know, I don't, I don't know. Can you speak to that at all? 

[00:24:38] Julie: Yeah. Just from personal experience, having a son with autism, I can, you know, just in my own household, speak to it.

He's in a house with a lot of sound healing tools, a lot of sound at our house just to begin with, but my other son's a piano player and he's a clarinetist, but yeah, I think you nailed it. What is the expression? 

[00:25:03] Grace: I almost said it earlier and I forgot to. 

[00:25:04] Julie: Yeah, something like that. Whatever it is, whatever it might be.

just that small doses. Number one for sound healing is such a great introduction. and. Going back to to perception is so important. So, for example, perhaps like crystal singing bowls. Might be too much, for someone, but maybe like the sounds of the ocean or sounds of birds can have a more calming effect.

Also, lots of people, you know, with sensory issues do all sorts of things, like all of us, To help soothe the nervous system that are just come naturally to the body. So such as like rocking or, you know, rubbing your hands, but also humming and making sounds that can be really self soothing, those are all forms of sound healing.

But I think in, in, using the perspective of like this whole modern sound healing thing that we're seeing with crystal bowls, crystal harps, like all sorts of stuff, I would say small doses is awesome, but even better is if people can try it out on their own first. So neurodiverse, sound sensitive to like all people.

I love when people play the crystal balls first on their own or play a gong first on their own. So I'm trying to think of like more ways to do that. To give people opportunity because I think when we have that control It is such a better introduction like for me. I think I am quite sensitive to a lot of sounds and for me in the beginning with the crystal singing bowls, it did.

It was like a little too much for me. but then when I started playing the bowls myself. I had such a different experience probably because I was receiving it in a more relaxed state that now my, my nervous system associates crystal singing bowls with deep relaxation to the point. I usually play the gong at the end of the sound bath and I'm like, almost half asleep all the time.

Like just plays the bowls. So I'm sitting there for like 30 plus minutes listening to these thingables and then I'm like conked out. So I feel as if, because I was able. To be the player, I was just put into a more relaxed state because sometimes if you're a bit sound sensitive and you don't know what's coming next, it can already start to feel like so overwhelming.

So, for me and my family to both of my kids, like, having different sound healing tools that they can play and enjoy it's. It's, they've done really, really well with it, but there are, I haven't seen any studies or anything like that come out. I'm sure it's, you know, something that there'll be more and more interest in, cause there's already more interest, like we talked about in sound healing.

but I haven't seen anything yet around like neurodivergence and sound healing. Yeah, 

[00:28:18] Grace: well, and I mean, it, yeah, that sense of control makes so much sense. Right. I mean, because when you're, especially when you're, you're sensitive to outside influences to, to senses you on one hand, it can help soothe, like you said, yeah, rocking humming are, are great techniques, but also like.

We can be really sensitive to it too much. So that makes so much sense. Okay. Okay. okay. So, then on that line of, like, trying to create your own sense of sound healing in a way, like, what do you want what do you want people to walk away with? Especially when after reading your book, like, what do you hope readers take away?

[00:29:00] Jessica: Thank you for asking. Yeah, I think Julie and I would love it if the reader would remember that it doesn't need to be complex for it to be meaningful and impactful in terms of their sound healing practice. and when I say complex, I mean a few things, so they don't need to have an entire set of crystal balls or gongs.

20 times a crystal heart, et cetera, you know, I'm being silly, but you don't need to collect every single instrument there is in order to have an impactful experience for yourself or, you also don't need to go, go seek a lot of sound baths. Maybe start with something small, like listening to sound in your earbuds.

there are lots of wonderful playlists. Spotify, Youtube, you know, wherever you listen, of healing sounds, including the sounds of singing bowls and gongs, but also nature sounds, sounds of the waves, sound of the wind through the trees, et cetera, that can be really helpful. and. quite accessible too, because sometimes if you're thinking about, you're like, Oh, I might want to start my own sound healing practice.

Maybe I've gotten the book and I've decided that I'm interested in this. the, you'll see that the, the investment in some of these instruments can be really expensive. So you don't even necessarily need to invest in anything because you have the sound of your own voice.you can simply hum, which is something we talk about a lot in our book and trainings is the sound of humming, or looking up, bumblebee breath or Burmese breath, which is a great, technique to use on the go.

and it can be, if you have access to instruments or you're using, any of the tools mentioned, it needs, it can be, and it, it Probably needs to be short, to start because, one of all the sensitivity, things that we were just mentioning that that applies to you, but also, I think sometimes we look to add healing tools to our list and it becomes really overwhelming when we think, oh, I haven't gotten an, I don't have an hour and I, I can't commit an hour, every single day.

So I just won't do it. it can be, You know, 135 minutes here and there whenever it's helpful. I often talk about driveway moments, which some people are probably, what does that mean? It's just sitting in your car for a few minutes before you transition to the next thing, or it could be sitting anywhere before transitioning to the next thing and listening for one minute to the sound of the waves on Spotify, and that can be your sound healing practice.

And I would Venture to guess that if the reader and the listeners are interested in doing that and recording how they feel before and after they're going to have a big shift. 

[00:31:48] Grace: Yeah, that humming is anything that we use in that way, like the throat, right? Is, I mean, it activates the biggest nerve. I teach that all the time.

Like, we're able to incorporate that sound. So. Soothing, and I love that you're talking about it in these little ways, because we can build that up over time, build that into our practice. I talk about, like, every time you hit a stoplight, take a notice your breath, right? Can you breathe deeply, like, incorporating it in these ways I think is really accessible and helpful.

Right. Yeah. Stoplight moments. I'm going to borrow that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of grabbing for your phone, which we know is not great, can you just notice your breath, take an inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth and expand your lungs.so nice. Building it on top of each other.okay.

So when we're talking about vibration. So, like, for instance, vibration in the throat when we're humming, vibration in the body with really any sound. It made me think of, When, like, when babies are in the womb, it's loud, right?

There are lots, there's lots of sound there. And when you said earlier, I think, at the very beginning, Jessica, where sound actually comes from that was brought up to me because I've learned I've never been pregnant before, but been around a lot of. Wonderful pregnant women and learned that, you know, and the 1st, I don't even know, a few days, weeks, months, having a sound machine for a baby can be really helpful in that transition.

So, when we're talking about origin, I would imagine that's a big 1, right? Let alone, like, generational and cultural and where that comes from. so I would imagine this can be really helpful for kids. 

[00:33:33] Julie: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's exactly what. we're doing in modern sound healing is essentially trying to recreate the the womb, and also that the womb wasn't a silent place.

just, we just led a training last weekend, and one of the cool things that she does, she'll take a very large metal singing bowl, Fill it with water and then play and then you can see the vibration too of the water moving through And it's so beautiful and it's such an incredible demonstration But also reminds me too of this idea of the baby in the womb needing all of these Kind of loud sounds outside.

So like being soothed by for example, like the vacuum cleaner some of these louder sounds and then of course, there's the sounds in the body, that the baby can hear, but I think there is this other element too, that we might not fully understand yet, which is like the movement of sound through the body and how that affects us too.

So not so much about listening through the ears, but perceiving the vibrations in the body. So I think that. is a really cool display that she does earlier. and then of course, too, like after the womb, we continue to be made of water. we don't live in water. Unfortunately, I would like to do that, but we, our body has a lot of water.

So I think similarly, these vibrations, you know, of course are moving through our bodies as well. there is a book, sound medicine, That's out by a neurologist who talks a little bit more about the science of vibration through the body, but still, you know, again, like, these are all newer avenues of research and science, but I think it's definitely something to consider that, perhaps to with this idea of the baby in the womb, it's not just.

The sounds hitting the auditory nerve, it's perhaps to the vibration that they're feeling because you mentioned the vagus nerve earlier. So I think that those things are probably all connected. 

[00:35:40] Grace: Oh, definitely. I mean, I envision it as, especially when we're talking about the nervous system. I mean, it's it'll go throughout your whole body.

Right? And it responds to what we put in the body and what's surrounding us affects it. Right? So I can see that vibration throughout the whole body really being super important. And that's exactly what it's hitting. So that's cool. Okay. Is there anything else around? Sound healing, seasons of sound the book that you feel is important that we haven't touched on.

[00:36:13] Jessica: Ooh, so many choices, 

[00:36:17] Grace: probably a big question. 

[00:36:18] Jessica: Yeah, I think, you know. to your question. We're j this. So we love talking and it probably shows in we try to give a pretty c but also in a way that'sfor, you know, all le I think one of the things of at the forefront of ou planning for seasons of s Bring sound baths, into, into reality.

in addition to the trauma informed approach that Julie mentioned is, really working with the seasons. So, of course, the earth seasons, that we all experience and we feel that that's a very applicable,an approachable way to organize information, but also organize our lives. but we also found, through that process, how important it is to remember the seasonality of us as individuals, and how that can change no matter what the earth seasons, what side of the equator you're on, it is, it's important to, to recognize and nourish yourself appropriately based on what's in front of you and how you're feeling in that moment.

and it might be for a season of time. It can also mean, you know, for shorter periods, you know, a day, a week, depending on maybe you're feeling a little under the weather and you need a little bit more nourishment or. If you're in Austin, Texas, it's super, super hot. You need more cooling practices, right?

We find and through our own practices and sharing how impactful that has been for us and our students. So we hope anybody who's listening who's interested in really cool things. Honing in on their own personal season and touch touching in with the seasons of the earth, with their practice would, would be, interested in picking up the book and just seeing how they can apply not only for themselves, but maybe if we have, yoga teachers, meditation teachers, we've got lots of wonderful practices in there that can help suit all.

[00:38:19] Grace: Ooh, I love that you brought that up because that ties directly into. Listening to ourselves and understanding ourselves, right? Building that relationship, which means listening to, okay, are you in a, yeah, in a super hot, humid climate, like what more do you need? I have learned that so much this year, since I moved from Austin to Colorado, opposite, I've never been so dry in my life.

Like I've learned a lot, so many different things that I've literally never done. To help my body nourish and like bring more moisture and hydration and cozy soothing. Right? and it, it's more than just like, put this, it's more than just temperature, right? It's more than just kind of like, simple self-care.

It is true. Your body needs this. It's true body nourishment. And when we can give it to ourselves in that way, it helps, really honor our true nature and what's going on from season to season. Exactly what you're saying, right? We need different things, different times. So, yeah. Thanks for bringing that up.

[00:39:22] Julie: We know, Grace, that you're a yoga therapist and our book, it's pretty heavily influenced by Ayurveda. So always trying to find this, you know, harmonized state of existence. So that's really like another lens in which we wrote the entire book. So you'll find like if, if anyone's listening and you enjoy Ayurveda or that's part of your own practice, you'll see it quite a bit in Seasons of Sound.

Thanks. 

[00:39:53] Grace: Awesome. Okay. And, I'll just plug this for, for listeners that are just new to IR Beta. I actually did have an episode. I had someone come and talk about it, so I'll link it below. so it can all tie in. So we understand what that means. and again, all of these things are just helping us understand ourselves.

So, yeah, awesome. Okay, well, thank you so much. I think this is really interesting and helpful and a little bit different, which is very much so needed. So appreciate you both coming on 

[00:40:23] Jessica: with our monitor. Thank you.