Finally! A Show About a Soundbath Practitioner

living in. So it's a little Augustine Empire in Greenwich, Connecticut. It's a silly place to live because of the income disparity. There are immensely wealthy people and then people who have been there forever like my parents and going to school there, like growing up there is just really it was a weird thing to navigate, and I really felt very free once I got out of it and went to college.

I went to college in Boston. I went to Northeastern University, and my husband, Joe, went to Emerson College, and Emerson is also in the city of Boston, so it was very close in proximity, and that's where we met and we've been together ever since, and that's twenty years. Northeastern is a co op school, so that means you go to school for six months and have an internship for six months, so when you graduate, you have a lot of work experience, which is awesome and that's why a

lot of people go there. They teach you how to write a resume and like really help you to connect with employers an interview and things like that. So for one of my internships, I went to New York City to Departures magazine, which is for Platinum American Express card members, and I interned there in the marketing department. And it was fun. I went to the events that they put on in New York and really learned what publishing was all about. And then once I graduated from college, I

went to Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine. So right out of college is where I started my career in publishing. Hello, good to see you again. Nice to see you again as well, Nice to see you. Does anyone need to use the restroom before we get started? Okay, okay, yes, you can take your shoes off, put all your stuff over on the side, and just make sure your phones

are on silent. So I moved to New York City with Joe right after I graduated in two thousand and six and was working at Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine as a sales assistant, and it was it was basically like, you know, making appointments for them, doing their expense reports and things like that. I was more interested in the marketing side of things, and that team allowed me to help them put on events and make marketing materials, and

so that's more of what I was attracted to. But then in two thousand and eight, Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine folded and we had about I think it was three or four months of notice where we were still employed, but we didn't really have anything to do because the last issue was pretty much done, so we were all just looking for other work, which is kind of the best position to be in to be getting paid, have a place to go to look for work, and have

that time to do it. I then moved from that position to the finance department in American Express Publishing, where I was the executive assistant to about six executives. But I quickly knew that I wanted to find something else, so I stayed in that position for about a year,

and then I went to the American Kennel Club. They had two magazines at the time, the Gazette, which was for like show dog people, and Family Dog, which was for the everyday person who has a pet in their life, and I sold ad space for them and I also wrote articles. It was really fun. It was a really fun place to work. It was full of like really cool people on the publishing side, not on the like show dog side of things, and it was just kind of this like little little family that just loved dogs

but also loved writing and being in publishing. So in twenty eleven, the Gazette folded and they had to let people go, and because I was one of the last people hired they had, they let me go. I got like three months notice, so I had a job, I had a place where I could go, and I was still getting a paycheck, but I was able to look for other work and I went a completely different route and found a job at the ASPCA. Welcome. So have either of you done a soundbath before?

So I started at the ASPCA as a senior coordinator in the development department, so I was working on fundraising. People most know the ASPCA or recognize the ASPCA from the Sarah McLaughlin commercials, but most would be surprised to know that they haven't aired since twenty ten. So that's just how much it sticks in your mind and how much it's impacted her career. Poor Sarah hi at McLaughlin, Will you be an angel for a helpless animal?

I mean, it's so rewarding. Everybody relates to animals and it's not a hard thing to fundraise around, Like I can't imagine fundraising for education or arts or Yeah, animals are pretty universal. I was seven years into this position at a nonprofit and I had zero work life balance. I didn't have a hobby. I didn't have like yoga or working out or anything that I could do to make me feel better. And it was just it felt

very high stakes because it's such a big organization. And in January of twenty eighteen, I had my first panic attack. My first panic attack was in my chest. It felt like it was I was having a heart attack. It lasted a few days and it got worse and worse over the course of time. My husband, Joe had to travel for work, so I was alone, and I remember being in bed and not being able to physically move. I could not I couldn't move my body into a seated position. I had to roll out of the bed.

And so Joe was like, go to urgent care, like figure that out. And I was like, all right. So I went to urgent care and they did an EKG and I think that's all they did. And they were like, you should go to the hospital, like you should go to the er if you're having chest pains, and I was like, ugh, all right. And I had two dogs at the time, and I had to like figure out boarding for them and drive them to boarding, which was not safe to do in my condition, so I ubered

to the er. There were no rooms available, so I was in a bed in the hallway and so many blood tests. They kept a thing in my arm because they just kept taking blood, and I got a chest X ray and the nurse who did it was like, are you stressed out? And I was like yeah, and she was like stress can do weird things to you, and I was like okay, so she knew. I was there for like seven hours. I was crying the whole time.

It was very emotional. I was very scared. I had never been to the er, and I was by myself and like texting friends and being like, I think I should tell someone i'm here, Like I don't, Joe's away. I don't know what to do, and they obviously couldn't find anything wrong with me, so the doctor prescribed me pain meds and said I probably had a pulled chest

muscle and sent me home. Also, the weird thing about that er trip was the moment I stepped into the hospital, the pain was gone, and I was like, I think I have to stay because I couldn't physically move earlier, But I feel okay now. So I was in such

a weird emotional headspace. And then after that, through therapy, I was able to come to terms with the fact that it was a panic attack, which was really hard for me to do because it was such physical pain and I couldn't believe that my mind could do that

without there being like a physical reason for it. I've had them since, and they have been similar, where it's pains in my chest or pain in my back, and they don't last as long as the first one did, and I know that's what it is when it's happening, and so I can sympathize with myself a bit more and take care of myself a little bit better. Now. Whoever I talk to about this is like, yeah, that

happened to me. I went to the er. I thought I was having a heart attack, and it just blows my mind how common that is because it hurts so much, it's so scary, but it's so universal. There was no indication that this was coming because I'm a very calm person and I present like a very calm person, and even at work, like if I'm super flustered, I'm still like very solution oriented and I'm like, all right, well,

let's figure this out. I'm just very calm, and I think that makes my head a mess because it's in there somewhere, and this was the way for my body to be like, help, help, help, help, all right. So I will be playing the bowls, the gongs and the chimes for about forty minutes. There's any combination of bowl sounds that sound weird to you, just know that it'll pass. I won't stay on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. It can be a relaxing experience.

It can be emotional, visual, physical. You might feel the vibrations, so just let whatever happen happen. It's okay to fall asleep, but that's not the goal, so just try to stay present with the sound. There are other people on the floor and there's a street behind us, so you might hear some other sounds, but the instruments will hopefully dron it out. At the end of the forty minute, I will bring up some nature sounds and then help guide

you guys back up. So after the er, I went back to work, and my dear friend Sarah was like, let's take a weekend away somewhere. So we went to the O High Valley Inn. It's a beautiful spa in Ohi, California, and it was my first time being there. I don't like getting massages, so at the spa. On the spa menu was a sound bath, and I didn't know what it was, but I thought to myself, it's a spa, it's going to be relaxing, and it's oh High Valley In,

so it's going to be professional. So I checked it out. It was in like this beautiful corner room. There was a crackling fire. I'm in my comfy spa robe and I go in and she has me lay on. Her name's Elizabeth. She has me lay on a massage table on my back and she put a weighted blanket over me. And then the soundbath started. And honestly, because I had never done one before, I didn't know what I was hearing. Like I can't even identify what instruments were used at

this time. I remember a whirling noise, maybe like a rainstick, maybe some drums, probably singing bowls, but I honestly can't remember. And it lasted about an hour. During the sound bath, I remember feeling like I was almost going into sleep, but coming out of it, I was very relaxed. I was very warm because of the blanket and the robe in the fire, but just like one hundred percent relaxed. And at the end of the soundbath, Elizabeth like physically helps me to sit up and she was like, do

you hold stress in your chest? And I said yes, and she was like, she said to me, it's really important that you get yourself rose quartz and have it with you whenever you can, and also get sage and those things will help you. And I was like done. I'm absolutely interested in healing in whatever way that comes, whether it's soundbaths or acupuncture or reiki. I kind of say, why not. If it makes you feel better, then it's doing no harm. I love crystals mostly because I like

looking at them. But when she said I needed rose quartz, I was like, sure, okay. I came out of that sound bath feeling so drunk, like so physically out of my body and just like my mind was wiped. I truly have no idea how I got back to my room. I like floated there and I got back and my friend Sarah was there and I was like, Sarah, I

don't know how I got here. She's like, what are you talking about and I was like, Sarah, I gotta get rose quartz and She's like, let's go, and so I got rose quarts and age and it just was like it was kind of a life changing moment because I remember thinking, like my body just a couple months ago was saying help, help, help, and here my body was like, oh thanks, And it was just like a really nice It was really nice to feel that kind of healing, really and I didn't know I could feel

that way without drugs. I come home from O high and really start thinking hard about what the stressors in my life are because I'm having a very physical reaction to it. And that panic attack really scared me. And Joe is incredibly supportive and was like, do what you have to do. So in the next couple months, I psyched myself up to quit. I just knew I was burnt out and it wasn't healthy, and I'm a completely

capable person. I could find something else, and I allowed myself three months to kind of decompress and figure out what I wanted to do. In that three months, I had another panic attack, actually at a sound bath. I was really exploring sound baths around LA because I wanted to. I wanted to feel that again, and I wanted to understand more about it. And the thing is, they're all different, and I am glad I started out in Ohi with

one because it was a very professional type atmosphere. There wasn't aside from Elizabeth kind of going rogue and telling me I needed to get a crystal. But that's not what you might discover around Los Angeles with soundbaths. So I was kind of shopping around and I found when I really liked, an eagle Rock called the Soundbath Center, run by a woman named Jamie who's amazing and she

offers classes. So in twenty eighteen that October I signed up to take her soundbath class, which was over a weekend, and she, I believe, used to be a biologist and so she approached it from a very scientific angle, which was really helpful for me. Like she taught us about sound waves and how they impact your nervous system and things like that, and really kept chakras and spirituality and

all that stuff out of it. And so it felt to me that I really understood what was happening physically to me in a sound bath, and I really I appreciated that from that class. After I took that class, I bought some singing bowls. I bought three singing bowls are made of silica quartz. They could also be made of gemstones. They look like a big bowl. They can

be different sizes, different weights. They're all tuned to notes, and they are played by running like a rubber or silica mallet around the edge, similar to if you have liquid in a wine glass and you rub your finger around the rim makes a noise. And was just playing them at home for myself and for Joe and honestly my dogs. If you knew my dogs, they are psychos. And whenever I started playing, they would come into the room and lay down, and it was really cool to

see it, like transcend species. They just send right out, take a deep breath in.

soothing noises. I never thought of it as an option for income, and I honestly still don't. It's something I just really love to do. I love doing it for people and having that interaction with them and meeting new people who are curious about it. But I'm still working at the ASPCA, and it's still a very rewarding job. I love knowing that I'm helping animals every day, and it's an organization that I am truly proud to work for.

And I think that's because I am much more distanced from my job than I was the first time around, and I really have been able to leave my work at work, and I work eight hours a day and I do the best I can. But that's it. The main goal for me is for people to have their

own experience, whatever that is. I always want to hear about it after and if anything, you're laying down for forty minutes, and that's time for yourself, that's something you probably wouldn't do otherwise, And it's comfortable and it's peaceful. I am in bed now. It is around ten thirty.

someone brought their mom, which was really nice. A lot of people who had their first sound baths, some who were more experienced, but all had a great, great time. And I am especially grateful for being able to give one to my two nephews, who are thirteen and ten and happened to be some of the most supportive, curious, loving people I know, So that was really wonderful to do. Yeah, so I'm just really glad that I can do this work and feel grateful.