My Sound Healing Journey & A List of Certificate Programs

Before, I listened to music to help me focus when studying, motivate with cleaning or starting a project, or relax after a long day. I’d always enjoyed singing, but had never learned any instruments. Then, around 9 years ago, I discovered my first singing bowl in a Tibetan shop in the Adam’s Morgan neighborhood of DC. I felt an immediate calming effect as I slowly rubbed the stick along the outside rim of the metal bowl. My stress and frustration dissolved by angelic sounds from a hand-hammered instrument. A relief I had only felt with prescription anxiety medication from a bowl easily played after brief instruction.

Too good to be true, right?

Well, the bowl did cost more than $100 dollars and I did not purchase my own for several more years. However, just knowing that I was capable of tapping into such a state inspired me to dig deeper into self-healing practice. I explored nutrition, physics, cognitive behavioral therapy, yoga, meditation, & herbs. I began to ask myself, ‘Who am I beneath all of this conditioning?” “What made me happy?” “What kind of impact did I want to make on the world?” I left my teaching job in the US and traveled abroad to gain some perspective. I returned to D.C. in 2010 75 lbs lighter after a fateful encounter with a Chinese practitioner in Australia and learned to manage my stress with alternating regular doses of Valerian root, linden flower(tila), and other calming herbs. This was a sufficient stopgap but not a long term solution for my silent suffering.

I was reintroduced to the singing bowls through my meditation practice and began to wonder how music could support my journey. I decided to learn an instrument, the flute, and purchased a singing bowl for meditation. Learning to play the classical flute connected me to my breath and voice. Then in 2012, I experimented with playing the singing bowl on my abdomen to relieve menstrual pain and this was the beginning.

“The human body can be compared to an orchestra, where each organ, tissue, and cell is like a different instrument. Just like in an orchestra, the individual parts all have different tones, overtones and unique attributes that have to be tuned in order to play harmoniously together. The singing bowl therapist works like a music conductor.

Our nervous system is sensitive to all sounds. Loud and dissonant sounds can hurt or even kill us, while the beautiful, rhythmic sounds of the singing bowls have a profoundly healing effect on the nervous system, which is in continuous communication with every cell in the body.

The combination between the sound of the bowl perceived through the ear, and the vibrations of the bowl through the flesh of the body, has a healing effect on body, mind, and soul.

The external vibrations of the tapped bowl cause the cells to resonate. From here the sound waves spread everywhere since the body consists of more than 70% water, and water is a great conductor of sound and vibration.

The sound waves (like the waves from a stone thrown into a pond) spread in concentric rings into larger and larger circles through the blood, flesh, organs, and bones, relaxing them and at the same time harmonizing and energizing them.

In this way, the more than 100 trillion cells, the building blocks of the human body, are receiving a gentle cleansing massage. Think of it as being similar to what happens when you put jewelry or dentures into a supersonic bath. In a short while, all the dirt comes loose. The sound vibrations of IASH singing bowls, designed for healing, release energy blockages from body, mind, and spirit.

These special vibrations are soothing enough to calm the nerves, yet penetrating enough to reach the marrow of the bones!

Clients feel relief from pain and tension the first time they receive treatment, for others it takes a few more sessions before they perceive a profound change.”

International Academy of Sound Healing

Since then I’ve facilitated sound healing for close to 1000 people representing more than 20 nationalities throughout the US, Guatemala, and Mexico through sound massages, workshops, and sound baths.

I’ve researched several certification programs for my own knowledge as I continue to build my skills and want to make this resource available to others. I’m sure there are more out there, so please let me know if I need to make and adjustments or additions.