Speaker 1: We all instinctively
and experientially know how
different sounds can affect us A
crying baby, a siren or a
single note on a violin and we
often turn to music as a source
of comfort or joy or excitement
or as a way of helping us build
our energy.
So it makes sense to me that
it's also part of our healing
journey and, as I've reflected
on this conversation and on the
guest I'm about to introduce to
you, music or sound has
definitely been part of my own
healing journey.
Welcome to the Henny Flynn
podcast, the space for deepening
self-awareness with profound
self-compassion.
I'm Henny.
I write, coach and speak about
how exploring our inner world
can transform how we experience
our outer world, all founded on
a bedrock of self-love.
Settle in and listen and see
where the episode takes you.
My guest today is Cathy
Harmon-Luber.
My guest today is Cathy
Harmon-Luber.
She's the author of Suffering
to Thriving your toolkit for
navigating your healing journey
how to live a more healthy,
peaceful, joyful life, which
sounds like a really wonderful
thing.
And Cathy herself was bedridden
for five years with a range of
debilitating health conditions
and I'm sure she will share some
of that with us today.
As a certified Reiki and sound
healing practitioner, she now
helps others as they navigate
their own illness, injury, loss,
and also she supports others as
they learn how to cope and to
thrive.
I am delighted that she's with
me today and I'm really looking
forward to exploring how
important sound can be in
adopting a more compassion-based
response to ourselves and the
world around us, and my instinct
says that much of the benefit
of sound comes from this change
that it can create in our mood
state, our emotional state.
And also I am really curious to
talk to Kathy about what
ancient wisdom tells us about
sound and also ask her about
what modern science is telling
us about the way that sound
impacts our whole physiological
system.
So this is going to be one of
those wonderful, wide-ranging
conversations I'm sure, and I'm
looking forward to Cathy joining
me in a moment.
So, cathy, what a joy to
welcome you here, and I mean
even just in the couple of
minutes that we've been chatting
before I press play.
I can already feel this is
going to be one of those
enriching conversations Me too,
henny, I'm delighted to be here.
Wonderful, and we've just for
everybody listening we've
recognized that Cathy and I are
both sitting here surrounded by
trees and, yeah, I kind of feel
as though, oh, let's bring a
little bit of that tree energy
and wisdom into this space as
well.
Love it, lovely.
Reflecting on our conversation
today, I noticed there have been
a number of reminders for me
around how sound is so important
for me and has been so
important in the changes that
I've made in my own life.
And one of those reminders has
been in a conversation with a
client today and we were talking
about how to connect with our
inner parts.
So I'm a therapeutic coach.
I do a lot of work with parts,
work with clients.
And this client said to me well
, do you have any tips about,
like, how I can do it when I'm
not with you?
And I said, yes, music.
And then I thought, oh, that's
really interesting.
I'm talking to Cathy later
Because one of the things that I
found when I was doing my own
sort of discovery of my own
inner parts was that I had a
piece of music that helped
anchor me back into that place
and help me connect with them on
this very deep level, and my
recognition is that actually it
was that piece of music that was
the key that helped me drop
into that space and I just yeah,
I just kind of wanted to open
there and sort of see where does
that take you, cathy?
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that,
henny.
Yeah, yeah, I think we all
realize that music is deeply
moving excuse me and powerful in
our lives, like we think of our
favorite song, and it shifts
everything within us, right.
So it makes sense and you know,
it's interesting.
People are beginning to realize
now what our ancient ancestors
many, many, many years and
centuries ago knew that sound
part of healing.
Whether we look at ancient
Greece or we go to ancient China
and India or South America, all
over the planet, in every
culture music is a part of
healing and we've gotten away
from that really in modern day
life and I think it's wonderful
that we're coming back to it.
What we're seeing is such a
resurgence in sound healing that
it's being integrated into
hospitals and nursing homes here
in the United States.
All over Europe and Canada it's
being integrated to work in
complement with modern medicine
and so it heals us in many ways.
Honey, my entry point into sound
was a couple of decades ago.
I was a busy nonprofit
executive, very stressful job,
had to raise a lot of money, all
the issues of managing an
organization, and I was very
stressed out.
And so I began to go to yoga
studios and there was sound
integrated and then I started
going to sound baths and
drumming circles on the beach in
Santa Monica and what I noticed
is it helped me with my massive
anxiety at the time.
It helped me to just kind of
reset and come back, as you were
saying, to that inner place
where we can take a deep dive
and really get in touch with our
intuition and what I like to
call our inner healer.
Our bodies have innate wisdom.
Our inner healer, our bodies
have innate wisdom.
We are so busy in our society.
You know our devices and our
jobs and our families and
everything that we get super
disconnected from that, and
sound is a beautiful entry point
in.
And so that was the beginning
of my journey.
And then I've had for many
decades, spinal issues, seven
hereditary spinal issues that
have gotten progressively worse
when I was 20, I was told I had
the spine of look at lots of
alternatives and not even
alternative medicine,
complementary medicine.
What can I do in combination
with Western medicine to have
the best life possible?
And in 2016, I had a tremendous
spinal disc rupture.
It's like the little jelly
cushion between the vertebrae.
It ruptured it was the fourth
one and it was inoperable and it
left me bedridden for five
years.
Dark place.
When my husband said, you should
be listening to music every day
and I'm like, oh right, I'm a
classically trained musician.
What was I thinking?
I just I wasn't in that place
to even see that.
But I began to do that and I
felt so good and it took me to a
different place in my head and
within me.
And then I began with a little
more time on my hands and years
of being really really pretty
much not able to go swimming or
running or hiking in the
mountains or any of the things I
love to do dancing.
I had time to really explore
sound healing and understand the
science behind it.
Sound healing and understand
the science behind it, why it
works.
And and I began that's when I
got certified.
Even though I've been doing
sound baths and things for many,
many years.
I got certified and I began to
realize that that sound was
helping my spine to heal.
And I'm happy to say I'm at a
place doctors said it was really
50-50 whether I would ever walk
again or ever even basically
get out of bed again.
And I'm thrilled to say I walk
every day now and I have a
pretty normal life, and so I
credit sound with that in many
ways.
Speaker 1: Gosh, Kathy, there's
various things sort of coming up
for me as I'm listening.
It's part of me that just wants
to.
I just want to create some
pauses because there's so much
in what you've just shared, and
one of the things that sort of
went through my mind as I was
listening to you is, you know,
this sense of you being
bedridden, you know being there,
this uh reminder or remembering
that sound music is actually
really important to you and I I
kind of had a sense of it's one
of my favorite books what Katie
did, not Louisa May Alcott.
I can't remember who wrote it,
but do you remember the book
what Katie did and what Katie
did next?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's an American
classic, Kathy.
Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1: And I'm such an avid
reader oh well, you know it was
definitely a book from my
childhood and part of the story
is about this little girl who
was bedridden and this sort of
feeling that she had of, like,
you know, pushing at the,
resisting what it was that was
keeping her there.
And then, I think, an aunt
arrives and sort of gives her
this wisdom that helps her
understand that actually this
time that she spends in the bed
can also be a time of growth and
learning and discovery.
Yeah, and I just yeah, I just
really felt like her.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
It was it was a time of
discovery.
I'm astonished I don't know
this book, but anyway, it was a
time of discovery and I learned
we could go one of two ways.
I could.
Every moment is a choice, and
we always hear that.
But until you're in a pretty
dire situation, a pretty dire
situation where that's all you
have is that moment of choice.
And I realized I could become
one day a very bitter, angry old
lady, right, or I could choose
something different.
And so every day it was about
what am I choosing?
Today I could choose to suffer
in my mind, or I could choose to
thrive.
What's it going to be, kathy,
right?
And that's hard.
I don't want to make it sound
like you know it's an easy
choice.
It was not.
There were plenty of dark days,
but at the end of the day I had
to find something to live for.
And I and I say this in my book
, you know, and I I believe this
it's like our healing journey
can be a portal to a whole new
life that we can be grateful for
.
I can now.
I wasn't in that moment.
I did not see the silver lining
in it at all plenty of dark
days but it opened the door for
me to go deeper into sound and
energy, like I also do Reiki I'm
a Reiki master so between sound
and energy and making those a
path forward when other paths
clearly were not an option, like
we could sit there and and say
ask all the right, all the wrong
questions, right, and it's like
, why is this happening to me?
What did I do to deserve this?
I mean, we can just go down
that rabbit hole of terrible
questions, right?
Or we can say what if?
What if, what if something
better is happening in my life
and I just don't see it yet,
what if there's something new to
explore?
And so I really leaned into that
and said I love this sound and
energy stuff.
Why don't I get certified?
Why don't I learn more?
And in my practice of doing it,
it helped my spinal healing
exponentially and I began to
learn why.
There there's some fascinating
science behind this.
There's some amazing things
coming out of UCLA, University
of California, los Angeles.
A guy by the name of James
Jimzuski and medical doctors
working together in research
have discovered that all the
different kinds of cells in our
bodies make a sound that they
can hear in the laboratory right
, and so a heart cell has a
different frequency than a brain
cell and so on.
And what they recognized was
when cells were atrophied, when
they were sick or diseased, they
stopped making their frequency,
but what made them get
reinvigorated and heal is the
very frequency that they are
known to emit.
And so I get goosebumps when I
say this right yeah big.
Speaker 1: This is so big I want
again to sort of to pause to
allow that.
That piece of knowledge that's,
that's something new for me as
well, and I'm sure that's
something new for for many
people listening, um, and it it
resonates with a piece of some
research that I've been, that I
saw recently, around water cells
and how they change.
The actual shape of the
molecule changes according to
whether it's coming sort of
fresh from a mountain spring or
it's a water molecule that's,
you know, in water that's gone
through many, many, many people
in a city, and and how, uh,
scientists are now looking at
what actually helps restore that
molecule to its, to its
original shape.
And it feels very, uh, yeah,
very aligned with that that work
as well.
It is, and, of course, I mean
it makes it, you know, on such a
visceral level.
It makes so much sense that if,
if there is a sound that a cell
naturally emits, then the sound
, uh, mimicking the sound that
it emits, will be what it
responds to.
Gosh, how beautiful.
So tell us more about the kind
of science, then, that the
people at UCLA are uncovering.
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: So basically, this
will really change, I think, the
face, and not just me, a lot of
people are saying this.
It changes the face of modern
medicine.
It is why so many hospitals and
nursing homes are integrating
sound into their integrative
medicine departments.
Speaker 1: And how are they
doing that, Kathy?
In what way are you seeing that
happen?
Okay, I'll tell you.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you
something very personal.
That happened to me, honey.
And how are they doing that,
kathy, in what way are you
seeing that happen was in the
cancer ward, had an integrative
medicine department.
This was in Charlotte, north
Carolina.
They had a very large
integrative medicine department
and I and I spoke with them and
they had people come by and give
her a sound bath.
They loved that.
I would be, you know,
facetiming with her and doing
sound.
I'd play my Native American
flutes for her.
She always loved those and
people were available to do
Reiki, energy healing as well
right there in the hospital.
And so and I get goosebumps as
I say it, because you know also
the playing of music in
hospitals, you know it isn't
just like it used to to be.
You'd go to a hospital room and
the televisions were blaring on
the entire hall Music.
They've realized that music
alone because music we love is
healing.
One of my teachers, john Stewart
Reed, says 20 minutes of music
you love is deeply healing.
People say, oh, it probably has
to be classical music, right?
No, not necessarily.
If you love jazz or hip hop or
R&B, doesn't matter.
If you love it, it is speaking
to the cells in your body, and
why?
Here's the science% water, and
water is a better conductor of
sound than air.
And so right away we're like
our bodies are these instruments
that are making sound and
vibrating to the sounds around
us.
And it takes about four to five
minutes for bodies to come into
entrainment, which is just a
fancy word for being in
resonance and coming into the
same frequency as the sounds
we're hearing.
So, obviously, doing sound for
four to five minutes, but they
found that the sweet spot is
really about 20 minutes.
So how easy is that?
Put on music you love for 20
minutes, and if it is lighting
you up, it's also healing, right
?
That's an easy little thing
that we can do.
Singing is fabulously healing,
and so is humming.
You, dr jonathan goldman's done
some great work on this.
Speaker 1: well, it's humming
it's funny actually, because um
just before coming on air, so I
always do three humming breaths
as a way of settling my system,
coming deep into the um
parasympathetic and and I know
that the work of stephen porges
around the um vagus nerve, you
know also shows us how humming
that kind of that, literally
that resonating through the body
, helps to settle the body and
bring us out of that sympathetic
state and also how I think it's
in the Body Holds the Score as
well, that Bessel van der Kolk
talks about the impact of the
group of singing and how that
also helps to settle the system,
and we all know the power of
being in a choir, don't we Right
?
yes, we do, you know, when we're
all harmonizing together and
that sense of the whole body
being connected with the group.
So so much of this.
It's really interesting, I
think, because, as you know, as
I'm listening to you, I'm, you
know, I'm listening with many
parts of me, and so much of what
you're saying I think we all
understand.
On a very deeply human level.
It's something that we've
experienced.
Our kind of inverted commas
rational or cynical mind is
taught that when we simply trust
the body's response to
something, it might not be quite
sort of true enough, or we need
the rigor of science to prove
things, and so I think it's
really interesting that science
is now catching up, as you said
before, with the ancient wisdom
that has always known that sound
is important.
I mean, at the very least it's
that, but it's important for the
way that we connect with
ourselves and the way that we
connect with others, um, and so
it really makes sense that
healing is part of it.
I I'd love to hear from you
actually a little bit more about
some of the um, what the kind
of ancient wisdom tells us about
sound and maybe also how that
has influenced you and the work
that you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, that's a
beautiful question.
Nobody has ever asked me that
before.
The ancient wisdom Okay, so you
know it depends on where you go
in the world.
Wisdom Okay, so you know it
depends on where you go in the
world.
But think of it this way Every
culture has its medicine
melodies that are passed down
from generation to generation.
I'm thinking of in South
America, which is what I'm
currently studying.
You know medicine melodies that
are used as part of healing,
that are transmitted.
You know, in all over Africa,
the Middle East, singing,
chanting.
In India, you know mantra uh,
because that's thousands of
years.
Yes, exactly so.
So every culture, and and this
has been my great passion is
just like going down the rabbit
hole of, like you know,
different cultures and where,
what their medicine melodies
sound like.
But even more than that, it's
that they believed that singing
everybody.
There are lots of clients I
work with who say, oh, I don't
have a voice, I don't have a
voice and I don't sing, and I
don't sing, and I definitely
wouldn't sing, you know, out
loud and except in the shower.
But here's the thing it doesn't
matter how good your voice is.
The act of singing is so healing
and ancient cultures knew that.
They built that into healing
ceremonies.
They build it into ritual to
healing ceremonies.
They build it into ritual.
They did it as a way of life
and as part of their work.
They would sing group songs and
it didn't matter the quality of
voice.
Part of the reason why it works
is you touched on this the
vagus nerve connects our ear.
It's the wandering nerve
through the body.
It controls heartbeat and
breath and digestion and all the
things that we do not think
about right.
And I believe it was Jonathan
Goldman, dr Jonathan Goldman who
said that singing and humming,
because they stimulate the vagus
nerve.
It is like a massage for all
the organs in our body.
Isn't that beautiful?
Speaker 1: It's really beautiful
.
Speaker 2: I think ancient
cultures knew this to some
degree.
I love studying the temple
cultures and archaeoacoustics.
Archaeoacoustics is a
relatively new and recent
decades relatively new in recent
decades, maybe three or four
decades a branch of study that
combines archaeology with
studying some of the
archaeological sites and
structures.
We think of places like
Stonehenge, but there are places
all over the Middle East and
everywhere South and Central
America, the Americas, the North
America.
There are all these places
where acoustics were built into
the structures in a way that
when people sang or played
instruments like bone flutes or
drums or rattles.
These are all things that we
find in the archaeological
record right Going back.
I have a photo screenshot of
flutes made of bone that go back
like 80,000 years.
It's 80,000 years.
They were playing music.
Why, you know playing music,
why you know it wasn't just to
entertain.
They recognize the healing
power of music and singing and
dance, which also is very
healing right Moving the body
and singing and so I love that.
And there are many ancient
sites where they've discovered
and this is fascinating that
when we look at pictographs and
petroglyphs in caves, that the
places where there are the most
number of them they have found
are the places that resonate
most in that particular cave.
How cool is that?
Like they marked it on the
walls with their, with their,
their, like having a big sign
that says, like sing here it is,
this is the place
Speaker 1: I am great yeah,
that's really gorgeous and you
know, and obviously you know in
more well still very old
structures but perhaps more
recent structures like and, and
as a community.
I think you know it really.
Um, it absolutely makes sense
that there's that, there's that
there are layers and layers to
this and you know, just I mean
for the know, the limited amount
that I know of like shamanic
traditions.
Obviously sound is incredibly
important as part of that
healing journey and something
else happens.
Speaker 2: You know, when we
sing alone or in a group, when
we sing, it's hard to be
perseverating about what's going
on in your life, it's hard to
be worrying, it's hard to live
from a place of fear.
You know, I love Pema Chodron,
the Buddhist nun.
She says and probably lots of
people have said this, but love
and fear cannot exist at the
same time.
So if you're in a beautiful
place of singing, you're in that
place of love, right, it's a
place of love of nature, love of
humanity, love of self, love of
spirit or source.
And when we sing, we become
like one with everything, right,
and that is a very healing
thing as well.
One of the things I'm studying
I've been studying with Sylvia
Nakach vocal yoga and currently
studying medicine melodies,
right, and she goes into this in
great detail about how, when we
become one with all and however
we define that, everybody
defines it in a different way
but when we become one with all,
we become a channel and song
and sound just move through us.
It doesn't have to be you know,
I'm a classically trained
musician it doesn't have to be.
I have to get that note right.
I have to make sure that I'm
harmonizing correctly.
You know, I don't remember
where the song is supposed to go
.
There is something amazingly
healing about just singing.
Speaker 1: Just being in the
sound.
Yes, being in the sound, yes,
being in the sound, absolutely
I've done.
Um, a friend of mine, a dear
friend, uh, helped me release a
belief that I had from being the
youngest of four children, that
I couldn't sing, and she, uh,
she's a, a voice therapist, I
suppose, for want of a better
word and she helped me release
that belief and access my
singing voice as a means of
expression, and that was
absolutely life-changing for me,
actually, cathy, because it
meant that suddenly, so I write,
I write poetry, I use my voice
for speaking, but to then have
this, and it is more private,
but to have this private
connection with myself through
song, has been so beautiful.
And there are many times when I
drive back to where we live and
I come to, like there's about
an hour away, is where we first
start seeing the hills and I
start singing.
These words will just start
forming and I'll start singing,
and it's so beautiful and the
thing that it, I think,
everything that you're saying.
What feels very clear to me is
that so much of illness and
stress and anxiety is either the
cause or the result of
inflammation.
Yes, and I just wonder whether
part of what sound does is.
It helps reduce that
inflammation because, you know,
if I'm anxious and I hum, my
system settles and I know that
when my system settles, cortisol
is deactivated or is less
activated, adrenaline is less
activated.
And therefore there's less
inflammation in my system and
therefore I can even feel myself
settling as I'm saying this,
you know.
Speaker 2: Therefore, Doesn't
that feel true?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels so
deeply true.
And the other thing I really
want to share with you as well I
feel like I'm now like just
like Cathy Cathy, I like sound
too, but I always wanted to
learn how to play the piano and
a few times in my life I've
really tried and I put emphasis
on that word tried in this.
This is how you learn how to do
things.
You, it's slightly hard,
there's a bit of resistance, you
know, it's like a hard edged
thing.
And this time round I've just
gone.
I like that sound, oh, I like
that sound, I like that sound.
So I put those three sounds
together and every day now I
play just for a few minutes and,
honestly, it is the most
rewarding, beautiful experience
it's.
I call it another form of
meditation, call it another form
of meditation and at the end
because then the sound, the, the
peace, whatever it is, it comes
to this natural conclusion.
And then I sit there and I'm
bathed in the waves of it and I
mean this sounds like I can't.
Me 10 years ago would not have
understood me being able to say
this now, but I'm sat, bathed in
the waves of it and I literally
thank the piano.
Speaker 2: You know, I started
playing piano at three and
classical flute by the time I
was eight, and we learn, or try
to learn, through a system,
whatever that system is, and
you've got to get it right.
Like you know, music teachers
are like hey, no, no, you got
the note wrong and for I think
most of us, especially very
sensitive types who feel the
music that is a hindrance to
learning what really has helped
me is to unlearn everything I
learned about playing Baroque
music and getting every
ornamentation perfect, like it's
crazy making in a way, and it's
beautiful and it's wonderful
and I love the music.
But on my path I've had to
unlearn that in the way exactly
you articulated.
Honey, okay, so I have native
flutes, a few of them.
You can't play a wrong note on
them, I just play them because I
like the sound of exactly what
you said this note and this note
.
There's no wrong note, that
music.
Playing that music is a
meditation.
It is one of my daily
meditations and it transports me
to this beautiful place of just
pure joy that when we're really
struggling with a piece of,
let's say, piano music, that
we're trying to get a passage
and we play it 20 times in order
to get it perfect, it loses the
joy.
There's a joy in music, in the
just making the sound and being
the receptacle to listen to the
sound and let it fill us up, and
being curious.
The whole beauty of music is
that we can get curious.
Do I like that sound?
Do I not like that sound?
And what is the most amazing
thing is that the sounds, like I
said earlier, the sounds that
we like, the music we like, is
our always in, in in music play
enough, like really, with that
childhood you know joy and
wonder and curiosity.
When was the last time we played
with that?
I do that every day now, but I
did not always.
And it really.
That came to me at that time
when I was bedridden.
It's like okay, well, I'm not
going to, I can't play my
classical flute.
It twisted my spine and I'm
laying flat on my back.
My husband brought me from my
studio one of my Native American
flutes and said why don't you
just play with this?
I thought, play, play.
I don't really play with music,
do I?
And it took me right down this
crazy, crazy rabbit hole of of
just inquiry and curiosity.
Oh, kathy you're doing and it
fills you up?
Speaker 1: right, it really does
.
And honestly, that man, that
man who brought you that flute,
that's a wise being.
Speaker 2: I would say yeah, it
really is.
Speaker 1: I mean really that's,
and I love, I mean that I mean
the play on words here of you
know, play, it's so true, like
how?
So there are so many things in
life that I feel the same way
about writing, so that when
we're at school, you know we're
told, uh, you can't start a
sentence with and, uh, you can't
have a one word sentence.
Um, you know, debates over the
Oxford comma, you know, um,
these, this place that we come
to up in our heads rather than
the flow of words on a page.
And I think I think that might
be the thing that really struck
me when, when you and I were
first introduced about sort of
coming, you coming on the show,
and I was thinking about the
relationship that you have with
sound and and it, it felt like
there was a an openness to it,
not not the rigidity that we can
so often bring to the concept
that we have of music and what
music is and what music isn't,
and and I I really love the way
that you're sort of speaking
about how important it is just
that we find something that we
love, we love to listen to, or
something that we we love to
play, and and if we love it,
well, that's enough, it's
healing.
Speaker 2: That is our medicine.
So in my book I have a whole
chapter on what is your medicine
.
You know, for me it's art and
music and sound and nature and
lots of stuff.
But every person is different
and he said something really
interesting I want to circle
back to about how inflammation
is at the root cause of a lot of
disease.
And that is so true.
And science, you know, medical
researchers tell us this, so we
know it's true.
I have a theory that part of
that inflammation is when we're
not in alignment with our true
nature.
Inflammation is when we're not
in alignment with our true
nature, when we're not in
alignment with that which brings
us joy, that which is play,
that which is our medicine.
We all wear masks.
We go to work and we're one
person or we're a different
person to some degree with our
families, as opposed to our
friends or whatever it is.
Everyone wears a mask a little
bit and to varying degrees, but
we also have.
When we go deep within, we see
our authentic self, our true
nature.
Authentic self is very overused
as a phrase these days, but
call it what you will call it
our truth, who we are at the
soul level, the challenge, I
think, to building a healthy,
happy, joyful, meaningful,
purposeful life is identifying
who am I at that soul level and
how do I bring that into every
moment or close to it.
It's a big challenge Every
moment of my day.
What lights me up?
How do I do that?
Obviously, responsibly.
We still have jobs and families
and stuff, so we have to do all
the things.
But how do I bring that
authentic self?
So maybe it's in thinking about
sound.
Maybe it's just going outside
and singing to a tree, something
that, a melody that comes to
you, right?
Not a song that you memorized
in school or choir, but like
just spontaneously singing.
Maybe it's picking up an
instrument, as you do, and just
saying what notes are lighting
me up today.
Maybe it's looking at a palette
of colors and saying what color
resonates with me today?
Right, because whatever it is
that lights you up is a message
to you.
You know who said this.
I think it was Wayne Dyer.
He said something like if, if,
if, if.
Oh boy, am I gonna get this
right.
If, if.
Prayer is us talking to God,
intuition is God speaking to us,
right, and so it's that if, if
certain things light you up,
that is your intuition, I think
is that inner voice?
Speaker 1: I think there's
something.
There's something very uh
strong coming up for me as well,
as I listened to you there,
cathy that for many of us and I
hold my hand up and say me
included For many of us, we move
through life without that deep
connection to our bodies and I I
know and people who've listened
to the podcast for a long time
will have heard me mention this
before that in 2016, when I was
critically ill yeah, something
about that year you are not the
first person I've interviewed on
the podcast who's said the same
thing had.
2016 has been a really big year
for huge life-changing events,
often related to critical
illness.
But at that time, as part of my
process toward healing, I heard
myself say to one of the many
practitioners who helped me
heard myself say to one of the
many practitioners who helped me
I feel as though I've been
disconnected at the neck.
She was a nutritionist and she
was asking me about my digestion
and I just looked at her with
this like I don't, I don't know
what you mean.
I literally didn't know, I
couldn't compute what she was
talking about.
And then the realization I've
been disconnected at the neck
and I think a lot of my work is
that I do as a therapeutic coach
is about supporting people with
how to come through gently,
through this blocker in the neck
and come into the body and
actually really listen to what
the body is saying, and my sense
is that I suspect that's an
awful lot of what you do as well
, cathy, in terms of and that
sound enables us to hear our
body, because you put a really
good tune on your body wants to
move.
Yes, right, exactly.
So if you can connect with that
, you can build a deeper
connection in other ways
absolutely, and we can have that
connection when a song comes on
.
Speaker 2: Up until that moment
our bodies can be rigid,
contracted, stressed out,
whatever we happen to be going
through.
Put that song on and it's
suddenly we breathe and we relax
and then we start to move.
So, and that is the beauty of
sound, you hit on something huge
, honey, and that is when you
say you felt cut off at the neck
.
Think about this our heart and
our heart chakra is the center.
It connects our upper chakras
and our lower chakras and so
often we get blockages there,
and the blockages can be from
the neck to the solar plexus.
They could be only at the heart
, they could be only at the
throat chakra.
Different for different people,
but part of what we're talking
about when we say going inward,
connecting to what's within the
heart is the seat of the soul
right, and when it is contracted
, locked, we often don't hear
intuition speak, we don't hear
our inner healer.
Oh, I, I have a free offering
for our, our listeners.
I was going to mention at the
end, but I'll I'll mention it
right now dr charlize davis, a
doctor of functional medicine,
and I put together a whole
series.
It's free of healing the heart
chakra and she speaks about it
from the medical standpoint and
it's more than just the heart
and the breast and things like
that.
There's way more to it than
that.
And she speaks briefly about
what's involved there and how we
know when we have a heart
chakra blockage from a medical
standpoint and I speak about
from an energetic standpoint
what does that look like and how
do we open it?
And I give, I think it's about
a 20 minute sound bath that is
for the heart and that's all
free and it's on my website
which we can put in the show
notes.
But that's huge, like we all
have had that feeling where,
where we've, we've, either we
either cut off from the neck
down or we feel like the heart
is blocked or there's a
contraction there, or we often
can feel it viscerally.
And if we don't address that,
that is when it becomes a bigger
health issue, as you say,
inflammation, when we are
blocking our chakras, which are
the energy centers of the body,
and all over the world there's a
Celtic chakra system and a
South American Andean chakra
system and the Indian chakra
system.
However it looks, they're
energy centers and when they are
blocked, the result is the same
illness and disease ensue.
You know if if we don't take
care of it.
So, and part of the way we can
open, yes, with sound, with
sound with movement, lots of
good things.
But.
But sound is a great way to
start the inquiry because it's
so accessible.
You can do these things at home
.
The work I do is one-on-one
with my clients and we can
target in on a specific
condition that they might be
having or health challenge.
But the singing, the humming,
the percussively tapping on the
body, it's a little like EFT
tapping, but just percussively
tapping.
It's like our mother's
heartbeat when we're in the womb
and it's deeply grounding and
we know, Playing wind chimes.
I mean so many things that we
can do in our homes and, of
course, listening to soundbaths
on YouTube or wherever in our
homes and, of course, listening
to soundbaths on YouTube or
wherever that.
Speaker 1: When you said about
the percussive tapping, you know
, we know in various
psychological journals that
there's been lots of research as
well.
So on the EFT tapping, but
again, as you say that that
tapping just on the chest,
rhythmically, we know that it
calms people down.
It's part of, I think it's part
of cognitive behavioral therapy
as well, like this ability to
connect with the body and you
know these actions that.
I think you know it's very easy
to dismiss the simplicity or
the accessibility of these kinds
of techniques and gifts that we
can give ourselves, because it
doesn't come in a pillbox, you
don't pay lots of money for it,
they're things that are readily
available and so I think their
value gets diminished in many
ways because of the way that we
perceive value collectively,
open up to what some of these
opportunities are, in order that
we can explore what really
works for us, without that sort
of inner critic going, oh no, I
don't think that's not for us,
but actually to be able to open
up and just see, see what works.
Yes, may I read?
Speaker 2: you a short quote,
please do, by this wonderful
doctor.
He's an oncologist, dr Mitchell
Gaynor, and he wrote a book
called the Power of Sound
Healing which I read many years
ago.
He's an oncologist.
He does sound baths for his
clients and anybody interested
in this can just go to YouTube
and type in his name and watch
him give a sound bath to his
many, many cancer patients
because he believes in this so
much.
He's a Western doctor who
believes in this.
He tells us, and I quote, sound
and redress imbalances on every
level of physiological
functioning and can play a
positive role in the treatment
of virtually any medical
disorder.
And so that, my dear, is the
future of medicine, that the
doctors are proceeding, and he's
not the only one.
All the research that I read is
by doctors and medical
researchers and sound scientists
working together.
And the research that's going
on now, that is coming out of,
in the US, the National
Institutes of Health combined
with the National Institutes of
Mental Health, rutgers
University, mental health,
rutgers University, ucla, like
they're all researching this,
because it really is the future
of integrative medicine
complementary medicine.
Speaker 1: That's key, isn't it?
It's this idea that it's
integrative, that it's not
something other.
That's right, it's woven in.
I have a friend who worked for
many years as the lead nurse in
a big oncology charity here in
the UK and then she gradually
trained as a somatic
practitioner so using massage
and you know different sort of
massage techniques and then she
became the lead somatic
practitioner.
So she went from being a senior
nurse to being a senior somatic
practitioner in the same
charity, working with the same
patients, because they
recognized how important the
power of touch is for their
patients.
And it feels like it's a very
similar shift of recognizing how
important sound is.
I've got a quote for you,
actually, Cathy, something that
I came across, which is from
Cambridge Sleep Sciences, so
from Cambridge University Sound
is a very powerful and effective
means of changing brain state
and improving mood.
It is understood that low
frequency sounds are linked to
relaxing brain states, while
higher frequencies encourage
alertness and focus.
Yes, so that is such a simple
observation and it's so
important.
I think that these sort of
organizations scientists,
researchers are doing this work.
Just as people are researching
the power of mindfulness, people
are researching the power of
somatic practices and really
recognizing going all the way
back to what you said right at
the beginning the wisdom that
traditional ancient cultures
have known forever yes, I love
that, I love that.
Speaker 2: And something else
about low frequencies, you know,
yes, and so they can help us to
go into a much more relaxed
brain state.
You know alpha and theta Theta
is the beautiful brain state of
creativity, and alpha relaxation
and all of that.
But new science that I think is
not even published yet.
This is with one of my teachers
who's a sonic scientist,
working with medical researchers
, john Stewart Reed.
They've discovered that low
frequencies, when applied to red
blood cells, helps them to
reinvigorate.
So there's something about the
low frequencies, and low
frequencies are especially good
with pain reduction.
So when I was going through all
of this with my spine, I had
tremendous pain and was on lots
of pain medicine cocktail and
just horrendous.
One of the things I found with
sound and I have a gong.
A gong is one of the most
healing of all instruments
because it has the lowest of low
and the highest of high
frequencies, so it has the full
spectrum and in doing that it is
, if you will, speaking to all
of the various cells in our
bodies.
And so the very low frequencies
low frequencies of tuning forks
helped me with pain management
in a way that I didn't believe
it would.
I was certain, you know,
nothing would help.
And I still have pain to this
day, and sometimes it's insane
and and I use my low frequency
tuning forks and I always have
this little part of my brain
that says yeah, as if this is
going to help the pain.
This is so off the charts today
, as if this is going to help,
and I am always astonished that
it takes it down a notch or a
smidgen.
And sometimes, when you're
dealing with pain or or other
kinds of things, that little
increment that sound is able to
provide, combined with
everything else that we're doing
, makes things tolerable, when
sometimes they are not tolerable
.
Speaker 1: Brilliant, brilliant.
I love that.
I love that because I was
really feeling what you were
saying just then, that sometimes
just that that little shift can
be can feel so enormous because
, exactly as you say, it takes
something from being intolerable
to to being tolerable, and then
, and then our other coping
mechanisms can kick in, you know
, and we can start to
rationalize something or we can
look for other solutions,
whatever, but having for me it
makes sound part of first aid,
you know, part of your first aid
is like, okay, let's go here,
that's right, and then we can
see what can come next.
Speaker 2: Everything is
incremental.
In healing right, everything's
incremental.
So the bottom line is to have a
really good toolbox of what you
can turn to, and so sound can
be one of the tools in our
toolbox Brilliant, Brilliant.
Speaker 1: Oh, Kathy, it's been
an absolute joy.
I can't believe we've we've
been speaking for almost an hour
now.
It's just no Just.
And also I mean thank you so
much for sharing about that free
offering that you have.
I'll definitely include the
details of that because that
sounds so wonderful and you've
also ignited in me a lovely,
timely reminder of reconnecting
with sound baths as a healing
practice.
Wonderful, it's really lovely.
Speaker 2: And I'll mention one
more thing for anyone who wants
to take a deep dive.
Also, on my website website
toward the bottom of the
homepage, there are lots of
articles and I I did a pretty
robust article for yoga magazine
on the power of sound healing.
So there are lots of free
resources there for people who
want to take a deeper dive and
they've got um the links to go
to some of these people who I've
quoted.
Speaker 1: So there are more
resources there.
Speaker 2: Brilliant it's been
just a delight to be here with
you, Henny.
I've loved this conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
I have one more question for
you.
Actually, I have a question
that I it's something that I
often ask my guests, and it's
something I ask my clients too,
and it's something I ask my
clients too.
If you saw this time in your
life, right now, as a chapter in
your book of life, what would
your chapter heading be?
Speaker 2: Ooh, new life.
It would be new life because
everything I have gone through
opened a door to a life that is
fundamentally different from
what I had before, which I
thought was the life of my
dreams, is so much more healing,
centered in alignment with my
soul, purpose, I believe, and
what I am meant to do on this
earth.
So new life.
I know that sounds very just
sort of fake life.
I know that sounds very just
sort of fake, but new.
It is a total new life that I
never would have thought
possible were it not for all the
health challenges I went
through yeah, well, we are
honored to have been part of
this experience, of this new
life with you, kathy.
Speaker 1: It's been wonderful,
it's just been a delight.
Thank you so much honey, thank
you, thank you.