Article by Kristen Loree

this article was originally published in the Bosque Center for Spiritual Living's July 7, 23 Newsletter

My Journey to Sound Healing

Kristen Loree 

MFA, Certified Sound Healing Practitioner, Certified Shamanic Healing Practitioner, Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework(™), Lugering Master Teacher 

“Before its incarnation, the Soul is sound. It is for this reason that we love sound.” 

Hazrat Inayat Khan, The Mysticism of Sound and Music

I began to understand deeply the power of sound when I gave birth for the first time. I don’t mean the grunting and howling I did; there was plenty since we were at home. The father of this child is a percussionist and composer. His solution to every problem is sound. So when the labor got intense and my son’s head wouldn’t mold I said “John, go get the log drum”. He played with his eyes locked on mine. He played the contractions he could see in my face, he would subside as they did, lulling me into the resting period. For two hours he played and I pushed our baby out.

As a voice teacher for the past thirty years I have seen first hand that our voice is our most powerful healing tool. Claiming your voice releases years of repressive muscular activity and brings a person to the present. As a child of an abusive alcoholic, I have had to claim my voice over and over again. About 12 years ago, while being oppressed in my work situation and feeling I had no voice, I won a Gong (or Tam Tam) in a raffle at the Albuquerque Center for Spiritual Living. I had no idea how much I needed to commune with that Gong. After a few weeks of getting to know it and finding a good mallet I began to find my voice again. The Gong led me right to it by offering sounds to reflect and augment what I was hearing and feeling.

I felt it was important to share the discovery of the conversations that are possible with the Gong with the community who introduced me to it. So I held Gong Meditations for a few years. In these meditations I hung the Gong for all to play and we would trade off. I noticed immediately that we all elicited unique responses from the instrument, no two players sounded the same. This led me to assume that intention and listening was the key to an effective Gong meditation. I remembered way back when I was in a workshop on harmonic singing with Johnathan Goldman he said, “Vibration plus intention equals transformation.” So I looked him up and discovered there is something called Sound Healing. 

I started studying Sound Healing officially in 2018 after my Mom passed. I was keen to find a point of focus that was helpful. Up until that point I had gotten on with singing and playing the ukulele to re-balance myself. But it was not enough or was dependent on others. The Sound Healing Academy was online and at my own pace so I was free to integrate and explore many new concepts, instruments and thoughts. Indeed, intention is the key to healing and listening is key to accepting the change. I discovered that the instruments will let you know what is needed and where as long as you listen and resist the impulse to impose. The impulse to impose is strong within us. We are imposed upon often so we feel it is normal. It is not. Just behind the idea we want to impose is a flow that wants to be acknowledged. That flow is what all the self-help books are guiding us to. The natural balanced flow of our energy.

One of the first adventures that Sound Healing took me on was to a river in order to cleanse the instruments of any stagnant energy that they may have collected. Sound Healing instruments are cleansed before every use (and cleaned too!) as well as offered gratitude for their assistance in the healing work. The method of cleansing is less important than the intention and actions of doing so. Which has led me to many new life choices. I am grateful to my dishes I wash for helping to support our family, I intentionally structure the water I drink with sound in order to gain the most benefit from it.

Again, I am ready to share with my community. Now, I am guiding Gong Baths to help rebalance those who are ready. A Gong Bath is a variation of a Sound Bath. A Sound Bath is an immersive auditory environment created with a variety of sound healing instruments in order to rebalance the body, mind and spirit. The experience begins with the participants getting comfy in their own space often with a mat, pillow, blanket, and eye pillow. I will guide you to set an intention for yourself and how you would like to be after the bath is over. During a sound bath our brainwave state shifts from the awake state, then relaxed, then dreamlike, and finally the restorative state. Sound Baths affect every person differently; some are energized and some are ready for bed. Some find that symptoms of stress, fatigue, and depression are lessened or gone. At the end of the bath we slowly adjust back to the world and reflect with a cup of tea. 

I have learned that natural waves of unadulterated sound can help us to transcend ordinary mental consciousness, can heighten our perceptions and can help us to experience blissful states of being. Intention, combined with sympathetic resonance, creates therapeutic sounds that inherently go to where they are needed. 

Another adventure was finding a steel drum on the side of the street in mid-town Albuquerque. My daughter and I were taking a walk so I picked it up and carried it home. We also discovered a missile tip that was used as a salad bowl for 30 years is an amazing singing bowl! Once my intention to discover sound healing instruments was stated the Universe just provides.