Vibrational & Sound Healing Therapy: An Introduction

By Ellen Asherah, Certified Hypnotherapist, Certified Massage Therapist, Reiki Master Teacher

SOUND AND VIBRATIONAL THERAPY:
Sound and vibrational healing therapies are becoming more widely practiced every day. Because of the tangible palpable nature of the modality, swift changes in a person’s energetic/vibrational climate can occur. In vibrational and sound healing sound and the vibrations it creates are directed and focused for specific healing intent. Relaxation and the parasympathetic shift away from fight or flight response, and toward calm and healing can unfold very easily and enjoyably. In the process the recipient learns about energy flow on an experiential level. I have been working with vibrational and sound healing using singing bowls for many years. I have always viewed the vibrations emanating from the singing bowls as effective dimensional and energetic gateways. The beautiful and pure sounds of the singing bowl resonate and vibrate very tangibly. As a person listens and FEELS the vibrations the recipient is carried from their original vibrational state into a new realm of peace, calm, clarity and connection to divine energy and guidance. As the vibrations gradually slow down, the mind, body and spirit relax into new dimensions of vibrational harmony and balance.
I have always seen these bowls (and sound therapies in general, whether from bowl, voice, didgeridoo, etc) as great teachers. A person can learn more about energy, spiritual connection and intuitive opening, while carried off in the experience of feeling and hearing the bowls, than reading even the best books on the topic. The sound vibrations of the bowl act as a vehicle, taking the receiver/listener/feeler to new spiritual places of calm and connection. Once the bowl has lead one to this new space and state, that same state can be accessed in the future with or without the vibrations of the bowl. Just bringing into the mind memory of the sound of the bowl can carry a person right back into that spiritual journey both inward and outward. Even a person in a very depressed or agitated state can experience an automatic shift to a more comfortable and balanced feeling through sound and vibrational therapies.

VIBRATION AND ENERGY IS WHAT WE ARE MADE OF:
Sound and vibrational healing modalities are so effective because everything is vibration and everything is energy. While we see solid forms before us, and while we see that our bodies, our houses, our loved ones are solid forms, it is known widely by quantum physicists that every solid form, no matter how hard and dense, is actually, on the smallest level, made of moving particles. The ongoing force moving these particles is called energy in it’s purest sense. Even a thick iron wall is actually made of moving particles of energy, vibrating at a very fast rate. Everything we see as static, solid, fixed, stubborn, unyielding, is still ultimately made of moving particles of energy, as are our bodies.
While the seemingly solid world of objects and material form is made of moving particles of energy, so is the rest of space, extending out into the universe in all directions, in an infinite way, through infinity. Both the seen and the unseen, the material (formed) and immaterial (unformed) are made of the same basic stuff: energy, quickly moving and vibrating minute particles. A very small thing (such as a speck of dust) as well as a very large thing (such as the highest mountain) are all comprised of these tiny vibrating particles, or energy. Current scientific thought acknowledges this, as have various sages, mystics, and spiritual and religious traditions throughout history.
A good way to understand this more viscerally is to look at water as a metaphor. Water like everything else is comprised of moving particles of energy. With water it is easy to see the fluidity, responsive and ever-changing. We can look at a body of water and see the movement. We can see how a body of water as a whole is affected by changes or movements in one area. When a leaf falls from a tree into a pond, ripples are sent out in a circular pattern from the center out. The entire body of water is affected by that one leaf falling in one area. Through this example we get a visual image describing how energy and movement happen according to natural law. Natural forms and movement cycles repeat. The form of a wave is repeated in the shape of clouds moving through the sky. The shape of the currents of the ocean are mirrored in the moving forms of air currents. The rivers and streams on our planet earth are of a parallel form to the veins and arteries flowing within our bodies. Looking at a leaf, we can see as well the veins in the leaf fiber which bring nutrients to the plant again echoing and repeating, each within it’s own uniqueness, the same forms as the rivers and streams. We are diverse versions of the same basic natural expression of living forms made up of moving particles of energy. This is life. This also extends to what we often view as inanimate objects, because all material form is ultimately made from the same stuff, the same energy, the same ever-moving, ever-changing energy.
This is why vibrational (energy) and sound healing is so effective. The material within us that makes up every cell, molecules and atoms are moving, vibrating. Likewise, all sound is vibration. While we hear it with our ears, sound vibration is also felt physically. This is why deaf people can feel the vibration of music, speech or other sounds. Just as the leaf falling into the water creates a visible ripple outward in all directions, sound vibration moves out in all directions sending out ripples of the sound signature which alter the surrounding vibrations in the air, in the space around people and things. Similarly, the vibrational ripples or waves affect even seemingly solid forms like our bodies. There are so many ways that sound vibration affects us, both seen and unseen. It is also helpful to acknowledge the emotional dimensions to sound in order to better understand how much we are affected by it. Listening to music (sound vibration) often produces an emotional effect within us. If we hear music we love we feel happier. If we listen to relaxing music we enjoy we feel more relaxed. If we hear fast energetic music that we like we feel energized. If we hear music we don’t like we may feel annoyed. In all these instances we are responding to the subtle energy of the sound vibrations as they ripple into our energy selves, deep into our cells. When music produces happy feelings of relaxation, love, vitality or positive memory associations, that music or sound vibration is having a beneficial effect upon the listener both emotionally and physically, as our physical vibration is altered and enhanced through this vibrational shift. There is direct connection between the emotional state, the emotional vibrations and the vibrations within the physical body, which affect our cells, our atoms and our chemical makeup.
Even a very depressed person can shift without effort into a more positive and comfortable emotional state by listening to music that is appealing to his or her tastes. This happens regardless of any conscious intent on our parts. The effect of the vibration and sound is automatic. When intention and directed focus is added to the sound vibration the effects can become amplified. Just as sound vibration is energy, so are our thoughts and feelings and intentions. If a person listens to relaxing music with the intention of relaxing, the relaxation achieved will be that much greater and more profound. Just as water ripples outward, our thought forms are energy rippling outwards, and flowing toward or through a client or specific organ or injury according to our intention.

WORKING WITH AWARENESS AND INTENTION:
A recent experience brought this point home to me once again. I was receiving a light, mainly energetically oriented massage from a Reiki practitioner. As she gently worked on my right arm I experienced something I had never felt before. Wherever she worked on the right arm, I simultaneously felt very palpable tingling sensations on the left arm. These sensations in my left arm were very strong, very distinct. I told her what I was experiencing, and that I had never experienced this before so strongly even though I have been giving and receiving Reiki and other energy forms for many years. I am accustomed to feeling sensations during energy treatments, but not such palpable sensations to the opposite side of the body so distinctly matching the opposite limb. As it turned out, she had just attended a class in which she was taught about the brain and the two halves of the body and the connection between the two sides. She was taught that working on one side of the body conversely affects the other as a result of the way our brains process information and sensation. She learned a scientific principle which is always in operation regardless of intention or awareness. Any time an energy worker has run energy on my right arm in the past, automatically, through this scientific principle the other arm has been affected on a subtle level. What made the difference in the intensity of my conscious feeling of this phenomenon was the fact that this Reiki practitioner was very fascinated and preoccupied by this information that she had just learned, so that when she was running energy on my right arm she was holding in her conscious awareness, with great inspiration, the fact that as she worked on my right arm she was also having a mirrored effect on my left arm. Her conscious intention greatly amplified my experience of receiving. The sensations I felt in my body were directly affected by her fascination and excitement around this new found fact that was active in her awareness and focus while working on me. The principle has always been true, but it was the power of her awareness and intention which took the effect to another level of intensity.
Intention and thought forms of all kinds serve as energetic projections that affect everything around us whether or not we can see or feel them. When a healing practitioner (nurse, doctor, massage therapist, Reiki or energy practitioner, etc) holds the conscious intention of sending healing vibration into a patient or client the healing they are already in the most mundane sense effecting is greatly increased. When sound is added to the mix intentionally, the client/patient can palpably and viscerally feel the effects more strongly. The recipient or client/patient’s ability to receive the treatment is increased when they can actually feel something happening. Gently gonging a Tibetan singing bowl will produce a sweet and penetrating sound. The sound vibration will penetrate through the energy field, through the body on it’s own and therefore have an effect physically and energetically, as the vibrational patterns join with and shift the vibrational patterns moving inside the body as well as the auric field around the body. Even more so is this effect when a bowl is place directly upon a person and gonged or played. The pure vibration without intention added has a vibrational effect, both emotionally and physically. When the sound therapist’s specific healing intention is added to the mix, the power increases and focuses.

INSTANT ACCESS TO HEALING, BALANCE AND BLISS IN THE NOW:
The beauty of sound healing lies in the accessing of ways to move into peaceful, blissful and energized states with ease and speed. Sound and vibrational therapies can be used as a gateway into elevated states of consciousness, connection, relaxation and healing, with intention of both receiver and giver adding power and direction. A treatment can consist purely of sound and energy work, or can be integrated into a massage, cranio-sacral or hypnotherapy session. A singing bowl can be place directly over a tight muscle or painful or challenged area of the body and bring an instant shift in which stagnant energy and stuck or injured tissues or organs are given fresh energy and life, promoting and delivering greater balance, healing and relief.



I offer a variety of sound and vibrational healing techniques, either in combination with Reiki and energy work, or with therapeutic massage (even deep tissue work!), cranio sacral balancing and hypnotherapy. The possibilities are endless, whether you want to transform habits, reduce stress, connect with your spirit for inner guidance, relieve sore aching muscles, or clean and balance the auric energy field and energy centers in the body. I am available for sessions. For more information contact Ellen: email: ellenasherah@netzero.com or check out my website: www.ellenasherah.com.

All text & images copyright Ellen Asherah 2009, all rights reserved