I visit the Attune Healing Collective on a Saturday morning after a stormy Friday night the weekend of the Trailing of the Sheep. The space is quiet and dimly lit. Shoes are lined up by the door, so I leave mine as well. Purses and jackets are left trustfully on chairs.
Brittney, our “sound healing practitioner,” is welcoming, beautiful and calming, and she directs us to the Sound Healing Room. This room is smaller and even dimmer—the lights are reflected on the ceiling and rotating—almost in a celestial pattern. Woven pendant orb lamps hang from the ceiling, and one wall is decorated with oversized bright green leaves. There are silken hammocks hanging over fur rugs, and Brittney tells us to choose a hammock and hands out blankets to those who want them.
There are six or eight of us there—all women. Everyone is quiet and stretching out their silky pods now to accommodate their bodies.
It’s shockingly comfortable, womblike. Each of us in our own little capsule or cocoon.
She begins by greeting us, reminding us to breathe, to be grateful and to hold space. And then come the sounds … Brittney uses crystal singing bowls to create a wide range of sounds that hum and vibrate and resonate.
It is deeply relaxing.
It feels like water to me—the sounds feel like they are all around us and that we are suspended in the sounds. Maybe this feeling comes from knowing this is a sound bath? Power of suggestion?
It is deeply meditative. My body does feel tingly and warm. My mind isn’t focused but sort-of wildly free range but not in a negative way. I’m having clear images of places from my past, my children when they were young, and I don’t feel aware of purposefully evoking these thoughts. The hour seems to pass very quickly.
She ends the session with a gong, and we climb out of our hammocks and leave the calm and warmth of the sound bath returning to our lives recharged and less anxious, hopefully.
Any true music fan knows the power of sound. Take John Williams for example—his scores have turned countless classic films into works of utter genius. With musical notes, he has the ability to turn emotion into sound and then back again—”Harry Potter,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Jaws”—none of these films have even a tenth of the impact without the sound.
Ask any Taylor Swift fan what happens to their body when they hear the 10-minute version of “All too Well” or maybe someone a bit older (aka me) how they feel when they hear Bowie’s “Heroes.” There’s a resonance, a recognition that tugs at your heart strings and gives you shivers and chills and maybe even makes you cry. That’s the power of sound.
The wellness community is harnessing that power through sound baths—waves of soothing, echoing sound from traditional wind and percussion instruments, chimes, drums and Tibetan or crystal singing bowls played by a “sound practitioner” or sound therapist. This sonic experience can lead to a sense of well-being by alleviating stress and improving clarity and focus.
Sound baths seem to offer an accessible pathway to peace and relaxation that many of us lack the discipline to achieve through traditional meditation. The frequency of the sounds themselves helps to shift the brain from its normal beta state into a theta state, which is a state of relaxation, and a place to begin a healing or recovery journey.
Bridgette Aldrich has been thriving in the healing space for many years and hosts sound baths at Bridgette’s Place in Hailey twice a month: on the new moon and the full moon. She uses her gifts to help her clients release old patterns and untangle themselves from a toxic past. “Sound is healing,” Aldrich noted. “It allows your essence to return to harmony.”
She uses the same crystal bowls that her sister, Brittney, used in the sound bath I experienced at Attune. I learn from her that these are different from the traditional Tibetan bowls, which are made of a metal alloy and have a very different sound that is sometimes described as “warm and complex.” The crystal bowls are considered to be more difficult to play.
Aldrich takes her role as a centered spiritual guide very seriously and knows how important it is for her to stay centered so that she can help others. She has regulars who attend all her group classes as well as remote clients as far away as Denmark. “It’s a big responsibility when people are reaching new heights of awareness for them to feel safe, held and secure.”
Sound healing is nothing new. Shamans, healers and priests across the world have always used chanting and instrumentation, including the crystal and Tibetan singing bowls used today, to bring their followers into altered states of awareness and consciousness and to treat physical pain as well as anxiety and depression.
The “yoga of sound” is meant to balance and harmonize the chakras—each bowl correlating to a specific energy within the body. The thinking is that an individual is not just “hearing” sound but absorbing it through every pore and allowing the sound to permeate the system.
Should anyone avoid sound healing? Yes. People with acute unresolved trauma may have difficulty processing the potentially intense experience. Individuals with pre-existing heart conditions or epilepsy or any electronic implants like pacemakers should avoid sound healing. If an individual is unsure about whether sound healing is right for him or her, it’s a good idea to ask your doctor. And listen to your body—if you are in the middle of a sound bath and feel in any way uncomfortable, it’s okay to just get up and walk out.
You can also “test it out” at home as many practitioners have recorded their sound baths and posted those recordings online.
Just as music can bring about all the big emotions and truly transform and restore us—the sound bath has the potential to unlock deeper self-awareness and understanding and help encourage relaxation and balance in a complicated world.
Local Sound Healing
Attune Healing Collective
660 2nd Ave. S, Ste. 24, Ketchum
Bridgette’s Place
15 W. Carbonate St., Hailey
Gather Yoga
471 Leadville Ave., Ketchum
Crystal Healing Room
Shaman Tammy Adams
571 4th St. E., Ketchum