United Planet
Ibiza
I went to Ibiza off-season a few years ago and really enjoyed all of the beautiful nature that the island has to offer. Ibiza became a special place to visit due to the incredible nature that I found whilst there. I had never been to Ibiza before as the clubbing culture never really called to me; but off season with less drunk tourists and more nature to myself made me fall in love with it.
The cliffs are incredible places to sit for sunset, there are ruins and abandoned places lost to time and graffiti artists. There are steep hikes down to the ocean, and secret places hidden in the rocks. I found places to climb along the cliffs - free solo-ing :p - I stumbled upon caves, waterfalls and even magical holes in the rock where the water swells through creating this phenomenon that looks like the ocean is breathing.
When I was there I was shocked to see so much quartz and then I discovered that Ibiza is known amongst spiritual communities has having an insanely high concentration of quartz crystals! I knew it was magnetic due to the amount of retreats and partygoers but figured that was due to its easy location for Europeans to travel to for the summer and it’s draw of excellent DJ’s!
There is an island (some would say magic) off the coast of Ibiza that is called Es Vedra which is considered to be the 3rd most magnetic point on earth. As we know from its use in computers and clocks - quartz crystals can hold and transmit information due to its unique molecular structure. Quartz, like us, is piezoelectric which means when you apply pressure it creates an electrical charge. Science and spirituality can agree that quartz holds patterns and can interact with biological fields.
While on Ibiza I met Lucian Tarnowski the creator of United Planet and UP game. We talked about our shared love of travel and community and bringing people together in vulnerable spaces to dream up a new world. He was interested in my sound healing and teaching whilst traveling and I was deeply interested in his UP Game - I had unfortunately just missed the one he hosted at the Pyramids of Giza which I was obviously bummed about!
We knew we would meet again somewhere cool and discussed potential collaborations in the future.
UP Game
United Planet and UP Game came from the idea of bringing like-minded, future oriented and dreamy people together to dream a new world. Lucian calls UP Game “a time traveling immersive experience designed to enable teams to create stories, strategies and solutions from a thriving future.”
If i recall correctly we spoke about accessing your future or higher self, and this is one of the avenues that helped birth this idea of UP Game - calling on the wisdom of the future to help create and align the present in such a way to get ‘there.’
Lucian has hosted UP Game all over the world from the pyramids in Egypt, to Switzerland and Norway, to the islands of Ibiza and Puerto Rico. I think at the time I am writing this he’s hosted at least 35!
Puerto Rico
Lucian eventually came to visit Puerto Rico, where I was living at the time, to host one of his UP games and while there he asked me to support his last day of UP Game with a Crystal Bowl Sound Healing Session for his participants!
I was so happy to hold space for UP Game and all the lovely participants on their last day that honored the Akasha - the wind and space element.
I always love collaborating with old and new friends and across the world.
If you’d like to collab don’t hesitate to reach out by contacting me here.
Xoxo
Biofield Tuning
We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music.
Biofield Tuning
I started my journey with Biofield Tuning in 2014 after meeting the creator, Eileen Day McKusick, at a conference at the California Institute for Human Science. We were both presenting and were equally enthralled by each other’s presentation. We became fast friends and due to my vast experience in the medical/health and research field + my many years teaching alternative therapies + teaching energy healing classes already, Eileen personally asked me to become one of the first Biofield Tuning Teachers, and soon after I was promoted to the International Lead Teacher, Research Assistant and Nonprofit Outreach until 2021.
Biofield Tuning is a sound healing modality that helps to relieve mental, emotional and physical stress, it is a targeted therapeutic system that uses tuning forks to help restore balance via the nervous system.
Physical matter is music solidified ~ Pythagoras
We are electrical beings: the energy that powers our brain, heart, muscles, fascia, and bone is electricity. Anything that is electrical produces a magnetic field perpendicular to it, which is measurable and has been studied in detail by the HeartMath Institute; they have measured the field of the brain and heart up to several feet away from the body.
What this means is that anything that is alive (electrical) produces a magnetic field (or bio-field) around itself. Both are measurable and scientifically proven.
Tuning forks produce coherent waveforms which are able to locate dissonance in the bio-field around the body. The coherent waveform from the tuning fork will find dissonance in the field and then recalibrate that dissonance back into harmony.
Dr. Bruce Lipton and I in India - post BT session
What does this mean?
By slowly working through the field using physics (resonance to find and entrainment to harmonize) the body will come back to equilibrium and homeostasis and thus, health. An easy way to understand this is - if you have a guitar that is in tune and mine is out of tune, if you keep playing an ‘A’ I will listen to your ‘A’ (resonance) and eventually I can tune my guitar to match your ‘A’ (entrainment).
This physics-based medicine allows the body's nervous system to move away from the sympathetic fight or flight response and relax into a parasympathetic rest and digest response; this is where healing can occur most efficiently. What we have found through thousands and thousands of clients is that the dissonance the tuning forks can find in the field can be directly linked to memories and emotions.
Simply put, Biofield Tuning is a way to use sound medicinally.
In our view, the biofield is the blueprint that the body follows, this contradicts what we were taught when we were younger, but withhold disbelief for an moment - this is entirely possible since to this day science has been unable to locate where memories are stored in the brain. So what if?
Time and time again, we have found that circumstances in life cause an emotional response and these are recorded in the biofield - you can think of them as a disturbance in the force, these areas have mass and a different density from the air, and because of this the practitioner and the client can hear the change in tone, pitch, timber and sometimes even volume. This takes the subjectivity out of the session as you are an active participant.
I like to think of this process as you coming home to yourself: I wrote a blog called Returning your Sparkle, Your Childlike Essence that you can refer to for a greater description of this process.
It’s a pretty simple concept when you think about it.
Remember third grade science class when we were told everything in the universe vibrates? We do, tables do, the air around us does… By treating the body (a vibrating particle) for an illness, disease or other issue (a vibrational imbalance) with coherent vibration (harmony), the body is able to recalibrate itself.
What’s the coolest thing about this? A state change is noticeable to the client regardless if they are in-person or if the session is done over a distance.
I trained under the creator of Biofield Tuning herself, Eileen Day McKusick, who was not only my mentor but my very best friend. Under her guidance I became an Advanced Certified Practitioner and then she personally asked me to become one of her first Biofield Tuning Teachers due to my extensive background in energy healing, vast knowledge of the health/medical field, prior years of teaching alternative therapies to medical professionals, and teaching energy healing classes across the US.
Eileen and I have traveled all over the world teaching together and speaking at conferences including Academy of Integrative Health & Medicine (AIHM) several years in a row, The Science of Consciousness Conference in San Diego in 2017, The Science and Nonduality Conference (SANDS) in San Jose in 2019, the Sound Healing Conference in Malvern, England in 2019 and the Advanced Medicine Conference in South Dakota in 2021.
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. ~ Plato
Because of my deep and insatiable love for travelling the world and visiting sacred spaces, I was able to expand Biofield Tuning globally and was promoted to the International Class Coordinator and Lead International Teacher. I was the Lead Team for Tuners without Borders, which was Biofield Tuning’s non-profit side to help those less fortunate. I have been on several missions to Jamaica and during Covid I began my virtual outreach to the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation to support them with Biofield Tuning during Covid-time. I have a recorded session available on my video page.
Eileen and I in Jamaica
It was my greatest pleasure teaching alongside Eileen for many years and teaching Biofield Tuning around the world to hundreds of students. It was an honor expanding and growing Biofield Tuning to all corners of the world, and touching the lives of so many different people in so many different places.
In 2021 I started to focus on my Masterclass on Illumination: The Wildish Wolfish Way. I have tuned hundreds of people trying to get unstuck, find their path, heal and return to themselves. I have hosted events and performed remote sessions all over the world - literally - and now serve the San Francisco / Bay Area where I continue to tune and host large sound healing events.
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I have known and been good friends with Jess since meeting her in 2014 at the Subtle Energy Conference in San Diego, and I have had the good fortune to travel, work and teach alongside her all around the world. Jess has a very comprehensive understanding of the biofield and of Biofield Tuning, and provides brilliant and insightful feedback as a practitioner. She has a vast background in performing and teaching about a variety of alternative therapies and healing modalities. I have given and received many tune ups with and from her and I would highly recommend Jess as a practitioner. ~ Eileen Day McKusick
I would love to tune you and bring you back into balance with yourself and your environment! Please let me know how I can support you on your healing journey <3
Contact me by clicking here
Xoxo
Sound Healing in Thailand
When people ask me what my favorite country is - I always struggle - I have been to so many absolutely amazing and fascinating countries that I can barely choose anymore! Southeast Asia is one of manyyyy favorite places in the world but what I can say for certain - Thailand is always a place I will always return too.
TBH I love leaving the US and prefer spending my time elsewhere because every time I leave I can feel the clutches of US-capitalism-need-to-be-busy-in-order-to-be-a-good-human draining from my soul and body. I find that whenever I am in Southeast Asia / Thailand I specifically feel like I am in a complete flow state with the universe.
In the spring of 2025 I took myself on a solo adventure through Southeast Asia; I went to Korea for the first time as well as Japan and the Philippines. I saw Mt Fuji for the first time and cried happy tears, I saw my best friend David in Osaka and Kyoto, I witnessed it snow in Tokyo. In the Philippines I scuba dove the reef in Cebu which is absolutely stunning and life changing; and for the main topic of this blog - I also returned to Thailand. I visited Koh Phangan, an island I had not previously been to - for another yoga teacher training (100hrs) and gave myself another gift a month later - climbing the big walls at Tonsai Beach.
While I was on Koh Phangan living out my best life I scootered all over the island, meeting new friends, seeing old friends, getting tattooed, dancing until dawn, attending my first Full Moon Party (all completely sober I might add!) I was one with the universe and one with magical energy of Thailand.
I went to a resort called The Sanctuary for my yoga teacher training - taught by the most amazing teacher I’ve ever had - Janine. She was so knowledgeable and trained in so many different types of yoga, she was concise and consistent and answered any and all questions I had. Janine and I bonded and when she found out I was a sound healer she told me there was another retreat being hosted at The Sanctuary - called Wonderment Retreats - that requested a sound healer! How lucky I felt to be able to offer Crystal Bowl Sound Healing sessions while I was there learning. Being a teacher and a student at the same time has always felt so good to me and so I happily obliged and took part in their last day; their Spirit Day honoring the Akasha!
One of my requirements for my 100 hr YTT with Janine was to also teach while I was there, and luckily next door there was another resort called Why Nam and so I was able to teach yoga there and offer even more Crystal Bowl Sound Healing sessions! Super special thanks Melina for helping me coordinate a bunch of sessions and classes during my stay! Why Nam has an artist residency they offer to people doing epic things and they offered me a position there which I hope to return and fulfill in the next few years!
When I travel and I find myself in this gorgeous flow state I find the friends I make, the things I learn and the collaborations I find are so heart centered in soul family. It’s such an honor to move through these spaces in faraway corners of the world and find such epic opportunities…
… and speaking of other magical opportunities, while on Koh Phangan 2 other amazing things happened for me.
I got an email saying that I was finally accepted to Quepasana on Maui for their 12 day Vipassana Retreat - I had been on the waitlist for about 6 years (due to covid) and when I looked at the dates of the retreat it worked perfectly to be when I was already heading over to Hawai’i to visit my cousin! I was overjoyed as a life goal of mine since I started learning about meditation was always to one day to a 12 day silent retreat and here it was falling directly into my lap.
After this glorious email I had received I got an amazing phone call from my friend Hanna who was inviting me to work a month long pop-up city called Edge City and be their resident Wellness Lead doing all their morning meditations, yoga, breathwork and crystal bowl sound healing sessions. So that meant right after my 12 day Vipassana retreat and visiting my cousin on Kauai (and hiking the Napali Coast, of course) I would be coming back to California to work this amazing month long event in Headlesberg, CA!
Such magic happens when we listen to the call of our soul and fling ourselves off familiar routined-cliffs and realize that are wings are born as we trust fall. I am so grateful to Past Jess for trusting herself and her desires and fulfilling her needs and always marching to the beat of her own drum. I am the person I am because I’ve always only ever listened to my heart. I can happily say that I live without regret - because I’ve never not-done something I’ve wanted to do, and because of that I’m happy with who I am and who I will inevitably become.
Xoxo
Spirit Day with Wonderment Retreats
The Unstruck Sound
From repetition of and reflection of Om, comes cosmic consciousness, as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases. PYS 1.29
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?
What are my credentials? Well, I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Sciences, double minors in Sociology and Biology, a theme in Death and Dying, half of a Master’s Degree in Integral Health and 2 ex-career’s as a medical device trainer and as a research scientist. Why am I telling you all of this? Ironically (or maybe not) all of this science led me to my current career(s). I now have multiple advanced certifications in yoga, breathwork, energy healing, reiki, pranic healing, Biofield tuning, sound healing and Kalos. I attend several 7 day retreats per year on meditation, or yoga, or psychedelics, or healing my brain be more coherent, or working with my inner child. It’s been a long and fascinating road, and today I call myself a metaphysical guide, a master sound healing facilitator (specializing in tuning forks and crystal bowls), a storyteller, a medicine woman, a ritual facilitator, and an embodied movement (yoga) and breath(work) guide.
Let’s continue:
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class you’ve heard chanting or singing of the word “Aum.” Aum is special and considered the vibration from which all existence arises; it has 3 distinct syllables: Ahh represents creation - the beginning, Uuu represents preservations, the dream state, and Mmmm represents dissolution, the deep sleep state; together they create the entire cycle of existence: birth, life and death. We use this sacred sound, Aum, in yoga to stimulate our connection with ourselves, others, and the universe; to vibrate our throat chakra, the thyroid gland, Udana Vayu (ascending air), Jalandhra Banha (throat lock) and thus harmonize our relationship between heart, breath, and bodymind.
Aum is the bow, the self is the arrow, and Brahman (Sat Chit Ananda = bliss) is the target.”
~ Mundaka Upanishad
Traveling back in time, we learn in 3rd grade science class that everything around us - our body, our brain, the materials our chairs are made of, our loved ones, our phones are all made of the same thing: vibration… AND that we are (incredibly) mostly space, AND our atoms vibrate through that space to influence matter. It could be said that vibration is the building blocks (or waveforms if you prefer) of our universe.
So, we have an intersection between spirituality and science, whereas science agrees that waveforms come first and physical matter originates from vibration (sound) and not only that, but physical matter can be influenced by sound, which we see directly when we study Cymatics or, the shape of sound… but more on that later.
Nada Yoga + Anahata Nada
Nada Yoga, often called the yoga of sound, is a lesser-known but profoundly transformative limb of the yogic path. Rooted in the ancient Vedic traditions, it teaches that the entire cosmos - our bodies, our thoughts, our relationships—is made of sound vibrations, and that by consciously working with sound, we can refine our awareness and attune to higher states of consciousness. While the physical postures (asanas) of yoga are aimed at aligning the body, Nada Yoga aligns our inner vibration with the vibration of the universe itself. It begins with external sound—like mantras, singing bowls, or even classical ragas - but gradually draws us inward to listen for the internal sound current, or nada, which leads to deep meditative absorption. In this practice, sound becomes not only a tool for healing but a vehicle for liberation. Just as the breath leads us into presence in pranayama, in Nada Yoga it is the listening itself that becomes the practice - listening so deeply that even silence hums. When I facilitate sound journeys, I often feel this lineage vibrating through the room -like ancient rivers of tone guiding people back to their essence.
The Anahata Nada, which means the Unstruck Sound, is not something we hear with our ears, instead we feel it on our soul. It’s a vibration that transcends the physical and emanates from the very fabric of creation. Many traditions describe it as the primordial sound of the universe or the echo of source, not unlike AUM. If you recognize “Anahata” you would recognize it as the Sanskrit name of the Heart Chakra which means “unstruck;” the heart center is a bridge from the physical to the spiritual and is the location where the Anahata Nada can be felt, makes sense, right?
In sound healing and vibrational medicine, the concept of Anahata Nada is easily graspable, as we are able to hear the crystal bowls, Tibetan bowls, Koshi chimes and gongs that are struck; but we also feel them inside ourselves- it evokes something within us. It’s almost as if we are cleansing the pathways of listening deeper so that we can hear the Anahata Nada through our feelings sense. We are diving in to ourselves so deeply we come out the other side in the universe… and vice versa. Through the deep listening we develop in our meditation practice we can attune to the Unstruck Sound. In Jivamukti yoga, Nadam, refers to the concept of deep listening and by tuning our awareness in we can increase our sensitivity to perceive the Unstruck Sound within us. The founders of Jivamukti yoga believe that sound is a vehicle of liberation which is why the silence inside of the sound is where Nadam reveals itself. The best experience I can relate this to in my own life is doing Ayahuasca in the jungle of Peru and hearing the Icaros and remembering the song even though I had never heard it before: it was as if my soul remembered the song before I was born.
“Music is the space between the notes"
~ Claude Debussy
Similar to mindfulness practices like yoga, breathwork, meditation and sound therapy - to hear the Unstruck Sound is a coming home to oneself. It’s not chasing anything external but rather unveiling what is already present, inside and innate to us, which is the divine.
I have an interesting tangent that I’ll go off on for a moment - I write a lot of notes to myself to remind me of things when i have time to get back to them. One fateful day in 2014 I found a note that said “songs from the wood.” I didn’t even remember writing this and didn’t recognize this phrase, but it was my own handwriting so i googled it and found that this was an album by Jethro Tull. I listened it and literally couldn’t stop listening to it for a month. I told my mom about this one day on the phone and she said,”
“That is what your dad listening to the whole time I was pregnant with you.”
I was floored. It was almost as if my ears didn’t recognize the music, my soul did.
Science and Sound
I’ve already eluded to cymatics - the shape of sound. Why is this important? Have you watched any of the videos yet and seen physical matter be manipulated by sound? If not please leave this blog for a moment as it will be waiting for you to finish after you watch some YouTube videos.
Now that you’re back: doesn’t it bend the mind and stretch the imagination in curious ways? If sound can manipulate these viscous substances, much like blood and lymph, what can sound do to our physical bodies?
I have 4 tuning forks that are pairs - one pair creates the Schumann Resonance as a binaural beat, and the other creates the Fibbonnaci Sequence. The Schumann Resonance is known as the heart beat of the earth and the Fibonnaci Sequence we know as sacred geometry. Binaural beats can influence different brainwaves states and allow for relaxing deeper, more focus and even altered states of consciousness.
When you listen to music you not only hear the music but you feel things, yes? More than likely you have playlists to influence, change, alter or deepen a mood. The famous Japanese research Dr. Emoto shared his findings with the world in a book called Hidden Messages in Water where he said affirmations and played different music to water, froze the water and took images of the crystals that could / could not form. Water that was told ‘I love you’ and water that listened to classical music formed beautiful crystals, while the water that was told ‘I hate you‘ and listened to extreme heavy metal couldn’t form a crystalline structure. Again I rhetorically ask, what are the implications for our physiology?
What if I told you that sound can create light?
Well it can: Sonoluminescence is the phenomenon where tiny bubbles in liquid emit light when exposed to sound waves… it is postulated that at the peak of the bubble collapse it may turn into plasma (which is electrically charged.) (Google)
Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.
– Arthur C. Clarke
Integration
Maybe this quote makes more sense now:
“from repetition of and reflection of Om, comes cosmic consciousness, as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases.”
Through repetition of refining our hearing, of showing up for ourselves, of have power over our thoughts through meditation, resilience through suffering in life and yoga, listening deeply and falling into our breath; through doing sound healing sessions we can find transcendence beyond the physical and into the cosmic and spiritual. Through suffering we learn and become wiser, more compassionate, more patient. Remember the saying ‘no mud - not lotus.’ We are all growing through our own mucky muck to eventually rise to the surface of our pond blossoming open the illuminated jeweled lotus that we truly are.
The yoga of sound, the unstruck sound, study of sound, the shape of sound, healing with sound, sound creating light… the fact that we’re vibration, it’s intriguingly all about us and the alive world around us, weird, right?
And repetition of vibration, through tuning forms or Aum can unite the different layers of the body “as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases.”
Teaching sound healing, yoga and breathwork is one of the joys of my life. Helping people regulate their nervous system, find alignment, embodiment, and thus illumination is one of my most consistent and largest blessings. Teaching people the science of sound coming from an academic background in health and physiology, and as a yoga teacher allows me embody my teachings at the various intersections of biology, science and spirituality.
This essay has no answers, just excitement and pure fascination to learn deeper and expand my knowledge on all these topics. Sound creates light, light touches matter, and matter responds with energy. The study of vibration is more than just a fascination… it’s a frontier. The more we learn about it - the more we learn about ourselves.
Om Mani Padme Hum (Hail to the jewel in the Lotus)
What do I do next?
Start small and hum or AUM for 5 minutes in the morning or the evening.
Find a breathwork coach and lets regulate your nervous system!
Listen to a binaural beat YouTube video with headphones!!
Curious to experience more?
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re called to deepen your practice with private sessions!
I hope this blog sparked intrigue in you - it definitely did for me while writing it!
Happy exploring y’all!
Xoxo
Jess
Turning the Wound into Wisdom
How Movement, Breath and Sound can Positively Influence Trauma
Trauma
Essentially, everyone we come into contact with is traumatized in some way or another; thankfully people are becoming more aware of trauma and are open to talking about it & how it affects people’s daily lives. Trauma exists on a spectrum and therefore no one’s trauma is better or worse than anyone else’s, because it doesn’t matter what happened- what matters is how your system experienced it. Unprocessed trauma shows up in everyday life by overreacting to small things, feeling numb or disconnected to life, your friends or even your own body; it manifests as chronic tension, self sabotage, perfectionism, trouble with trust, and of course the big two: anxiety and depression. Trauma lays the groundwork for a fractured identity, addiction, self harm, can cause attachment issues, affect development (especially if the trauma happened in childhood,) lead to C-PTSD, the list goes on. If you don’t suffer from these things, I’m sure you know at least 10 people who do, and if you don’t it's because they’re better at hiding it than you are at perceiving it.
Trauma is not only physically stored in our body, it actually changes our brain. Neuroscience shows in a traumatic event the parts of our brain involved in memory formation and time are affected, and as a result perception is distorted. Talk therapy is great (as sometimes our ability to communicate shuts down to trauma) but we know now that isn’t enough because of how it affects the brain AND body. When healing, we have to re-integrate both hemispheres - left (logic analytical) and right (emotional or creative) and we can do this through movement, breath and sound therapy. Walking with arms swinging to create a cross body movement, binaural beats, alternating nostril breathing, chanting and humming, drawing, and dancing can all help integrate the brain and body.
Somatic therapies are necessary for trauma recovery and trauma-informed yoga, breathwork and sound + energy healing can be fantastic when it comes to healing the body and integrating the hemispheres. Yoga helps reconnect the body-mind in a safe way, breathwork calms the nervous system, dancing can discharge trapped energy, and safe consensual touch can heal attachment wounds. Being in nature and meditation can restore a safe connection to your body and visualization can help with trauma healing due to its potential to create new internal experiences and regulate the nervous system. Listening to sound frequencies that oscillate left and right, humming, toning and chanting can all stimulate the vagus nerve.
The Vagus Nerve
Let’s talk about the Vagus (latin for wandering) Nerve for a bit, as it plays a key role in trauma recovery. The vagus nerve is your only cranial nerve that winds all the way down to your lower torso. I like to think of it like a magical thread inside our body. Vagal tone is measured from the health of the Vagus Nerve: high vagal tone means your body can relax quickly after stress, low vagal tone means it can’t. There are 3 options for Vagal tone: Safe (ventral), Activated (sympathetic) and Freeze (Dorsal Vagal.) When we are safe our magic thread (aka Vagus Nerve) glows white, when it is activated it becomes anxious and red, and when it’s in a freeze response it’s slow and frozen, like the color blue.
Increasing Vagal tone matters because it helps you bounce back quicker from stress, it helps you sleep and digest better, you feel more balanced and connected, and lastly your immune system becomes strong. So how do you build vagal tone?
Movement
Yoga Twists
Cold exposure
Massage
Dancing
Breathwork
Deep slow breathing with exhales > inhales
Meditation and mindfulness
Laughter
Sound
Humming
Chanting
Singing
Therapeutic Sound Healing Sessions
Not surprisingly, all the things we can do to build Vagal Tone are all things we can do to regulate our nervous system - which is the foundation for integrating and healing trauma. If you’re reading this and you’re like ‘Jess I’ve had a pretty blessed life,” then I would be delighted for you, however, some of the trauma that we store in our body comes from a pre-verbal time. What do I mean by that? Maybe we were left for 5 minutes as a newborn, because our parents had to run to the bathroom… but 5 minutes to a baby is eternity. As a newborn we can’t be mad (we don’t even know what that is yet) at our parents. But as we age into childhood and pre-teen years we remember the feeling of abandonment, but we still can’t be angry with our primary caregivers because without them means certain death. So as we get older we internalize the abandonment and anger we felt towards them and we feel shame: the core emotion in trauma. These Samskaras (impressions from the past) “leave subtle impressions and unconsciously affect our habits, self perceptions, expectations or disposition.”
Creating a Safe Place Through Movement, Breath + Sound
In the safe space created by practicing yoga, doing breathwork and having crystal bowl meditation sessions or tuning fork therapy we often feel emotions unexpectedly arise to the surface - I have lost count the amount of times I have cried on my yoga mat or in crystal bowl sessions. Yoga, Breathwork + Sound and Vibrational medicine is a sacred invitation to re-establish the safe, connected relationship you have with your body and meet yourself exactly where you are at.
Yoga, breathwork and sound gives an opportunity to rebuild the trust that was broken especially when working with a proficient practitioner. The moment a bad* emotion visits you (like shame or anger) they can gently hold space or even mirror while you process what that emotion is teaching you. With yoga, interoceptive awareness opens up pathways for these Samskaras (secret underlying memories) to be received and processed and released by the mind. With breathwork, we create spaciousness in the nervous system allowing life force to move through and dissolve patterns of tension. With sound healing + vibrational frequencies, we bypass the logic brain and speak directly to the body’s innate intelligence, restoring harmony where dysregulation once took root.
In yoga, we know the hips hide fear, anxiety, sadness, and a lot of sexual trauma; shoulders carry burdens and the weight of the world, and can become rigid when we are unable to let go. The lower back and hamstrings hold guilt, repressed feelings and pain of the past - typically regarding relationships. The knees are joints of ego and pride holding the inability to bend and be flexible. Neck pain is stubbornness and refusing to see the other side of the story. In sound healing we know the feet carry you through life and carry the cadence of your step (is it a trudge or a dance?). The throat is your truth and communication and connecting or bridge to your divinity. Working with the chakras is what helps us understand this world of relationships. Memory can be felt through a pain in the body which can be seen in a chakra and is an indicator to release through movement and intentional breath. Take a breath.
“and i said to my body.
softly.
‘i want to be your friend.’
it took a long breath.
and replied
‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.”
― Nayyirah Waheed
Remember, healing is not about getting rid of the shadow or “getting over it,” or pretending there is no trauma, or trying to escape our reality. We heal the body by integrating all of our experiences and coming home to it. Loving all parts of ourselves and turning the Wound into Wisdom.
As a trauma-informed yoga teacher, breathwork coach and master sound healing practitioner, holding space for you on your healing journey is a most sacred blessing to me. I would love to help guide you turn your Wounds into Wisdom. Please Contact me and let me know how i can best serve you.
Xoxo
Jess
