May 29, 2024 • 30 mins
Kylie Augustine operates Soundbath By Kylie in a strip mall in Los Angeles.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning. It is five forty five am. My alarm
is set for six fifteen am. But my dog Ha's
other plans for me this morning. Just letting him out now,
and my plan is to lay back down with him
(00:21):
until my alarm actually goes off at six fifteen and
then we'll make some coffee and sign on to work.
Be at work by six thirty am.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is finally a show about a sound bath practitioner
in a strip mall in Los Angeles. All the sounds
that you hear in this episode that aren't people talking
are created by her, recorded during one of her sessions.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
My name is Kylie Augustine and I am a bath practitioner,
but I have a full time job. So I grew
up in Greenwich, Connecticut. My father is an electrician and
owned Augustine Electric until he recently retired. My mom was
(01:16):
a stay at home mom, and my whole family pretty
much came from that region. My parents grew up as
next door neighbors across the street from where I grew up,
and my dad's family built the houses that they're still
(01:40):
living in. So it's a little Augustine Empire in Greenwich, Connecticut.
It's a silly place to live because of the income disparity.
There are immensely wealthy people and then people who have
been there forever like my parents and going to school there,
(02:03):
like growing up there is just really it was a
weird thing to navigate, and I really felt very free
once I got out of it and went to college.
I went to college in Boston. I went to Northeastern University,
and my husband, Joe, went to Emerson College, and Emerson
(02:25):
is also in the city of Boston, so it was
very close in proximity, and that's where we met and
we've been together ever since, and that's twenty years. Northeastern
is a co op school, so that means you go
to school for six months and have an internship for
six months, so when you graduate, you have a lot
(02:48):
of work experience, which is awesome and that's why a
lot of people go there. They teach you how to
write a resume and like really help you to connect
with employers an interview and things like that. So for
one of my internships, I went to New York City
(03:09):
to Departures magazine, which is for Platinum American Express card members,
and I interned there in the marketing department. And it
was fun. I went to the events that they put
on in New York and really learned what publishing was
all about. And then once I graduated from college, I
(03:31):
went to Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine. So right out
of college is where I started my career in publishing. Hello,
good to see you again. Nice to see you again
as well, Nice to see you. Does anyone need to
use the restroom before we get started? Okay, okay, yes,
(03:58):
you can take your shoes off, put all your stuff
over on the side, and just make sure your phones
are on silent. So I moved to New York City
with Joe right after I graduated in two thousand and
six and was working at Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine
(04:20):
as a sales assistant, and it was it was basically like,
you know, making appointments for them, doing their expense reports
and things like that. I was more interested in the
marketing side of things, and that team allowed me to
help them put on events and make marketing materials, and
so that's more of what I was attracted to. But
(04:45):
then in two thousand and eight, Travel and Leisure Golf
Magazine folded and we had about I think it was
three or four months of notice where we were still employed,
but we didn't really have anything to do because the
last issue was pretty much done, so we were all
(05:09):
just looking for other work, which is kind of the
best position to be in to be getting paid, have
a place to go to look for work, and have
that time to do it. I then moved from that
position to the finance department in American Express Publishing, where
(05:29):
I was the executive assistant to about six executives. But
I quickly knew that I wanted to find something else,
so I stayed in that position for about a year,
and then I went to the American Kennel Club. They
(05:52):
had two magazines at the time, the Gazette, which was
for like show dog people, and Family Dog, which was
for the everyday person who has a pet in their life,
and I sold ad space for them and I also
(06:13):
wrote articles. It was really fun. It was a really
fun place to work. It was full of like really
cool people on the publishing side, not on the like
show dog side of things, and it was just kind
of this like little little family that just loved dogs
(06:35):
but also loved writing and being in publishing. So in
twenty eleven, the Gazette folded and they had to let
people go, and because I was one of the last
people hired they had, they let me go. I got
(06:57):
like three months notice, so I had a job, I
had a place where I could go, and I was
still getting a paycheck, but I was able to look
for other work and I went a completely different route
and found a job at the ASPCA. Welcome. So have
(07:20):
either of you done a soundbath before?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I did do the Integatron did do that once. Also, yeah,
I was just there last month and it'll be a
very different experience than that. And for you, what are
you expecting from today? Do you have any idea of
what you're in for?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I will probably cry Okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
And that's great, That's totally fine. That's happened before. The
ASPCA is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals. It's animals, but it's like the opposite of
the AKC. It's an animal welfare organization, and the American
(08:07):
Kennel Club is more about breeding and showing your dogs
and making a profit off of dogs, and there is
not a lot of oversight over the breeding that they certify.
So I started at the ASPCA as a senior coordinator
(08:28):
in the development department, so I was working on fundraising.
People most know the ASPCA or recognize the ASPCA from
the Sarah McLaughlin commercials, but most would be surprised to
know that they haven't aired since twenty ten. So that's
(08:50):
just how much it sticks in your mind and how
much it's impacted her career. Poor Sarah hi at McLaughlin,
Will you be an angel for a helpless animal?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Every day innocent animals are abused, beaten and neglected and
they're crying out for help.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
But she did, she did. I mean, it was a
phenomenal partnership and made so much money for us. So
now I'm overseeing the fundraising content across the website, emails,
direct mail, canvassing, telemarketing, DRTV. It was a lot of
(09:33):
things that I had my hands in. I really enjoyed it.
I really liked I really like fundraising and it's honestly,
I mean, it's so rewarding. Everybody relates to animals and
it's not a hard thing to fundraise around, Like I
(09:54):
can't imagine fundraising for education or arts or Yeah, animals
are pretty universal. I was seven years into this position
at a nonprofit and I had zero work life balance.
(10:15):
I didn't have a hobby. I didn't have like yoga
or working out or anything that I could do to
make me feel better. And it was just it felt
very high stakes because it's such a big organization. And
in January of twenty eighteen, I had my first panic attack.
(10:41):
My first panic attack was in my chest. It felt
like it was I was having a heart attack. It
lasted a few days and it got worse and worse
over the course of time. My husband, Joe had to
(11:02):
travel for work, so I was alone, and I remember
being in bed and not being able to physically move.
I could not I couldn't move my body into a
seated position. I had to roll out of the bed.
And so Joe was like, go to urgent care, like
(11:24):
figure that out. And I was like, all right. So
I went to urgent care and they did an EKG
and I think that's all they did. And they were like,
you should go to the hospital, like you should go
to the er if you're having chest pains, and I
was like, ugh, all right. And I had two dogs
at the time, and I had to like figure out
(11:45):
boarding for them and drive them to boarding, which was
not safe to do in my condition, so I ubered
to the er. There were no rooms available, so I
was in a bed in the hallway and so many
blood tests. They kept a thing in my arm because
(12:06):
they just kept taking blood, and I got a chest
X ray and the nurse who did it was like,
are you stressed out? And I was like yeah, and
she was like stress can do weird things to you,
and I was like okay, so she knew. I was
there for like seven hours. I was crying the whole time.
(12:29):
It was very emotional. I was very scared. I had
never been to the er, and I was by myself
and like texting friends and being like, I think I
should tell someone i'm here, Like I don't, Joe's away.
I don't know what to do, and they obviously couldn't
find anything wrong with me, so the doctor prescribed me
(12:51):
pain meds and said I probably had a pulled chest
muscle and sent me home. Also, the weird thing about
that er trip was the moment I stepped into the hospital,
(13:11):
the pain was gone, and I was like, I think
I have to stay because I couldn't physically move earlier,
But I feel okay now. So I was in such
a weird emotional headspace. And then after that, through therapy,
(13:33):
I was able to come to terms with the fact
that it was a panic attack, which was really hard
for me to do because it was such physical pain
and I couldn't believe that my mind could do that
without there being like a physical reason for it. I've
(13:59):
had them since, and they have been similar, where it's
pains in my chest or pain in my back, and
they don't last as long as the first one did,
and I know that's what it is when it's happening,
and so I can sympathize with myself a bit more
(14:20):
and take care of myself a little bit better. Now.
Whoever I talk to about this is like, yeah, that
happened to me. I went to the er. I thought
I was having a heart attack, and it just blows
my mind how common that is because it hurts so much,
it's so scary, but it's so universal. There was no
(14:42):
indication that this was coming because I'm a very calm
person and I present like a very calm person, and
even at work, like if I'm super flustered, I'm still
like very solution oriented and I'm like, all right, well,
let's figure this out. I'm just very calm, and I
think that makes my head a mess because it's in
(15:06):
there somewhere, and this was the way for my body
to be like, help, help, help, help, all right. So
I will be playing the bowls, the gongs and the
chimes for about forty minutes. There's any combination of bowl
sounds that sound weird to you, just know that it'll pass.
(15:28):
I won't stay on anything for more than a few
minutes at a time. It can be a relaxing experience.
It can be emotional, visual, physical. You might feel the vibrations,
so just let whatever happen happen. It's okay to fall asleep,
but that's not the goal, so just try to stay
(15:49):
present with the sound. There are other people on the
floor and there's a street behind us, so you might
hear some other sounds, but the instruments will hopefully dron
it out. At the end of the forty minute, I
will bring up some nature sounds and then help guide
you guys back up. So after the er, I went
(16:09):
back to work, and my dear friend Sarah was like,
let's take a weekend away somewhere. So we went to
the O High Valley Inn. It's a beautiful spa in Ohi, California,
and it was my first time being there. I don't
(16:29):
like getting massages, so at the spa. On the spa
menu was a sound bath, and I didn't know what
it was, but I thought to myself, it's a spa,
it's going to be relaxing, and it's oh High Valley In,
so it's going to be professional. So I checked it out.
(16:52):
It was in like this beautiful corner room. There was
a crackling fire. I'm in my comfy spa robe and
I go in and she has me lay on. Her
name's Elizabeth. She has me lay on a massage table
(17:13):
on my back and she put a weighted blanket over me.
And then the soundbath started. And honestly, because I had
never done one before, I didn't know what I was hearing.
Like I can't even identify what instruments were used at
this time. I remember a whirling noise, maybe like a rainstick,
(17:35):
maybe some drums, probably singing bowls, but I honestly can't remember.
And it lasted about an hour. During the sound bath,
I remember feeling like I was almost going into sleep,
(17:57):
but coming out of it, I was very relaxed. I
was very warm because of the blanket and the robe
in the fire, but just like one hundred percent relaxed.
And at the end of the soundbath, Elizabeth like physically
(18:19):
helps me to sit up and she was like, do
you hold stress in your chest? And I said yes,
and she was like, she said to me, it's really
important that you get yourself rose quartz and have it
(18:41):
with you whenever you can, and also get sage and
those things will help you. And I was like done.
I'm absolutely interested in healing in whatever way that comes,
(19:05):
whether it's soundbaths or acupuncture or reiki. I kind of say,
why not. If it makes you feel better, then it's
doing no harm. I love crystals mostly because I like
looking at them. But when she said I needed rose quartz,
I was like, sure, okay. I came out of that
(19:27):
sound bath feeling so drunk, like so physically out of
my body and just like my mind was wiped. I
truly have no idea how I got back to my room.
I like floated there and I got back and my
friend Sarah was there and I was like, Sarah, I
(19:49):
don't know how I got here. She's like, what are
you talking about and I was like, Sarah, I gotta
get rose quartz and She's like, let's go, and so
I got rose quarts and age and it just was
like it was kind of a life changing moment because
I remember thinking, like my body just a couple months
(20:13):
ago was saying help, help, help, and here my body
was like, oh thanks, And it was just like a
really nice It was really nice to feel that kind
of healing, really and I didn't know I could feel
(20:34):
that way without drugs. I come home from O high
and really start thinking hard about what the stressors in
my life are because I'm having a very physical reaction
(20:57):
to it. And that panic attack really scared me. And
Joe is incredibly supportive and was like, do what you
have to do. So in the next couple months, I
psyched myself up to quit. I just knew I was
burnt out and it wasn't healthy, and I'm a completely
(21:21):
capable person. I could find something else, and I allowed
myself three months to kind of decompress and figure out
what I wanted to do. In that three months, I
had another panic attack, actually at a sound bath. I
was really exploring sound baths around LA because I wanted to.
(21:45):
I wanted to feel that again, and I wanted to
understand more about it. And the thing is, they're all different,
and I am glad I started out in Ohi with
one because it was a very professional type atmosphere. There
(22:10):
wasn't aside from Elizabeth kind of going rogue and telling
me I needed to get a crystal. But that's not
what you might discover around Los Angeles with soundbaths. So
I was kind of shopping around and I found when
I really liked, an eagle Rock called the Soundbath Center,
(22:30):
run by a woman named Jamie who's amazing and she
offers classes. So in twenty eighteen that October I signed
up to take her soundbath class, which was over a weekend,
and she, I believe, used to be a biologist and
(22:56):
so she approached it from a very scientific angle, which
was really helpful for me. Like she taught us about
sound waves and how they impact your nervous system and
things like that, and really kept chakras and spirituality and
all that stuff out of it. And so it felt
to me that I really understood what was happening physically
(23:22):
to me in a sound bath, and I really I
appreciated that from that class. After I took that class,
I bought some singing bowls. I bought three singing bowls
are made of silica quartz. They could also be made
(23:42):
of gemstones. They look like a big bowl. They can
be different sizes, different weights. They're all tuned to notes,
and they are played by running like a rubber or
silica mallet around the edge, similar to if you have
(24:05):
liquid in a wine glass and you rub your finger
around the rim makes a noise. And was just playing
them at home for myself and for Joe and honestly
my dogs. If you knew my dogs, they are psychos.
And whenever I started playing, they would come into the
(24:26):
room and lay down, and it was really cool to
see it, like transcend species. They just send right out,
take a deep breath in.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Notice how your head and your shoulders feel, there's any tension,
just to release it.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Shortly after, I bought a huge gong. We played one
similar during the class. And what's really interesting about this
hobby is that I'm a very introverted, quiet person, and
(25:35):
to take up so much space with such large, loud
things is really like a departure of everything I knew
about myself. But like I felt. So it felt so
natural to do and so fun, and it was just
a really fun thing to discover and explore. It was
(25:57):
fun to discover that I liked making a lot of
soothing noises. I never thought of it as an option
(26:18):
for income, and I honestly still don't. It's something I
just really love to do. I love doing it for
people and having that interaction with them and meeting new
people who are curious about it. But I'm still working
(26:38):
at the ASPCA, and it's still a very rewarding job.
I love knowing that I'm helping animals every day, and
it's an organization that I am truly proud to work for.
And I think that's because I am much more distanced
(27:04):
from my job than I was the first time around,
and I really have been able to leave my work
at work, and I work eight hours a day and
I do the best I can. But that's it. The
main goal for me is for people to have their
own experience, whatever that is. I always want to hear
(27:28):
about it after and if anything, you're laying down for
forty minutes, and that's time for yourself, that's something you
probably wouldn't do otherwise, And it's comfortable and it's peaceful.
(27:53):
I am in bed now. It is around ten thirty.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I will be trying to finish the New York Times
Spelling Bee today. I am currently at genius level, but
aimed to get Queen Bee and then I'll do some
reading and go to sleep. But it's the end of
the month and I've been thinking a lot about the
(28:22):
sound baths that I performed this month, and they were
all really great. There was one for Mother's Day where
someone brought their mom, which was really nice. A lot
of people who had their first sound baths, some who
were more experienced, but all had a great, great time.
(28:45):
And I am especially grateful for being able to give
one to my two nephews, who are thirteen and ten
and happened to be some of the most supportive, curious,
loving people I know, So that was really wonderful to do. Yeah,
(29:08):
so I'm just really glad that I can do this
work and feel grateful.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
M
Good morning. It is five forty five am. My alarm
is set for six fifteen am. But my dog Ha's
other plans for me this morning. Just letting him out now,
and my plan is to lay back down with him
(00:21):
until my alarm actually goes off at six fifteen and
then we'll make some coffee and sign on to work.
Be at work by six thirty am.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
This is finally a show about a sound bath practitioner
in a strip mall in Los Angeles. All the sounds
that you hear in this episode that aren't people talking
are created by her, recorded during one of her sessions.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
My name is Kylie Augustine and I am a bath practitioner,
but I have a full time job. So I grew
up in Greenwich, Connecticut. My father is an electrician and
owned Augustine Electric until he recently retired. My mom was
(01:16):
a stay at home mom, and my whole family pretty
much came from that region. My parents grew up as
next door neighbors across the street from where I grew up,
and my dad's family built the houses that they're still
(01:40):
living in. So it's a little Augustine Empire in Greenwich, Connecticut.
It's a silly place to live because of the income disparity.
There are immensely wealthy people and then people who have
been there forever like my parents and going to school there,
(02:03):
like growing up there is just really it was a
weird thing to navigate, and I really felt very free
once I got out of it and went to college.
I went to college in Boston. I went to Northeastern University,
and my husband, Joe, went to Emerson College, and Emerson
(02:25):
is also in the city of Boston, so it was
very close in proximity, and that's where we met and
we've been together ever since, and that's twenty years. Northeastern
is a co op school, so that means you go
to school for six months and have an internship for
six months, so when you graduate, you have a lot
(02:48):
of work experience, which is awesome and that's why a
lot of people go there. They teach you how to
write a resume and like really help you to connect
with employers an interview and things like that. So for
one of my internships, I went to New York City
(03:09):
to Departures magazine, which is for Platinum American Express card members,
and I interned there in the marketing department. And it
was fun. I went to the events that they put
on in New York and really learned what publishing was
all about. And then once I graduated from college, I
(03:31):
went to Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine. So right out
of college is where I started my career in publishing. Hello,
good to see you again. Nice to see you again
as well, Nice to see you. Does anyone need to
use the restroom before we get started? Okay, okay, yes,
(03:58):
you can take your shoes off, put all your stuff
over on the side, and just make sure your phones
are on silent. So I moved to New York City
with Joe right after I graduated in two thousand and
six and was working at Travel and Leisure Golf Magazine
(04:20):
as a sales assistant, and it was it was basically like,
you know, making appointments for them, doing their expense reports
and things like that. I was more interested in the
marketing side of things, and that team allowed me to
help them put on events and make marketing materials, and
so that's more of what I was attracted to. But
(04:45):
then in two thousand and eight, Travel and Leisure Golf
Magazine folded and we had about I think it was
three or four months of notice where we were still employed,
but we didn't really have anything to do because the
last issue was pretty much done, so we were all
(05:09):
just looking for other work, which is kind of the
best position to be in to be getting paid, have
a place to go to look for work, and have
that time to do it. I then moved from that
position to the finance department in American Express Publishing, where
(05:29):
I was the executive assistant to about six executives. But
I quickly knew that I wanted to find something else,
so I stayed in that position for about a year,
and then I went to the American Kennel Club. They
(05:52):
had two magazines at the time, the Gazette, which was
for like show dog people, and Family Dog, which was
for the everyday person who has a pet in their life,
and I sold ad space for them and I also
(06:13):
wrote articles. It was really fun. It was a really
fun place to work. It was full of like really
cool people on the publishing side, not on the like
show dog side of things, and it was just kind
of this like little little family that just loved dogs
(06:35):
but also loved writing and being in publishing. So in
twenty eleven, the Gazette folded and they had to let
people go, and because I was one of the last
people hired they had, they let me go. I got
(06:57):
like three months notice, so I had a job, I
had a place where I could go, and I was
still getting a paycheck, but I was able to look
for other work and I went a completely different route
and found a job at the ASPCA. Welcome. So have
(07:20):
either of you done a soundbath before?
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yes, I have.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
I did do the Integatron did do that once. Also, yeah,
I was just there last month and it'll be a
very different experience than that. And for you, what are
you expecting from today? Do you have any idea of
what you're in for?
Speaker 2 (07:44):
I will probably cry Okay, cool.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
And that's great, That's totally fine. That's happened before. The
ASPCA is the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty
to Animals. It's animals, but it's like the opposite of
the AKC. It's an animal welfare organization, and the American
(08:07):
Kennel Club is more about breeding and showing your dogs
and making a profit off of dogs, and there is
not a lot of oversight over the breeding that they certify.
So I started at the ASPCA as a senior coordinator
(08:28):
in the development department, so I was working on fundraising.
People most know the ASPCA or recognize the ASPCA from
the Sarah McLaughlin commercials, but most would be surprised to
know that they haven't aired since twenty ten. So that's
(08:50):
just how much it sticks in your mind and how
much it's impacted her career. Poor Sarah hi at McLaughlin,
Will you be an angel for a helpless animal?
Speaker 2 (09:03):
Every day innocent animals are abused, beaten and neglected and
they're crying out for help.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
But she did, she did. I mean, it was a
phenomenal partnership and made so much money for us. So
now I'm overseeing the fundraising content across the website, emails,
direct mail, canvassing, telemarketing, DRTV. It was a lot of
(09:33):
things that I had my hands in. I really enjoyed it.
I really liked I really like fundraising and it's honestly,
I mean, it's so rewarding. Everybody relates to animals and
it's not a hard thing to fundraise around, Like I
(09:54):
can't imagine fundraising for education or arts or Yeah, animals
are pretty universal. I was seven years into this position
at a nonprofit and I had zero work life balance.
(10:15):
I didn't have a hobby. I didn't have like yoga
or working out or anything that I could do to
make me feel better. And it was just it felt
very high stakes because it's such a big organization. And
in January of twenty eighteen, I had my first panic attack.
(10:41):
My first panic attack was in my chest. It felt
like it was I was having a heart attack. It
lasted a few days and it got worse and worse
over the course of time. My husband, Joe had to
(11:02):
travel for work, so I was alone, and I remember
being in bed and not being able to physically move.
I could not I couldn't move my body into a
seated position. I had to roll out of the bed.
And so Joe was like, go to urgent care, like
(11:24):
figure that out. And I was like, all right. So
I went to urgent care and they did an EKG
and I think that's all they did. And they were like,
you should go to the hospital, like you should go
to the er if you're having chest pains, and I
was like, ugh, all right. And I had two dogs
at the time, and I had to like figure out
(11:45):
boarding for them and drive them to boarding, which was
not safe to do in my condition, so I ubered
to the er. There were no rooms available, so I
was in a bed in the hallway and so many
blood tests. They kept a thing in my arm because
(12:06):
they just kept taking blood, and I got a chest
X ray and the nurse who did it was like,
are you stressed out? And I was like yeah, and
she was like stress can do weird things to you,
and I was like okay, so she knew. I was
there for like seven hours. I was crying the whole time.
(12:29):
It was very emotional. I was very scared. I had
never been to the er, and I was by myself
and like texting friends and being like, I think I
should tell someone i'm here, Like I don't, Joe's away.
I don't know what to do, and they obviously couldn't
find anything wrong with me, so the doctor prescribed me
(12:51):
pain meds and said I probably had a pulled chest
muscle and sent me home. Also, the weird thing about
that er trip was the moment I stepped into the hospital,
(13:11):
the pain was gone, and I was like, I think
I have to stay because I couldn't physically move earlier,
But I feel okay now. So I was in such
a weird emotional headspace. And then after that, through therapy,
(13:33):
I was able to come to terms with the fact
that it was a panic attack, which was really hard
for me to do because it was such physical pain
and I couldn't believe that my mind could do that
without there being like a physical reason for it. I've
(13:59):
had them since, and they have been similar, where it's
pains in my chest or pain in my back, and
they don't last as long as the first one did,
and I know that's what it is when it's happening,
and so I can sympathize with myself a bit more
(14:20):
and take care of myself a little bit better. Now.
Whoever I talk to about this is like, yeah, that
happened to me. I went to the er. I thought
I was having a heart attack, and it just blows
my mind how common that is because it hurts so much,
it's so scary, but it's so universal. There was no
(14:42):
indication that this was coming because I'm a very calm
person and I present like a very calm person, and
even at work, like if I'm super flustered, I'm still
like very solution oriented and I'm like, all right, well,
let's figure this out. I'm just very calm, and I
think that makes my head a mess because it's in
(15:06):
there somewhere, and this was the way for my body
to be like, help, help, help, help, all right. So
I will be playing the bowls, the gongs and the
chimes for about forty minutes. There's any combination of bowl
sounds that sound weird to you, just know that it'll pass.
(15:28):
I won't stay on anything for more than a few
minutes at a time. It can be a relaxing experience.
It can be emotional, visual, physical. You might feel the vibrations,
so just let whatever happen happen. It's okay to fall asleep,
but that's not the goal, so just try to stay
(15:49):
present with the sound. There are other people on the
floor and there's a street behind us, so you might
hear some other sounds, but the instruments will hopefully dron
it out. At the end of the forty minute, I
will bring up some nature sounds and then help guide
you guys back up. So after the er, I went
(16:09):
back to work, and my dear friend Sarah was like,
let's take a weekend away somewhere. So we went to
the O High Valley Inn. It's a beautiful spa in Ohi, California,
and it was my first time being there. I don't
(16:29):
like getting massages, so at the spa. On the spa
menu was a sound bath, and I didn't know what
it was, but I thought to myself, it's a spa,
it's going to be relaxing, and it's oh High Valley In,
so it's going to be professional. So I checked it out.
(16:52):
It was in like this beautiful corner room. There was
a crackling fire. I'm in my comfy spa robe and
I go in and she has me lay on. Her
name's Elizabeth. She has me lay on a massage table
(17:13):
on my back and she put a weighted blanket over me.
And then the soundbath started. And honestly, because I had
never done one before, I didn't know what I was hearing.
Like I can't even identify what instruments were used at
this time. I remember a whirling noise, maybe like a rainstick,
(17:35):
maybe some drums, probably singing bowls, but I honestly can't remember.
And it lasted about an hour. During the sound bath,
I remember feeling like I was almost going into sleep,
(17:57):
but coming out of it, I was very relaxed. I
was very warm because of the blanket and the robe
in the fire, but just like one hundred percent relaxed.
And at the end of the soundbath, Elizabeth like physically
(18:19):
helps me to sit up and she was like, do
you hold stress in your chest? And I said yes,
and she was like, she said to me, it's really
important that you get yourself rose quartz and have it
(18:41):
with you whenever you can, and also get sage and
those things will help you. And I was like done.
I'm absolutely interested in healing in whatever way that comes,
(19:05):
whether it's soundbaths or acupuncture or reiki. I kind of say,
why not. If it makes you feel better, then it's
doing no harm. I love crystals mostly because I like
looking at them. But when she said I needed rose quartz,
I was like, sure, okay. I came out of that
(19:27):
sound bath feeling so drunk, like so physically out of
my body and just like my mind was wiped. I
truly have no idea how I got back to my room.
I like floated there and I got back and my
friend Sarah was there and I was like, Sarah, I
(19:49):
don't know how I got here. She's like, what are
you talking about and I was like, Sarah, I gotta
get rose quartz and She's like, let's go, and so
I got rose quarts and age and it just was
like it was kind of a life changing moment because
I remember thinking, like my body just a couple months
(20:13):
ago was saying help, help, help, and here my body
was like, oh thanks, And it was just like a
really nice It was really nice to feel that kind
of healing, really and I didn't know I could feel
(20:34):
that way without drugs. I come home from O high
and really start thinking hard about what the stressors in
my life are because I'm having a very physical reaction
(20:57):
to it. And that panic attack really scared me. And
Joe is incredibly supportive and was like, do what you
have to do. So in the next couple months, I
psyched myself up to quit. I just knew I was
burnt out and it wasn't healthy, and I'm a completely
(21:21):
capable person. I could find something else, and I allowed
myself three months to kind of decompress and figure out
what I wanted to do. In that three months, I
had another panic attack, actually at a sound bath. I
was really exploring sound baths around LA because I wanted to.
(21:45):
I wanted to feel that again, and I wanted to
understand more about it. And the thing is, they're all different,
and I am glad I started out in Ohi with
one because it was a very professional type atmosphere. There
(22:10):
wasn't aside from Elizabeth kind of going rogue and telling
me I needed to get a crystal. But that's not
what you might discover around Los Angeles with soundbaths. So
I was kind of shopping around and I found when
I really liked, an eagle Rock called the Soundbath Center,
(22:30):
run by a woman named Jamie who's amazing and she
offers classes. So in twenty eighteen that October I signed
up to take her soundbath class, which was over a weekend,
and she, I believe, used to be a biologist and
(22:56):
so she approached it from a very scientific angle, which
was really helpful for me. Like she taught us about
sound waves and how they impact your nervous system and
things like that, and really kept chakras and spirituality and
all that stuff out of it. And so it felt
to me that I really understood what was happening physically
(23:22):
to me in a sound bath, and I really I
appreciated that from that class. After I took that class,
I bought some singing bowls. I bought three singing bowls
are made of silica quartz. They could also be made
(23:42):
of gemstones. They look like a big bowl. They can
be different sizes, different weights. They're all tuned to notes,
and they are played by running like a rubber or
silica mallet around the edge, similar to if you have
(24:05):
liquid in a wine glass and you rub your finger
around the rim makes a noise. And was just playing
them at home for myself and for Joe and honestly
my dogs. If you knew my dogs, they are psychos.
And whenever I started playing, they would come into the
(24:26):
room and lay down, and it was really cool to
see it, like transcend species. They just send right out,
take a deep breath in.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Notice how your head and your shoulders feel, there's any tension,
just to release it.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Shortly after, I bought a huge gong. We played one
similar during the class. And what's really interesting about this
hobby is that I'm a very introverted, quiet person, and
(25:35):
to take up so much space with such large, loud
things is really like a departure of everything I knew
about myself. But like I felt. So it felt so
natural to do and so fun, and it was just
a really fun thing to discover and explore. It was
(25:57):
fun to discover that I liked making a lot of
soothing noises. I never thought of it as an option
(26:18):
for income, and I honestly still don't. It's something I
just really love to do. I love doing it for
people and having that interaction with them and meeting new
people who are curious about it. But I'm still working
(26:38):
at the ASPCA, and it's still a very rewarding job.
I love knowing that I'm helping animals every day, and
it's an organization that I am truly proud to work for.
And I think that's because I am much more distanced
(27:04):
from my job than I was the first time around,
and I really have been able to leave my work
at work, and I work eight hours a day and
I do the best I can. But that's it. The
main goal for me is for people to have their
own experience, whatever that is. I always want to hear
(27:28):
about it after and if anything, you're laying down for
forty minutes, and that's time for yourself, that's something you
probably wouldn't do otherwise, And it's comfortable and it's peaceful.
(27:53):
I am in bed now. It is around ten thirty.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
And.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
I will be trying to finish the New York Times
Spelling Bee today. I am currently at genius level, but
aimed to get Queen Bee and then I'll do some
reading and go to sleep. But it's the end of
the month and I've been thinking a lot about the
(28:22):
sound baths that I performed this month, and they were
all really great. There was one for Mother's Day where
someone brought their mom, which was really nice. A lot
of people who had their first sound baths, some who
were more experienced, but all had a great, great time.
(28:45):
And I am especially grateful for being able to give
one to my two nephews, who are thirteen and ten
and happened to be some of the most supportive, curious,
loving people I know, So that was really wonderful to do. Yeah,
(29:08):
so I'm just really glad that I can do this
work and feel grateful.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
M
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