I experienced complex intergenerational trauma throughout my childhood. I left home at sixteen already struggling with severe depression, anxiety, insomnia, addictions and relationship issues. When I had my son at thirty I knew I had to heal myself to be a better mother and do my best to end the passing on of trauma patterns. I stopped drinking (by then my last remaining chemical addiction), found a Jungian psychotherapist and life brought me to a school which included spiritual development in their model of human development. My son attended and I worked there.
Over the years I began to make sense of my experiences and understand how they had shaped me into the person I was becoming, highly empathetic with a drive to support families with young children. Meanwhile I was learning about how trauma affects the body. I had tried many times to make yoga and meditation a daily practise but just couldn’t stick with it. Trying to meditate and feeling like I couldn’t was just more food for my ‘not good enough’ complex. It was painful but my counselling sessions were helping me to unpick what was mine and what wasn’t and my feelings of self-worth grew. I knew that some form of bodywork would really enhance my healing.
During furlough I immersed myself in healing work, accessing trauma super-conferences online and trying out different healing modalities. I signed up for an online retreat and as part of the preparation we were sent a recording of a singing bowls session to listen to in advance. I lay on my bed with headphones on. At the end I was stunned. My body was in a state of relaxation I had never experienced and my mind had found peace. This was what bliss felt like. And this from a recording! Within a week I had contacted someone about training in sound meditation.
And here I am in a new learning and sharing phase of life!
Trauma experiences aren’t only the obvious ones. Everyone will have experienced events that were overwhelming, causing the nervous system to respond without a resolution. What affects us emotionally affects us physically and vice versa. What’s special about the gong is that it is universally accessible. The sounds and vibrations alter brainwaves states, stimulate reverberations in every cell in the body, and quiet the ego-mind, all conducive to a natural healing state. After my first experience of sound I told someone “Sound meditated me!”
My experiences and studies have led me to believe that taking personal responsibility for our individual healing is the path to collective healing. My intention is to hold sacred space and together with the gong, co-create an experience that helps others enter a state in which the self-healing processes are at work.