Latest / Everyday Ancestral with James Barry / How Sound Heals: Ancestral Wisdom, Music, and Deep Transformation with Helane Marie Anderson

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How Sound Heals: Ancestral Wisdom, Music, and Deep Transformation with Helane Marie Anderson · Everyday Ancestral with James Barry

• 0:00
  Welcome back to everyday ancestral I'm James Barry. I am truly excited to share our next guest
• 0:07
  Helene Marie Anderson. She's someone I actually have known since my oldest child was born. We really
• 0:14
  enjoyed getting to know her then. Later on I learned about her involvement with sound therapy.
• 0:20
  I was just so excited to share her guests with you. So I'm going to read her bio because it's
• 0:26
  pretty long and amazing. Helene Marie Anderson is a multi-layered musician and composer,
• 0:33
  singer, pianist, harpist, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Her unique style of working with sound
• 0:40
  blends, her years of studying healing modalities with contemporary music and sound healing.
• 0:46
  Helene is currently a featured sound meditation producer and artist for Apple Fitness Plus
• 0:51
  Splatoon, releasing more than 15 sound meditations in 2023 and 2024 that are available on all streaming
• 0:59
  platforms. Also in 2024 she co-produced and released an album of original songs and mantras
• 1:05
  entitled Listen to the Trees, featuring nine singles and remixes. On the wellness front,
• 1:11
  Helene is the best-selling author of Your Ment to Sing, which is 10 steps to unlock your inner
• 1:17
  voice, a transformational voice coach, certified craniosacral therapist and body worker, sound
• 1:24
  healer, yoga instructor, and teacher. She has served as an adjunct faculty at the University of
• 1:32
  Southern California, Thornton's School of Music for the past 14 years and was previously artistic
• 1:38
  administrator at the Los Angeles Philharmonic where she produced concerts at both Walt Disney concert
• 1:45
  and The Hollywood Bowl. Helene holds a master of arts degree from Indiana University and a
• 1:50
  bachelor of music degree in piano performance from Salem College. She also holds a certification
• 1:56
  in sound healing and sound therapy from the Globe Institute in San Francisco. Helene teaches
• 2:01
  her own courses in sound healing and vocal alchemy through her business Sequel Sounds, which she
• 2:07
  founded in 2014. She's truly a beautiful person and artist. I'm very excited for you to listen and
• 2:15
  make sure you stick around because she actually gives us a taste of some sound healing at the very
• 2:23
  end of the podcast. So here we go. Welcome, Helene Marie Anderson. What came first? You being a
• 2:31
  musician or the sound healing and then when did the healing part come into the music? There's a long
• 2:38
  version and a short version. I'll stick with the short version for now. I am a lifelong musician.
• 2:44
  My parents used to joke I came out of the womb singing but actually it was more like screaming.
• 2:49
  So I always sang. I sang in choir my whole life like from the moment that I grew up in a church
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  and would go to the choir when I was four or five years old. I always sang. So it was really in my DNA
• 3:02
  music but not in my literal DNA speaking of the ancestral lineage and the name of your podcast.
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  My parents were not musicians at all. In fact, they hated piano lessons. So they weren't going to force
• 3:14
  me or my brothers to take piano lessons. So when I was nine or ten, I basically told my parents
• 3:20
  that they could keep my allowance if they let me take piano lessons because I was so self-motivated
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  in my entire life living at home. They never once told me to practice but there are a number of
• 3:32
  occasions where they had to tell me to stop practicing. So that is the origin of my musical training
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  but I went to college as a piano major and a minor in arts management actually and then I went
• 3:47
  to Amsterdam for a year on a rotary scholarship studied piano and then I started studying voice
• 3:52
  more seriously. I always took voice lessons but it was my major was piano and then I came back and
• 3:59
  went to graduate school and got my masters at Indiana University in arts administration but while
• 4:05
  I was there I was accompanying people for their voice lessons and I was taking voice lessons myself.
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  So I never stopped doing music. I just my primary focus for a long time was doing the administration
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  and then I would do music for myself. It's funny because in today's age you just always hear people
• 4:23
  saying I want to perform. Look at me, look at me, like what kept you from embracing the performance
• 4:29
  aspect at that age. Well as a classical musician it's very challenging and there's such a high level
• 4:35
  of perfectionism in the way that it is taught the way that people interact the way that if you're
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  not one of the top people that's touring all over the world or winning competitions the place for
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  you is to go be a professor at a university, get your doctorate at some school and then I also
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  recognize if you don't have an international performing career you wouldn't be able to choose
• 5:02
  or be choosy about where you live. You would have to go wherever you got a job. So it was a very
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  practical thing. I actually was planning to start my masters in piano when I came back to the US
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  and decided to totally change course and do the administration route and there were two things
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  and it's ironic too because it's something I want to touch on of just shifts in myself and also
• 5:24
  relates to the original question of getting to sound healing which I'm getting to but this idea
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  that my ego was very driven by wanting to be the best at something and I knew I couldn't be the
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  best pianist or the best classical singer I know I'd be good I was good but I wasn't the best
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  but I knew doing administration that I had the business mind my dad was an international
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  businessman so I was like oh I can be in the arts and be the best and run a major arts institution.
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  So at that time I was just motivated by different forces so I chose to do the arts administration
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  because I wanted to live in a big city and at that time I wanted to live on the East Coast I was like
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  okay I'm gonna live between Washington DC and Boston and one of the big cities ended up in New York
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  that was very specific that I was like this is my life I want to run Carnegie Hall Lincoln Center
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  or Brooklyn Academy of Music and that was my like trajectory and then I went on that trajectory
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  and had the jobs that were the springboards to do that and then my father passed away and then
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  all these things changed in my makeup and this was like 2007 and all of a sudden it was like all
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  these things or gifts that I had and the healing arts that were kind of more my hobby and things I
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  would do on the side or I'd still play for myself here there or sing for myself here there I was
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  ignoring them and it just all of a sudden went on this very long journey to shift it all around
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  and so the way that sound came to me I met a couple of the very early on sound bass practitioners
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  in Los Angeles before it was really a big thing and in fact hired one of them to do a sound
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  bass for my birthday and I think that was 2011 I wasn't even at that moment called to it so it's
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  what's interesting about my thought process it more just all of a sudden happened as my voice started
• 7:18
  to open up and I started to do more with my training and cranio-sacral work but I really took a
• 7:23
  polarity therapy class that was a cleanse in a business class and getting clear that it was like
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  no actually you're a musician first you're like a musician before you are a cranio-sacral therapist
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  before you are an administrator before you are this so I had to kind of break down a lot of things
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  to where it came into play and I had a long journey with plant medicine that I've stepped away
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  from now it's it felt like we had a completion I had a completion for that part of my journey but
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  I remember the first experience I had in that realm I was getting a very clear message that I
• 8:00
  was going to be the intersect where music and healing intersect and at that time I didn't know
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  what that meant because in the more intellectual brain or of what already existed music therapy or
• 8:13
  becoming a music therapist was the only kind of option this whole idea about being a sound
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  healer and sound that didn't exist in that moment yet not the way it does write this moment
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  we're at that like kind of tipping point where it's kind of very saturated right now and things are
• 8:28
  changing but this idea at that moment I didn't know what it meant and so I started to explore this
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  idea of music therapy and realized it was just a little too clinical for what it was that I felt
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  I would like to experience and so I did do a sound training in San Francisco it was 2013 and 2014
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  and then all of a sudden I was like oh yeah this is where it all kind of starts to come together all
• 8:53
  these aspects of who I am but it's constantly shifting and then lockdown happened I had tried to
• 9:01
  learn to play the guitar multiple times in this life and it just never spoke to me to play it
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  it never felt quite right in my body I just never clicked the way piano clicked for me the way
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  other instruments click for me very easily the guitar for some reason I like the guitar I just
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  didn't like to play it myself and so it just never quite felt right and one of my friends after
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  trying to teach me a couple lessons this is probably now or 20 April of 2020 when everything
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  was locked down and she said well why don't you just get a harp she'd bought a cheap harp on
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  Amazon and was starting to play and I was like oh that's a good idea but I knew being a classical
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  musician I'm very particular about instruments so I knew that playing a cheap harp off of Amazon
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  was not going to work for me so I asked my friend who was a harpist I went and got a decent small harp
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  that was kind of a starter harp and I was like oh just dabble and I currently own now four harps
• 9:55
  in a minivan so you know I am a childless woman in middle age who owns a minivan so it's a consistent
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  joke about that and and that kind of exploded my range of being able to not just tour with an
• 10:10
  acoustic instrument but to learn a complicated instrument later in life and it was a very strange
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  thing where people are like haven't you been playing the harp the whole time I thought you were
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  playing I was like no I'm it's been less than five years is the harp like the guitar though like
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  so when you're going to retreats or events where you're doing the sound healing are you bringing
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  all four harps no I only bring one harp at a time okay so it's not like one is providing a
• 10:37
  different sound or pitch than than the other well no they do they have different purposes and so
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  I have now a small travel harp that I can take as a carry on that's an electric harp so I have
• 10:50
  to plug it in to amplify and I needed one that I could travel with it's newer and so I have that
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  and then I have a 27 string that's the same size as the first harp I got which I've recently sold
• 11:01
  to a beautiful person because I was not needing two harps at the same size and that's my warhorse
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  harp that I take when I do sound therapy sessions and rehab clinics or I go to small events or
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  I do that kind of thing where I'm not amplified but it does have a plug in and then I have my
• 11:17
  slightly bigger lever harp that has a really big sound it's great to record in and for smaller
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  events and then I now have a smaller pedal harp and the pedal harp you can play in all the keys
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  because the pedals change three different notes where the lever harps can only do two notes per
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  string and the the layout of it though where the guitar is very much like the chordal system of
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  what happens the layout of the harp is the same as the piano it's like the keys are in order so
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  I already wasn't learning music it's more the technique of the finger strength to be able to play
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  harp which I'm still learning and getting better at every day and so it's just a slightly
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  different thing but being a classical musician I just really appreciate having an acoustic instrument
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  I can play keyboards and I record stuff on MIDI and I have facility but if I can't play a piano
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  I would rather play an acoustic instrument because there's a response an emotional response
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  from acoustic instruments that you can't get from electronic instruments that's interesting sound
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  healing therapy is it any instrument or do people kind of fall into something like the harp
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  and does it also always involve the voice or is it just instrumental like is there kind of a
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  specific definition of sound therapy or is it any sound and any modality in any way
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  well that's a really interesting question because this concept of sound bath is a western concept
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  right where western interpretation of how this sound therapy thing is the instruments themselves
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  are based on more ancient things like Tibetan bowls have been around for thousands of years
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  some of the instruments in India have been around for thousands of years the way that the
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  key structures work in Indian raga is different than the western system there's the whole
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  school of things that have been considered music as therapy or sound healing as therapy
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  that's spanned over multiple different decades and thousands of years and eons or whatever
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  the right word is that wasn't coming to me but this idea that the instruments themselves now
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  you have this kind of gong and the crystal singing bowls and people see this as sort of the
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  standard you're doing a sound bath you're playing crystal singing bowls you're playing gong
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  now there are people that claim that voice is not sound healing or people that claim that you can't
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  hit the gong in the middle of the gong because that's not good energy or something and I just say
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  there's a lot of this kind of rhetoric that goes around in the sound healing community that's not
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  based in fact to me voice is the original instrument like that came before anything else so for me
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  the idea that the voice isn't healing in that capacity just doesn't make sense to me the idea that
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  you wouldn't hit a gong in the middle which is the fundamental pitch of the instrument doesn't make
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  sense to me and so this is the part coming from the musical background now there are people
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  that do sound healing that are not musicians that are also very effective sound healers because
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  they understand the energy around it because you are working with energy with sound every instrument
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  carries different vibration I will use hand pans or tongue drums I use Native American flutes
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  the harp now and I didn't use to when I first started I was mostly using the crystal bowls and the
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  and then when lockdown happened the gong just felt way too intense for what most people
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  need because the gong is a very intense energy for people and that was more an intuition that
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  it's not what's needed right now and the harp I feel like came into my life at the right time to
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  carry in the vibrational energy of what was needed and so that's been the evolution so kind of long
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  answer to your question but it's very subjective is the most accurate answer to your question and
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  certain people are going to resonate with different things and even when I started doing sound
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  as whatever decade plus ago my original approach was that there was all of this stuff happening and
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  everything was intense and people wanted transformation so a lot of the sounds or the things I was
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  working with were very intense and sometimes kind of loud and they were really kind of opening it
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  up and I feel like my own evolution has been really back into this okay I'm relaxing the nervous system
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  I'm not transforming because sound therapy can have both effects now if somebody comes to me and they
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  say I want more energy then they might get a much more intense sound session to kind of bring that
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  energy out but for the most part everyone's nervous system and I say everyone is a collective as
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  most people that I know have needed more regulation in the nervous system then really intense sounds
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  are too much for them so it's really less about the choice of instrument it can be because instruments
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  can have specific medicine shakers are good for moving energy for example drums are good for moving
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  energy and getting people into more of a trans state any kind of rhythmic pattern can bring people
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  into a trans state but then you want to also bring in drones and you want to bring in this element
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  that people can really drop in or feel like they're held so it's about understanding the nature of
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  the different sounds and how they work that's why hand pans can be very relaxing for some people
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  because they mimic this trans state with the rhythm if there's somebody that's playing it and it's
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  very effective so a big piece of this is understanding not only the vibration of the instrument but
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  the effect it has on the human body what effects do you see happen in the human body from this
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  sound therapy it goes all over the map what people experience I always try and let people know
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  who are not familiar with sound healing that what sound can do is bring things to the surface
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  that are ready to either be seen felt or released in the beginning when I didn't explain it as
• 17:30
  well or I was learning how to explain it better people would feel a lot of anxiety or they would
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  feel pressure or something would happen and they would just want to leave they would have this
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  really intense experience and they wouldn't stick it out and now I'm very clear to explain to
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  people what's happening in the beginning if there are people who've never done sound before
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  because it doesn't happen all the time and it doesn't happen to everyone but oftentimes people
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  will have reactions where they feel really anxious all of a sudden or a sound is triggering for them
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  I had this experience myself because I had a teacher that would play a conch shell
• 18:06
  I still don't like the sound of the conch shell by the way it's just one of those sounds that
• 18:10
  doesn't work for me when he would play it I would have this really visceral reaction
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  I don't like this at all and he pointed out well then that's kind of what you need it's kind of
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  like sometimes the medicine is the thing that triggers you is the thing you need to heal that
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  and so I remember he played it again after that conversation and I still don't like the sound
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  but I was able to let it relax me instead of fighting it it sounds to me almost like certain sounds
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  may have the resonance of let's say a trauma that you have in your body and so to your point like
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  if that instrument or that sound vibration is tapping that trauma that is sometimes what you need
• 18:57
  to actually access the trauma to work through it is it tapping into some like other life experience
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  with that literal instrument or does the sound vibration carry that emotional weight of sometimes
• 19:10
  triggering trauma I think it's both I don't claim to have control over what happens in
• 19:20
  anyone else's experience because people will often ask me well is this the right experience
• 19:24
  should I be experiencing that there is no right experience of sound it's your experience in your
• 19:30
  experiences valid whatever it is which also relates to life in general the way that the singing
• 19:36
  bowls are are tuned for example to get to the answer of your question is they are tuned based on
• 19:41
  the C major scale so you have these seven notes that are of the C major scale and so most singing
• 19:48
  bowl sets you'll get seven bowls and you get the seven white notes on the piano keyboard in the
• 19:53
  middle octave sometimes it's the the octave below depending on the bowls in the size of them
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  when you buy a chakra set of bowls it is those notes on the piano keyboard now western tuning
• 20:05
  and the system and all of that didn't even exist I don't know 500 years ago 600 years ago it didn't
• 20:13
  exist so this idea of western notation in housing all of the blueprints for sound healing doesn't
• 20:22
  really make sense because there's evidence in the higher glyphs and things and all the obelisks
• 20:27
  when you go to Egypt because I've been lucky enough to go and you hit them and they're tuning for
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  so we don't really know but it is our western system interpretation of sound and other cultures and
• 20:44
  how it is translated into the way we approach sound healing however because we are westerners and we
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  have in these last however many for 500 years really listen to music from this concept of western
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  tuning if we've grown up in western countries so our way of relating to music is based on this scale
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  we have a familiarity with it in the way our body responds to it the way we listen to it in
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  secular music and pop music and classical music and all of that we have a relationship to the different
• 21:22
  key structures because this is the music we've listened to our whole lives and so this approach to
• 21:28
  sound healing it brings in that western element as a musician and a train musician myself I feel like
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  it is important to understand the language of what it is you are presenting to other people I kind of
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  feel like if you don't understand at least the basics of the music theory it's complicated for me
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  because I do feel like it's going to teach a language in a class of a language you don't speak
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  yourself a little bit because very important to me just to understand and then your intuition can
• 22:00
  still do things and people can still do really effective healing sessions with one singing bowl
• 22:04
  and a percussion tool and when I teach people I show them you can still do effective sound
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  healing sessions with very few instruments however understanding the language helps you because
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  certain bowls will work and knowing the notes if you're going to buy other instruments if you're
• 22:23
  going to maybe eventually bring in a harp or you're eventually going to bring in a xylophone
• 22:27
  or a hand pin understanding what key they're in and where the chords are is going to help you
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  become a better player and understand which bowl transitions well when you're in a sound healing
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  with people because that note matches this note on this instrument so it's it's kind of like the
• 22:44
  tool of how you piece things together I personally feel is really important to understand
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  you mentioned tuning forks and I know that there is some body work where they actually will
• 22:55
  place them on the body when you're talking about sound therapy though is that is that an example
• 23:00
  of sound therapy or use is sound therapy really more the sounds around you and how they're affecting
• 23:06
  you versus actually touching the body with the physical tuning fork or the instrument or something
• 23:11
  like that it's both it's considered sound therapy if I do a private session I might put a bowl on
• 23:18
  someone's body and I might use the weighted tuning forks that's what they're called their weighted
• 23:23
  tuning forks and then I will use that on people and play music usually now these days I play music
• 23:29
  that I've recorded myself because energetically I understand what's happening in the space
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  I'll use both but anything that uses sound and vibration is falls under the category of sound
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  therapy you may just define it a little differently if someone's doing a private session in a room
• 23:47
  like a massage room or something and you're using other sounds around the body or if you're doing
• 23:52
  a sound bath which means you're doing it in a bigger space for a group usually although I've done
• 23:57
  full soundbass for just one person before so let's say someone's hired you to do sound therapy
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  what is the process obviously you sit and talk to them first get an idea of what's going on
• 24:09
  and then the second part of this question is how much of the actual sound therapy is inspired by
• 24:17
  the moment and how much of it is actually calculated based off of that conversation before you actually
• 24:23
  go in to start the sound therapy there's two different answers to that question because first if
• 24:29
  it's a private session I would approach it similarly to how I approach craniosacral therapy sessions
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  we'll have that brief intention setting what do you hear for what are the ailments in your body
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  what is it that you are hoping to gain from the session today and then I would put them on the
• 24:46
  massage table and then I would probably do some hands-on work and some work with the tuning forks
• 24:52
  as well as do some work with some of the bowls or that I generally don't bring gong if it's just
• 24:57
  one person in a small room because it's little too much I find for people it can be a little
• 25:02
  destabilizing that's just been my experience some people only use gongs and that's totally their
• 25:07
  medicine everybody finds the medicine that works for them and then if I go into a private sound
• 25:13
  session because I'm often hired to do private sessions for people in their homes or in locations
• 25:20
  that they rent and when that happens it depends on the occasion if it's a birthday if it's a
• 25:26
  bridal shower whatever the occasion might be I ask them what their intention is I generally will
• 25:33
  direct it to the person of honor or the person that they're being remembered or whichever is
• 25:38
  the intention that they're holding in that space and then I will do a very brief intro of kind
• 25:45
  of what to expect let them lay down guide them through the breath for a little while and then
• 25:51
  drift off into the sound I only plan what instruments I'm going to bring if I'm doing a really
• 25:58
  big event and it's outside then I will bring all my sound gear and I'll do a lot of live looping
• 26:04
  and things like that if I'm doing just a small in-home sound bath I just bring my acoustic instruments
• 26:10
  I bring my small harp I bring Tibetan bowls I bring some crystal singing bowls some chimes
• 26:15
  Native American flutes and usually a hand pan or a tongue drum I will switch them out here and
• 26:21
  there but that very much has been working for me lately so it would just depend on the event
• 26:27
  what I would do now I didn't use to at the beginning sing songs it would all be very esoteric
• 26:35
  things that would come to me or it would just be like people say it's like channeling but it would
• 26:41
  be sort of vibrationally listening to what's happening in the room and just whatever comes comes
• 26:46
  and it's all improvised since I've been working throughout the pandemic a lot more diligently with
• 26:53
  mantras and Sanskrit mantras and things and writing a lot of music I find a lot of the songs that
• 26:59
  have been coming through that I've recorded and released they want to be played more often now
• 27:06
  I will incorporate those into the sound experience usually towards the end when people are very
• 27:14
  dropped in so that's changed like I said that evolution when I first started doing it of that
• 27:19
  transformation of things being super intense now it just feels like my sound baths and the things
• 27:24
  and the singing that comes through is just much more gentle just feels like everything that's
• 27:28
  coming through is much more gentle than it used to be you mentioned the sound looping if you're
• 27:34
  up there alone and you're looping sounds then you are basically a music producer at that point
• 27:39
  right I mean yeah versus the healing experiences where there's multiple musicians and you're all
• 27:44
  just kind of stuck in your instrument you know your specific area of expertise but you're really
• 27:51
  pulling your music theory knowledge if you're doing multiple instruments and you're doing sound
• 27:55
  looping I mean that's that sounds pretty awesome I have to admit I probably had all the looping
• 28:02
  music in my head for a good five years before I dialed the technology in I had a friend that
• 28:08
  helped me and then I just felt so overwhelmed if things wouldn't work or whatever and then I get
• 28:13
  frustrated and I just kept doing my thing and then finally one of the other advantages of lockdown
• 28:19
  for me was okay I learned to play the harp and then I learned how to produce finally how do I
• 28:23
  live stream how do I do this thing and that idea of dialing in the technology and being able to
• 28:30
  start looping and doing it live and the mastery comes more of what to do with the equipment when
• 28:35
  something goes wrong that was the moment I knew that I was ready to try it live because I was
• 28:42
  starting to understand what I needed to do if something went wrong from your experience how does
• 28:47
  just electronically pushing the music out versus being in a small room where there's you know maybe
• 28:53
  no speaker no sound amplification how does that affect the therapy piece or does it I find it's
• 29:01
  just as effective and to be clear I don't really use electronic music on it at all for sake of space
• 29:09
  when you're setting up all the electronic stuff and the other instruments I pre-recorded all of my
• 29:14
  singing bowls so they're in a MIDI controller but it's actually me playing the singing bowl
• 29:20
  and I have it set up with the effects and mixed and whatever so that when it comes through the speakers
• 29:26
  it sounds pretty good it sounds like the singing bowl in that moment and so when I'm doing that and
• 29:32
  then I can loop my voice live I don't pre-record any of that I do it right on the spot and the same
• 29:38
  with the harp I will play it live and then I'll just loop it in that moment and for me honestly it
• 29:46
  felt so fun because it was like this whole way to play was sound in a new way and also because
• 29:54
  I have a large range with my singing voice I can now sing with myself I can create these sounds
• 30:01
  capes where I can sing in multiple ranges all at the same time where I couldn't do that without
• 30:06
  the technology so that's a way where I found technology has really worked for the experience and
• 30:12
  people enjoy it but acoustically just to finish that they answer that question in a small space
• 30:18
  using the technology doesn't quite work because smaller spaces are not really designed to have a
• 30:23
  big speaker in the room and so it doesn't always work so well it works better when there's a much
• 30:29
  bigger space well to be more specific I guess the question is really more around actually just
• 30:35
  playing an instrument with no electronic stimulus versus having EMF kind of like
• 30:44
  electrical responses and finally music like have you experienced does that affect the therapeutic
• 30:51
  part of the sound versus you know just being in a room where you're playing the harp and there's
• 30:57
  no amplification no EMFs no digital anything and it's just you in the instrument very clean very
• 31:05
  pure very ancestral versus you now have wires speakers digital devices that are now entering the
• 31:14
  energetic space I wouldn't say it's less effective I would say it's different effective that
• 31:20
  would probably be how I would answer it I think there's preference I think some people prefer
• 31:27
  just to have the acoustic instrument I tried to do it live in one space I perform in quite often
• 31:32
  and it didn't quite work in the space and some people loved it wanted to be on the speaker
• 31:38
  and other people were like oh I just miss hearing it very like your voice kind of carry in the space
• 31:43
  and I just realized that those smaller spaces they just don't it doesn't work the same way because
• 31:48
  you can also hear the delay a little bit you can hear the acoustic at the same time so it has to
• 31:54
  be a bigger space now when I was doing it every week at Hollywood forever cemetery for example that
• 32:01
  was such a big space that the speaker carried great and people still had really amazing experiences
• 32:06
  so I'd say the experience feedback I've had as people have had just as profound experiences with
• 32:12
  both experiences and whether or not one prefers one or the other or likes both or I've had people
• 32:19
  that like both I have people that only really like one so I think that the experience of it is
• 32:25
  more subjective what people gain from it but I've had people express really positive experiences
• 32:31
  and more transformational experiences from both you mentioned the cranio-sacral therapy let's
• 32:38
  dive into that piece a little bit because it sounds like you incorporate both you mean you're
• 32:42
  basically incorporating cranio-sacral therapy voice sessions and sound healing not everyone knows
• 32:48
  about cranio-sacral therapy so could you just dive into a what that is and how it affects people
• 32:55
  so cranio-sacral therapy is a type of body work that is pretty gentle in terms of the way it works
• 33:02
  on the nervous system and the premise of cranio-sacral therapy is that you hold the bones in the body
• 33:10
  to mimic the memory of being in the womb because when we are in the womb then we're connected to
• 33:16
  the mother through our belly button but also the nervous system when we are in utero the first
• 33:22
  part of the nervous system that forms is the base of the spine it's not the brain the brain comes
• 33:27
  last so the stems grow up the spine and then the brain forms as the last piece of the nervous system
• 33:34
  and so this premise that when you hold someone underneath the pelvic bone these sessions are usually
• 33:42
  generally done with clothes on or you go under a sheet if somebody is also doing a combination with
• 33:47
  massage but you hold that space because it mimics the body's memory of being in the womb and so
• 33:55
  what happens is is that then the body starts to heal itself it's the idea that you go into the
• 34:01
  parasympathetic nervous system and the body starts to go into homeostasis because the tension that's
• 34:09
  held in the body starts to release on its own just as an example with deep tissue massage you'd
• 34:15
  go into someone's muscle knots and then you hold it and you are really hard and hold it until it
• 34:20
  starts to dissipate this is kind of the opposite premise you're holding under a specific pattern
• 34:26
  and allowing the body's pattern to unfold on its own and so you do this in various places on the
• 34:33
  body the main focus of cranio-sacral therapy is like the name it's the cranium and the sacrum and
• 34:38
  so it's like that space in between but it also you can touch the feet it can be a full body experience
• 34:44
  as well and most people especially if they come over time they tend to have these experiences where
• 34:52
  they'll go into lucid dreaming states pretty quickly or the body will start to move and almost
• 34:58
  like writhing because it's releasing a pattern of holding that's been the tension built up in the
• 35:06
  body and it's giving this space so an experienced practitioner I've been doing this work for 15
• 35:10
  years you can really follow where the body is and because I've really sensitive fingertips in general
• 35:17
  because I play the piano in the harp and I do the cranio work it's this idea I can sense vibration
• 35:22
  in my fingertips so I understand where it's kind of going and unwinding in the body so it's often
• 35:27
  called cranio-sacral unwinding and do you find images or awarenesses come into you when you're
• 35:35
  holding someone in that space you know and then when you bring it to them and you say hey you know
• 35:41
  I got this image you know does this meaning anything do you do you find that it does have meaning
• 35:45
  for them yeah that happens to me quite often and I feel like I don't particularly relate to the
• 35:52
  word of saying I'm psychic or that kind of energy it's more that I'm tuning into that person
• 35:59
  and I think we all have a vibrational field and when you really stop to listen you can pick up things
• 36:05
  from the person you're standing next to if you're really paying attention right and so this idea
• 36:09
  that if I'm paying a hundred percent attention to you and I'm touching you in a place where you're
• 36:14
  holding trauma then I can tap in and often I will see an image or I'll see that and I liken it as
• 36:20
  that person's letting me see this because it seems to be related to this part of the body or this
• 36:26
  part that I'm touching right now so I will hold under that space and often yes I will share
• 36:33
  will say to them that I do see this picture of this I don't know what that means and often it will
• 36:39
  be the memory attied to that holding pattern in the body so it makes a connection and that's
• 36:45
  really why I love the craniosacral work so much is because it gives people consciousness around
• 36:51
  the patterns that are held in the body in the mind and so when they leave it's a lot longer lasting
• 36:59
  I have found than a lot of other healing modalities because it empowers the person to understand
• 37:06
  the origin of that feeling and then thus be able to maybe release it yes you mentioned that your
• 37:14
  relationship to music changed when your father passed now you've been doing this work for a long
• 37:20
  time has it changed again yes it has it's a change quite a bit I feel like it's interesting because
• 37:30
  one of the great ironies of my life I find is that from my 20s a lot of my career I built up in
• 37:39
  the classical music world was that I worked with modern composers composers of contemporary classical
• 37:46
  music and that was one of my areas of specialty and that's why I originally got hired to work at
• 37:52
  the Los Angeles Philharmonic because I worked at a music publishing company and I promoted composers
• 37:57
  and that and I think it's taken me this many years to be like I actually I'm a composer I've been
• 38:02
  a composer the whole time and I just was doing all these other things and kind of not claiming that
• 38:08
  aspect of myself or my own gifts because I had some work to do on myself and my own confidence in
• 38:15
  my voice and it's been a real blessing I released a full album earlier this year I released them
• 38:22
  as singles and actually just today released the full album again in the order that it was meant
• 38:29
  to be listened to so it's almost an hour worth of music that I did and I'm playing almost every
• 38:34
  instrument I have a few friends that came on as guest artists but most of it is all me playing
• 38:39
  and singing I'm the only one singing on the album and I feel like I'm just getting started
• 38:45
  and then I've been producing sound meditations for apple fitness plus and platoon and I've been
• 38:51
  very blessed to be able to do that and I have 18 sound meditations that are now released on all
• 38:57
  streaming platforms under that as well so this year alone I've released well over six hours of
• 39:04
  music on streaming platforms that's so interesting because you know you talked about not seeing
• 39:11
  yourself necessarily as a musician seen it's like well that's not the really the career because
• 39:18
  it's so challenging and so then you went down administrative paths but then ultimately you
• 39:24
  became a therapist to support people and opening and finding their voice and in many ways it
• 39:30
  sounds like you've found your own or refound your own the one that was most attracted to music even
• 39:36
  when you're a kid maybe you you retapped into that would you say that for sure and of course you
• 39:42
  have that hindsight 2020 or I'm like I figured this out a while ago then I my life would have
• 39:48
  looked very different but maybe not you know it's just it's one of those funny thoughts it's not
• 39:51
  necessarily helpful it's more just a reflective moment of realizing that I was very in the whole
• 39:59
  classical music realm of how things were and how they had to be and and this kind of really
• 40:04
  highly critical and judgmental realm of performing and performers and composers and I had to choose
• 40:12
  composers that were commissioned for certain things and it was just always very challenging
• 40:17
  and I just didn't see myself kind of in that category so I didn't really have the confidence
• 40:22
  necessarily at that time and so when I look back on it I find it kind of amusing that I was immersed
• 40:29
  in this environment and realized that I had just had this whole other idea of how I felt like
• 40:35
  it should be but it didn't exist yet I mean if I'm really honest I mean at that time it didn't
• 40:40
  exist like the kind of work that I'm doing now it didn't exist then so I mean I could have started
• 40:45
  doing it but I would have been like you know that original trailblazer like what you think of
• 40:50
  the original sound healers and a lot of them were in Colorado actually but this idea that they
• 40:56
  were doing this kind of thing 20 30 years ago and so they were really on the outskirts of society
• 41:02
  and now it's becoming more mainstream I mean even this releases with Apple that's something they've
• 41:07
  just started doing last year so it's just really putting it into context that maybe everything
• 41:13
  actually is at the right time no matter what it is before we go into you giving the audience
• 41:19
  a sample of sound batting and sound therapy I'm curious you know when you're playing the music
• 41:25
  and your intention is you know to support that person therapeutically do you find that it's actually
• 41:32
  also therapeutic for you or you're just so focused on the other person because it almost sounds
• 41:36
  a little meta a little bit like because it's sound right so not only are you having the intention
• 41:42
  towards supporting the person or the audience that you're providing the sound for but your own
• 41:48
  body is hearing that therapeutic sound so is it almost like a duality of like I'm giving but I'm
• 41:54
  receiving giving receiving you know back and forth constantly while you're doing it rarely honestly
• 42:02
  because when I am in my practitioner role I'm very clear that my primary objective there
• 42:12
  is for the person the people the group whatever that I'm doing for example if I'm doing a sound
• 42:18
  batting somebody is having a lot of anxiety release or moving around a lot I'm going to very much
• 42:23
  be working energetically with them with the sounds that come through or what is being called
• 42:28
  and so for me to go into that state where I'm fully receiving means I'm not going to be fully
• 42:33
  conscious for everyone else who's there I may be used to do it more often but I also saw
• 42:40
  in certain healing platforms how important it is as the practitioner to stay 100% grounded
• 42:45
  and fully in my body because often when you receive sound it's very easy to kind of go into that
• 42:50
  lucid state and not be fully present in the physical realm it's not that something's not happening
• 42:57
  but I am providing a service and I'm in a role now on rare occasions when it's groups
• 43:04
  that I feel like the whole group is in the same space when I have a whole group where I sense
• 43:11
  everyone is dropped into that really deep space of homeostasis then I feel like what's happening
• 43:18
  I can become more a part of it but that's more rare that the whole group falls into that space
• 43:25
  together how do you feel after a concert therapy are you drained that then also what do you do to
• 43:33
  kind of fill your cup post these sessions and or general like do you have some daily habits to
• 43:39
  support your own ground in your in your own self care so that you can be the best practitioner you
• 43:44
  can be in the past I will say this year has been a little different but for me it's a lot about
• 43:49
  exercise just making sure that I do something every day whether I go to yoga or I hike up the
• 43:54
  stairs because there's a lookout right behind me in Culver City or whatever I end up doing
• 43:59
  that I I try to do something like that I've had very very disciplined meditation and chanting
• 44:07
  practices for myself in what does that look like is that certain amount of time every day
• 44:13
  yeah I mean there were times where I was meditating an hour a day and sometimes more and then
• 44:18
  there are times where I would get up and chant my mantra 108 times with my mollabies every day
• 44:24
  and this year has felt like kind of a reset of what my operating system is and so I think I'm
• 44:30
  recalibrating what my daily thing is and I because I think that this year I realized I needed a lot
• 44:36
  more rest and allowing myself to just rest and if I want to watch something kind of more cathartic
• 44:44
  not necessarily life building on Netflix that that's okay I can just watch something that's a
• 44:49
  story so so I've had this kind of really interesting observation of what I feel like I need in
• 44:55
  these moments and I find I have two cats and they're both very cuddly and needy so sometimes my
• 45:02
  recharge is that I lay on my couch and my cats both come and lay on my legs and I watch something
• 45:08
  that is a feel good movie or whatever and I find that has been very helpful for me and so
• 45:14
  it's been an interesting observation and I feel like it was a recalibration of all the music I
• 45:20
  released this year and other things and just kind of observing that it's been about a lot of shifts
• 45:27
  and not so much about the diligence of checking off my list it's been trying to like go in and out
• 45:32
  and listen to my body every day what does it need today what is it like need to eat what does it
• 45:36
  need how much exercise do I need today instead of being on a rigid discipline which I've been
• 45:42
  on rigid discipline for many many years of my life and so I feel like going into this next year
• 45:47
  I'll probably go back to that element of more rigid discipline and and then also just to be clear
• 45:52
  self-care I usually try to receive some kind of healing session at least once a month if not twice
• 46:00
  a month from practitioners that I work with whether I get a massage or whether I get a cranio
• 46:06
  session or have an energy healing session I recognize that when I'm working on a lot of people
• 46:12
  and I do a lot of sessions it's necessary that I also receive yeah that's well said it sounds like
• 46:19
  you're recognizing the challenging times within your own body but a lot of people are experiencing
• 46:25
  challenges that are different than maybe we've had in the past and there's delicacies like around
• 46:33
  existence right now in many ways for some people how we negotiate boundaries and challenges
• 46:40
  within these modern times it's kind of a very necessary piece to existence how does the
• 46:50
  cranio sacral therapy the voice sessions the sound healing how would that help people that are
• 46:56
  struggling with kind of our modern times right now well I think first of all is kind of coming back
• 47:03
  into the body it's really important to be grounded and this is speaking from someone I lived a lot
• 47:08
  of my life in chronic pain and hit it really well and this fortunately I'm not in pain anymore
• 47:12
  but my body had to catch up after I had the surgery to take care of what was causing the pain
• 47:17
  in retrospect I think this idea of understanding your voice what your values are what your boundaries
• 47:24
  are how certain things make you feel how certain relationships make you feel and I think when I
• 47:29
  explained that about this year I've had a lot a lot of reset in patterns with people with things
• 47:35
  that have been kind of happening and recognizing the setting boundaries in that space right and
• 47:42
  and I feel like when you are in that state of receiving and you're in that state of decompression
• 47:47
  or you're in that state of listening to sound and you're allowing yourself to really just listen
• 47:53
  to listen to the higher self to listen to your guides or however you interpret messages that come
• 48:00
  to you being able to drop into that space where you not only have the ability to listen but you
• 48:09
  have a witness to the transformation and I find even for myself having a witness is kind of the
• 48:16
  deeper healing happens when someone witnesses the things that maybe you don't want to say out loud
• 48:21
  or the things that are releasing from the body and that happens in all the all of those sessions
• 48:26
  in the sound in the cranio-sacral work and in the voice sessions and so this idea that you can
• 48:32
  totally be yourself and that boundaries are healthy because most people who experience drama
• 48:38
  struggle with healthy boundaries because they feel like oh if I set a boundary then that person
• 48:41
  won't like me or if I set the boundary then all my relationships go away or or all of these
• 48:46
  kinds of stories and I think it is a very challenging time in the world right now and it's very
• 48:52
  chaotic and there's a lot of division and relaxing the nervous system just helps be able to deal
• 48:58
  with it better and get clarity with the self because all of my work I'm trying to empower people
• 49:06
  to listen to themselves I would say like I'm not a guru I'm a mirror over here I'm a mirror and a
• 49:12
  witness but your thoughts your opinion where are you are like we don't have to be the same it's more
• 49:20
  that you feel empowered in your choices and your values and who you are and what you're creating
• 49:24
  for yourself and that's the piece that when people feel like they can stand in that space of being
• 49:32
  all that they are that's very deeply healing I would say relationships are a reason a season
• 49:39
  or a lifetime right the old cliche but it's true I think sometimes we think relationships are
• 49:45
  meant to be they're the whole stretch and they're just not and the older you get you realize that
• 49:50
  and you also for me I know I've seen just a lot of disillusionment with things that I thought were
• 49:59
  super helpful or that and there's no one way there's no right way and I always say if somebody
• 50:05
  tells you that this is the only way to get to x then run the other direction because
• 50:12
  true because then that person is trying to control you like you have to always have this free will
• 50:19
  to choose I'm not always right and what is right for me might not be right for you my diet's
• 50:25
  going to look different than the person next to me because everyone's built a little differently
• 50:29
  and I mean you know that just from all the work you've done in nutrition and everybody's body
• 50:34
  functions slightly differently and you have to have the nuance of being a practitioner and I feel
• 50:40
  like that's what you learn and the wisdom of working for me thousands of people over the last decade
• 50:46
  plus I feel very fortunate for the work that I've done and the people and the clients and all of
• 50:51
  the things I've been able to do but it's also I find I've become a better practitioner too because
• 50:57
  I've learned of I've made mistakes I've said things that maybe okay that might have been too much
• 51:02
  too soon there's a nuance here and we're all learning everyone's learning and so all of this work
• 51:08
  and people it's really about honoring and admitting how you feel and then having a safe witness
• 51:15
  that's not going to be in judgment because those are feelings that you're having and I think it's
• 51:19
  really important that we work on that space it doesn't mean you're neutral it means that you're
• 51:25
  holding space as a practitioner for that person to feel safe yeah and to be present yeah that's
• 51:31
  lovely so everyone listening we're going to share how you can get in touch with Elaine you can
• 51:39
  find her all the socials you can we're going to put the links of where you can listen to her
• 51:45
  Spotify tracks kind of dig deeper with her therapies it's going to feel like we're ending the
• 51:51
  podcast now but if you stick around after we say this part Elaine is actually going to give us
• 51:59
  about 10 minutes of sound therapy healing some of you might be listening to this while you're
• 52:05
  running while you're driving and that this may not be the time for you to hear sound therapy
• 52:11
  so we're going to feel like we're ending the podcast now but stick around or come back to it
• 52:16
  when you want to experience this sound healing for yourself because of the name and the title of
• 52:22
  your podcast that every day ancestral I just want to tell people too that I'm leading a retreat
• 52:28
  in Norway in June with sound and yoga and meditation and we're going to go kayaking in the
• 52:36
  fjords and that and it is my ancestral country I'm 75% Scandinavian like Norwegian and Swedish and
• 52:44
  so I just thought I'd throw that in there of like in Norway you don't it it's in a place called
• 52:50
  Vidal that's in the middle of the country it's at this really beautiful glamping site that has
• 52:56
  this amazing greenhouse where the yoga and meditation is going to take place and it's very
• 53:02
  intimate retreat everyone receives craniosacral therapy as part of it as well and so it's going
• 53:06
  to be really special but it's I'm excited to lead a lead a retreat in a country that is very much
• 53:12
  my lineage so it's the first time I'll be doing it so I'm excited we'll put the links for that
• 53:17
  that's going to be in 2025 when I was just in college I was backpacking through Scandinavia and we
• 53:23
  came to flan I think it was called flan Norway and it's in the fjords and it was so beautiful so
• 53:33
  I'm that's what I'm visualizing as you say you're going to have a retreat and I just remember when
• 53:38
  I was there there was kind of you know there are all these waterfalls surrounding the area and there
• 53:43
  was a river running right through the middle of everything and I just remember looking at going if
• 53:47
  I could choose a place to die this is where I'd want it to be it was that gorgeous so don't die
• 53:54
  when you go to Norway but maybe check out the retreat and enjoy the therapies and the environment
• 54:01
  and halane will bring so we're going to put the links to the Spotify pieces you mentioned but how
• 54:07
  can people find you website socials whatnot my name is the easiest way to find me halane HL
• 54:16
  A-N-E Marie Anderson my website is sacral sounds s-a-c-r-a-l-s-o-u-n-d-s dot com my name halane
• 54:26
  Marie Anderson is me on Spotify and it's also my handle on instagram those are the best ways to find me
• 54:33
  thank you so much halane for joining me on this podcast it's been such a joy reconnecting with you
• 54:40
  for this hour I remember back in the day you did some cranial sacral on me I've had cranial sacral
• 54:47
  over the years and I absolutely attest to the power of it I have not had much sound therapy so I'm
• 54:53
  very much looking forward to your performance right now I thank you all for watching or listening
• 54:59
  to everyday ancestral please share it with a friend we want to spread the word about these powerful
• 55:05
  guests we're having follow us for future episodes and now halane will perform some sound therapy
• 55:14
  thank you so much for having me James it's been a pleasure to chat with you and I'm excited to
• 55:20
  share so I'll just invite you to go ahead and if you're in a position to close your eyes you can go
• 55:24
  ahead and close your eyes
• 1:02:55
  we hope to see you next time on everyday ancestral
• 1:03:06
  thank you so much for joining me on everyday ancestral if you enjoyed this episode hit
• 1:03:12
  subscribe so you don't miss the next one you could find the show notes links and resources
• 1:03:17
  mentioned at eatpluck.com that's e-a-t-p-l-u-c-k dot com and hey if you know someone who'd get something out
• 1:03:28
  of this share it with them too stay curious live well and keep it ancestral