I was first introduced to sound bath meditation around 4 years ago. I won’t be over dramatic and say it changed me, but the amount of value it added to my life is hard to overstate. Before my sound bath journey, I tried and failed to establish consistent mediation practices. After discovering sound bath, I now have a reliable forum to calm myself down, control my thoughts, seek momentary peace, and most impactfully, achieve mental clarity. Here’s how – and why – I got there.
Cutting through the noise
As far back as 10 years ago, I, like many others, became quite overwhelmed with the amount of technology available at our fingertips. The constant humming of the TV in the background, the laptop time that took up more than a third of my day, and of course the dangerous little smartphone that has way more power over me than vice versa. The phone was definitely the worst of the bunch. I felt like it started to rob any free time I had prior to the smart phone era, where I would be able to escape the burden of technology and have a moment or two to myself to think and really let my inner voice talk to me. The addictive nature of smartphones – at least for me, though I’m sure I’m not alone – robbed that sacred moment. Amongst many other reasons, I think this was a big cause for the uptick in the popularity of meditation, which saw a whole host of apps really take the world by storm.
So like many others, I felt the urge to implement meditation into my daily / weekly habits.
Just one problem – I was lucky to last 5 minutes. I tried sitting on a couch. Or a bed. The floor. I tried laying down. I used a blind fold. I went to a dark room. I sat out in the sun. I listened to music, or to a guided voice. I listened to nothing. I used an app. I used a mantra. I went to a class. I tried it all. It didn’t work. Why was this such a challenge? I was told to just focus on my breath. Breath in, breath out. But then – I was thinking too much about it. Am I breathing weird? Am I breathing loud? Should I be thinking about my breath this much? Wait, am I now overthinking how much I am thinking?
Well this is just great. I came for a mental escape, and this has been anything but. And then, something changed. I found a new type of meditation. This one, well, it wasn’t quite like the others.
Discovering sound bath meditation
One fall evening, my mom invited me to join her for a meditation class. But not your typical meditation class. It was a sound bath meditation class. At first there was hesitancy. Sound bath? What’s that? Is there water involved? What are we getting into here, exactly?
Not to offer a too-good-to-be-true tale, but what I was getting myself into was at type of meditation that solved the biggest gripe I had with all my previous meditation attempts. This was a class where I can simply just be and didn’t have to think about anything.
I arrived at the studio and at the head of the room was a very kind, soft spoken man leading the class. He sat down on the floor, surrounded by 10 or so metal bowls, and a wand of some sort in his right hand. In his left hand was a piece of paper. There were around 15 mats set up around him in a half-circle. On each mat was two pillows, a blind fold, and a blanket. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Comfort at its finest.
We were instructed to lay down, place one pillow under our legs, one behind the head, get cozy under the blanket, and the top it off with wrapping the silk blind fold around our eyes. I came for meditation and now I was more comfortable than my last night’s sleep. We’ll chalk that up as a win.
Next, our teacher read a few welcome notes from the paper in his hand, instructing us to simply be. Not to think about our breath, not to think about what we are thinking about, but simply lay in comfort, listen to the sounds of the bowls, and let our mind go to where it wants us to go.
The next 45 minutes were, without a doubt, the best 45 meditative minutes I had in my life. My mind floated from one thing to the next, and in and out of sleep, but also found moments of clarity where my inner conscious communicated things to me that I needed to hear but hadn’t heard because of all the distractions in my life. It was the perfect combination of relaxation, meditation, inspiration, and I’d be remised to mention, just plain old sleep. Now I’ll admit, there were moments of restlessness, but it was far easier for me to regain the relaxed state with the sound of the bowls in the background and the blanket warmly snuggling me.
Arguably my favorite part was when the class was over and I took that blind fold off. I felt such a strong sense of calm and was recharged for the rest of my day.
Sound bath in my life today
Flash forward to the present day, and I’m still an active sound bath goer. But it is very intentional. I don’t have a routine where I will go every day, or even every week. I have it as a tool where I will go to a sound bath meditation when my body and mind tells me I need it. It helps me stay calm, and it helps me recharge. Sometimes I need it more than others – there will be times when it’s a 2 sessions per week type of period in my life. But what I’m most grateful for is that I know it’s there as a tool for me to really recharge and achieve that meditative escape I so long had searched for.
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