The Unstruck Sound
From repetition of and reflection of Om, comes cosmic consciousness, as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases. PYS 1.29
Let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?
What are my credentials? Well, I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Health Sciences, double minors in Sociology and Biology, a theme in Death and Dying, half of a Master’s Degree in Integral Health and 2 ex-career’s as a medical device trainer and as a research scientist. Why am I telling you all of this? Ironically (or maybe not) all of this science led me to my current career(s). I now have multiple advanced certifications in yoga, breathwork, energy healing, reiki, pranic healing, Biofield tuning, sound healing and Kalos. I attend several 7 day retreats per year on meditation, or yoga, or psychedelics, or healing my brain be more coherent, or working with my inner child. It’s been a long and fascinating road, and today I call myself a metaphysical guide, a master sound healing facilitator (specializing in tuning forks and crystal bowls), a storyteller, a medicine woman, a ritual facilitator, and an embodied movement (yoga) and breath(work) guide.
Let’s continue:
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class you’ve heard chanting or singing of the word “Aum.” Aum is special and considered the vibration from which all existence arises; it has 3 distinct syllables: Ahh represents creation - the beginning, Uuu represents preservations, the dream state, and Mmmm represents dissolution, the deep sleep state; together they create the entire cycle of existence: birth, life and death. We use this sacred sound, Aum, in yoga to stimulate our connection with ourselves, others, and the universe; to vibrate our throat chakra, the thyroid gland, Udana Vayu (ascending air), Jalandhra Banha (throat lock) and thus harmonize our relationship between heart, breath, and bodymind.
Aum is the bow, the self is the arrow, and Brahman (Sat Chit Ananda = bliss) is the target.”
~ Mundaka Upanishad
Traveling back in time, we learn in 3rd grade science class that everything around us - our body, our brain, the materials our chairs are made of, our loved ones, our phones are all made of the same thing: vibration… AND that we are (incredibly) mostly space, AND our atoms vibrate through that space to influence matter. It could be said that vibration is the building blocks (or waveforms if you prefer) of our universe.
So, we have an intersection between spirituality and science, whereas science agrees that waveforms come first and physical matter originates from vibration (sound) and not only that, but physical matter can be influenced by sound, which we see directly when we study Cymatics or, the shape of sound… but more on that later.
Nada Yoga + Anahata Nada
Nada Yoga, often called the yoga of sound, is a lesser-known but profoundly transformative limb of the yogic path. Rooted in the ancient Vedic traditions, it teaches that the entire cosmos - our bodies, our thoughts, our relationships—is made of sound vibrations, and that by consciously working with sound, we can refine our awareness and attune to higher states of consciousness. While the physical postures (asanas) of yoga are aimed at aligning the body, Nada Yoga aligns our inner vibration with the vibration of the universe itself. It begins with external sound—like mantras, singing bowls, or even classical ragas - but gradually draws us inward to listen for the internal sound current, or nada, which leads to deep meditative absorption. In this practice, sound becomes not only a tool for healing but a vehicle for liberation. Just as the breath leads us into presence in pranayama, in Nada Yoga it is the listening itself that becomes the practice - listening so deeply that even silence hums. When I facilitate sound journeys, I often feel this lineage vibrating through the room -like ancient rivers of tone guiding people back to their essence.
The Anahata Nada, which means the Unstruck Sound, is not something we hear with our ears, instead we feel it on our soul. It’s a vibration that transcends the physical and emanates from the very fabric of creation. Many traditions describe it as the primordial sound of the universe or the echo of source, not unlike AUM. If you recognize “Anahata” you would recognize it as the Sanskrit name of the Heart Chakra which means “unstruck;” the heart center is a bridge from the physical to the spiritual and is the location where the Anahata Nada can be felt, makes sense, right?
In sound healing and vibrational medicine, the concept of Anahata Nada is easily graspable, as we are able to hear the crystal bowls, Tibetan bowls, Koshi chimes and gongs that are struck; but we also feel them inside ourselves- it evokes something within us. It’s almost as if we are cleansing the pathways of listening deeper so that we can hear the Anahata Nada through our feelings sense. We are diving in to ourselves so deeply we come out the other side in the universe… and vice versa. Through the deep listening we develop in our meditation practice we can attune to the Unstruck Sound. In Jivamukti yoga, Nadam, refers to the concept of deep listening and by tuning our awareness in we can increase our sensitivity to perceive the Unstruck Sound within us. The founders of Jivamukti yoga believe that sound is a vehicle of liberation which is why the silence inside of the sound is where Nadam reveals itself. The best experience I can relate this to in my own life is doing Ayahuasca in the jungle of Peru and hearing the Icaros and remembering the song even though I had never heard it before: it was as if my soul remembered the song before I was born.
“Music is the space between the notes"
~ Claude Debussy
Similar to mindfulness practices like yoga, breathwork, meditation and sound therapy - to hear the Unstruck Sound is a coming home to oneself. It’s not chasing anything external but rather unveiling what is already present, inside and innate to us, which is the divine.
I have an interesting tangent that I’ll go off on for a moment - I write a lot of notes to myself to remind me of things when i have time to get back to them. One fateful day in 2014 I found a note that said “songs from the wood.” I didn’t even remember writing this and didn’t recognize this phrase, but it was my own handwriting so i googled it and found that this was an album by Jethro Tull. I listened it and literally couldn’t stop listening to it for a month. I told my mom about this one day on the phone and she said,”
“That is what your dad listening to the whole time I was pregnant with you.”
I was floored. It was almost as if my ears didn’t recognize the music, my soul did.
Science and Sound
I’ve already eluded to cymatics - the shape of sound. Why is this important? Have you watched any of the videos yet and seen physical matter be manipulated by sound? If not please leave this blog for a moment as it will be waiting for you to finish after you watch some YouTube videos.
Now that you’re back: doesn’t it bend the mind and stretch the imagination in curious ways? If sound can manipulate these viscous substances, much like blood and lymph, what can sound do to our physical bodies?
I have 4 tuning forks that are pairs - one pair creates the Schumann Resonance as a binaural beat, and the other creates the Fibbonnaci Sequence. The Schumann Resonance is known as the heart beat of the earth and the Fibonnaci Sequence we know as sacred geometry. Binaural beats can influence different brainwaves states and allow for relaxing deeper, more focus and even altered states of consciousness.
When you listen to music you not only hear the music but you feel things, yes? More than likely you have playlists to influence, change, alter or deepen a mood. The famous Japanese research Dr. Emoto shared his findings with the world in a book called Hidden Messages in Water where he said affirmations and played different music to water, froze the water and took images of the crystals that could / could not form. Water that was told ‘I love you’ and water that listened to classical music formed beautiful crystals, while the water that was told ‘I hate you‘ and listened to extreme heavy metal couldn’t form a crystalline structure. Again I rhetorically ask, what are the implications for our physiology?
What if I told you that sound can create light?
Well it can: Sonoluminescence is the phenomenon where tiny bubbles in liquid emit light when exposed to sound waves… it is postulated that at the peak of the bubble collapse it may turn into plasma (which is electrically charged.) (Google)
Magic is just science we don’t understand yet.
– Arthur C. Clarke
Integration
Maybe this quote makes more sense now:
“from repetition of and reflection of Om, comes cosmic consciousness, as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases.”
Through repetition of refining our hearing, of showing up for ourselves, of have power over our thoughts through meditation, resilience through suffering in life and yoga, listening deeply and falling into our breath; through doing sound healing sessions we can find transcendence beyond the physical and into the cosmic and spiritual. Through suffering we learn and become wiser, more compassionate, more patient. Remember the saying ‘no mud - not lotus.’ We are all growing through our own mucky muck to eventually rise to the surface of our pond blossoming open the illuminated jeweled lotus that we truly are.
The yoga of sound, the unstruck sound, study of sound, the shape of sound, healing with sound, sound creating light… the fact that we’re vibration, it’s intriguingly all about us and the alive world around us, weird, right?
And repetition of vibration, through tuning forms or Aum can unite the different layers of the body “as well as the destruction of physical and mental diseases.”
Teaching sound healing, yoga and breathwork is one of the joys of my life. Helping people regulate their nervous system, find alignment, embodiment, and thus illumination is one of my most consistent and largest blessings. Teaching people the science of sound coming from an academic background in health and physiology, and as a yoga teacher allows me embody my teachings at the various intersections of biology, science and spirituality.
This essay has no answers, just excitement and pure fascination to learn deeper and expand my knowledge on all these topics. Sound creates light, light touches matter, and matter responds with energy. The study of vibration is more than just a fascination… it’s a frontier. The more we learn about it - the more we learn about ourselves.
Om Mani Padme Hum (Hail to the jewel in the Lotus)
What do I do next?
Start small and hum or AUM for 5 minutes in the morning or the evening.
Find a breathwork coach and lets regulate your nervous system!
Listen to a binaural beat YouTube video with headphones!!
Curious to experience more?
Don’t hesitate to reach out if you’re called to deepen your practice with private sessions!
I hope this blog sparked intrigue in you - it definitely did for me while writing it!
Happy exploring y’all!
Xoxo
Jess
Turning the Wound into Wisdom
How Movement, Breath and Sound can Positively Influence Trauma
Trauma
Essentially, everyone we come into contact with is traumatized in some way or another; thankfully people are becoming more aware of trauma and are open to talking about it & how it affects people’s daily lives. Trauma exists on a spectrum and therefore no one’s trauma is better or worse than anyone else’s, because it doesn’t matter what happened- what matters is how your system experienced it. Unprocessed trauma shows up in everyday life by overreacting to small things, feeling numb or disconnected to life, your friends or even your own body; it manifests as chronic tension, self sabotage, perfectionism, trouble with trust, and of course the big two: anxiety and depression. Trauma lays the groundwork for a fractured identity, addiction, self harm, can cause attachment issues, affect development (especially if the trauma happened in childhood,) lead to C-PTSD, the list goes on. If you don’t suffer from these things, I’m sure you know at least 10 people who do, and if you don’t it's because they’re better at hiding it than you are at perceiving it.
Trauma is not only physically stored in our body, it actually changes our brain. Neuroscience shows in a traumatic event the parts of our brain involved in memory formation and time are affected, and as a result perception is distorted. Talk therapy is great (as sometimes our ability to communicate shuts down to trauma) but we know now that isn’t enough because of how it affects the brain AND body. When healing, we have to re-integrate both hemispheres - left (logic analytical) and right (emotional or creative) and we can do this through movement, breath and sound therapy. Walking with arms swinging to create a cross body movement, binaural beats, alternating nostril breathing, chanting and humming, drawing, and dancing can all help integrate the brain and body.
Somatic therapies are necessary for trauma recovery and trauma-informed yoga, breathwork and sound + energy healing can be fantastic when it comes to healing the body and integrating the hemispheres. Yoga helps reconnect the body-mind in a safe way, breathwork calms the nervous system, dancing can discharge trapped energy, and safe consensual touch can heal attachment wounds. Being in nature and meditation can restore a safe connection to your body and visualization can help with trauma healing due to its potential to create new internal experiences and regulate the nervous system. Listening to sound frequencies that oscillate left and right, humming, toning and chanting can all stimulate the vagus nerve.
The Vagus Nerve
Let’s talk about the Vagus (latin for wandering) Nerve for a bit, as it plays a key role in trauma recovery. The vagus nerve is your only cranial nerve that winds all the way down to your lower torso. I like to think of it like a magical thread inside our body. Vagal tone is measured from the health of the Vagus Nerve: high vagal tone means your body can relax quickly after stress, low vagal tone means it can’t. There are 3 options for Vagal tone: Safe (ventral), Activated (sympathetic) and Freeze (Dorsal Vagal.) When we are safe our magic thread (aka Vagus Nerve) glows white, when it is activated it becomes anxious and red, and when it’s in a freeze response it’s slow and frozen, like the color blue.
Increasing Vagal tone matters because it helps you bounce back quicker from stress, it helps you sleep and digest better, you feel more balanced and connected, and lastly your immune system becomes strong. So how do you build vagal tone?
Movement
Yoga Twists
Cold exposure
Massage
Dancing
Breathwork
Deep slow breathing with exhales > inhales
Meditation and mindfulness
Laughter
Sound
Humming
Chanting
Singing
Therapeutic Sound Healing Sessions
Not surprisingly, all the things we can do to build Vagal Tone are all things we can do to regulate our nervous system - which is the foundation for integrating and healing trauma. If you’re reading this and you’re like ‘Jess I’ve had a pretty blessed life,” then I would be delighted for you, however, some of the trauma that we store in our body comes from a pre-verbal time. What do I mean by that? Maybe we were left for 5 minutes as a newborn, because our parents had to run to the bathroom… but 5 minutes to a baby is eternity. As a newborn we can’t be mad (we don’t even know what that is yet) at our parents. But as we age into childhood and pre-teen years we remember the feeling of abandonment, but we still can’t be angry with our primary caregivers because without them means certain death. So as we get older we internalize the abandonment and anger we felt towards them and we feel shame: the core emotion in trauma. These Samskaras (impressions from the past) “leave subtle impressions and unconsciously affect our habits, self perceptions, expectations or disposition.”
Creating a Safe Place Through Movement, Breath + Sound
In the safe space created by practicing yoga, doing breathwork and having crystal bowl meditation sessions or tuning fork therapy we often feel emotions unexpectedly arise to the surface - I have lost count the amount of times I have cried on my yoga mat or in crystal bowl sessions. Yoga, Breathwork + Sound and Vibrational medicine is a sacred invitation to re-establish the safe, connected relationship you have with your body and meet yourself exactly where you are at.
Yoga, breathwork and sound gives an opportunity to rebuild the trust that was broken especially when working with a proficient practitioner. The moment a bad* emotion visits you (like shame or anger) they can gently hold space or even mirror while you process what that emotion is teaching you. With yoga, interoceptive awareness opens up pathways for these Samskaras (secret underlying memories) to be received and processed and released by the mind. With breathwork, we create spaciousness in the nervous system allowing life force to move through and dissolve patterns of tension. With sound healing + vibrational frequencies, we bypass the logic brain and speak directly to the body’s innate intelligence, restoring harmony where dysregulation once took root.
In yoga, we know the hips hide fear, anxiety, sadness, and a lot of sexual trauma; shoulders carry burdens and the weight of the world, and can become rigid when we are unable to let go. The lower back and hamstrings hold guilt, repressed feelings and pain of the past - typically regarding relationships. The knees are joints of ego and pride holding the inability to bend and be flexible. Neck pain is stubbornness and refusing to see the other side of the story. In sound healing we know the feet carry you through life and carry the cadence of your step (is it a trudge or a dance?). The throat is your truth and communication and connecting or bridge to your divinity. Working with the chakras is what helps us understand this world of relationships. Memory can be felt through a pain in the body which can be seen in a chakra and is an indicator to release through movement and intentional breath. Take a breath.
“and i said to my body.
softly.
‘i want to be your friend.’
it took a long breath.
and replied
‘i have been waiting my whole life for this.”
― Nayyirah Waheed
Remember, healing is not about getting rid of the shadow or “getting over it,” or pretending there is no trauma, or trying to escape our reality. We heal the body by integrating all of our experiences and coming home to it. Loving all parts of ourselves and turning the Wound into Wisdom.
As a trauma-informed yoga teacher, breathwork coach and master sound healing practitioner, holding space for you on your healing journey is a most sacred blessing to me. I would love to help guide you turn your Wounds into Wisdom. Please Contact me and let me know how i can best serve you.
Xoxo
Jess
