Crystal Sound and Gong Healing at Irby Village Hall

£15 investment.

What you’ll need: A mat, a thick blanket/duvet and a pillow, an eye mask if you like to use one.

Wear comfy clothes (it’s basically a big, safe, healing sleep in).

Sound baths are healing musical performances played with Himalayan singing bowls, gong, drumming, and tuning forks. Participants lay on the floor in supported savasana (corpse pose) and let the waves of sound wash over them.

Proponents suggest that sound bathing calms our often-overstimulated nervous systems and balances the subtle body. (If you’re not familiar with the subtle body: it’s also known as the energetic body, where our life force – Qi, Chi or prank – exists.) Sound bathing is said to work both the physical body and the subtle body to help reduce anxiety, physical pain, and insomnia, and to deepen meditation and spark creativity.

What You Need to Know Before You Go 1. Bring Your Own Mat / Blanket / Eye Pillow Personal comfort is a must for the hour. You need to be as comfortable as possible and that also means you are allowed to move/change lying positions whilst the sound bath is in session. Not everyone can lie on their back for an hour. Keep in mind that it may feel like a sleepover, with everyone camping out and getting cozy.

2. Be Open to an Intimate Experience Many times, the sound healer will have her singing bowls with her in the centre of the room, with everyone spread around her in a circle. It’s usually a small space, often a studio. It’s intimate. It can feel awkward and vulnerable. It can be hard to get comfortable and relax. Just breathe into it. It’s wonderful once you let go.

3. You Might Feel Like Laughing – or Crying It’s said that sound healing works to release emotions trapped deep in the subtle body. Emotions can be brought on by a conscious thought. They will be spontaneous and fleeting – a very emotionally, physically and spiritually cleansing experience. Aligning things inside and creating space. It might happen. Just let it come and go.

4. Get Ready to Be . . . Soft In daily routines we often strive so hard with the physical body, we deteriorate the subtle body and lose many of the benefits of our natural way of being. So, in your sound bath, don’t strive. Don’t even listen. That’s right, don’t listen. Just lay quietly and let the sound wash over you, gently and without effort. Chill out.

5. You Will Feel the Sound in Your Body Have you ever been to a concert where the bass is so thumpin’ you feel your bones vibrating to the beat? That’s the power of sound. Fans of sound bathing believe that specific frequencies of sound can bring our physical and subtle bodies into a state of balance.

6. You Might Fall Asleep That’s okay. We receive the healing of sound bathing even if we sleep through the session. (Just try not to snore!) And even if you don’t fall asleep during the sound bath, you might enjoy an intensely deep sleep that night. Often experienced by sound bathers, and it’s one of the most common things people say after sound bathing.

7. Ease Yourself Back Into Your Day If you feel any sense of serenity after your sound bath, protect it. Don’t roll up your mat, hurry into your car, rush home, watch/listen to the news. Don’t answer phone calls or emails – just for a little while. Give yourself time afterwards to absorb the experience. Have a bath, a cup of tea or go straight to bed. Re-enter the noisy chaos of your life slowly and quietly.