The Sound That Found Me
I’d never heard of a sound bath until rehab. It became the easiest mindfulness I’ve ever known, and the practice I now share in my community.
I had never been to a sound bath. I hadn’t even heard of crystal singing bowls.
Six and a half years ago, I was in rehab in Thailand, trying to do the thing everyone tells you to do when you’re “getting better”: meditate, be mindful, sit with your feelings. And I could not do it. My mind was loud. My thoughts were relentless. Stillness felt like a trap.
Then a woman started coming in to play crystal singing bowls for us.
It was the first time in my life I experienced silence in my own head, without forcing it.
Sound baths were the first “mindfulness practice” that didn’t feel like a fight.
Easy mindfulness for a mind that won’t switch off
People talk about meditation like it’s a simple decision. Close your eyes. Breathe. Observe your thoughts.
But when you’re anxious, overstimulated, or newly sober, the moment you close your eyes can feel like the moment your brain turns the volume up. Mine did.
The bowls were different.
The sound gave my mind something to hold onto. Instead of battling my thoughts, I followed the tones. Instead of trying to “empty my mind,” I focused on vibration, resonance, the way a note can bloom and disappear.
It felt like someone had handed me a rope in deep water.
I didn’t have to be good at mindfulness. I just had to listen.
I remember thinking, this is what people mean when they say “come back to your body.”
Because that’s what sound does. It brings you down out of your head and into sensation. It interrupts rumination. It gives your nervous system a different rhythm to match.
And for me, in that season of early sobriety, that was everything.
The week I stayed behind
When my three months in rehab ended, I didn’t fly straight home. I stayed in Thailand for another week.
Not to party. Not to “celebrate.”
To train.
I wanted to learn how to do sound baths properly, not because I had a grand plan, but because I knew I needed it in my own life. I could feel how powerful it was for me, how regulating it was, how it helped me access calm when I couldn’t find it any other way.
And if it helped me, I thought, maybe one day it could help someone else too.
There’s something sacred about learning a practice that first held you together.
I learned sound so I could come back to myself. And then I learned it so I could offer it to other women too.
Crystal bowls, nervous systems, and the women who come as they are
Fast forward to now, and sound has become one of the most grounding parts of my life.
I’ve been facilitating sound baths for the last two years at the studio where I do my Pilates and aerial training. It’s such a beautiful community. The kind where people walk in carrying the week on their shoulders, and walk out with their jaw unclenched.
I use crystal singing bowls, and every time I play them I’m still slightly amazed by what happens in the room. People soften. People exhale. People cry quietly without making it a “thing.” People fall asleep for the first time in days.
You don’t have to be “spiritual.” You don’t have to know what you’re doing. You don’t have to be good at relaxing.
You just have to arrive.
That’s one of the reasons I love it so much. It’s accessible. It’s not another self-improvement project. It doesn’t demand perfection.
It’s an offering.
Why aerial sound baths feel like coming home
And then there’s the aerial part.
Aerial sound baths are hard to explain until you’ve tried one. You’re held in a hammock, gently cocooned, your body supported in a way that feels almost childlike. It’s like being suspended between effort and surrender.
When I combine aerial with sound, it’s the closest thing I’ve found to deep rest that doesn’t require me to “try.”
No performing. No pushing. No proving.
Just being held, while the sound does what sound does.
Sometimes healing isn’t a breakthrough. Sometimes it’s your nervous system finally getting the message that you’re safe.
This is my sobriety practice too
People sometimes assume that because I’m facilitating, it’s all about the participants.
But the truth is, it gives back to me as much as it gives out.
It is one of my sobriety practices.
It’s a reminder that I don’t need to escape my life to survive it. I don’t need to numb out to get a break. I can choose regulation. I can choose presence. I can choose something that supports my body instead of punishing it.
Sound helped me in rehab when I couldn’t access stillness any other way.
And now it’s part of how I stay connected to myself, as a mum, as a woman, as a person who knows what it’s like to live with a loud mind.
Maybe that’s why I care so much about creating rooms that feel safe. Rooms where women can rest without having to explain themselves.
Because I remember being the woman who couldn’t.
I didn’t find sound baths because I was peaceful. I found them because I wasn’t.
If you’re curious
If you’ve never tried a sound bath, or you’ve tried meditation and felt like you “failed,” I want you to know this:
There are many ways to come home to yourself.
This just happens to be mine.
And I’m so grateful it found me when it did.