Creating the Map of Your Healing Journey-Interview with Sound Healer Kathy Harmon-Luber

In this podcast, you will learn the steps to take to heal, grow, and thrive during a health crisis with Sound Healing practitioner and Reiki practitioner Kathy Harmon-Luber.
During this episode, let's discuss:

• What Is a health crisis?
• The first steps to rise above suffering and see what benefits might come from a difficult experience.
• How to create a map of our healing journey and taking small steps out of the darkness of a health crisis
• An Introduction to the science of Sound Healing

Kathy Harmon-Luber is an inspiring, compassionate, and empowering author and wellness guide whose passion is helping people navigate the challenging terrain of the healing journey. With insight and enthusiasm, she opens people’s eyes to the potential of becoming more physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy by offering a toolkit of practical solutions. Her book, “Suffering to Thriving: Your Toolkit for Navigating Your Healing Journey ~ How to Live a More Healthy, Peaceful, Joyful Life,” is full of wisdom gleaned from decades of healing from health crises. 

Her website: https://sufferingtothriving.com/work-with-kathy. 

Her book: https://www.amazon.com/Suffering-Thriving-Toolkit-Navigating-Peaceful/dp/B09Y1QY792 

During this interview, Kathy takes us into what it means to have a health crisis.  Kathy shares her wisdom of how you can find blessings during suffering through an illness or health crisis.  She shares how you can find hope in even the darkest of times as you create your own path for healing.  

Functional Medicine at Healing Arts is now available  to clients in multiple states, and offerings will be expanding!

Learn about ways to work with me if you are in a healing crisis and you're ready to have a Reiki Master and Physician to support you. 

Welcome to the Art of Healing Podcast community.  This podcast is devoted to helping you find what works on your journey to health and wellness.  This podcast is devoted to providing information on many healing modalities.  Learn more about:

• Reiki
• Functional Medicine
• Meditation
• Energy Healing

and more!

Learn more about Dr. Charlyce here. 

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Transcript

0:54

Welcome to the art of healing podcast is a Charlyce and I am so excited to introduce my guest. Kathy Harmon-Luber. Kathy agreed to join me for an episode where we'll be discussing topics that for anyone going through suffering, I think can really be insightful. Let me introduce Kathy. Kathy is an inspiring and compassionate as well as empowering author and wellness guide whose passion is helping people navigate the challenging terrain of the healing journey. With insight and enthusiasm, she opens people's eyes to the potential of becoming physically, emotionally, and spiritually healthy by offering a tool kit of practical solutions. In her book, which is available on Amazon, which is titled"Suffering to Thriving: Your Toolkit for Navigating Your Healing Journey-How to Live a More Healthy, Peaceful, and Joyful Life". Kathy shares her wisdom gleaned from decades of healing from health crisis. Kathy is a certified sound therapy healer, and a sound healing practitioner, as well as a Reiki practitioner. You can find her website at https://sufferingtothriving.com/work-with-kathy. And I will put links to her website as well as her book and the show notes. So let's get into the interview. And enjoy.

Charlyce: 2:29

Well, Kathy, thank you so much for joining me as a guest of the Art of Healing Podcast. I, I have to say that I, oh, you are the first sound healer I've had on. You're the, it just occurred to me. You're the first sound healer, so this is so exciting.

Kathy: 2:44

Oh, that's awesome. It's so good to be here, Charlyce thanks for having me.

Charlyce: 2:48

Thank you so much. So I did have some questions for Kathy. Kathy has a book that she's published that I think is really a, a very important toolkit for, well, I think for anyone at any time, but especially someone who's going through a very hard time. The first thing I wanted to ask you, Kathy, in your book, you share your health crisis and what started you on your healing path. Can you describe for the listeners for me how someone even knows if they're in a health crisis? Like, how do you even know that? How how did you know this was a health crisis?

Kathy: 3:32

Yeah, that's a really good question. Char lyce You know, what I would say is, I, I think when, when a health crisis happens, you kind of know it. And here's my little definition for, for, for how we define if we're in a health crisis. And that is, you know, it's, it's a point in time in your life when you get the scary diagnosis or, or you've had a, a, a terrible injury. An accident, a, a, a, a chronic disease. What, what makes it a health crisis is when it changes your life in some way, and it may be in, in the immediate, like for months you might have a problem that just really disrupts your life. It's the life disruption thing. I think that's, that's how I would define it in, in a phrase, or it might be something that, that affects you for the entire rest of your life. The crisis part of it is, is, is almost like the dark night of the soul. When, when your world has been disrupted so much, you need to find another way through it. The old life. Doesn't necessarily work so well for you anymore, and, and it's time to kind of look at things in, in a new way. And, and health crises as, as you know, from, from working with your patients, can sometimes turn your life completely upside down. that's a health crisis. Yeah. And I would say that, you know, according to the Centers for for Disease Control, it's something like six out of 10 people have a chronic disease. One in five have chronic pain. So, you know, illness, injury, pain, they're part of life. And if we're lucky enough to live long enough, every single one of us is going to go through a health crisis at some point.

Charlyce: 5:28

As I was reading your book, what what I found fascinating is because I am on the other side of the exam table. So when I'm working with my patients and I'm, I'm in my analytical mind and I'm telling them, trying to educate them on the physiology, what's happening. It really, I have to say it had not sunk into my heart. What is their experience you know, I have my side of it, but as you were describing your own health crisis. Well, I never, I never thought about like for what you went through with your, with your, you had the issues with your back, I believe. Mm-hmm. Yes. And how that crushing pain just jolted and just turned your life upside down. Essentially Correct.

Kathy: 6:16

It absolutely did. You know. I, I've had a relatively. Challenging health journey my entire life. You know, ever since I was a, a little girl, I had, you know, the asthma and upper respiratory things and I had a lot of sports injuries going along. And then when I was in my early twenties, I got diagnosed with autoimmune and I'd been able to, through complimentary medicine protocols, and things that we can drill down on later. I, you know, I was able to manage, I, I had this, I still had this very, very active life. You know, I work full-time with, with nonprofit organizations that make the world a better place. I was on some community nonprofit boards. I was hiking and biking and traveling and, you know, doing all the fun stuff with friends and family and, you know, just living, I would call the life of my dreams, even though I had all this. And then that fateful day in December of 2016, when the fourth disc spinal disc, which for, for your listeners, those are like little, almost like jelly filled donuts that, that cushion your vertebrae in your spine. When I was in my twenties, I got diagnosed with, with a lot of, of serious spinal diseases. They said I had the spine of an 80 year old woman at that point. But again, I was, I was doing pretty well until 2016 when this fourth disc ruptured and, and it was completely debilitating. I was flat on my. For five years, actually a little over five years, it, it totally turned my life upside down. I mean, the pain was off the charts like nothing I'd ever had before. I couldn't walk 11 steps, let alone have anything that was even close to my, to my normal life. Lying there in bed for just, you know what I thought was going to be a couple of weeks. And then it was a couple of months and neurosurgeons said, you're healing, your body is healing. Just, just keep doing the resting that you're doing. Maybe it'll be six months, maybe it'll be three years. It was longer than that. And I always considered myself an overachiever and thought I would just like knock this out of the park, be back to regular life. I was not. And so, I've always been a journaler since I was a little girl. I started writing all of these things that I was going down, going through primarily just to cope, to hold on, to hope. I mean, as you can imagine, being flat out and in terrible pain, not having all of the things that you've ever looked to, like my art and photography or I, I played classical flute concerts on weekends. I could not do any of. What do you do? So I started doing just a lot of research on the mind body connection, and what became really clear to me very quickly is unnecessary suffering is a choice. and that was something new to me. Like certainly I'm not talking about the suffering, the people in Ukraine or with the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, that is suffering on an, on an epic scale. And I'm not referring to that, but the unnecessary suffering would go through in our minds when something disrupts our health. And, and you know, for me, I, I, I realized pretty quickly. I could become a very negative complaining, bitter old woman one day. I could suffer for the rest of my life or I could figure out how to make my mind my medicine. And not fake positivity, but, but, but, but finding hope, latching on to hope. And the other thing that became really clear during that time, This health crisis that I was going through and, and still am challenged with to, to some degree is part of this healing journey that I am on for, for decades in my life. That's part of my life's journey, and it's part of my soul's journey because our healing journey is embedded in our life's journey and embedded in our soul's journey. And by that I just mean our life purpose. You know, what we came here to do, what our, what our mission is. And once I began to, to, to look at things that way, it just opened a whole door for a different level of healing. It's like the late oh my goodness. I've, I've forgotten his name. The wonderful quote that I'm trying to remember is,

Charlyce: 10:59

Is it Wayne Dyer? Wayne Dyer.

Kathy: 11:00

Thank you. Yes. You've read my mind when the, when

Charlyce: 11:05

I used the a little Reiki

Kathy: 11:08

Look at you. Yeah, that worked. But, but, but when you, when you look at things differently, The things you look at will change. And, and that is true of, of the healing process. I, I just had a total mind shift in that moment that has guided me all those years to, to try to, to find, and this is the hard part. I, it, it, it is simple, but it is not easy. How do you find the blessing in your health crisis? That's the journey. And, and that was really challenging.

Charlyce: 11:41

You said something that's quotable and I'm gonna write that down and, and I'll probably make it a little bit of a, a, a screensaver listeners. Make your mind your medicine. Was very quotable. Very. That's make your mind your medicine. Let's talk about suffering. Cause the one thing I found interesting in your book, and I, I like to think that I, I I get quite a bit of reading done. I don't know that many authors delve into suffering in the way that you do. So why don't you describe from your perspective, what is suffering? This is, this is a topic that a lot of us, we just internally don't wanna go. No, it, we get the little twinsies, we just don't wanna do it. I know even when I'm with my patients and they're describing their suffering, I can feel my own resistance. Like, oh no, you know, you don't wanna do it. And even in my own life, like, oh, I don't wanna think about my own suffering. But why don't you take us there? Why don't you describe suffering? Yeah. And if you can describe steps we can take to rise above that suffering. Yes. And as you were saying, find the blessings in that suffering. Yeah. I love this question and

Kathy: 12:55

it is a hard question because we hear the word suffering and we immediately, our whole bodies react to it. It's like instinctively, we don't want to go there. Right. but we can, we can live in a place of suffering. And like I said, that can be physical of course, and, and you wanna do everything you can to, to help yourself through robust self-care, through doing all the right stuff. You know? I write about in the book, in addition to your mind, is your medicine, food is medicine. Music is medicine, art. and singing and all kinds of things can be your medicine. Nature is medicine. Your mind is your medicine. I keep coming back to that because if we're suffering, we do all we can physically to help ourselves not suffer. And our doctors are a big part of that. You know, I doctors have saved my life many, many times and I'm, I'm sure that's true for many of your listen. So, so we do all, we can on that, that, that side of it. But then there's this other side, which, which is the part that we can control, which, which is our own self-directed healing journey. And, and there are a number of steps to that. Number one, figuring out where, where is your medicine? Every single person alive probably has a different definition as to what. In air quotes, medicine is, in my situation, it is art and music, it's nature. Everyone has to ask themselves, you know, what is it that that makes me feel good? That helps me to get a little bit of respite from. from the agony that, that we're in, usually physically, but it also can be mentally, we, we mentally suffer. So, so that's the first piece of it. And, and I have three other pieces. The, the, my book is a, a toolkit of, of quite a number of, of short little chapters. Each one is a tool and I'm pulling out the ones that I think meet. Difference for me and, and the, the biggest difference for the people who I work with in my sound healing and reiki practice that I, that I have. Okay. So, so your mind is your medicine. The, the other one that is really important. That was a, a big shift for me. It's easy when something like this happens to us, we, we go through a little t trauma where we get the scary diagnosis or, or our doctors say, my doctor said to me when I was in my twenties, you're gonna be in a wheelchair by the time you're in your mid thirties. And I was horrified. You know, that was a, yeah, that was a terrifying moment. It didn't happen, by the way, and I'm still not, but, but the point is, these things, our mind can go in that direction of saying, you know, I'm always going to be, you know, one day I'm going to be disabled or I'm always going to be disabled. We don't have to live in that space. You know, so what I like to say is focus on ability and not inability or disability. So what does that look like? I'm, I'm laying flat on my back and, and I. All these things that I used to love to do. I can't stand at my easel and, and paint any longer. I can't paint watercolors, but I can sketch. I can't play my, my classical flute, which goes out to the side and torques my back in a very bad way. I can play Native American flute. I literally made a list, Charlyce, of everything I could not do, and beside it I said. What is my workaround? What can I do? And focus on that and then begin to set daily goals. So what we're doing is rewriting our story. There was a time when I could not walk 11 steps. It was 11 steps to the bedroom door. And I could not walk that without a, a, a walker or my husband holding onto my arm to ensure I didn't fall and. Extraordinarily painful. So I start setting little goals. Okay, I'll, I will, I will. Do you know, the happy dance in my head cuz I couldn't do it. literally, I'll do the happy dance if I can get to 20 steps, and I'm thrilled to say I'm doing thousands of steps now, but it was incremental. The important lesson is everything in life is incremental. Especially, so maybe on the healing journey. And so trying to identify what I cannot do and then turn it around and say, what can I do? What do I need? What kind of, what kind of hack do I need? Do I need special orthopedic pillows? Do I need a back brace? every person is going through a different challenge, as you well know. And so every person's list is going to be different. But, but the important thing is, is, is not to perseverate on what I cannot do, and this is what my life is going to be like forever to say, oh wait, I can take this one step this week, and let's see where that. maybe that leads me to the next step and the next step, and the answer is yes, it usually does. And so it changes the energy behind our day when we can wake up and say, I have this little we tiny baby step of a goal and go in that direction. The other thing that was so hugely important to me was asking the right questions. you probably, I mean, every listener I think will understand this. We go to the place where we ask the wrong questions, which are on the healing journey. Why did this happen to me? Why me? What's going to become of me? What if this happens? What if that happens? Right? And we go down this, this, this negative spiral of, of just. you know, bad thoughts about what are life and, and when you're on the healing journey, it's really easy to go to that place because all you do is a quick Google search and you can find out what the worst case scenario is. But what if we ask different questions? What if we say, this is an opportunity for me to reinvent myself? Right? I can't do all that other stuff, but. Something better awaits me. Maybe something wonderful is about to happen. Maybe in this moment I can like fall in love with one little thing in my new life. for me, I was writing more, I was exploring sketching instead of painting. I, I was, I was doing a lot of things that, that up until that point I was way too busy in life to, to, to find time for and suddenly had that time. And so, you know, it's, it's not what we were put on the wishlist, but it, but it really can be a blessing if we ask those right questions. And then my favorite question, What can I do today right now that my future self will thank me for? So I always had these goals, right? And so I was like, all right, what one little incremental thing can I do that gets me to a better place tomorrow? And I, I stacked up a lot of those little things and suddenly life started looking a lot brighter, right? So all of those things lead us to the, the third point, which is you know, your healing crisis. I kind of alluded to this earlier. It's, it's embedded in this healing journey, which is part of your life's journey. It's not this random one time event that happened to you. Maybe it's happening for. Maybe it's happening to open your eyes to a different way of living. Maybe that different way of living is simply better self-care. Maybe it's, it's, it's letting go of everything that no longer serves you so that you can live a better life. So it just see how good that feels. It just opens up all these questions of, of maybe there's something better in store for me that my healing journey is. Possible. And so I, you know, I, I, I love when I'm, when I'm working with my clients, I, I love to take us down this road of exploring what is on the other side of this, or if there's not another side of this, if this is the rest of your life, how do you want to spend the rest of your life? Like, what, what is this? And, and knowing that, you know, I, I, I think there's, there's a wonderful quote by a guy by the name of Elaine Deton and he says, and I'm going to read this for you cuz it's such a good quote, I know your listeners will love it. We should not feel embarrassed by our difficulties, only by our failure to grow anything beautiful from them. So the question. right? What beautiful thing are you, are you going to grow from, from this difficult situation that you're going through health wise? And, and here's what I believe, and, and you know, maybe others believe this and maybe they don't, but we're going through. A really difficult time on Earth these days. You know, our planet environmentally isn't peril. We've just been through this, this tremendously difficult pandemic. Mm-hmm. I believe that every person on earth right now is meant to be here on Earth at this time. Everybody has a. everybody has a talent, what the ancients would call their genius. Right? Not meaning how smart you are, but but meaning your gift that you bring to the world. And sometimes it's our healing journey or any crisis, any obstacle, any challenge in life doesn't have to be healing. Mm-hmm. that, that really smacks you down and, and, and gives you. the opportunity of, of a little bit of time and space to examine where you are and maybe where your life could go in a way that that helps you to be of more service to the world. I believe everyone has that gift and, and, and I think everyone is unique. Sometimes we say, oh, that's not really a gift, you know, it's just this thing that I. but people in the world maybe need that, that one particular gift. Like I look at your podcast and all of these wonderful segments, thank you that you do and there and like there's a message there for every single person, whether you're on a healing journey or whether you're just trying to get through another challenge in your life, that's your superpower. Everyone has a superpower of some of some sort, right? I. Yeah,

Charlyce: 24:02

you voiced in everything in that big ball of warm fuzzies that you just delivered to the planet That was a giant ball of love and wonderful. You voice something that often I, I wish I could voice and really, I haven't had a descriptor a words for it, a a lot of that, which is when that health crisis comes, it's. Oh gosh. I don't know. Do I wanna say a call to action? Yeah. That your whole existence needs to, it's time to awareness of, of your physical body, your spiritual life, your emotional life, your karmic issues. Yeah. Your multidimensional, like you, it's, it's maybe telling you to start looking further. Yes. That's not a, that's not a place I often can go with patients because we've got so many of the, the nuts and bolts of their care. I love the way that you said that though, that it's, it's usually a, it's in an invitation to look. Yes. It's not just you're in this moment just to be punished. It's not that, right? Yeah.

Kathy: 25:09

Yes. I believe that. I love the word invitation. It is an invitation. And the funny thing about my story, I kept getting the call to action. I did every time I went through a health something, it was like I could, I could feel it a little bit and I wanted to say it. I, I, I'd like to see my life going over that way, and that way that I would define is, is Reiki energy healing. Sound healing writing this book. I couldn't have written this book had I not been on the healing journey. And, and you know, I didn't have that wisdom before. All of those things happened to me. And so I have learned to look at it as it was an invitation and it is a gift. And sometimes when we're in the, the hardest part, you know, it is hard to say this is a gift and I'm grateful for it. Living from a place of gratitude is really important. And so like if you can't get to the point where you say, I am grateful this terrible health crisis happened to me, then you know, there are little baby steps you can take toward that. You know, gratitude is hugely healing. It's, it's completely turned my life around and, and I think, you know, it's, it's, it's that I am grateful. Being alive this day, I'm grateful for the wonderful people in my life. I'm grateful for the care of my entire medical team that takes care of me. I am grateful that things aren't worse. You know, you start with a littlest baby, steps of gratitude. And then one day you come through it and you say, oh my gosh, that, that, that healing crisis was a gift in my life. And that's where I'm at now. I kind of come through the other side. I recognize that, that for some people who are very deep in the suffering, that's a hard thing to heal here. And it's, and it's, and it's, it's, you know, I, I, I get that a lot where it's really hard to heal that the hear that I keep saying healing and not hearing, but it's hard to hear it and, and say to your, one day. Maybe I'll get there. But I'd like to say to your listeners, if you are in that terrible place, you'll get there at some point.

Charlyce: 27:24

Yeah. So for the people who may be at that terrible pace, who may be in the dark night of the soul, or who might be on the darkest part of their path can you turn on a bit of a lamppost? Go ahead and turn a light on if you don't mind. You had described in your, you described multiple approaches in your book, how to map out your own healing. Yeah. Yeah. And I know this is probably a big question, but can you share just maybe some of your brief tips or just however you think on how someone who might be in the darkest part can find the first step on their map? Yeah, that is a

Kathy: 28:05

really good question. Like I said, the book is 38 short chapters, and each one of them is a step toward getting to. roadmap or what I call re-storying, you know, telling a, a new and different story about your healing journey and, and finding a way through it in a way that there's joy in your life and that you're thriving every day. But if you're just starting out, that is the hardest place obviously to be, it is the hardest place. But what I would say is, I think the, the, the one central piece. To, to all of the tools in the toolkit and, and trying to create a new life. There's one central key and, and that is what I call harnessing the power of our inner healer. Our inner healer. It's just another phrase for intuition, gut instinct, following your heart. Right? And so how does that change your. in, in, in many, many ways. Actually, when we listen to, when we get quiet through meditation, or for those people who, who really can't do medi meditation, I understand there are a lot of people who, who don't. I, I work with a number of people who say, I can't quiet my mind. There are many ways of doing meditation, just sitting and contemplating or listening to music or so many. Sitting in nature that can be walking. Meditation. There are many definitions of meditation and I encourage people to find one way of, of slowing down, quieting the mind, listening to your heart, listening to your gut instinct. What is it I need to heal? And it gets back to that. Your mind is your medicine and what else is your medicine? Is nature, your medicine, art and music Maybe is your, what is your inner healer trying to say to you? Maybe there's a part of your life that, that, that brought this on. Whatever you're going through. And like, in my situation, I was just doing too much. I, I, you know, I, you know, I had every intuitive signal that I needed to slow down, but my life was just too busy and I just didn't have time for self-care. When we listen to our intuition, we often re. that, that our bodies are trying to warn us of, of one of a couple things. One is self-care. You know, at one point in my life I thought self-care was, you know, every, every month or two having a spa day, you know, taking a nice long hot bath and candlelight and the whole thing. And I thought that was, you know, self. self-care is so much more than that. When we're, when we're really suffering on the healing journey, maybe we need to redefine self-care as whatever you need right now. What is your body speaking to you? That's what intuition is. I think Wayne Dyer said another. I'm, I'm quoting, a lot of Wayne Dyer today, but, but one of the things that he said is if, if, if prayer is you talking to God, God talking to you is intuition, right? And so listening to that intuition that says, how do I need to take care of myself? How is my body telling me what I need to do? Do I need to just unplug for the day from work or life and take a nap, a longer nap? Do I need to get more sleep? Do I, what is it that my body needs? Am I eating the wrong foods? Food is medicine. So, so there's, there's the intuition piece that if we just get really quiet sometimes we hear that voice speak and say, and it's also the voice of our inner child if we've dealt with trauma. Dr. Gabo has, has written some, some wonderful books and, and one of my favorites is called When the Body Says, In other words, if, if our, if our bodies are saying, no, you know, no, you need to get more sleep. No. You need to stop eating those foods. No, you stop. Need to stop doing so much and slow down and take better care of yourself, whatever our bodies are saying. You know, if we don't listen, that's when we get the big wake up call as I did in my situation. The other side of that is if you are, aren't saying no to the things that intuitively you don't wanna do. If you end up in a situation where you're, where you're often saying, sure, I'll do that. Yes, I'll do that, no problem, I'll do that. Whether that's at work or with family or other responsibities. And, and that is not the thing that you really want to do if it's not your, if it's not your bliss, if it's not what, what you feel passionate about. But if you keep doing that out of the sense of responsibility, and a good example of this is, you know, people who go into careers because their parents were in those careers, but it's not really what the person wants to do. You know, their, their, their, their parents were attorneys, but they want to be an artist or a musician or something completely different. And yet they go into it. Their body is gonna say no at some point. That's, that's what that whole book is about, and it's about, you know Sometimes the how, how to deal with the, the traumas. Big"T" or, or or small"t" adverse child experiences often have a lot to do, as, you know, with, with some of the, the ailments that we can get in life. And so that's why I, I, I do mention intuition as a cornerstone of beginning to find your way out of suffering. There are lots morethan that., one of the biggest steps is acceptance, saying, this is where I'm at right now. For me, I was flat on my back. You know, this is where I'm at right now. I have to accept that this is what it is. For some period of time that is not losing hope. It's just saying, this is my life, and if I can accept that for some period of time, this is where I'm at and I need to let go of things. That aren't serving me right now or that I just physically or mentally or emotionally can't do, I'm going to be able to find more space to heal, if that makes sense.

Charlyce: 34:44

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Thank you so much. So one of your healing modalities is sound healing and as I'd mentioned in the beginning that, that we haven't had a guess That's that it offers a specialty of sound healing Can. describe what that is for us, if you don't mind. I do not mind at all, and I'm so happy you asked that question because it is one of my favorite topics and, and it's, it's a big topic, but, but let me say this about it, you know, sound healing is not only like this growing trend in health and wellness, like everywhere you look, you're hearing people talking.

Kathy: 35:26

About sound healing and, and music healing. But it is increasingly scientifically proven as a healing modality. And the part that I really love is that many hospitals and nursing homes across the United States, in Europe and around the world are offering sound healing. and, and actually because you're a, a reiki master, like I am, I'll mention this too, but they're offering sound healing and reiki energy healing as integrative modalities right there in hospitals and nursing homes. I love that. And the reason they're doing it isn't just because it, it's, it's wonderful sound healing or a sound bath. As it's often called is, is nothing more than an immersion in sound frequencies. And, you know, having been a musician since a very, very, very young age, like I was, I was starting piano lessons when I was three years old. So I've, I've been in music for a long time. I've always loved performing classical flute and, and, and piano and, and guitar and stuff, but, What I began to recognize a couple decades ago, I would begin to go like to yoga centers and, and hear a little bit of sound healing drum circles, things of that nature. And I was really intrigued by it and I loved it not even knowing that it was as healing as scientists are now finding out that, that that sound healing is. And, and so, you know, it could be anything. Tibetan bowls, singing bowls, crystal healing bowls crystal singing bowls. The gong is one of the most. Most healing instruments they found, and people scratch their heads and say why they gong Kathy but, but it has the largest range of frequencies, including frequencies that we, with our human ears cannot hear both at the low end of the spectrum and the upper end of the spectrum. But why sound healing? Works Charlyce. It's just like, I, I, I get very geeky about the science part of it. And, and this is very simply why, why it works there. There are a lot of researchers out there doing sonic scientists doing research in partnership with medical doctors to find this out and at UCLA here in California. There is a researcher by the name of James Jim Zuki. And what he and Sonic scientists have found is that every sound, every every single cell in our bodies emits a sound. And each cell based on their different tasks, has a unique sound. And the only time that they're not making. that sound, and again, it's not something we obviously can hear with our ears, but they pick up with their, with their instruments, their equipment. When they're not making a sound, it's usually because they are damaged cells or they're injured in some other way. Or they, they have stopped functioning because they're disease. And what is fascinating to me is the discovery relatively recently that sound emitted at certain frequencies, stimulates those dysfunctional cells to, to resume the role that they were created for. So if it's a heart cell you know, it, it, it is stimulated by a sound and, and it begins functioning. and that that pulls our entire organism back into healing. And so as a complimentary modality, and I would, I would always say, you know talk to your medical doctors first. I know, I know that you tell all your listeners this, but, but that is the message. But then, over and above that beginning to, to look at things like, like energy healing and, and sound healing, go to a sound bath. But what is so exciting is there are things that we can do to stimulate the cells in our bodies that are free and easy, and a couple of them are singing. John Goldstein decades ago did, did tests to find out if. A person is singing their cells, their blood cells become more active and, and, and thus deliver more oxygen to the body. And as we know, oxygen, okay. Getting to the cell. Is that fascinating? Oh, same thing. Oh, I'm still gonna look that up. I did not know that actually. Yeah, I've got, I've got some links that I will send you for, for the science behind this. But the other, the other thing is humming and humm. Can be incredibly healing because it stimulates something, you know, well, the, the vagus nerve, which is the wandering nerve that, that, that helps regulate blood pressure and, and so many of, of the bodily functions. And so humming is something that we can do anytime. Like right as you're cooking, as you're going for a walk sitting outside under a tree, we can, we can hum. Drumming is an amazing thing for, because it, it, it stimulates the heartbeat. And for people who don't have drums, you can tap on yourself, on your chest percussively you can tap on a book or on a desk. But, but you know, people ask like, well, how, how long do we have to do these things? It takes four minutes for our bodies to come in to entrainment, which is simply a fancy word for the, the cells in our body. The cells in our. Beginning to, to vibrate at a, at a, at a similar frequency to that sound that is being e e emitted. And so, so there, there, there's that. But someone I've, I've, I've studied with John Stewart Reid. He has found that in 20 minutes of listening to music, you. provided it's not, you know, extremely loud and causing your body stress. Listening to music you love for 20 minutes changes the cells in your body to, to become more active and, and doing their, their cellular function. And so that is huge. Anybody can do that. You know, put on 20 minutes of music you love and you are helping your body to heal. And, and it goes back to what I was saying about the inner healer, our bodies. intuitively know how to heal if we give them everything that they need. Sometimes the sound is simply doing stress reduction and we all know stress. Stress, stress is so harmful to us on so many levels, right? For so many diseases, stress, stress can be a trigger. I have autoimmune diseases and stress is a big trigger for flareups. Sound can. Us to come into this place of balance, much like reiki energy cans. So, so those are just a couple of tips that, that people can, can keep in mind and, and build into their every day. And like I was saying, everything is incremental. And so if you can work into your day, 20 minutes, it could be in the car as you're, as you're, as you're driving, just listening to music that you love, it can be humming in the shower or as you're going on your. There, there are things that we can do to, to help our bodies to heal optimally. Sound healing, Reiki energy healing. It's, it's not a pill that is going to cure your diabetes, but it enables your body to come into a more a better. of its own innate healing. And, and, and that works in compliment with, with Western medicine. Right? So

Charlyce: 43:27

I'd like to tag on when it comes to a healing modality like sound healing. And when I, I'm doing my day job, which is, you know, using you know, prescription medications, those modalities, yeah. You look at risk factors or risk benefits, side effects. So, one thing you is an easy one. What is gonna be the worst thing that happens in a sound healing session? Right? What's the worst thing that can happen with their first? So I, that's something I'll, I'll discuss a lot with my patients when we're, we're picking what's gonna happen next is like the one thing. and probably why I am so fascinated with a lot of these healing modalities is that what's the risk? What's the worst that's gonna happen? Exactly, exactly. When you start sizing that up, it's like, whoa, that's, you know, if this is the worst that happens, we're great. Yeah. So Kathy, for the listeners who are wanting to learn more about. and who are ready to take the next step. As far as your book, as far as working with you as a client, how can they find you, if you don't mind sharing.

Kathy: 44:32

Oh, thank you, Charlyce. Yes. Thank you for that. The best way to find me is@sufferingtothriving.com. And, and there they can find out about my, my book. They can learn how to connect with me. I have a little bit about sound healing there. Okay. And, and, and my reiki. And my book suffering to Thriving, your toolkit for Navigating your Healing Journey is available on amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. But if you go to my, to my website, suffering to Thrive, and you can find the link to the book there as well as to my social media to connect there. Listeners, I know that you are probably like most of us podcast fans and you're probably in the middle of something, so no worries. You'll find Kathy's information in your. And I also will be emailing out Kathy's

Charlyce: 45:22

information and if you'd like to get an email of this, check your show notes and it'll be an easy way to sign up. Kathy, thank you so much for joining me. This was so much. good and healing information as you are talking. I felt so much of it, and I know the listeners, but I felt it applied to me. It was proud. It was like, oh, wonderful. Do that. I can, I see. And I, so I, that's just your approach. It's so universal and so personal. So thank you so much

Kathy: 45:52

and thank you for having me, Charlyce. It has been an absolute joy discussing all of these things with you. Thank you. Thank you so much, Kathy. Thanks.

Charlyce: 46:08

You can find more information on Kathy and her offerings@sufferingtothriving.com. You're also seeing your show notes and easily link. You can click to get to her website as well as the link to her book. If you'd like to start on your healing journey. As always, thank you so much for being a listener on the show. It's such a blessing to be able to connect with you as listeners. It's a blessing to be able to connect with healers like Cathy, who so openly shared her story that is inspirational and can help all of us. Is you're listening. Don't forget that this is a small podcast production. So any sort of input we can get is great. So on the platform that you're listening, if you want to leave a rating and let others know what you thought of the show, if it was helpful, Absolutely. Please leave a rating. I would very much appreciate that. Also, if you want to share this podcast with your friends and family, send them a link. That would be great. We'd love to connect with more like-minded folks. And updates is far is working with me. I did want to let listeners know that I am working very hard to expand my offerings as an integrative physician. And I'm trying to reach out to as many people as I can. So pretty soon there's going to be the option to work with me as a, is a. Integrative physician. And I will have more information about that in the coming days, weeks a month. So I would definitely say sign up for my newsletter so that I can update you. And you can learn how you can become part of the healing arts health and wellness practice. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful week. I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye.