My Sound Bath

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 12-23-2024

Starting yoga a few months ago was not something I was doing out of excitement. It was something I was doing because I felt a need that I figured only the art of yoga might fulfill. The art of letting go, surrender, clearing my mind in a way that nothing else could. I needed to drown out & silence the outside world. But, more importantly, I needed to get my mind to shut the hell up. The stretching felt good, the peace and calm felt great. But something surprised me even more. The sound bath. One of my favorite instructors likes to do this sound bath at the end of most of her classes with the large white bowls and instruments. I was shocked the first time I experienced this. I felt the loud noises move through my body, and involuntary spasms started to occur. I also noticed heavy emotional reactions as well as intrusive trauma memories; like a fast slide show of my trauma memories were flashing through my mind at a rapid pace.

There was a part of me that wanted to reject this process, but, I chose to lean into it. I started eagerly going back to yoga for more relaxation followed by my intrusive memory sound baths. They became more vivid. I remember in my first Yin & sound practice my body went into a deep state of relaxation. When the sound bath occurred I remember the large bowl creating a ‘siren’ like noise that sent me back to my Afghanistan deployment back in 2012. It sounded a lot like the siren that went off when we were being bombed/ attacked by enemy combatants on our FOB. My mind started to flash with visions/ memories.

Memories included being under a concrete cinderblock staring up at the moon through the crevice as people squeezed in from left to right; crushing me as the bombs kept hitting the base. Then flashes of other images during the deployment. Me being startled awake by a VBIED threatening the barrier of our base. An F16 jet and Apache helicopters shooting down at our enemy combatants to rescue us. Seeing a dead man on a litter and a soldier comforting an Afghan local because the dead man was his friend; solemn. Seeing our patient’s hopeless eyes before he left the clinic, and eventually shot himself later in the night with his M16. Seeing his coffin with a flag draped on top of it being carried into the C17. The whistling sounds from mortors, gun shot sounds. The Afghan national army soldiers and the way they looked at me (and all women in the military). The jarry feeling of walking or driving by people with guns that will not stop staring. And you are told that they are the ‘ally’, but you never know, they could ‘be the enemy so always watch your back.’

My eyes flutter, my body convulses a bit. It is not voluntary, it’s an energy that is piercing through me. And for some reason, my mind has to process these traumas again per the music from the bowl. Per the sound vibrations. Then, when it’s over, a few tears are pouring out. And the yoga instructor tells us it’s time to incorporate gentle movement back into our bodies. I do feel a release and a sense of relief. I am never quite sure why this is so effective but it is. I ask my instructor after my 4th class if this is normal. She starts to discuss the ‘Chakras’ and how our energy becomes compromised throughout our lives. With stressors and traumas. The sound vibrations serve as a sort of ‘release’.

I eventually notice that my mind was getting through the combat trauma processing. Why? Because eventually, my intrusive childhood trauma memories started to play out. Flashes of incidents that happened during the timeframe that my Bio Mom had custody of me and my brother. Flashes of different places we lived, different boyfriends she had. The unkind ones. Getting physically abused as a toddler. Getting abandoned. Seeing so many adults around me with scowls on their faces. Hunting for food with my brother and learning how to feed ourselves. Or worse, having no choice but to trust strangers to help us. Growing up feeling like a burden to everyone around me, as I was a very ‘unwanted child’ during the prevalent ‘first five years’. (Mental health professionals theorize that attachment disorders develop during the first five years of a childs life)

Then eventually, flashes of domestic violence from my ex fiance. How he shoved me to the ground when I was trying to leave our apartment right in front of his 3 year old toddler. All of the screaming and name calling he did. Tearing me down with his words and intentially destroying my almost non existent self esteem. Then, the horrific way in which my more recent relationship ended; my ex drug binging, taking off for long periods of time. Literally recreating my childhood right before my very eyes. Having to break up with someone that I still loved because I decided that respect is more important than love. Selling the first house I bought as it felt haunted with memories of us. Selling that house may as well have been me selling all of my dreams. I always wanted my own home and it was the most beautiful time of my life, until it wasn’t.

Lately, I have been having less intrusive trauma memories during my sound baths. Now it’s turning into pleasant fantasies and day dreams. I believe this may be a good sign. Also I have been experiencing more eye fluttering. “Energy release: Some believe that eye flutters during a sound bath represent the release of stored emotional energy, particularly related to the “third eye” chakra area on the forehead” (https://www.google.com/search?q=eye+flutters+during+sound+baths&sca_esv=1). So naturally, I wanted to know more about my ‘Third eye chakra”. The “Third Eye activation occurs when meditation techniques stimulate the Third Eye Chakra by sending energy and awareness to it. When you focus awareness and energy via meditation, the brain, nervous system, and all of your mental functions become relaxed, purified, enlivened, and strengthened” (https://www.bigshakti.com/third-eye-ajna-chakra-power-to-enlighten#What-is-third-eye). This is very good news as I have a tremendous amount of emotional turmoil stored up due to having PTSD and being a mental health professional where I still listen to trauma/ grief stories on a weekly basis.

To say that I recommend yoga and sounds baths would be an understatement! But, I do believe that people have to be ready and open to it. In my twenties, you would have never caught me in a yoga class. Because it didn’t seem ‘high intensity’ to me, I saw it as a waste of time. But now, I am doing yoga 1-2X a week, to balance out my brazilian jiu jitsu 1-2X a week. And it is quite interesting how these two sports oppose and balance each other out. In BJJ, focus is imperative. We need lazer focus to make sure we protect ourselves from people trying to hurt us. You have to get the techniques down perfectly. You have to become obsessed. In yoga, we let everything go. No more perfection, no more obsession, it’s the ultimate surrender.

Below is the attachment to the website for my Yoga studio for anyone that is local!

https://www.earthyogaandspa.com/