My Story with Sound Medicine – The Gentle Gatekeeper to Emotional Transformation

Written by Dr. Aknes Kendra (PhD), Sound Practitioner, Transpersonal Work Facilitator, and Sound Medicine Dr. Aknes Kendra (PhD) is a sound practitioner, transpersonal work facilitator, and sound medicine teacher who brings together the latest science and incorporates it with ancient wisdom.

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The first time I truly understood the medicine of sound, I was not in a healing session or meditation retreat. I was eighteen, sitting at the edge of a ballet studio, my fingers moving across the keys of an old upright piano as dancers moved like liquid poetry across the wooden floor.

In that moment, watching bodies respond to the music I was creating, I witnessed something profound. Life itself was a dance between sound and movement, between rhythm and grace, between the invisible and the embodied.

I had been classically trained since I was four, my fingers knowing Beethoven and Mozart pieces, but it wasn't until I watched those dancers, their breath synchronised to my playing, their movements flowing in perfect harmony with each musical phrase, that I understood music wasn't just art.

It was medicine. It was healing.

It was the language that helped bodies remember how to be in conversation with themselves.

That revelation slept in my consciousness for years as I pursued academia, earning my PhD in economics, building what looked like a successful conventional life.

But the body remembers what the mind forgets, and about a decade later, when my own healing journey demanded I find tools deeper than talk therapy and more nuanced than willpower, I found myself returning to sound not as performance this time, but as profound therapeutic practice.

The language before language

If you ask most people where their healing journey began, the answers arrive clothed in struggle, a crisis, a heartbreak, a diagnosis.

My own path was no different, marked by its own tumultuous chapters as I navigated emotional trauma and the call to heal.

But my first real invitation into transformation came unexpectedly gentle, not through sound initially, but through Moira William’s Pure Heart Connection Method.

In that clarity and healing, I gradually discovered my own path forward and the profound medicine that sound offered for my unique journey.

Sound healing is an ancient art, but its medicine is as urgent and relevant as ever.

In a world fraying at the edges with noise, digital notifications, traffic, and the constant chatter of anxious minds, sound healing offers not more stimulation, but an empowered return to presence.

It becomes not just a tool, but a threshold, ushering us into the inner landscapes where real transformation takes root.

Long before we had language, we had song, rhythmic, tonal, vibrational. Indigenous peoples understood this, mystics have always known it, and now modern neuroscientists are catching up. Our bodies are built for resonance.

Your nervous system, down to its most secret layers, is listening, waiting, hoping for the sounds that will remind it how to come home to itself.

I came to sound work already steeped in emotional inquiry, trained in various therapeutic modalities, but I hadn't realised how much of my healing lived beneath words, beyond the reach of cognitive understanding.

In session after session, sometimes with vibration, sometimes with singing bowls, sometimes in the electric quiet after a sustained note, I discovered the places I'd armoured myself against feeling.

Not to fight those defences, but to invite them to soften. Not to fix what was broken, but to observe what was ready to transform.

More than brainwaves, a symphony of consciousness

For decades, science measured only four brainwave states, delta, theta, alpha, and beta, with perhaps gamma acknowledged for the brave few peering into mystical consciousness.

The scientific community largely ignored the possibility of frequencies below delta, dismissing them as artifacts or noise.

But emerging research now reveals a far more sophisticated orchestra at play, a harmonious stack of at least six distinct brainwave layers, each tuned to a different register of consciousness, emotion, and healing potential.

The discovery of epsilon waves, those mysterious frequencies below 0.5 Hz that seem to connect us to something vast and timeless, has revolutionised our understanding of how consciousness operates and how profound healing becomes possible.

In fact, the deeper layers delta (0.5-4 Hz) and the newly discovered epsilon (below 0.5 Hz) are primal, wordless territories where our deepest regeneration occurs.

Here, sound bypasses the mind's defences entirely, inviting us to process trauma and cellular memory below the threshold of conscious thought. This is where sound healing becomes initiation, "It meets us in places we cannot think our way into or out of."

Theta waves (4-8 Hz) hold our creative, dreamy child and our capacity for deep meditation. In this frequency, stuck emotions find a safe bridge to rise and soften, memories can be recontextualised without re-traumatisation, and the imagination becomes medicine. Alpha waves (8-13 Hz) represent our relaxed, aware state, the gentle alertness that allows integration to occur naturally, without force.

Beta waves (13-30 Hz) encompass our focused, waking consciousness, while gamma (30-100 Hz) represents moments of binding consciousness, insight, and transcendent awareness. High gamma states (above 40 Hz) have been associated with states of compassion, universal love, and what mystics call unity consciousness.

But what makes sound healing so uniquely powerful as an initiatory practice is it seamlessly traverses all these layers simultaneously. 

A single singing bowl, played with intention, creates overtones that can entrain multiple brainwave frequencies at once.

Instead of fighting with the mind or trying to force our way into healing, sound provides a gentle elevator that carries us naturally between states of consciousness, allowing healing to occur at the pace our nervous system can integrate.

Sound as liquid architecture

One of the most revolutionary discoveries in recent years has been understanding how sound affects our fascia, the web-like connective tissue that wraps every muscle, organ, and nerve in our body like a three-dimensional internet.

Dr. Ida Rolf called fascia "the organ of form," but we now know it's also the organ of memory, emotion, and energetic transmission.

When we experience trauma, shock, or chronic stress, our fascia literally contracts, creating patterns of holding that can persist for decades.

Traditional talk therapy rarely reaches these somatic imprints because they exist below the level of conscious memory, encoded in the very architecture of our bodies.

But sound? Sound moves through water, but fascia is far more sophisticated than we once understood. Dr. Catherine Clinton's groundbreaking research reveals that fascia exists as a triple helix crystalline structure, a liquid crystalline matrix that doesn't just contain water, but organises it into coherent, information-carrying patterns.

This crystalline architecture makes fascia exquisitely sensitive to vibrational frequencies, capable of storing, transmitting, and transforming sound waves throughout the entire body in ways that simple water-based tissue never could.

When specific frequencies are applied therapeutically, whether through voice, instruments, or vibroacoustic technology, the fascia begins to soften, hydrate, and reorganise.

I've witnessed clients experience profound emotional releases during sound sessions as their bodies literally let go of patterns they've been holding since before time. Tears flow not from psychological processing, but from cellular remembering, the fascia releasing both physical tension and emotional memory simultaneously.

This is why sound (phonons) can initiate healing where other modalities plateau. It speaks the body's first language vibration.

Every cell in your body is oscillating at its own frequency, and when those frequencies become coherent through sound healing, the entire system reorganises toward health and wholeness.

Sound as vascular medicine

Recent research has revealed another profound mechanism through which sound healing works, the production of nitric oxide (NO).

When we hum, chant, or engage with specific frequencies, the vibrations in our sinuses, throat, and chest stimulate the production of this remarkable molecule that serves as a vasodilator, anti-inflammatory, and neurotransmitter.

Nitric oxide was so revolutionary that its discovery earned the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. This simple molecule helps blood vessels relax and widen, improving circulation throughout the body and brain.

Better circulation means better oxygenation, improved nutrient delivery, and enhanced waste removal, all essential for optimal nervous system function and emotional regulation.

But what's particularly relevant for emotional healing, nitric oxide also plays a crucial role in neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to rewire itself.

When we engage in sound healing practices, we're not just creating relaxation, we're literally creating the biochemical conditions that allow old neural patterns to dissolve and new, healthier patterns to form.

In fact, a growing body of research shows that music and sound therapy engage and reorganise large-scale brain networks, including the salience network, which acts as a switchboard for emotional awareness, focus, and the integration of the body.

Through entraining these networks, sound helps shift the brain and body toward greater coherence and adaptability.

It’s this orchestration, not just at the level of neurotransmitters, but across entire networks like the salience network, that enables emotional healing to take root, allowing us to process and integrate experiences more deeply and find new patterns of thought, feeling, and being.

The vagus nerve, our body's primary pathway for parasympathetic regulation, is particularly responsive to sound-induced nitric oxide production.

Humming, toning, and chanting all stimulate vagal tone while simultaneously boosting NO production, creating a powerful synergy for nervous system reset and emotional integration.

Cerebrospinal fluid: The river of consciousness

Perhaps one of the most fascinating frontiers in sound research involves cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), the clear liquid that bathes our brain and spinal cord.

Dr. Mauro Zappaterra's groundbreaking work has revealed that CSF is far more than just protective cushioning, it's an active, intelligent system that he calls "the river of consciousness."

CSF contains stem cells, growth factors, and an array of bioactive molecules that are essential for brain health, neuroplasticity, and even consciousness itself.

But here’s where it gets interesting for sound. CSF flow follows specific rhythms and can be influenced by external vibrations. When CSF flow becomes sluggish or disrupted, often due to stress, trauma, or physical restrictions, cognitive function, emotional regulation, and overall vitality suffer.

Sound appears to stimulate healthy CSF flow through several mechanisms.

The rhythmic oscillations created by singing bowls, gongs, and other instruments may directly entrain the craniosacral rhythm that governs CSF circulation. Additionally, the relaxation response induced by sound healing helps release fascial restrictions that can impede CSF flow, particularly around the cranial base and upper cervical spine.

Dr. Zappaterra's research suggests that when CSF flow is optimised, the brain's glymphatic system, its waste clearance mechanism, becomes more efficient at removing metabolic debris and inflammatory byproducts.

This is particularly relevant for emotional healing, as many mood disorders and trauma responses are associated with neuroinflammation and impaired brain detoxification.

During sound healing sessions, clients often report profound mental clarity, emotional release, and a sense of "coming back online" that may be directly related to improved CSF circulation. The gentle, rhythmic nature of sound healing provides the perfect conditions for this crucial system to reset and restore itself.

Phonons: The feminine wave revolution

Here's where the science becomes truly magical. Every sound healer intuitively knows the transformative power of vibration, but emerging quantum physics is revealing the subtle mechanics behind it through understanding phonons, quantum particles of vibrational energy that are, in many ways, the "divine feminine" counterpart to photons (particles of light).

Phonons carry the cool, undulating wave of sound through the body's matter, moving through our liquid crystalline matrix with grace and patience.

Where photons blaze in the realm of mind and information, traveling at light speed with sharp precision, phonons flow like water, like the feminine principle itself, receptive, integrative, cyclical.

This distinction is revolutionary for understanding why sound healing works so differently from light-based therapies or cognitive approaches.

Where light seeks to illuminate and reveal (yang energy), sound invites integration and harmony (yin energy).

Healing through phonons is slow, cyclical, and earthy. It is the healing our overstimulated nervous systems have been crying out for in a culture obsessed with the speed and intensity of "breakthrough" and "enlightenment."

Where photons excite and energise neural networks, phonons soothe and harmonise them.

This is why lying in a sound bath, or feeling overtone resonance in your bones, begins to unravel emotional knots you never thought would loosen. It is the direct experience of being held, wave after wave, until you become soft enough to receive yourself fully.

The inverse relationship between phonons and photons also explains why sound healing can be so effective for trauma recovery. Trauma often gets "stuck" in the system as frozen energy, hypervigilance, and fragmented neural networks.

While light-based treatments might overstimulate an already activated nervous system, phonon-based sound healing provides the gentle, consistent waves needed to help frozen energy thaw and flow again.

Entraining the body, not just the brain

Traditional therapy often focuses on changing thoughts and behaviours, working with the brain's cognitive and executive functions.

But sound healing operates from a fundamentally different paradigm, instead of trying to override the body's responses, it entrains the entire system toward coherence.

Entrainment is a physics principle discovered by Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens in 1665 when he noticed that pendulum clocks placed near each other would eventually synchronise their swings.

The same principle governs how sound healing works in the body.

When we're exposed to coherent, stable frequencies, our biological rhythms, heartbeat, breathing, brainwaves, and even cellular oscillations naturally begin to entrain to those frequencies.

This is profound for emotional healing because emotions aren't just thoughts or feelings, they're complex psychophysiological states that involve the entire body.

When we entrain the body to coherent frequencies, we're literally training the nervous system to reorganise around states of calm, connection, and resilience rather than survival, protection, and reactivity.

Unlike approaches that work against the body's natural wisdom, sound healing works with it.

Instead of forcing change through willpower or analysis, it creates the optimal conditions for organic transformation.

The body's innate intelligence, which always moves toward healing and balance when given the right environment, can finally do what it knows how to do.

Energetic hygiene for emotional health

Sound healing also works at what we might call the "energetic" or "field" level, the subtle electromagnetic and biofield interactions that govern how we feel and function.

Just as we need to cleanse our bodies of physical toxins, our energetic field requires regular clearing of accumulated emotional debris, psychic pollution, and energetic static.

Sound waves are particularly effective at clearing and organising these subtle fields because they work through resonance and harmonics. Discordant emotions, traumatic memories, and stress patterns create what we might think of as "energetic static" in the field of chaotic frequencies that disrupt our natural coherence and vitality.

When we engage in sound healing, coherent frequencies help organise and clear this static, much like tuning forks can bring other instruments into pitch. The field around and within us literally reorganises, creating space for higher frequencies of joy, peace, creativity, and love to emerge naturally.

This is why many people report feeling "clearer," "lighter," or more "like themselves" after sound healing sessions. They're not becoming someone new, they're returning to their natural state of coherence, with the accumulated noise and static cleared away.

A personal return

My own journey back to sound as medicine wasn't linear.

Those early years at the piano, watching dancers embody music with such grace, planted seeds that would germinate a decade later when my own healing demanded tools that could reach places words couldn't touch.

When I first experienced receiving sound healing as a client, lying on a table while singing bowls and tuning forks created waves of resonance through my body, I felt something I hadn't experienced since those ballet studio days, the profound relief of being held by something larger than my individual will or effort. 

My nervous system, which had been running on high alert for years, finally had permission to soften.

But it wasn't just relaxation, and I experienced it as remembering.

My body remembered how to breathe fully, how to feel safe, how to trust its own rhythms. Emotions that had been frozen in my system for years began to thaw and move, not through analysis or processing, but through simple, gentle resonance.

That's when I understood why I'd been called back to sound. Not to perform it this time, but to facilitate it. To hold space for others to remember what their bodies already know about healing, harmony, and wholeness.

Why sound first? The gentle initiation

If you want to do the deep work to rewrite patterns, to face trauma with grace, to recover creativity and joy, sound healing offers a uniquely gentle yet profound initiation.

It does not bypass the difficult work of healing, it makes that work possible by creating the neurophysiological conditions for safe transformation.

You can only heal as deeply as you feel safe to go, and sound, especially in the hands of an experienced practitioner with integrity, creates that safety before a single story is told, before any painful memory is touched. It works at the level of regulation first, helping the nervous system find its natural rhythms of expansion and contraction, excitement and rest.

In my years of practice, whether facilitating, teaching, or receiving, I have witnessed the impossible happen, tears shed without shame, memories soften into wisdom, chronic tension dissolve into flow, the "stuckness" begin to move.

Not all at once. Gently, rhythmically, like tide and moon, like breath itself. Sound healing is initiated not because it is easy, but because it honours the body's own timeline and wisdom.

It meets you exactly where you are and helps you remember exactly who you've always been beneath the conditioning, beneath the armour, beneath the fear. It is the sound of coming home to yourself, one breath at a time.

If this exploration into the profound medicine of sound resonates with something deep within you, if you feel called to discover how your own signature and presence can become instruments of healing, I invite you to join me in exploring these mysteries further.

Through Level 1 Emotional & Sound Healing, we dive into the practical application of everything shared here. How to work with the six layers of brainwaves, how to facilitate safe emotional release through sound, and how to integrate the Pure Heart Connection Method with vibrational healing in your own unique way.

Whether you're drawn to deepen your personal healing journey or share these gifts with others, this foundational training offers both the science and the sacred practice that transform sound from noise into medicine. To learn more about Level 1 Emotional & Sound Healing, contact Pure Heart Centre or visit here.

Allow sound to be your first invitation home. The rest of your story will meet you there, in resonance, in new harmony, in the gentle unfolding of your deepest healing.

To learn more about Dr. Aknes Kendra's work, visit Pure Heart Centre or connect with her on social media @akneskendra_phd.

Follow Pure Heart Centre on Instagram, and visit my website for more info!

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Pure Heart Centre, Home of Healing and Heart Leadership

Pure Heart Centre is a heart-centered sanctuary for emotional healing, spiritual growth, and intuitive development, founded by Moira Williams. With over 35 years of expertise, Moira and her team offer transformative courses, 1-1 consultations, and a thriving virtual community. Pure Heart Centre is dedicated to empowering individuals to live authentically, reconnect with their inner strength, and create heart-centered lives. Through practical tools, grounded spirituality, and a nurturing space, the Centre continues to inspire personal and collective transformation. Learn more here.