What You Should Look for in a Sound Healing Training
Are you thinking of taking your personal or professional practice to the next level?
Whether you are ready to now or are considering it down the road, we wanted to share some tips from our own learning and teaching experiences. Having experienced many trainings around the world with a variety of teachers we have been able to discern the best qualities of what makes a training or learning experience meaningful - and what makes it stick.
Key essentials to a transformative learning experience include:
1.Hands-on Experience
“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”
This old proverb says it all. Being involved in the sound healing practices and getting as much hands on experience as possible is at the heart of learning.
Make sure you are practicing hands on exactly what you need to learn. Lecture based classes are wonderful for information and developing a foundational starting point, but there comes a time that you need to put it all into action. Practice ensures you will be able to use the tools in your field. When you practice and learn in a formal setting, you get constructive feedback and group support so that your offerings are outstanding and show depth of knowledge and experience.
Sometimes all it takes is one bad sound bath experience for someone to say “ I tried that before and I don’t like it.” We have heard this often with Sound Healing specifically and it breaks our hearts to know that a bad experience could have been avoided if the practitioner knew proper protocols and how to hold space.
2.Community
Surrounding yourself with other like minded people that are passionate about learning in the same field is the next most important thing to look for. When you have someone next to you just as excited to learn, it will only deepen your love and dedication to learning as much as you can. Group energy is powerful. Have you ever been to a concert where the energy is high and you feel like you are floating and you never want the day to end? That's what it's like when you are in a learning environment that is full of passionate people looking to deepen their practice. You can find this type of community support in-person and online when learning experiences are carefully curated to include group discussion and collaboration.
3.Do your research
Look into the training and see what their resources and learning materials include. Ideally there is a clear and solid outline of what you will be learning. The last thing you want to do is show up and wonder what the heck you will learn that day or why.
A clear outline of the course material will help you be more prepared and set a solid intention for each day. Feeling unprepared can sometimes lead to not feeling confident about your learning experience. A clear outline and intention for each learning experience prepares you for success- mentally and energetically.
4.Learning how to hold space
Holding space and creating a safe environment will help the healing experience come that much easier. If you aren't taught this from the very beginning by example and with clear guidelines, it can make it challenging to start practicing on your own. No matter what field you work in- massage therapy, acupuncture, sound healing, yoga or any other healing arts, you want to feel confident to be able to create an atmosphere for healing. Experiencing how other teachers hold space gives you a guidepost to follow.
5.Science
How does something work? Wouldn’t that be nice to know? Sometimes you can go into a learning situation and learn how to do something but you have no idea how or why it works. Make sure your course is grounded in science but doesn’t ignore what science can’t explain. Trust us, clients want to know how and why what you are doing is working. Especially if they are new to sound healing or other energy practices. Being able to properly educate your clients or anyone that's just interested in what you do will help develop confidence in you and what you have to offer. It will also increase the chances that more people will turn to the natural power of sound healing to help them experience greater health.
6.Personalization
Not all sounds are for everyone. As with any practice, developing an understanding of what best fits your patient or client is critical. Make sure that you are learning how to properly create protocols and safety guidelines to prevent giving a traumatic experience to someone. Developing strong fundamental protocols will also allow you to meet everyone where they are at and put together the best option for them. This should be expressed in your class. All too often we hear people say that these sounds will heal you, or that this frequency is for everyone. Remember, we all are a uniquely beautiful human instrument. Sound works differently on us all. It’s important to be able to act safely, professionally and have standards to live by. This isn’t to say anything against anyone that bought some instruments and has had some minor success with them. If you want to help people on a larger scale it’s important to have safe guidelines established with some roots to live by.
These are just some of our suggestions for picking out a sound healing course or other healing arts class for yourself. We have definitely put the time, money and effort into getting this kind of knowledge. We have experienced many teachings, including from world renown teachers that have worked with F.E.M.A & governments around the world that are being called into natural disasters to use sound to bring a relaxation amidst all the pain. We have also worked with teachers that talk about being abducted by aliens. Not to discredit their experience but it's important to learn from a fundamentally sound place. It's important that your teachers are grounded, steady & calm. Make sure your teachers practice what they preach.
If you are interested in a hands-on, community based, foundationally strong, sound practice that is grounded in science and dances in the metaphysical world as well as delivers protocols and safety guidelines check out our in person classes. We have taken all of the good stuff that we have learned over the years and broken it down into an easily digestible transformational learning experience. Sometimes when we are sitting with a class we are so full of joy being able to offer something like this to others. We are so grateful for every student that we have had the pleasure of working with. The atmosphere is set for the perfect learning exchange as we all also learn so much from everyone who participates. Thank you for reading, and remember, everything we say is just a suggestion. We speak from a place of experience. So what are you waiting for? Start experimenting and find out for yourself!