How Can We Heal Trauma and The Inner Child with Sound?
After a long professional journey exploring various models of trauma healing, I’ve returned to the foundational principles found in all ancient healing traditions, which emphasize our interconnectedness and the balance between individual needs and collective needs.
The core principles of these traditions include:
In this space—between ourselves and others—a sentient force emerges, often referred to as “resonance” or “heart coherence.” According to the HeartMath Institute, Heart Coherence is a state of alignment among the heart, mind, emotions, and physical systems, characterized by qualities like kindness, compassion, and genuine connection.
Our early relational templates, formed between 0-7, profoundly influence our ability to sustain heart coherence. Stress during these formative years—whether physical, emotional, environmental, or social—can disrupt our natural capacity for coherence, impairing our emotional and physiological well-being. Without heart coherence, it becomes challenging to experience safety, connection, belonging, and relational satisfaction.
Body-based therapies, the healing arts, and core shamanic practices help us connect to this vital life force and heart-resonance to address these disruptions in the psyche and soma (body) by reconnecting us to blocked patterns, allowing us to process deep-seated emotional memories, and enhancing the mind-body-spirit connection.
The Role of Sound in Healing
Sound has been used for centuries to support healing by facilitating deeper connections to the subconscious. It soothes the nervous system and fosters exploration through frequencies, tones, and words. Music uniquely engages the limbic brain, our emotional processing center.
Sound Journeying, an ancient practice in many cultures employs rhythmic instruments like drums or didgeridoos to shift awareness to the right hemisphere of the brain. This part of the brain governs visualization, emotional access, and spiritual connection, enabling dreamlike states and inspiration.
Integrating sound into healing allows us to access deeper layers of the subconscious and engage with ourselves meaningfully. In this type of medicine journey for the inner child, we can locate and process unhealed, preverbal emotional experiences, especially those formed between ages 0-7 to access and resolve the belief systems that are fueling many of our unconscious patterns.
For more about sound journeys, I will refer to you the first book I used by Hank Wesselman, Ph.D called, The Journey to the Sacred Garden.
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