Disclaimer: This is transcribed using AI. Expect (funny) errors.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:00] I’m Mindy Peterson, and this is Enhance Life with Music, where we explore the ways music makes our lives better and spotlight the resources you can use to enhance your life with music. My guest today is a world renowned sound therapist and leading voice in the field of sound healing. Sara Auster has developed a mindfulness curriculum for the World Health Organization, created FDA approved sound baths as a complementary treatment option for people living with migraines, and partnered with organizations including Apple, Spotify, and Google to create inclusive sound bath experiences. Sara is the author of the book, “Sound Bath: Meditate, Heal, and Connect Through Listening.” Welcome to Enhance Life with Music, Sara.
Sara Auster: [00:00:50] Hi Mindy, thanks so much for having me.
Mindy Peterson: [00:00:53] It’s great to have you here. Sara, you started facilitating sound baths before most of us had even heard of the term in the last ten years. Maybe. The concept has definitely become somewhat more familiar, if not mainstream. And I actually had a friend who just recently posted on social media about sound baths and sound healing. I knew this person was dealing with some medical issues, but had no idea he was checking into sound baths at all, and he just posted on Facebook that he’s really found a lot of success with that, and is starting to do some facilitating of his own. So I found that really fascinating. And I told you before we hit record, I connected with your work through Nick Lehman with ASCAP. I had him as a guest recently on the show, talking about AI and what AI means for the world of music. And as part of our coda, the ending of our conversation, he talked about singing bowls and sound baths and actually played his singing bowl briefly. And I was so intrigued by that. And he subsequently sent me your information. And when I saw all of the offerings that you have, I was just really fascinating. So I’m thrilled to have you here. But starting out for listeners who maybe aren’t so familiar with what a sound bath is, can you just explain what a sound bath is?
Sara Auster: [00:02:18] Yes, absolutely. And to your to your point, ten plus years ago, when I started facilitating sound baths, I feel the shift in this way when I would meet somebody new and tell them what my work was and they would say, oh, that’s so interesting. What is a sound bath? Or what is sound therapy? Flash forward to 2024. If I meet somebody new and I introduce myself and my work very often now, the response is, oh my gosh, I love sound baths.
Mindy Peterson: [00:02:49] Okay, so has that been a gradual shift? Yeah. Was it a gradual shift or was there some event that really sparked a huge interest in this.
Sara Auster: [00:03:00] Um, it’s it’s definitely, from my perspective, been a pretty rapid entry into the mainstream starting, uh, you know, about maybe 7 or 8 years ago.
Mindy Peterson: [00:03:14] Okay. So you were really a pioneer in this, and you’ve gotten lots of experience explaining what a sound bath is. So what’s your kind of elevator speech of just explaining the concept?
Sara Auster: [00:03:29] Yeah, it’s often my role to introduce the experience to new audiences. So here’s the sort of textbook definition that I’ve created to help give people words to the experience. And It’s a Sound Bath is a deeply immersive, full body listening experience where we’re using sounds and simple Mindfulness techniques to help invite therapeutic and restorative processes to the mind and body.
Mindy Peterson: [00:04:05] Okay. And this can be one on one. It could be a group. Mhm. I think you saw it on your website or in your book. You’ve had up to 10,000 people at a time in one of your sound baths.
Sara Auster: [00:04:21] Yes. One on one in a group up to 10,000 or 10. In an arena, on a boat, in a plane, in a museum, in a hospital, all different kinds of of contexts. And that has been the driving force behind my work. And wanting to make it even more accessible is sort of bringing the experience into these non traditional or unexpected Did places.
Mindy Peterson: [00:04:55] And some of those unexpected places can bring in overlap. And you talk in your book quite a bit about this, where you collaborate with other people, whether it’s the olfactory sense, with the sense of smell, or the the visual aspects of light and how light and sound interplay. So that’s really interesting. And a whole rabbit hole I’m sure we could go down to. But I want to try to discipline myself to stick to the basics here. Your book, I loved your book. You include a quote by Nikola Tesla in the book. He says, if you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration. So tell us, what is it about energy? The the frequency, the vibrations of sound that facilitate healing? Why are sound baths so healing? Or how do they heal us?
Sara Auster: [00:05:51] And, you know, knowing that we’re in the presence of potentially a lot of musicians or people who are interested in music in general. We all understand that sound affects us on many levels, on a physiological level, on a psychological level, emotionally and spiritually. So knowing that to be true, then we can take sound and use it as a tool to enhance our healing and well-being in all of those areas.
Mindy Peterson: [00:06:33] The vibrations. I’m really intrigued with that. And part of it might be because I noticed that when I go to live music concerts, especially for me, especially classical music, I feel like that experience is almost like a massage for my brain, I feel like it just creates. I walk out of there just feeling like I’ve reached equilibrium or balance or homeostasis, I find, and I. I’d like to dig into more at some point to find out why that is, but I’ve always wondered if part of it has to do with the vibrations. You talk in your book about how we can actually feel the vibrations and sound through our through our skin, and we can absorb it through our skin, and vibrations are transmitted through different mediums. You point out in the book about how sound is transmitted so efficiently through water. And our bodies are, what, like 70% water or something like that, or bones conduct sound, and actually sound is used in Western medical treatments. So talk to us some more about those vibrations and how that has a healing effect.
Sara Auster: [00:07:51] Yeah. To think about the body as a giant ear is where I would start. And to give you and everyone a really accessible example is if you’re at a concert, for instance, like you said, and let’s say you’re right next to a speaker and the music is really loud and you can put your fingers, you know, or your hands over your ears, but you will still feel the sound. Similarly, if you’re, you know, walking down the street and an ambulance or a fire truck goes by again, you can cover your ears. You’ll still hear the sound. You’ll also feel the sound because the body is just an exquisite conductor of sound. And as you mentioned, you know, is is moving through all the different elements of our physiology.
Mindy Peterson: [00:08:45] As you’re talking, it reminds me of the soundboard of a piano. If you play a piano, you can actually put your hand on the soundboard and feel the vibrations. And there’s a lot of correlations between what you’re saying with the body almost being like a soundboard for some of these sound vibrations.
Mindy Peterson: [00:09:05] In your book, as you talk about the sound bath experience, I know you use different instruments. The singing bowls, like I referenced Nick had introduced tuning forks, gongs and other instruments that create different sounds, sound waves that are associated with meditative and peaceful states. And there seems to be a lot of overlap between the state that you’re going for with the sound bath and meditation. In fact, I think there’s a chapter in your book like sound baths as meditation or something like that. Can you talk a little bit about that overlap between meditation and sound bath. And I think some of the therapeutic results are very similar to. But talk about that overlap. What’s the same? What’s different?
Sara Auster: [00:09:58] Yes. So there’s something that I say very often where if meditation is taking the stairs, a sound bath is taking the elevator, because very often in meditation they’re in many different techniques and traditions and lineage of meditation. There will be a point or many points of focus. So essentially you’re giving your mind something to do here. You know, look at this or here think about this. And that can be really difficult for people to do. I’ve been teaching meditation for almost 20 years, and I find that the biggest challenge for people is that they think they can’t do it, you know? Or they say, am I doing it right? Is this how it’s supposed to feel? And so a sound bath has the opportunity to strip away those barriers for entry, because the point or points of focus are external, the atonal sound that’s being provided through a sound bath experience helps to keep your mind’s attention in a way that is different from traditional, structured music and song.
Mindy Peterson: [00:11:19] Yeah, actually, there are some parts in your book where you talk about that, and it really grabbed my attention. I was like, was she writing this for me? Because you talk about how people, when they’re curious, can approach a sound bath like, ooh, what made that sound or what sound does that instrument make? And you said, if you’re focused on figuring out the source of the sounds during the sound bath, you won’t get the full benefits of the experience because instead of playing detective, the idea is to just let yourself drift and the sounds and really listen deeply without trying to pinpoint, okay, what instrument was that? And I thought, oh, that sounds exactly like what I would do. But also you talk about how the sound does give you something to focus on the sound. It’s ephemeral, it’s it’s short lived and it’s happening in the moment. And so you can just focus on that sound. And I thought, that sounds like something I could handle. A lot of the meditative descriptions I’ve heard in the past. It’s more like focus on your breath. And that just sounds awful to me. Like, how boring would that be? I would, I would much rather like just let my mind go in mind. Wandering mode like, that sounds therapeutic to me. And fun and relaxing. Focusing on my breath sounds painfully boring, but focusing on a sound of one of those singing bowls, like what Nick was showing us that I could definitely see myself doing. I mean, there was something about those vibrations that was just, ah. I’m trying to think of the right word. Mesmerizing. Maybe. I think that was that’s probably the best description I could come up with, and I could definitely focus on that more than my breath.
Sara Auster: [00:13:11] Yeah. And one of the one of the motivators behind this, the methodology that I created. And when I teach in my training, and Nick Liman, who’s been a student of mine for many years and went through my training, is that when I started to get deeper into my own personal practice of meditation and I started to actually be able to access meditative states, it was often in environments where I was a participant in guided meditation, and very often in those Experiences. I would be dropping into a deep, meditative place. This place where you don’t know you were there until you’re back. This kind of liminal, you know, I can’t feel my body or I’m somewhere else. And then I would hear a voice. Um, now bring your awareness to your right arm or something like this, you know, in a very, like, flowery voice. And it would pull me out of the meditative state. And so this is how I started to think about sound in a meditative way. That sound could give the spaciousness for the participant to access a meditative state without very specifically guiding awareness. The way that guided meditation is often presented with vocal guidance. Do you understand, like what you were saying about bringing focus to your breath? You know, now Count your breath. And all of those can be very useful tools, except for except to a person who might have some anxiety around controlling their breath and they don’t know how to do it or.
Mindy Peterson: [00:14:57] Okay.
Sara Auster: [00:14:58] So then the sounds being played in a sound bath can often just provide a container for your minds to wander more freely.
Mindy Peterson: [00:15:11] Well, and I know you’ve talked to about how the sound that’s coming from the instruments isn’t really strictly music. And that’s another thing that really helps facilitate this experience, especially for people like me who can just start playing detective for people like me. Music has melody and harmony and rhythm and arrangement, and you’re thinking about form and things like that. And the sound bath. It’s much less structured sounds. And so you can just listen without analyzing, listen without judgment, and really just experience rather than analyzing.
Sara Auster: [00:15:53] And listen without deciding you know what’s coming next, which is often how songs are structured, that there will be a resolve or a repeat of a chorus or something like that. And the brain is hardwired to give you a reward when you recognize pattern. Right? And so if you can say, aha, I know, you know the note that this is going to resolve on before it happens, then you’re no longer in the present moment, which is exactly how we access meditative states. You’re moving a little farther ahead into the future. And so this concept and like I said in my trainings, I have classically trained musicians, I have doctors and psychiatrists, I have yoga teachers, meditation teachers. I’ve had school teachers all across the board split down the middle between classically trained musicians and people with music theory experience, and people who are just drawn to music and sound and know that they have a profound relationship to it. And I find it’s often easier for non-musicians to drop in to the idea of this unstructured or atonal sound that happens in the sound bath.
Mindy Peterson: [00:17:15] Interesting. Some of the therapeutic benefits of sound baths are decreasing stress hormones. These meditative and peaceful states that you’re talking about are very conducive to healing because of decreasing stress and stimulating some of the natural opiates, lowering blood pressure. What are some of those other sort of physical changes that happen as part of this process? Slowing the heart rate, slowing the respiratory rate.
Sara Auster: [00:17:49] Mhm. And so these things slowing or quickening, you know, of those aspects are happening all the time. Our physiology is constantly adapting to environmental sound for instance. And here are these real life examples. If you’re standing on a street corner in, you know, downtown of a busy city and there’s traffic and there’s horns and there’s sirens, your heart rate will be elevated, your breath will quicken, adapting to the sounds that are around you versus when you go to a beach, let’s say. And you’re looking out on a wide horizon and you’re basically in training. If you understand the concept of entrainment and training to the environmental sound that’s around you. And one of the reasons to why we feel so connected in a in a concert environment or experiencing sound together, is that we’re all physiologically entraining to the music and in turn, all physiologically entraining to each other, which provides a very deep and powerful sense of connection.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:02] Which also happens during the sound bath. So that’s another there’s those physiological changes that can happen, but then also a physical bonding, an emotional bonding I guess would be a better way to describe it with the people around us, which I’m guessing has an effect on oxytocin.
Mindy Peterson: [00:19:23] And you talk in the book about how you multiple times talk about the opportunity that sound baths provide to just unplug, escape, find balance, find harmony with your mind and your body and then also, of course, connecting with other people. It was really interesting you talk in, in the book about how ears are the first sensory organ to develop in the womb and are fully developed at birth, which I was like, wow, that is really interesting. And then just that concept too, about how we can perceive sound waves through our skin, which I had not really thought about. So really interesting. You have a couple really powerful stories from your personal background that kind of brought you to this work. Can you share just briefly about the experience that you had with your sister, and then just the experience that you had that led to some chronic pain that eventually led to your sound bath practice?
Sara Auster: [00:20:26] Yeah. And in looking back, you know, if people often ask about this aha moment or, you know, when did you realize that this is what you were meant to do? I in reflection, I can see how these multiple moments connect with each other. When I was a child, around seven years old, when my oldest sister became chronically ill and ultimately non-communicative and in the hospital for a couple of years before she passed, when she was 16 and I was ten, we spent a lot of time, my family and I, in the hospital with her, um, you know, trying to find ways to connect, even though she was non non-verbal and we would bring in her favorite music and play it for her through headphones. And even at a young age, I recognized a shift in my sister. But I was also very aware of how music was connecting us as a family, where we would sing at the top of our lungs on long car rides to and from the hospital, and it was a way that we were moving through this journey of grief and and loss together. I was always really fascinated by by that. And then after my sister passed away, I just sort of poured myself into creative practices through my teenage years and everything I made, I made music, I painted, I was making art all the time.
Sara Auster: [00:22:02] That had a biological theme to it, because I was fascinated with the body, with my sister’s illness, and I was really working towards becoming a mixed media artist where I was not usually not only using visual components, but also audio components and scent components. I was really aiming to make these really immersive experiences. And then when I was in my 20s, I was working in my art studio and I fell through the floor. The floor collapsed collapse of my studio. I fell 15ft into the floor below and I broke my back. And so what was really interesting about those pivotal moments is that all of my interests in the body, how it works, how it fails us, got kind of flipped the lenses, flipped back onto myself. How does how does my body work? How does my body heal and fail and experience pain? And that’s when I really started to explore different healing modalities, just just to become a great experimenter myself and my own healing journey.
Mindy Peterson: [00:23:10] With the sound baths that you facilitate, what are some examples of responses that people may have to the sound bath experience? It sounds like it’s very individual, and you could get a wide range of responses, from very peaceful meditative state to moments of discovery, personal discovery about yourself as you become introspective or healing or transcendent experience. So tell us about some of the responses that people may have to the sound bath experience.
Sara Auster: [00:23:46] Yeah, you certainly hit on a few of the categories, which is some people find an experience to be deeply relaxing. Some people, when given the spaciousness, to allow things to arise, find it to be deeply emotional and or cathartic and moving through moments of pain and grief. Other people are just completely surprised, you know, through those feelings of, of discovery, of, you know, visions coming up or ideas coming through. And the range is really, really wide. And it all depends on there are many variables in people’s personal experience, meaning it’s how you’re showing up that day, combined with, you know, the improvisational nature of the sound that’s being played, combined with the other people in the room, combined with the room itself. Where are we and what is the environment like? So when people have an experience that is new to them or they’re curious, very often people will say, oh, I felt blank. Is that normal? Whether whether.
Sara Auster: [00:25:01] It’s, you know, relaxed or elated or emotional or they cry, you know, is that normal? And I would say, you know, that it’s really the experience of participating in a sound bath like this. It can be cumulative, and it can be so varied from experience to experience that I encourage people to continue to come back and continue to arrive with a curiosity for what might come up, because it really can be different every time.
Mindy Peterson: [00:25:37] You have some recordings that are available. Tell us about the recordings that you have, the book. You have the recordings. Tell us about your recordings and then some of the other offerings that you have as well. I know there’s a lot of information on your website.
Sara Auster: [00:25:53] Yeah. Thank you. The biggest request that I’ve had over the 12 plus years that I’ve been facilitating sound baths is, you know, people have these transformative experiences. And then at the end of an in-person experience, say, how do I do this again? You know, when’s your next one? Or when are you coming back to Luxembourg? Or, you know, I travel quite a bit for work. And so over the years I’ve attempted to create, you know, different live recordings that would draw people in to something that could be as similar to the in-person experience. And I’ve created vinyl records and, you know, all different types of recordings like that. And then my newest offering is Pause and the Pause app.
Mindy Peterson: [00:26:37] And tell us about that.
Sara Auster: [00:26:39] Yeah, with the Pause app provides and I lovingly refer to it as a sound bath in your pocket. It’s the ability to access a moment of peace wherever you are. And there are recordings anywhere from one minute to an hour, plus many recordings that are designed to fall asleep. Some guided recordings that are meant for morning or afternoon. Five minutes when you have a moment to step away at work, and so you can just dip into this space in your phone. That’s how I like to refer to it with no distractions, right? Because we’re not on YouTube or all these other streaming platforms, you can just step into this space and have a sound bath experience that fits your need in that moment.
Mindy Peterson: [00:27:39] You probably get asked this a lot. What should we know about the difference between live and recorded sound baths?
Sara Auster: [00:27:47] You can somewhat make the comparison to live and recorded music to say, you know when you go to a concert of your favorite artist and you’re surrounded by, you know, other people and you’re you’re in that moment, it is quite a different experience than when you put your headphones on at the gym and listen to that same artist, you know. However, the ability for that sound to affect you in that moment when you need it is really the accessibility piece, you know? So it can be a very different experience. But I don’t try to put one above the other because you can’t have your favorite artists playing for you, you know, in a snap, when you need it. You’re having a tough day at work and you’re like, wouldn’t it be great if I could, uh, you know, call up Stevie Wonder and just have him play play for me right now? That’d be great.
Mindy Peterson: [00:28:57] As listeners know by now, you have the Sound Bath book; you offer and facilitate sound baths. So can people look up on your website to see where you’ll be facilitating a sound bath in person?
Sara Auster: [00:29:10] Yes, I have an events page on my website that shows upcoming events. I also have a couple of trainings coming up, one in person in Brooklyn starting in October, one online starting in January. We have a few more spots in the in person one. And for those those trainings, actually, I would encourage anyone with a curiosity around the subject to to to join. You know, like Nick coming back to him is a perfect example.
Sara Auster: [00:29:43] Shout out. Shout out to Nick Lehman.
Sara Auster: [00:29:45] Working, you know, as a full time who has full time employment at ASCAP is, you know, it’s more as like, an aside, interest and passion. You know, of his. I’ve had CEOs of business leadership companies taking my training, you know, not with the intention to say, now I facilitate sound baths, but to have a deeper understanding and connection of their own relationship to sound and listening and being able to figure out how to integrate it into the work that they’re already doing.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:18] And you have your own method. Auster sound method that you teach. Are these trainings available virtually or just in person?
Sara Auster: [00:30:28] Both, actually. So in person is coming up in October in Brooklyn. I also have one of my lead teachers teaching the training in Japanese in Tokyo this October. I don’t know how broad our audience here is.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:43] We have an international audience.
Sara Auster: [00:30:46] That’s great. And then online, where anyone can join from anywhere, starts at the end of January 2025.
Mindy Peterson: [00:30:54] Wonderful. Any other resources that you want to mention and just want listeners to be aware of that we haven’t already touched on?
Sara Auster: [00:31:02] Yeah. I think it’s important to know that as the popularity of sound baths continue to grow and sort of, you know, trend, that people understand that there is a level of training that should be considered, you know, there are a considerable amount of people just kind of jumping right in to the field. So I would invite people who are curious to do a little bit of research about the person who is facilitating the experience for them, and of course, a lot of resources of other practitioners who’ve been trained in my method can be also found on my website. We’re building that out now so you can find a practitioner near you.
Mindy Peterson: [00:31:43] As you said, anyone who’s interested, definitely check out the website, consider the training, and definitely get the book because your book, you do a great job of being comprehensive and covering all aspects of sound baths, but not getting too in the weeds on any one thing. So it’s a really well-rounded overview of sound baths. I after reading it, I really felt like I had a much better understanding of it and kind of knew what next steps I could take to dig in some more. So definitely check out the book and all of the other resources available on your website. Well, this has been so fun and interesting. Sara, thanks for coming on the show. As you know, I ask all my guests to close out our conversation with a musical ending a coda by sharing a song or story about a moment that music enhanced your life. You have a special recording that you are sharing with listeners as your coda. Can you tell us a little bit about the guided sound meditation that you are sharing with us?
Sara Auster: [00:32:46] Yeah, I really always feel that there’s only so much talking and intellectualizing you can do around sound, and it’s really best when it’s experienced. And that’s why I wanted to share this guided sound bath experience with you and your listeners. Because after your listening to this whole conversation and you’re thinking, okay, um, I think I understand what a sound bath is, but now you get to experience it.
Transcribed by Sonix.ai