Sound is an ancient healing medium – it has been utilized for wellbeing around the globe for thousands of years. From the bells, gongs and bowls of Tibetan and Nepalese cultures, to the didgeridoo of the Australian Aborigines, to the drum and rattle of the Native Americans, sound has been used, and continues to be used, to bring people from distressed states to relaxed, aware presence.
We don’t just perceive sound through our ears, but through our entire bodies. Our skin, bones and the water in us conduct sound waves. Every cell membrane in our body has external antennas called Primary Cilium, which vibrate like little tuning forks in response to the vibrational input from our environments.
Sound has the power to heal and the power to hurt. Many of the stressors in our lives are produced by noise. Noise in our home and workplace, in our environment and even in our own heads.
When utilized consciously and intentionally, sound has the potential to soothe the nervous system, quiet and focus the mind, settle emotions, relieve pain and more.
Most of us already use sound therapeutically. We listen to music in the car, sing in the shower, pump up the jam to clean the house, put on classical music to cure writer’s block and make playlists for our loved ones to show them how we feel. We intrinsically know the power of sound.
From song and chant, to gong and bowl, to orchestra and jam band, music and sound transports us, bring us to the present moment, alive, awake, aware, engaged, in flow. Why wouldn’t we use it intentionally for healing?
WHAT IS BIOFIELD?
In 1994 a panel of scientists at the National Institute of Health chose the word “biofield” to describe the field of energy and information that surrounds and interpenetrates the human body. The biofield is composed of both measurable electromagnetic energy and hypothetical subtle energy, or chi. This structure is also referred to as the “human energy field” or “aura.”
While western science has yet to describe and measure this energy, other cultures, especially ancient Indian or Vedic cultures describe it extensively. The term “chakra” (wheel) in Sanskrit, refers to spinning energy vortices which are seen as structures in the body’s subtle energy anatomy. Not coincidentally, within the body at each chakra location there is a corresponding large cluster of nerves or plexuses.
One way of understanding subtle energy is through the analogy “subtle energy is to electromagnetism as water vapor is to water.” Just as we do not measure water vapor with the same tools, we use to measure water, we can’t use the same tools to measure subtle energy we would use to measure electricity. Subtle energy is higher, finer, more diffuse and follows slightly different laws.
Another word for this energy is “bioplasma.” Bioplasma is a diffuse magnetic fluid which surrounds all living beings. Like a fluid, it can be of varying viscosities and densities. In Biofield Tuning (also known as “sound balancing”), we see the human biofield as a bioplasmic toroid-shaped (doughnut-shaped) bubble which surrounds the body at a distance of about 5-6 feet to the sides and 2-3 feet at the top and bottom; bounded by a double layer plasma membrane much like the protective boundary which defines the earth’s upper atmosphere.
HOW IT WORKS
During a Biofield Tuning session, a client lies fully clothed on a treatment table while the practitioner activates a tuning fork and scans the body slowly beginning from a distance. The practitioner is feeling for resistance and turbulence in the client’s energy field, as well as listening for a change in the overtones and undertones of the tuning fork. When the practitioner encounters a turbulent area, he/she continues to activate the tuning fork and hold it in that specific spot. Research suggests the body’s organizational energy uses the steady coherent vibrational frequency of the tuning fork to “tune” itself. In short order, the dissonance resolves and the sense of resistance gives way. This appears to correspond to the release of tension with the body.
Holding an activated tuning fork in the area of a traumatic memory or another difficult time period produces repeatable, predictable outcomes. The sound input seems to help the body digest and integrate unprocessed experiences. As the biofield dissonance subsides, clients generally report feeling “lighter” and a diminishment or resolution of their symptoms.
One might interpret this as a kind of targeted nervous system biofeedback. Eileen has come to see this process as “consciousness hacking”, a side-door entry into the psyche – working with what has been hidden in plain view – which assists people in making changes they otherwise could not on their own.
Some conditions respond very well to Biofield Tuning, others not so much. Many practitioners integrate Biofield Tuning with tools from other modalities; not everyone practices Biofield Tuning in the exact same way.
*** Biofield Tuning is not advised for individuals who are extremely ill as it may create a strong healing response in the system. As the body releases tension, any toxins that have been held in constricted tissue are released which has the capacity to produce flu-like symptoms, exhaustion, waves of emotion, loose stools and in extreme cases (very rare) rashes and vomiting. Cancer, pregnancy, palliative care, and pacemakers are contraindicated in Biofield Tuning.
HOW OFTEN
A series of three sessions to begin with, generally once a week. Very often issues can be resolved or greatly improved within three sessions, but there is no limit to how many sessions one can receive. Each session builds on the one before it; there are always deeper layers one can address.
Biofield Tuning is based on the premise that the human biofield – the energy field that surrounds and permeates our bodies – is inextricably connected with our conscious and subconscious mind, including all of our memories. All physical, mental and emotional disorders can be perceived as “dissonance” in our energy fields. Biofield Tuning is able to diminish and resolve this dissonance and in doing so, alleviate and even eradicate the corresponding physical, mental and/or emotional symptoms.
