Sound Therapy with Sharon Greally

When and where did you first find out about Sound Therapy?

It was on a trip to India. I'd been through a traumatic event in my life and I didn't want to go down the Western route. I wanted to explore the Eastern methodology of healing – I liked the philosophy. I had quite an extraordinary experience with the singing bowls. They really broke through something, so to speak.

How does it actually work? And what are the potential benefits?

Sharon: It’s about resonance. Where there's dissonance in our body, the aim of Sound Therapy is to bring cohesion and resonance. Pythagoras said ‘Sound is Medicine’.

People come because they’re not well for some reason – whether it’s mental, physical, spiritual, emotional. Dissonance appears when there’s something obvious like an accident or something like that. But where there's a chronic disease, it will probably have started with inflammation and inflammation generally starts with emotion. Negative emotions have their own chemical reaction just like positive ones. We all know the happy dopamine hit! For example, anger is the emotion of the liver. So if that emotion isn’t expressed, it festers and that leads to chronic inflammation and dis-ease, disease.

How do you personalize each therapy session to target specific issues?

Sharon: I use different things. I use Tibetan Singing bowls. They’re either on-body for a massage, or around the body in a sound bath.

I also use quartz crystal bowls around the body in a Sound bath. So you get pure, beautiful quartz frequencies around you. People have described that as feeling a bit like levitating.

I also use weighted and unweighted tuning forks, gongs, tingsha, drumming, chi balls, chimes, and other instruments.

All of these affect our brainwave state and our variable heart rate rhythm. You’re trying to bring about a meditative state. Moving from a busy beta brain to a delta or theta more relaxed state. Because when you’re in that state, the lymphatic system kicks in, and that’s what helps clear our body of toxins.

What steps do you take to ensure the client feels safe and comfortable in the session?

Sharon: I'll take a full history on the initial visit. We start out initially with a 15-minute consult and then we check in with how it's going, anything specific they want to talk about or something they want dealt with specifically.

And then they’re on a massage bed and they’re fully clothed with a lovely cashmere blanket over them. I like to take them through some breath work and some visualisations, particularly if they have very active brains. And through that breath work and visualisation, I’ll try to guide them to a meditative state where whatever treatment I'm using will kick in.

Sometimes when you’re having a sound massage or a sound bath, you’ll float off.

If you're doing something like bio-field tuning, you're awake and conscious because we talk about where the stuckedness is, and the person may or may not want to talk about it, but they may acknowledge it, and that recognition, combined with the right frequency, can help to release the energy around the issue.

So would you recommend that people come for three or four sessions first, then come back once a month or so for a tune up?

Sharon: It depends. If you’re there for something like chronic stress or anxiety, I would suggest three or four. But I never say you have to do it. I think it's completely up to the person, but then once they've come through that they'll say, let’s have a regular tune up.

Some people come for a weekly/fortnightly/monthly tune-up.

How do you actually recognise which chakra or point is blocked?

Sharon: Through my pendulum. My trusty little pendulum which sounds very woo woo, I know! If the energy is not sitting well, not flowing freely, the pendulum will pick it up. I also use the weighted tuning forks by moving from one point to another on the body and I test how that feels, how the vibration travels through the body.

What would you say to someone who was thinking about coming to one of your sessions but might be sceptical or afraid to try it?

Sharon: Firstly, you don’t have to get undressed so you don’t have to feel self-conscious about that.

There's a lot of information online on my website and on my Facebook page and Instagram. They can ask someone who has already had the experience, or they can just come in and try it and experience it for themselves, see how it feels.

Because you’re in the room with all this, do you experience residual effects from every session?

Sharon: There’s a couple of things I do to protect myself. I have my trusty, beautiful belt I bought in India. It’s multi-coloured and it's got reflective pieces on it that reflect energy out. So when I put that on, it's protecting me. My magic belt!

I’m just the channel between the sound and the elements and the person, so tend not to absorb the clients’ energy.

Thank you so much Sharon. That was so interesting.

To help me more fully understand her practice, Sharon offered me a therapy session at her premises on Jessie Street. I went during my lunchbreak on a Wednesday afternoon, not really sure exactly what to expect.

As soon as I walked into the building I felt different. It was very warm inside and smelled of calming essential oils.

After an initial chat, I lay on the table face down to start with and was coached through some breathing exercises, then starting with my right foot, Sharon placed a bowl and struck it, letting the sound and the vibration resonate through me. I felt the vibration move into my calves and after a few more strikes, it was as if something opened up and I started feeling vibrations travelling all the way to my fingertips and throughout my body.

When it was over, I was very relaxed, The session had been just under an hour from start to finish., yet I felt like it had been between 20 and 30 minutes.

I certainly enjoyed the experience, especially finally managing to reach that meditative mindset. It’s definitely something I’d like to experience more often. And it’s certainly one of the most relaxing ways I’ve ever spent a lunchbreak.

If you’d like to try it for yourself, Sharon is very generously offering a $20 discount to ARTicle readers. Just mention this story when you book!

To book a session with Sharon email her here or phone 0212 648 544. For more information, visit the Good Vibrations website.